Who's On Your Team?

Hi There,

The article below written by Luann Udell, Regular Contributing Author for FineArtViews, dives into the many ways that artists can and do sell themselves short when facing new and unexpected challenges.

Luann's unique perspective on the "team" that's behind you as an artist reinforces the point that although art may be an individual game, you're well equipped all on your own.

By the way, for my latest thoughts on art marketing, posted daily, follow me on Twitter.

Enjoy,

Clint Watson

In last week's FineArtViews newsletter, What's the Hard Part?, I shared how trying to figure out a new project in advance has its disadvantages. I talked about how simply starting with my best guesses helped me move forward steadily, one little step at a time.

I got inspiration from a blog post by Seth Godin, who posed this issue as a team project. But many creatives, especially artists of all kinds, don't have a "team". Yep, it can get lonely over here!

But even as I was thinking that, I realize we all DO have a team. It's just not what we normally think of as a "team".

We have skills.

Creative work is just that: Creative. Making something that wasn't in the world before we made it. It doesn't come out of nowhere, of course. But it does come from US.

Wherever we got our skills, whether or not we went to art school, or took workshops, or are self-taught, we didn't show up in the world with those skills. We acquired them.

We have an attitude.

We found something that called to us, whether it's painting on a canvas, writing a story, playing an instrument, etc. We may have been told we weren't good enough, or that we couldn't make a living at it, or a ton of other discouraging words.

But we wanted it. And so we took up our creative work, pursued it with all our heart, and got those above-mentioned skills.

We make time for it.

In fact, time is something that can give us our best excuse for NOT doing something that matters to us. (See "challenges" below.) In order for us to have a 'body of work', we had to make room for actually making it in our lives.

We chose our medium(s).

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it isn't. Some people choose their art medium because of the automatic respect they believe they'll get from it (like oil paints over acrylic, for example.) That's okay. But in fact, most of us choose our medium because of how it meshes with our own personal habits, quirks, and preferences.

Each medium has its costs, drawbacks, and benefits, each forces us to interact differently with it. I quickly grew frustrated in my one acrylic painting class, because the paint dried too fast. I couldn't play around with it, blend it, etc.

I can't even imagine working with watercolor! Knowing our work preferences and process helps us see our works-in-progress more clearly.

We know our materials.

We know what substrates (canvas, paper, wood panels, for example) will work best with which media, and how to prepare them. We know which glue to use with what (and if we don't, we know how to find out!)

We've learned what color blending techniques to use, how to construct an effective color palette, what kind of clay to use in our potter, what glazes to use, how long to fire polymer clay, what our preferred method of book-binding is, etc.

We know our process.

In my own box art path, I've learned that epoxy and silicon construction glues can be very useful in putting several boxes together. But they have their drawbacks, too.

I used them until they didn't work for me (e.g. in some cases, the glue bond is stronger than the old wood I'm attaching it too. Ask me how I know.) Then I had to try something else.

We have experience with solving problems.

So many of us (ME!!) forget this. We've gotten used to success with what we've learned. We forget how hard it was when we started out.

We have experience with 'challenge'.

I see them on social media every day! Painting of the day. 100 Days projects. They've been popular work-inspirations for years, but are even more popular now. Joining them takes commitment, and a little courage, too. And it helps that we make time for them, because we've gotten good at that, too. (See "time" above.)

I'm amazed at the already-talented people who then share how much they learned through these challenges. They were forced out of their comfort zone, and into new territory.

We have goals and dreams.

We all had dreams as children. Some of us wanted to be a fireman, some of us wanted to play sports, or music, some of us wanted to be an artist. Not all of us followed our hearts, of course, and our goals and dreams can change along the way. But even people who "fall into" their calling, have to persevere to make it happen.

In my article about graduates of The Juilliard School, we can see that we only lose our dreams when we walk away from them. And most people do that because they believe they aren't good enough, or it's not worth all of our effort. Those who persist, have to get over that hurdle, too. Because...

We know how to believe in ourselves, and we know the power of that.

Oh, sure, I know I am not "the best" polymer clay artist in the world. Every day, I see people with ten times the talent I have. That can slow me down. But it will never stop me.

And once I got back to my place of power, finding the key that helped me to just try, I made progress. Slowly, but surely, I used what knowledge I had until I found a better solution. And I kept that up until I got something satisfying, something that I knew was going to work. (Let me show you my enormous bracket-and-screws collection)

So the next time you feel like you've hit a wall, like you've got a creative problem you just can't figure out, think about what's worked for you along the way.

Social media marketing is a biggie and will be as long as our "new normal" is in place. Some of the most talented creatives I know are in a frantic limbo with Facebook, Instagram, newsletters, etc. They are overwhelmed, feel under-prepared, and are freaking out.

Next week, I'll share another powerful member of your team. Stay tuned!

Until then, know that your comments are always welcome, often insightful, and sometimes inspirational, too! Shares, the same. Questions, I'll do my best!

Regards,

Luann Udell

Regular Contributing Author, FineArtViews

www.luannudell.com

PS - This is Clint again. I hope you enjoyed Luann's article about the challenges artists face and the many ways in which their "team" is behind them every step of the way. If you're looking for additional ways to get a team of people behind you, check out AMP (Art Marketing Playbook).