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…
In Motion by Lori Wolfson
It’s been great fun being here and sharing this wonderful blog, but it’s time for me to move on. My work here is done. The canvas calls me and I must attend.
Have a wonderful time all you artists and good luck in all you do. Until we meet again…
And thank you, Ariane, for the opportunity to spend this valuable and rewarding time here with you. You are one of a kind and, as an artist, I can’t tell you how much your support and work out there in the world for us all means to me!
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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Grace Cathedral, New York City by Lori Wolfson
I used to look at writing a blog like being one of those people who get on the subway and tell their story to their briefly held captive audience. Like when you’re on the train in New York and it stops, and people get off and people get on, and the doors close. And then the train starts to move again.
And sometimes an unusual-looking person emerges from the dulled anonymity and proceeds to…
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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…
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…
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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As some artists know, but as many unfortunately do not, by law, you own copyright on every work of art you produce, regardless of whether you register the copyright, regardless if you sign the piece or not.
Because copyright belongs to you, I advise that you never allow a client, especially a corporate one, to reproduce one of your works without a written agreement signed by you.
Especially, do not allow a corporation to produce greeting cards, brochures, posters, or…
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… keeps tickling my fancy:
Abstract for Noah by Lori Wolfson
the
light
at
the
end
of the
tunnel.
