This screenshot is part of my journal entry from Mar 1, 2015. This was the year I went for it. Negative talk and self-doubt and I still went for it. I was feeling so guilty about where I was in my life, not even a year divorced, and still very much hurting from that whole thing.
I was desperate for some wins in my life, which is why I think I was so focused on the “commercial viability” of my artwork. It’s taken me 9 years to figure out that I had it backwards.
All the “product/service entrepreneurial guru” advice I’d listened to sounded great, but in truth it doesn’t work for artists…or rather, it’s bad advice that still end up earning me money. When someone gives you “career” advice that makes you money, you instinctively think it’s good advice.
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Another way to put it: just because people buy that art doesn’t mean it’s the art you’re supposed to be doing. Bad advice can still yield results non-introspection will consider “good”.
Fast-forward to 2024, and after an entire January filled with deep work of reflection, introspection, my annual review, and goal and project planning for this year. Something clicked during that process, and all at once I understood, on a very personal, deep level, that if I make the artwork I want, and do it for me, I’ll find the audience, and the work will be better for them. More importantly, I’ll also find myself.
So that’s what 2024 has been about. Most of the work I’ve created has been from this mindset, and as my good friend, Joanna, said when I first started sharing some in-progress photos with her, something has broken loose and these new works “feel more like me.”
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Is it easy to do? No. It’s fucking scary! I have no guarantees I can earn a living from doing things this way. I have no idea how my audience will find me…especially true since mega-corp algorithms control the reach on platforms rather than content of my content–what a sentence! I think part of “trust the process” in the 21st century is to trust that your audience will discover you. You certainly can’t sit idle and expect that to happen, you have to share your work (platforms, galleries, consignment shops, on your friends living room walls, whatever), but they will you.
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