Blog Posts

A Little NudgeI

12/20/2015

A friend and I visited A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment) a couple of weeks ago. The A.R.E. was founded by Edgar Cayce in 1931 to explore spirituality, holistic health, and to be a resource for mind-body-spirit materials for daily living. Located near the ocean in Virginia Beach, it is a beautiful, serene, and inspiring place. While visiting the Research Library, I noticed a table of books on sale for $5.00. As I perused the collection, a book entitled The Daily Book of Art caught my eye. What a great find! As artists, we are always looking for a book that will give us the little nudge that we need to "keep going". This little book has a year's worth of daily lessons and readings, including aesthetics, art history, philosophy, and short hands-on exercises. Just enough to remind artists of all the things that art encompasses and inspire us to keep pursuing our passion.

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Confidence

11/28/2015

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Last week, the sermon at my church was about "Confidence". Not the kind of bravado or grand-standing confidence, but the kind of confidence that comes when we live "in the moment", not worrying about what tomorrow may bring. Enjoy and appreciate life at that moment and tomorrow will take care of itself. For artists, I think that means to keep doing what you love. There is not better way to find fulfillment and renewal.

Secondly, I listened to a webinar by Alyson Stanfield in which she was giving advice to artists for growing their business. And, you guessed it, one of "The 8 C's for Getting Your Art Seen" was Confidence. Artists need to have the confidence to continuously improve. Don't be complacent, but consistently have the confidence to take action, renewing and reviewing your artist's statement, website, and marketing strategy. It is so easy to say, "I don't know how", "I can't", "I don't have time", etc. That's called procrastinating.

I had also subscribed to Oprah and Deepak's 21 day meditation series. Day 12 last week was entitled "Healing Self Judgement". It was all about self acceptance and the fact that to gain confidence, we have to develop strength of self and put aside blame and self judgement. .

The last thing happened when I was watching the American Music Awards and Demi Lovato sang, "Confident". Part of the song goes like this, "What's wrong with being, what's wrong with being, what's wrong with being confident?"

I was getting the message by then!

Included is a painting entitled, Double BLT. When I started it, I don't think I could do it, but..........

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Painting as a Profession

11/5/2015

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I was in the UPS store the other day, mailing a large painting to a client, when a lady noticed what I was doing. When she realized that I was the artist, she said to me, "That is a wonderful hobby". I would loved to have explained to her that painting for me is not just a hobby, but it is my profession and business. As I read in a recent blog post from gallery owner, Jason Horejs, most people do not realize that an artist is a small business owner and has much work to do to keep the business afloat. There is making art, of course, but also, keeping inventory, participating in exhibitions and shows, keeping up with taxes, framing, packaging and mailing, writing a blog, posting on social media, pursuing gallery space and/or clients, emailing information about shows, and often much more. It is truly a business that takes much more time than the actual making of the art. Most artists do all of that themselves, because most artists do not have the funds to hire help. Attached to this blog post is the painting I was mailing to Julie Ann Segal, Metro Interiors, Minneapolis, MN.