Vanessa Filley describes a recent body of work as “imagined cosmic map(s),” charts that connect the traditions of fiber arts with the present and the artist’s own questions of finding one’s place in the world. Titled In the Delicate Meshes, the series is comprised of sewn pieces that Filley likens to quilts, with stitches layered into symmetric patchworks of color and texture. “I am interested in the energetic threads that orient and connect us, ground us in place and time, yet tether us to our ancestral past and future—the lines that bring us home,” she says.

Filley references artists like Lenore Tawney, Hilma af Klint, and the women of Gees Bend Quilters, whose practices connect to spirituality, nature, and ancestral histories. Taut threads and twists embody tension and connection between both ends of a stitch, the intricate structures of the works as a whole, and the long tradition of fiber arts. “Each piece in this series is a quilted conversation, a way of taking the disparate questions and feeling of a given moment and mingling them with inspiration from the outside world and the work of those who came before,” the artist says.

In the Delicate Meshes was recently on view at Vivid Art Gallery in Winnetka, and you can find more of the series along with an archive of Filley’s works on her site and Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Artist Vanessa Filley Stitches Meditative Cosmic Maps Brimming with Geometry and Symmetries appeared first on Colossal.

If you’re in the business of marketing, then you’ve probably heard it before: personal branding is a game-changer. It can be a powerful tool for individuals and businesses alike, elevating your product and your message to new audiences. But, marketing your brand in a saturated space can be challenging. It’s imperative that you find the right company and the right strategy to help you stand out in a crowded market.

Artist and entrepreneur Dxtr Spits collaborated with social media expert Audrey Boyle to assemble an high-level team for men’s mental health business, How Men Cry (HMC). Dxtr envisioned HMC as a space to begin the conversation around men’s mental health so that men can start their healing journey, be that in therapy or another avenue. This small project started as a collection of art, but quickly grew and now has a powerful effect on audiences across the country. HMC continues to expand through Dxtr’s performance, facilitated workshops, and men’s retreats.

“How Men Cry came from the ashes of a failing relationship, personal issues with substance abuse, depression, and suicidal ideation,” Dxtr remembers. “When I performed some of the early spoken word pieces, I got to see firsthand how it was touching men’s hearts. I got to see myself in their eyes and vice versa.” Dxtr’s performances soon began garnering rave reviews from audiences who connected with his powerful message. The HMC team saw an opportunity to brand Dxtr Spits as an anti-hero spreading awareness for men’s mental health in a raw, open way that is accessible to men.

Today, How Men Cry is a powerful collective that is changing the narrative around men’s mental health and touching the hearts of thousands daily. Here, we’ll cover how HMC was able to use the five core components of personal branding to become bigger than Dxtr ever imagined.

1) Positioning

The first step in successful personal branding is positioning. To effectively position a brand, you need to define its foundation and added value. What niche will your brand occupy in the existing ecosystem? What value does your brand add? What fundamental problem are you trying to solve?

Artists are often the ones who inspire change and shift societal narratives. The HMC Team worked to position Dxtr Spits as the artist within the men’s mental health community, adding what called the “cherry flavor” to an ecosystem that was mostly populated by academics, practitioners, and other left-brain thinkers.

Dxtr’s powerful spoken word performances represented the “added value” of How Men Cry’s brand. His art sparked valuable conversations about men’s mental health and wellness—conversations that are vital and yet far too rare due to the stigma surrounding men’s mental health. How Men Cry made the idea of therapy digestible and the idea of being vulnerable less “taboo” for men.

Ultimately, How Men Cry was created to solve one problem, says Dxtr. “We wanted to make it easier for men to close the distance between wanting to start a healing journey and actually going to therapy. This pathway can be very difficult for many.”

2) Messaging

After defining your brand’s foundation and positioning, the next step in personal branding is messaging. What is the key message that supports your brand’s foundation? The HMC team advises that you should be able to summarize this message in 27-30 words.

The HMC team branded Dxtr Spits as the “anti-hero,” telling the story of a flawed individual on his journey to redemption. Dxtr has never been a perfect role model. He’s faced many challenges in his life, times when he failed and struggled. But he made the hero’s choice to start his journey towards mental health and healing.

How Men Cry’s messaging focused on using Dxtr’s journey to illustrate important truths about mental health and healing. Moments in his life illustrate that the process of healing isn’t linear, but a worthwhile journey.

Dxtr’s impactful yet relatable style and artwork was already making emotional vulnerability “cool” for men. ’s messaging plan leaned into that angle, working to bring all of How Men Cry’s design and content elements in line. Originally, the brand included intense colors like yellow, but these were changed to reflect the raw, gritty, and no-holds-barred nature of Dxtr’s life story and his art pieces. The team chose graffiti imagery, gray tones, and other calming colors to make the brand more appealing and soothing to men.

3) Brand Strategy

The third component of personal branding is building a brand strategy that incorporates and expands upon both the foundation and the messaging of the brand – all while keeping the larger goal of your work in mind.

For How Men Cry, the team had to consider how to communicate Dxtr’s anti-hero journey in a way that would help others understand their own journey better. Dxtr’s ultimate goal was to help men have vulnerable conversations and consider therapy as a tool for healing. just had to figure out how telling Dxtr’s story would translate into achieving that goal.

“When we started viewing How Men Cry as a movement and not just a collection of poems, ideas, and performances—that’s when everything changed,” notes Dxtr, who looks back on the early days of How Men Cry’s branding journey fondly. “We started applying marketing concepts and ’s business experience to use the power of images, videos, and words to push the message.”

The HMC Team developed a multi-faceted brand strategy for How Men Cry. First and foremost, the team brought all content—across the website, social media handles, and press engagements—in line with the messaging. The team created and shared a term sheet to ensure everyone was “speaking the same language” consistently. They looked for data and existing content that supported the idea that men’s mental health is a vital problem to solve, and made a plan to spread awareness.

Once your brand clearly defines what the “promised land” looks like for you, you can also start brainstorming what offerings and programs will get you there. In How Men Cry’s case, those offerings included a podcast allowing men to tell stories of vulnerability, new art pieces, and resources to bring communities of men together and spread the word.

4) Ecosystem

Next, consider the ecosystem in which your brand exists. It’s important to identify the influencers and stakeholders in your chosen niche. Who is invested in addressing the problem with you? Once you understand who is on your side, create a management strategy to build relationships with stakeholders and fans.

For How Men Cry, this meant connecting with the men who participated in the project by sharing their stories of vulnerability—dubbed “the HMCs” by and Dxtr. The HMC team helped Dxtr build and maintain connections to these stakeholders. In 2022, The team invited the HMCs to a men’s retreat where they explored what an anti-hero’s road to redemption might look like for each of them. As part of a community, they were able to open up, bond, and be vulnerable. To this day, the HMCs communicate daily through a group chat and hold monthly conversations with Dxtr. Many HMCs have become a resource to others in the community of men’s mental health, passing on How Men Cry’s vital message to new audiences, including a recent performance at the LinkedIn headquarters on the topic of men’s mental health.

As you consider where your personal brand stands in your ecosystem, a helpful exercise can be looking for the “superfan”—someone who engages with the brand, follows you on all platforms, gives you money, and supports the brand. Many existing brands aren’t clear enough on how their superfans can or should support them best. This journey has to be as simple and clear as possible. Make sure that your audience has clear avenues to engage and support you in a way that helps you reach your brand’s goal.

5) Action Plan

The fifth and final component of personal branding is the action plan. After establishing the brand positioning, messaging, strategy, and ecosystem, create a plan for continuous development. Your action plan should include specifications on who is responsible for the various components of the branding strategy.

As you begin creating content in line with your branding, ensure that every piece of content can be repurposed across many channels. Take the How Men Cry podcast as an example. Though each episode is published across all the usual podcast platforms, the content doesn’t end there. A video recording of an episode could be posted on YouTube. A transcript could be repurposed into a blog post. And clips or snippets of both can be used for social media posts and comments.

Lastly, once content is flowing and responses are coming in, use all the metrics and analytics available to you for continuous improvement. Examine what kinds of content garnered the best or most responses and what got through to the hearts and minds of your followers. Understanding what works, and what doesn’t, will help you expand on the brand’s foundation and amplify your message strategically.

Personal branding is a complex process that requires a solid foundation, messaging, strategy, ecosystem, and action plan. By finding your brand’s unique voice, understanding where your brand stands in the ecosystem, and tailoring your message, you can differentiate yourself from the competition while reaching a larger audience.

Though maintaining a strong personal brand is not easy, the benefits are worth the effort. Through events and retreats with both small businesses and larger Fortune 500 companies, HMC is changing corporate culture and the community at large.

“So many people check out How Men Cry through our website or social media handles. They often tell me that they’re left with the impression that the project is so much bigger than it actually is,” says Dxtr. “That’s the power of a solid brand foundation. Amplifying our message becomes the simplest thing in the world.”