As time has pulled me along, I have experienced changes physically and well, mentally. When we are young and learning, we face frustrations all the time and our parents or caregivers hopefully teach us coping skills to effectively deal with it. As young adults, we end up fighting through and finding out how much we can accomplish. Then we are led down the rosy path into the quiet but unrelenting reality of age, where we learn the term “limitation” which soon morphs into a gang that beats you up at night while you are sleeping. Eventually, they mug you during the day and you can no longer get a decent night’s sleep. Then you end up with the return of your childhood friend, “Frustration”.

Being a working artist at this time of the year is difficult as well. The final push of the show season and looking at the empty schedule for the next year, wondering what shows you want to apply for now. Do I want to try new markets? Apply for old favorites that didn’t go as well last year? I have a tendency to get frazzled now and do an application frenzy. This last year, I tried a lot of new things. Knowing that the new administration was going to shake things up and make the art market uncertain. Needless to say, I would say that I am currently on the bottom of the heap right now.

Sometimes we can’t get the information we are looking for because we aren’t asking the correct questions, but most of the time; our current lifestyle just doesn’t slow down enough to encourage us to seek out the proper information or even share it. We are so excited to get the information out there, we don’t recognize we need to source it.

It seems that I hit yard sales, Art Salvage, people give me things, and inevitably I purchase new things until I have so much art stuff that I can hardly find everything. Let’s not even discuss the amount of old artwork that I own. I like to give older pieces away and even burn the ones that are so outdated that they no longer represent what I can do. You hit a point that your spouse ends up turning their head away and averting their eyes from the offending area as if recognition will be considered encouragement. My husband and I actually had a “What will you do with this if I die” conversation.

A building that has been a part of Spokane since the 1800’s, is quietly incubating a newer creative community. The space that was available wasn’t what I wanted in a price I could afford but the passion on the guide’s face was seductive. Music, performance, and visual arts all in one space just waiting to come together under one non-profit. I wish them all well and I hope that they can make it work.

When was the last time you picked up pen and put it to paper? I did it recently and spent an hour writing down some thoughts. The pen glided over the page, leaving the surface scored and the leaf curved under the weight of my thoughts. It wasn’t that they were incredibly important, it was the importance of the exercise. When you put the pen to a surface and actually use your hand to make the words, you are using a different part of your brain. It is creative and analytical at the same time, especially if you work to make the words clear.

Organization isn’t just about a tool box that travels with me, it is about programs that I enter my inventory into as I work on my pieces, print my editions, gather my art materials, pay my bills. It is also about my storage for my art work and where I put my display materials. People who want to learn and understand what it is like being an artist sometimes come into my garage and are in shock by what I have and how it seems so organized. I must have gotten a bit more anal about it because it always seems a bit of a mess to me but the point is made to them. I have a place for everything and everything is in its place.

The reality is, however; most posthumous art collections don’t retain that much value. It is about who owned it, the notoriety of the artist (you don’t have to be good to be famous), and how long the artist remains pertinent to history. Many fade into history within a few decades especially if those who collected or followed them have all passed away.

I have counseled against looking at the mistakes of your past and dwelling on them.  I consider it a waste of time to keep turning them over and over.  Learn your lesson and move on but when my friend talks about looking behind you, Kelly is talking about the landscape. 

I find more inspiration from love of nature and that means taking time to enjoy it. If I can’t enjoy the time in nature, it is difficult to be inspired by it. I don’t have to feel guilty about playing outside. The thing is, you shouldn’t feel guilty about taking time out to play.

Walt Disney productions did a movie called “Meet the Robinsons” and I suspect it was based on the motto that Walt put up all over, “Keep Moving Forward”. A lot of Disney movies have motivational messages in them. “When you wish upon a star”, “Ohana means family, and nobody gets left behind. or forgotten”, “The only limit is your imagination”, “Sometimes the right path, isn’t always the easiest one.” Disney has lasted long past Walt but they do seem to keep giving us a bit of a compass.

As a visual artist, we don’t have a lot of people who want to step up and represent us. We end up doing everything from inventory, scheduling, accounting, marketing, research, pricing, branding, website design and maintenance, finance and budgeting….. and then there are other things that we don’t think of until they jump up like a skeleton in a corn maze. We make professional circus jugglers look like hacks when we are doing it right, and then our lives resemble a teenagers bedroom when it all falls apart.

Ronald Regan once said, “Trust but verify.” Parents have been doing this with teenagers for years. As an artist, it seems to be a good way to go. We can’t say no to everything and we need to take chances every once in a while. We can; however, take chances based on research and information. It never hurts to reach out to strangers and ask questions. Artists all over the world are facing the same problems we are. Making sales, finding markets, trusting online inquiries, learning new mediums; just because they are on foreign soil doesn’t make their problems any different.

Recently, I was notified that I had been awarded an opportunity. I looked at the future and thought, “there is no way I can make this work.” I also took advantage of a free business seminar and one of the things that it pointed out was that I was “self sabotaging” my own career. It wasn’t just the opportunity, it was other things that I was dropping the ball on. I keep talking about keeping focused on your goals, how can I point to this and not recognize that I am guilty of losing focus myself.

I did a show last weekend and a storm ripped through the first day causing havoc. I looked at the weather as it was brewing on the horizon, people kept saying it looked like it was going to be bad. There was an artist who kept coming over to me asking what we should do. I knew that my booth was pretty secure but there were others who were probably going to be in trouble. I asked the artist why she was asking me and she said the organizer told her that I was the one to ask. At about 3:40, I told the lady in charge she should probably call it.

It is Thursday morning while I write this and I am busy getting ready for the weekend. My summer has been long, busy but fairly relaxed this year as I haven’t done as many shows this season. Tomorrow, I find myself in Sandpoint celebrating a one year anniversary of someone I am in friendly competition with. She is putting on a small art event and painting competition and I believe in supporting each other. I will be home Sunday night, only to turn around and leave again a few days later for Boise ID.

Does it matter how you pay your bills? If you are still creating, you are still an artist. There are galleries out there who won’t carry your work if you are still working for a check to pay your bills. Given the current state of affairs, I’m wondering if that is really being realistic. It isn’t like one gallery can carry you and keep you in business for the rest of your life.

Perfect, pretty art can be fairly boring.  People who break the rules of composition, do things to shock you, create bold compositions that grab our attention and fascinate us. They win awards because they aren’t afraid to be imperfect and we notice.  People who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to maintain their perfect looks, ruin their bank books and in the end become facebook entertainment while actors with scars end up having amazing careers.

When I did an art business education program, they counselled us to understand our market.  Where they lived and how they spent, and I invested time understanding who purchased my work.  I like my collectors and I am worried for them, I can see why they are holding on to their money right now.

I sometimes fantasize about winning the lottery. I had a boyfriend who would just obsess about what people would do if they won the lottery. I was pretty content when we were dating and it drove him insane that I had no idea what I would do if I did. He just couldn’t fathom being happy with my life at the time but my college tuition was paid, I had a working car, no bills and no aspirations for something bigger. Now of course, things have changed and I would do so much if I did. The thing is, by winning the lottery; I wouldn’t work so hard to get where I want to go.