Are you comparing yourself to other artists? That’s a very dangerous and slippery slope.

It doesn’t help that artists live in a culture of comparison with constant critiques and competitions.

But I remembering Andy Warhol saying that the moment he became truly successful was the moment when he realized that he

just didn’t care.

But how do you get to that powerful place?

You must know your creative purpose. This has nothing to do with your art and everything to do with you. Who you are, what you stand for, and what you stand against.

That’s not something you’re going to delve into in art school and certainly not in business school.

But if you look at every famous artist in history, living and dead, they know who they are, what they stand for, and what they stand against.

Their purpose shaped their mission, the one problem that they believed is really worth solving.

Being an artist requires us to be deeply courageous and vulnerable.

We must reveal our soul’s truth among art snobs and critics, the worst turns out to be us.

We’re thought leaders who make people feel because we feel, deeply.

And we’re brave enough to express ourselves, making us popular or even dangerous.

It’s no wonder that artists are the very first to be executed or the first to be commissioned during a political revolution.

But when you know your truth, when you understand your why, you just don’t care.

Your primary concern is to fulfill your mission during the time you have left on the planet.

That means that you must trust your truth and your convictions and stop searching for approval or permission.

In the wise words of Russell Simmons the hip-hop mogul you must “Do You.”

An artist’s product is emotion. Their emotion.

I don’t sell paint stuck on canvas. A collector is actually purchasing the emotional response that’s ignited within them when they look at my painting that I felt into being.

If they feel me, they’ll buy my art. If they don’t, they won’t.

Art is truly in the eye of the beholder.

And that’s why I think art competitions are complete nonsense.

Why waist your time? For at best blue ribbon and a stipend or at worst your payment of an entry fee.

I’d much rather make art that I am proud of and make money selling it by providing value to my customers. Screw the art judges.

Even if the critics like your art, are they going to buy it?

If you want to make a living with your art the only validation that you need is the market’s.

And you don’t need everyone’s approval, only your target market’s.

One thousand people could yield you a very good living.

Just do the math. Take the price point of your average sale and multiply by 1000.

So don’t worry about what other artists or critics think of your work. They’re not going to buy your art anyway.

What’s your opinion on art criticism? Do we need people to sift through the no-talents?

Yesterday I interviewed Irina Cumberland, a recent graduate of The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester.

She shares the three top lessons that she’s learned in The Semester.

Irina has an interesting background.

She thought she had a limitation because she paints the ocean. Expertly, but just the ocean.

Irina was completely stuck about how and where she could sell her art.

But as every student of The Semester learns, you don’t want to sell art.

Why? Because selling art sucks.

You want to create value above and beyond your art and sell that.

During our one-on-one I found out that Irina has a medical degree and that she’s really a scientist and an artist.

So I recommended that Irina take a look at the medical benefits of fractal patterns that are found in nature, like leaves in the trees and waves in the ocean.

Irina did some research, because she can, and found out that bio-measures experiments concluded that fractal patters reduce our stress by 60% within 15 seconds.

What drug can do that?

So I suggested that Irina STOP selling ocean paintings and start selling stress reduction a la ocean wave fractals. As a trained human health scientist she can speak to the benefits of fractals with authority.

What happened next? She was off and running. A very different artist who I enrolled initially.

The limitation that she once believed that she had with her art is now her strongest asset.

So what where Irina’s top three lessons that she’s learned in The Semester?

1. She had trouble only naming three but the first thing that Irina learned was that her art not only could be, but it should be, an expression of her truest self.
2. The second biggest lesson was that focus is everything. Focus is what moves you forward. She learned to take things one step at a time during The Semester and how to best do that from my friend Dr. George Pratt’s training during his guest lecture. He’s a leading performance psychologist and author.
3. The third huge lesson was that Irina could find a community of artists who support her and inspire her within The Semester. They don’t compete with each other. They’re not jealous or competitive. They’re actually friends who are on the same path, speaking the same language, and who now share a profound and personal experience.

What is Irina’s one piece of parting and advice to you? “Just focus, focus, focus, on one thing at a time and in order.” Sound familiar? ?

I had a phone consult with an artist.

Then she sent me an email with some good news, see below.

Rather than just reply, I decided to have a chat with her and let you to listen-in.

Hello, Ann.

Just thought I’d drop you a note.

I’ve done a lot of thinking and writing since our call, and one of the things that I took the most away from was you telling me that “it’s not about you, it’s about them.”

I started doing custom bridal bouquet paintings, launched it as a product on my website and immediately sold two custom paintings last night upon launching.

People are very excited to have this preserved as a memory for them.

One of the things that stopped me initially was that I don’t paint at all realistically… but it turns out that my customer doesn’t want a photo realistic painting of their memories.

They want the magical treasured memory.

So, I’m popping their language into all I do.

I’ve also emailed several customers and talked to a lot of people about my art (haven’t had time for the excel spreadsheet yet), and the one consistent word they use is “happy”.

At any rate, I really appreciated your time, and the results I think are going to be amazing.

Much more work to do, but I know where I’m going at the very least.

Best regards,

Bari

Bari J. Designs

July 2105, feature 

The idea that artists can’t and shouldn’t think about business is an entirely new construct, says California painter, entrepreneur, and LivePlan customer Ann Rea (https://www.annrea.com). Master artists have marketed themselves to potential patrons throughout history, and “Andy Warhol was a PR master,” she says.

With Rea’s help and inspiration, artists all over the world are doing just what she did 10 years ago: starting businesses and finding ways to earn a living.

Two of the biggest things anyone needs to be successful at their own enterprise, Rea says, are a plan and the ability to focus on what’s in front of you. As she sees her own enterprise evolving, LivePlan is helping her with both.

In December of 2004, Rea moved into San Francisco and wrote a business plan outlining how she would earn $100,000 from her artwork in the coming year.

Rea attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she studied industrial and graphic design. She assumed this combination would give her some marketable skills when she graduated–even though what she really wanted to do was paint. She found work as a designer, but had to give it up when her then–husband’s job took them to Sacramento. Unable to land another position in her chosen field, she took a dead–end “cubicle job.”

“It was like shoving a round peg into a square hole,” she says. “It required absolutely no creativity.” For years she struggled with depression and anxiety.

Ann Rea’s original oil painting of the Napa Valley, “ Earthen Vines”, showcases her unique artistic style.

Eventually, she couldn’t take it any longer. “I realized that life is very short and that I should just try to do what I wanted. If it didn’t work, I would go back to doing what I was doing before.”

For Rea, doing what she wanted meant making a living as an artist. On a whim, she wrote a letter to Wayne Thiebaud, who she describes as “one of the most famous painters alive,” and asked him to critique her paintings. He told her she had real talent and should pursue her dream of painting full-time.

Her next question was how to earn a living as an artist. His answer shocked her. “His words were, ‘I don’t know. I’m not a businessman,’ ” she recalls. “He saw a disconnect between making art and making money.”

This was her epiphany moment. “I didn’t want to wait until I was in my seventies to figure it out,” says Rea.

Rea had no background in business. What she did know was how to make a plan and follow it through. “When I had a job I was a project management consultant,” she says. “It didn’t teach me how to be entrepreneur, but I did know how to set a goal and make a plan to accomplish that goal.” She also read everything she could find on marketing.

Ann sees no conflicts between creating art and making money from those works of art. Good business sense applies to every industry.

In December of 2004 Rea moved into San Francisco and wrote a business plan outlining how she would to earn $100,000 from her artwork in the coming year.

She didn’t meet her goal–she exceeded it.

What she realized, she says, is that “selling art is very different, because you’re in a very saturated market. You have to create value above and beyond the art itself.”

Her plan for creating value–added art was to partner with wineries in Napa and Sonoma. She didn’t know anyone in the industry, so she cold–called wineries until she found several managers who would listen to her proposal.

She would paint their vineyards in her striking contemporary landscape style, she told them, and they could offer reproductions to their best clients as special gifts. She would also sell her originals at wine tastings.

“The wineries benefited because they got a permanent advertisement in someone’s home,” she says. From their perspective, the true value of the artwork was that it reminded their customers how much they enjoyed the company’s wine and encouraged them to keep buying it.

“Every artist is an entrepreneur, and every entrepreneur is an artist, that very much summarizes my world view”

Rea’s compelling story of personal achievement earned her recognition in the press, and other artists started coming to her for help. She realized she liked marketing almost as much as she liked helping other artists realize their dreams. She started a blog called Artists Who THRIVE (https://artistswhothrive.com/) and dedicated one day a week to working with others.

Demand for her services was quite high, especially among the many smart artists leaving school with lots of debt and no road map, she says. In 2013 Rea decided to formalize her expertise into eight-courses in The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester. (https://www.makingartmakingmoney.com). She taught a portion of it on a website called CreativeLive in 2014 and got rave reviews. The full curriculum will be offered for the first time this year.

Rea didn’t use LivePlan her first several years in business, but she says having a written plan was absolutely essential to her success.“ It’s insane not to have a plan. You would never build a house without a blueprint. You wouldn’t bake a cake without a recipe. That’s how important it is.”

Through her blog and classes, she’s proud to share the wisdom she’s learned from entrepreneurship and business planning with other artists who can use those tools to their advantage.

Now, as she looks to reposition her own brand as an artist, she’s using LivePlan to help her clarify her thoughts. The software’s question and answer feature has helped her determine how to most effectively communicate her message to others.

The fact that LivePlan is accessible online means it is very easy to share information and gather feedback from her colleagues. She also regularly collaborates on the plan with Caroline Cummings, her mentor at Palo Alto Software, who she met through MicroMentor (https://www.micromentor.org/), a free online community of entrepreneurs and volunteer mentors.

One important thing to consider when creating a business plan is that the same format won’t work for everyone, Rea says. “You have to make the plan suit you. Sometimes people look at business plans and say, ‘I don’t get it, ’ and then they say, ‘Screw it. I can’t deal with this.’ It has to be your blueprint. “That’s why LivePlan offers entrepreneurs many different tools and resources for creating the business plan that’s right for them.”

Businesses that create plans and keep them current have a much higher success rate, she notes. “A business plan is not a road map, it’s a compass. You take a few steps toward a destination and it’s going to change. It’s a living and breathing tool. Schedule time to look at LivePlan every day. Make it a habit even if you’re busy. Ask yourself, am I headed toward the destination I want to reach? Am I pointed toward my mission and my values?”

The idea that becoming a business person means “selling out,” is also a dangerous myth pervading our culture. It’s one that scares many artists away from using their passion and talent to make money. But the two things don’t have to be at odds. Keeping a firm focus on a personal mission and specific values is one of the best ways for artists to remain true to themselves and to earn a living.

“Every artist is an entrepreneur, and every entrepreneur is an artist,” Rea says, quoting Pepperdine University business professor, Elliot McGucken Phd. “That very much summarizes my world view.”

Last week I talked about the fact that the only reason an artist is known throughout history is because at some point there was a market for their work.

Not sure about that?

Would artists be famous if there was no market for their work?

The only reason there is a market for any good or service is simply because it served a target market by alleviating their pain or solving their problem.

Because the inventory of historically significant art is very limited, a secondary market develops. This is where the confusion begins.

So let’s take it back to the here and now and directly to you.

If you are an artist wanting to make your living from your art, it is vital that you create value above and beyond your art itself and you must deliver this, convincingly.

You might be muttering. Those artists in history had talent that was unmatched. How can I possibly do what they have done?

Maybe you can’t. But do you have talent?

Because if you have talent and you are sincerely interested in serving others, you just might.

How?

First stop competing in the permission and scarcity based shark tank that is the art establishment.

Put your limited time and energy into creating value above and beyond your art by serving a target market by solving their problem.

Again you might be saying, “how?”

Allow me to offer you a few examples of artists who I have worked with recently.

These artists are just like you.

They are in the process of building their creative enterprises.

What problem is Portrait Painter, Kate Bradley solving?

The problem is that children are not often valued and loved for the individuals that they are and their treasured childhood years are fleeting.

How is she solving this problem? By painting portraits of children that celebrate their individuality and captures their essence in a moment in time.

What problem is abstract painter, Jenny McGee solving?

People struggle expressing their love to one another in a clear and specific way that really lands.

How is she solving this problem? By creating abstract paintings inspired by a list of reasons why one person loves another.

What problem is Painter, Marie Sand solving?

When sensitive people feel that they are not free to express their emotions, it compromises their emotional and physical health.

How is she solving this problem? Horses by their nature rely on their sensitivity and they reflect their owner’s emotions back to them.

Marie reflects her patron’s emotions back to them through portraits of their horses.

In each of these cases, the art is secondary. It is just a by-product of a greater mission.

A mission is an endeavor to solve a problem that you believe is really worth solving.

A mission is not about you or about your art. It’s about being of service to others, being devoted to a greater cause.

Each of these artists is just starting out on a life long mission. Just as they mastered their artistic craft, they now must master entrepreneurial skills.

This mastery takes time and effort but it’s easier, so much easier, than mastering one’s artistic craft. That takes many years and it demands more innate talent.

Now if you’re thinking, “Yeah, me too. That’s my mission.” First. Stop. Second, no its not.

Each artist has a value proposition that is grounded in their soul’s truth and you just can’t copy that. If you try to, it will always look like and smell like a copy.

So find your truth and define your mission and if you need help then apply for The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester.

Note, enrollment is limited.