NOTE: This post, for those of you keeping up, is a re-post from last year. Why? Because, the problem isn’t going away and I’m the drumbeat in the lost artist jungle….

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Artists love black. Love, love, love it. It has class. It engages. It draws you in.

Black is classy. It fairly screams “high end.” It dominates and holds our attention. Let’s face it: black has power.

And for years and years and years it has been the color of choice to lay the crown jewels on, as the backdrop for a brochure, in framing… the list goes on.

But let me tell you the one place where everything black does, and stands for, works completely against you.

And against your…

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One of the main challenges of trying to fit marketing into an artist’s busy life is this overwhelming sense that it’s just all too much. I know because I struggle with this story too.

And, I have to remind myself that it is just a “story,” and as long as I keep telling myself the same plot over and over, that’s exactly where…

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Just when I thought my day could not get any lower, a kind and thoughtful soul sent me this poem.

And now I want to pass it on.

May the reign of art, in its many guises, bring a light to your day too!

Paula Zima - The Burial of the Sardine

An Excerpt from:  The Ear That Got Sold to a Fish

Art is the conversation between lovers.
Art offers an opening for the heart.
True art makes the divine silence in the soul
Break into applause.

Art is, at last, the knowledge of
Where we are standing—
Where we are standing
In this Wonderland
When we rip off all our clothes
And this blind man’s patch, veil,
That got tied across our brow.

We are partners straddling the universe.
Someone inside of us
Has one foot
Upon each resplendent pole.
Someone inside of us is now kissing
The hand of God
And wants to share with us
That grand news.

by Hafiz from his collection The Gift

I’ve been talking to a lot of artists lately in a series of strategy sessions, and I’m watching a pattern replicate itself like an out-of-control virus.

I’ve come to call it the Business Bitters–that mouth puckering contrast to the sweet taste of creative flow.

The story is simple and timeless: artist paints or sculpts or weaves or throws or composes, experiencing a kind of…

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It’s easy to deride Artist Statements. I’ve done it myself countless times when they are pompous, self-congratulatory, or badly written and trite, trite, trite.

But like the About section of any website, where we click in the hopes of connecting with the human being behind the virtual page, an artist statement has only one purpose…

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Henri Matisse "Blue Nude"

Too often, creativity is equated with the wide open prairies of freedom where we’ve been conditioned to believe that unlimited roaming is what calls forth our creative impulses.

It reminds me of liberal parenting, that knee jerk reaction to authoritarian parenting where children were seen and not heard, and you spared the rod only to…

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There are three reasons I’ve seen for why artists won’t ask for what they want:

1. They already expect rejection, so why waste the time.

2. They think asking is a kind of weakness; a lessing of individuality.

3. In some well-hidden corner of self, they secretly believe…

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What many people outside the arts don’t understand, is that succeeding in this gig takes as much discipline as it does for the CEO, Athlete, Lawyer, Doctor.

In many cases it takes more, especially if you also have a day job. Because, your “night job” is a calling that we almost never feel equal to, in which we regularly disappoint ourselves, and from which the check is normally late-possibley by a decade or two. 

Sticking with something, for which you may never get paid, and doing it with full-blown passion for years on end-takes…

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I’ve been feeling the crunch of time lately; chewing away at emails, tasting the flavor of helping clients, swallowing whole chunks of I’m-not-getting-to-what-I-want-to-do.

And now that smARTist 2009 is over, one of the consistent messages I hear from artists is, How can I do it all?

Given the vast range of art career information that smARTISTs encounter over the 7 days of the conference, I’m not surprised that suddenly they have even more on their plates than before.

So I thought the perfect remedy, for all of us, would be Waverly Fitzgerald, our Slow Time Lady expert from the smARTist Telesummit 2008

This post is one in a series of her time-tested ideas about helping time work for you!

She has a unique take on time, and our relationship to it. Instead of the more traditional ”management” approach to all things hourly, daily, and monthly, Waverly advocates a sense of…

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Upwind Flames by Louis Copt

I was asked to speak before an influential group of retired businessmen and women this past summer. By “influential” I basically mean millionaires. But listen, not all rich folks are jerks.  Many started with nothing, never forgot where they came from, and are…

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After spending the last five months figuring out this Social Media thing, getting set up on Facebook, finding an expert for smARTist Telesummit 2009, and encouraging artists to jump into this vast and ever expanding ocean, the predictably unpredictable  world of all things online has thrown me, and you, not just a curve ball, but…

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Contrary to a commonly held notion, we artists do not suffer more than other people.  There is so much unspeakable suffering in the world-from famine, war, and rampant disease-that many of us in the industrialized nations don’t even know the meaning of true suffering, including me.  I’m not saying that artists don’t have it…

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smARTist Resource Directory

Here’s a gift, no strings attached, from the smARTist Telesummit 2009:

Our brand spankin’ new smARTist Resource Directory.

You’ll find a clickable TOC. And, after the 2009 Keynote Speakers, there are categories for you to browse: Art Magazines, Art Organizations, Art Supplies, Blogs, Book Recommendations, Education, Displays, Trends…and much more.

All of these resources come straight from your fellow artists.

You can download and enjoy it here.
smARTist Resource Directory

The core of smARTist is pulling together, in one place, the best art career information that we can find.

So, on top of 7-Days of art career presentations and panel discussion, I decided to create a directory that would give you resources to explore at your convenience.

Since a spoonful of art makes the “learning” go down, I’ve sprinkled pieces from our illustrious smARTist alumni throughout the directory to soothe your artist eye.

I hope you like it. I had a lot of fun creating it.

Wishing you an abundant, joyful 2009!
Ariane 

I just finished listening to an interview with Robert Storr, the current Dean of the Yale School of Art.

And I was struck, as I often am, by an academic’s perspective on being an artist. Which is not to say that Dean Storr is not part of the real art world. Far from it. He has extensive experience with curating (at the Museum of Modern Art, for one), exhibiting as a painter, he’s a respected art critic and a writer on the theory and practice of art.

The interview zeroed in on his plans for graduate and undergraduate students at Yale, yet I found that he had much to say that was…

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Strawberries and Chinese Cup - Oil on Linen Panel - 12" x 9" by Michael Lynn Adams

One of the best ways to see how you and your art travel around the web is to sign up for Google Alerts. I’ve done this for my name and also for the smARTist Telesummit.

Now, every day I receive one or more “Google alerts” in my inbox. Not only can you see where your name and art are showing up, these alerts provide a link so you can click to find out more. Once in a while the link lands me on page where I can’t find any mention, but more often I end up…

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