Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.claudiatrue.com

Congratulations to smARTist Alumni Kathleen O’Brien for being selected as the Artist of the Month at The Art List.

Kathleen O'Brien - Song Sparrow Egg

Since the beginning of my art career in 1968, I have persistently empowered my life and art with the perceptible transformative presence of energy. Nature is an enduring source of inspiration, and its essence is palpable in all my work. Art is a spiritual practice that I approach with the intention to transmit the beauty I encounter. I have exhibited my artwork in over 100 venues nationally, consult and teach.

I was born in Japan and lived in Italy, Colorado and many places in between. I am primarily self-taught, and am grateful to my first teacher, my grandfather, and the classes I attended at Kunstshule Rödel, Germany, Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, and the Naropa University, Boulder, CO. I acknowledge my spiritual teachers, Wallace Black Elk and other Native American Elders, who impressed on me the aliveness of the Earth. I work full time from the home studio I designed and my husband built at Sunwise Farm and Sanctuary. I am a recipient of the 2012 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

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As one of the benefits of receiving this honor, her art is currently featured on The Art List’s Facebook Fan Page showing a collage of her artwork.

Dear Friends, winning this honor makes me happy! On this link you can find my interview and art.

For those of you who are artists, I recommend subscribing to The Art List. It is the best source for opportunities I have found.
~Kathleen O’Brien

You can learn more about Kathleen at her website http://www.kathleen-obrien.com.

Congratulations Kathleen!

How much is genuine confidence, as opposed to overblown bravado, tied into your ability to be real, to be authentic with the people who want to know more about you and your art?

We humans have amazing internal radar that picks up bs automatically. It’s a survival instinct, where knowing what’s real and what’s not has always been crucial.

We also have some equally amazing internal barricades that can rewrite our first, instinctual responses and kick us upstairs into the more civilized Brain Override Lounge.

Sometimes this is a good idea, when our instinctual response is actually triggered by an old pattern that no longer makes any sense. Other times it’s a form of personal delusion, when facing something authentically is going to ask more of us than we feel up to.

Either way, the people around us will…

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Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.atthestudiodoor.com

I know the default myth is that artists and the written word are mortal enemies.

Of course I’ve taken every opportunity to shake artists free of this ignorant, if persistent, idea, beginning with my book Writing The Artist Statement: Revealing the True Spirit of Your Work.

Since we humans owe our ever-evolving humanity and consciousness to our ability to communicate, and since words are the core vehicle to this communication, perpetuating any level of poverty with the written word is to tie you up with a lie.

AND, I don’t dismiss the resistance a lot of artists feel toward writing. It’s very real. I just don’t buy that…

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Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.sashestudio.com

Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.bettylaur.com

For an artist to be able to climb what often feels like a very steep career mountain, confidence is your essential ingredient.

And by that I mean bone-real confidence; not the pumped-up kind, where we’re skating over a surface of insecurity and fear, and so we’re pumping ourselves up to keep from falling over a cliff.

I’m talking about the kind of confidence that’s based on what decades of academic research have shown: that it is not compliments—it is not people telling you how good your art is—it is your level of competence that is the bedrock  of your confidence.

Here are 5 cool ways to increase your art-career competence, which will automatically increase your confidence. (And if I’ve left any out, go right ahead and add it in the comments!)

Keep reading →

Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.AnnekeNewman-Fineart.com

Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.alexeikrasnikov.photo.artlimited.net

"Unsung Artist" by Joyce Wycoff

What does a book about death and loss have to do with knowing how to market our art? There is a connection, but I have to back up a bit…

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Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.taborarts.com/blog

Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

www.contemporaryabstractpainter.com

Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

“Velez Leaf Lattice”

Anna Velez
www.annavelez.com

Breathe in the creativity, breathe out your own.

“Steadfast”

John Currie
www.johncurriefineart.com