Off The Grid: Leaving Social Media đ Prestige or Freedom: The Delusion of âLiving Your Dreamâ â with Mel Mitchell-Jackson
Mar 4, 2026
Mel Mitchell-Jackson, an adventure artist, writer and retreat guide who helps creatives build sustainable practices. They talk about leaving prestige for freedom, navigating chronic illness and Long COVID, resisting hustle culture, the pitfalls of monetizing creative work online, and plans for forest-based art retreats and community-focused teaching.
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Art School Hustle Behind The CV
- Mel traced their creative start from Kansas City art school to running a DIY gallery and founding the Informality arts publication while juggling retail jobs for income.
- They described late nights, unpaid curatorial work, and folding shoes at Nordstrom as the reality behind their CV-building hustle.
Prestige Versus Freedom Realization
- Mel's retreat realization boiled down to a binary: prestige or freedom, forcing a choice between institutional status and creative autonomy.
- That choice was sharpened by a new autoimmune diagnosis and exhaustion from normalized unpaid labor in the arts.
Dream Job Phone Call From Apple
- A recruiter called Mel out of the blue to hire them to teach painting and media in Appleâs Today at Apple program, which felt like a paid version of their teaching dreams.
- They quit Nordstrom, taught in stores and on video walls, and felt like working for a well-funded nonprofit inside a corporation.