Be Bold Enough to Admit what you Truly Desire

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“Pacific Ocean Deep”, Ann Rea, oil on canvas

 

Although the artist-coaching program helps artists shape their business and marketing strategies we first have to ask why.  “Why” do you want to “be” an artist?  What does that mean to you?  What do you value?  What do you really want?  What would you create if you had a magic wand?

The first assignment that my artist coaching clients receive is to turn on their imagination and to create a dream map.  A dream map is a collage of positive and present-tense words and images that express their vision of the life that they want to create for themselves.  Clearly creating your life’s vision will determine your ultimate happiness and success.  I can attest that it’s worked for me.

These collages are not meant to be a piece of art for show.  This is simply a powerful and personal exercise designed so that each person unearths their passions and expresses what they really want to create in their life, before we get started.

I’m following Michael Gerber’s assertion, author of eMyth. Gerber asserts that you design your business  so it supports your life, and so that you are not spending your life supporting your business.

So the next question is, what do you want that life to look like?

I made a dream map about seven years before it manifested.  I boldly admitted, although I couldn’t really believe it at the time, “I live and have an art studio overlooking the ocean.”  Along with several words and images I tore out a picture of a big poufy bed overlooking the ocean, some random light fixture, because why not?  I can imagine anything.

Then I lost track of this creation until seven years later when I moved into my private live work studio overlooking the ocean.  After my friends helped me move in, and arranged my furniture, I discovered the dream map.  My bed was in the same position as the photo.  The headboard was on the same side of the room and the bed’s position was the same relative to the ocean.  The nautically styled light fixture hangs above my dinning room table today.

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to make it all happen, live in pricey San Francisco and paint for a living?  Yikes!  But I knew in that instant that I was on the right path.

The first step to living a fulfilled and happy live is to boldly admit what you truly desire.

Creativity and Business, Balancing the Scale

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Balancing-Apples-Oranges

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Saturday my fiancé and I attended the San Francisco Fine Art Fair of modern and contemporary art at Fort Mason. And then on Sunday we went to the opening of the Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at the De Young art museum.

After this weekend I was struck by the fact that I haven’t been spending enough time painting.  That I had several undeveloped ideas for new bodies of work.  And that there are many creative challenges that I want to explore.

For those who know me, you know that I don’t shy away from the business side of the scale. But lately I’ve noticed that it’s been tipping in one direction and it’s time to rebalance.

So this week I took action.  I rented a small storage space to make room in my beach studio for painting larger canvases.  With my art  intern’s help we cleaned, reorganized, and purged my studio.  This included slashing several finished canvases that where not working for me, a very therapeutic and cleansing exercise.  I now feel more refreshed and ready to create.

Must Artists Suffer for their Art? (optional)

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Oh please.  Those who know me know that’s not my plan.  Now does suffering inform an artist’s work?  Maybe. Art is not literal; it is emotive.  So feelings inform an artist’s work and they are central to the artist’s unique voice. And life experiences and a certain depth of emotion develop an emotional register that I think is necessary if an artist is going to have anything interesting to say or to express. The artist has to feel it if their audience is going to feel it.

I’m not actually a fan of most contemporary art because it expresses a very narrow band of emotions: irony, angst, and shock.  I’m bored with it.  And I don’t relate to these emotions.  Although I do believe that they reflect the broader contemporary culture. I can only express my voice, deepened by my life experiences.

Why is my tag line “Savor the colors of a moment?”  It’s catchy, but it actually goers deeper than that.  Because for most of my life, before I started painting for a living, I suffered from chronic anxiety and deep depression.  I was actually advised that I would suffer from these conditions for the rest of my life.  Thankfully, I told the doctor to stick it and I took charge.

And it’s been many years and I no longer suffer.  If I had to sum up the experience of anxiety I would say that it’s a preoccupation with the future.  And depression is a regret or a continuous review of the past.  I have a friend who had chronic anxiety and then developed stage four breast cancer.  She said the anxiety was harder to cope with than the cancer.  That’s suffering.

When I paint I am the most present that I can be.  So my subject is light expressed as color.  And this single focus gives me peace.  So my suffering did inform my work but I certainly don’t feel obligated to suffer.

Six Things each Day – Balancing Creativity and Business

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I’m often asked, “How can you make art and run a business at the same time? How do you balance your creativity and business?”  My answer, “I have to manage my priorities.”  Notice I didn’t say, “I have to manage my time.”  That’s impossible.  We’re always interrupted.  The phone rings, the FedEx deliveryman is knocking on the door, or this morning there was a Great Blue Heron walking slowly on top of the carport. I had to stand for a while and watch him.

So I focus on my priorities and those priorities are six action steps that I’m going to complete each day, action steps that will move me towards attaining my annual goal.  My annual goal is my company’s 2010 sales goal, which I aim to at least double.

Each night before I go to bed I list six action steps that I’m going to complete the following day.  They are numbered one through six in order of their priority.  I get up and I focus on the first one and I work on it until it’s done. Allowing for appointments, I move to number two. I try my best to get through all six but if I don’t, I at least know that I have worked on the most important action items first.

Generally I like to divide my day in half.  The mornings are for left-brain related business and marketing tasks.  Then if I have time, I go for a run to help shift into my creative right brain.  I find the repetitive and meditative motion of running, and the tranquil natural setting of The Presidio, to be very helpful.

When I return, it’s time to paint.  Painting is not always listed as number one and I don’t spend every afternoon in front of my easel. But as I get closer to my sales goal, it will be number one most every day.

 

Confidence and Personal Inner Resources

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OK I admit it. I watch American Idol.  And when I do,  part of my fascination is watching what’s required of these emerging artists.  Many haven’t found their true voice and clearly their skill requires honing.  Obviously it’s about their talent but the underlying story is their ability to weather the very public humiliation and rejection and still keep going.  It’s like being in a Roman Colosseum battling emotion and ego.

Artists engage in their craft because they are passionate about it.  It gets them high, so to speak.  What an artist shares comes from the depths of their heart.  So rejection and criticism can be biting, at the very least.  Of course, we don’t have to put ourselves out there. Except if you want to get paid, you do.  A plumber, a doctor, a financial analyst never has to deal with such deeply personal matters of rejection or acceptance.

And when we place our treasured craft into the world of commerce we are subject to the market’s whims and we have to understand and play by the complex rules of business.  This does sometimes leave me feeling like I maintain a split personality.

But I not only accept this, I embrace it.  The good news is that I’m only trying to win over a very select few, a clearly defined targeted market of art and wine enthusiasts. In fact, I thought that David Mathison, author of “Be the Media” put it well.  He said you really only need a 1000 fans.  This is also a lesson taught by Chris Anderson, author of the “The Long Tail”. Anderson explains the new economics of culture and commerce and “why the future of business is selling less of more.”

Once I read my letter of recommendation from Wayne Thiebaud in 1999, I found one part most flattering, but also the most important thing I always remember is “She has a well-developed confidence and personal inner resources allowing her to use critical confrontation for positive results.”  Without this I think I’d be headed straight for the lions.