Daniel Batten: Why You Have No Choice But To Follow Your Passion

Image from awesome talk on Talent + Passion here.

I was going to write a big post today responding to Kadie's challenge post, and talk about how, because it's so easy for me to lose faith in a project, I spend far, far more time putting my passion off for another day, when I have the time/energy/inspiration required -- and how that approach is ultimately hurting my art practice.

But then I found this brilliant summary of all the things by Daniel Batten:



(Originally posted by Daniel Batten at SpokenBliss.com.)

Have you noticed how many people there are that are doing things they don’t enjoy, saying “I’m just doing this for a short while, and then I’ll be able to…”

Sometimes this is true. But if you are still doing things you really don’t enjoy after three months of becoming conscious you don’t enjoy what you are doing, then I’d suggest you are kidding yourself.

The problem with kidding yourself is that it makes you into someone that you can’t trust. And as soon as that happens, you will also stop trusting – your ability to realize any goal – your talents – your integrity.

That’s a pretty big consequence. So how do you stop yourself from self-decepetions? That’s a good question – and one which I’ll answer,

But first, to help you root out all such self-deceptions from your life, lets look at 3 all-too common examples of how these self-deceptions manifest.

1. An entrepreneur starts a business because she loves x, and wants freedom. Three years later, she is operating the business (which she hates), doing very little of x, and has less money and less freedom than she had as an employee.
2. An employee says “I really don’t enjoy this job, but I’ll do it for now because it pays off my mortgage”. Twenty years later, he has switched job 7 times, got a few promotions – but still doesn’t really enjoy the work, and never feels that he has enough of a financial buffer to do what he loves.
3. An artist takes the plunge and “does what she loves” but doesn’t earn much money from it, so carves out 30-40 hours a week to do itinerant work to support what she does until she “makes it big”. Each person is living life from the standpoint of “I will be happy when…” (I get the house/ boyfriend/ job/ IPO/ big account/ ….). But even if for example the entrepreneur does hit pay-dirt – so what? For 10 years, she has practiced putting on hold what she loves – and so this is what she’s become an expert at.

Even if this person decides to give back by becoming a business mentor – without a lot of self-enquiry, she will only be able to mentor other companies to follow the script she followed. Seek whatever you want in this life – but know that the minute you say “I will be happy when…” you have lost something precious.

Whatever you practice is what you will get better at. Practice the guitar, and you will get better at the guitar. Practice putting your dreams on ice, and you will soon be an expert at putting your dreams on ice.

The remedy is that you must follow your passion. Do you see how you really have no alternative? It is too dangerous not too. We think that we will get financial gains and progress for doing “good enough” for a time. But trying to live a life without our passion is like saying, “I’ll just drive this car for a while then I’ll put some fuel in it later.”

Without fuel, we go nowhere fast, and so we end up coming slower as well as having less fun. A lose-lose. We end up pushing a car around, huffing and puffing, rather than relaxing and letting the fuel power the car while we relax.

So if you want happiness as an “end goal” that means you need to practice being happy, and stop practicing things that make you unhappy. Put fuel in your tank by daring to do what you are passionate about, right now.

Stop it, Daniel Batten. Stop being so awesome right now.

If you want to read more from Daniel Batten, check out his site, or go read this article as it originally appeared on SpokenBliss.com.

Challenge #21: Passion Is A Choice

Here's the thing.  Passion is a lot like love.  At first you fall in, head over heels, you can't help but be consumed with it.  Then slowly, over time, and with every obstacle you are forced to cross during your career, the feelings that were once so strong start to diminish and fade.  Then one day you wake up and have zero desire to have anything to do with what you were once so passionate about.

That's why passion is a choice, not an emotion.

Sure the happy lovey-dovey endorphins swimming through our brains are great to kick start us on our journey, but if we rely on those emotions to carry us through our career we're in for a rude awaking.  Every artist has those days where they roll out of bed and want nothing to do with their work, and suddenly have no idea what they are doing with their life.  Things start to close in around us and feel bleak and desperate.  But we have to keep going, because passion is a choice, not an emotion.

Emotion is what tells us we'll never be good enough, strong enough, talented enough, so what's the point?  Passion on the other hand requires a choice to say, "F!*# it, I'm doing it anyway," even when we don't want to, even when its hard, and even when we would rather be anywhere else but working.

I'm not going to lie, I am a chronic project non-finisher.  I get really excited about a project, get about 60% of the way through it, and then loose steam and move on to something else.  I constantly rely on my emotions, and when they begin to wane I loose interest and quit.  I can't even begin to express the number of boxes and boxes of half finished pieces of "something" lying around my studio.

Through the years I've laughed it off as a goofy personality trait, "haha, you know me…" But as I get older I'm starting realize what a serious problem this really is in my life.  Sticking with something just until the going gets boring and then bailing out is a terrible way to live a life or conduct a career.

I don't give up on my marriage because not every single moment is as exciting as the day we met, because I know that love is a choice I have made.  I have chosen to love this person.  Some days are fantastic, and some days I want to flush the toilet while he is taking a shower… but I love him because I have chosen to.

So why do I give my art career any less commitment?  Sticking with something just until I'm bored, never lets me truly accomplish anything.  I don't want to look back on my life and see a lot of false starts and half finished projects.  I want to be able to look at my life and say, "I DID this, I DID that."  Not, "I thought about doing this, or I started doing that, but you know…"

Don't forget you snag your nifty challenge badge so
you can inspire your friend to be challenged along with you!

People writing this blog every week is hard.  Half the time I'm pretty sure nobody reads it or could care less if I ever write anything on it ever again.  But I'm still here, and I'm still plugging along because this is my passion and I am choosing to embrace it for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, wether exiting or practically boring me to death.

So this week I encourage you to ignore your emotions and keep going.  Wether you were thinking about throwing in the towel on your creative career because it just doesn't seem to be working out, or you just can't seem to find the energy or motivation to finish that project you've had sitting in the closet for a month now.  Choose passion.  Choose to live a life you can look back on and say, "That was me! I DID that!"

Challenge #18: Just Do It

Last week, we pondered the question, "Is an artist still an artist if they're not creating?" While I don't pretend to have the answer to that, I do have an answer to the general feeling of malaise and confusion about life that may result from a failure to make art -- and it's GENIUS! Are you ready??

Just. Do. It.

Sorry Nike, I know that's kinda your catch phrase and all, but really, it applies to so much more than athletic footwear.

Sometimes (okay, all the time), I don't feel like taking the dogs for a walk in the morning. But I do it anyway -- sleepy, grumpy, and generally zombified though I may be -- and by the time we get done with our walk, I'll have woken up, the dogs will have used up some of their crazy energy, and I'll get to come home feeling productive. Not to mention that getting up out of the computer chair every now and then is actually good for me. But when that alarm clock starts screaming at way-the-F-too-early o' clock, the only thing that keeps me from smashing the snooze button with the vengeance of a thousand She-Hulks is one simple phrase: just do it.

Art creation can happen under similar circumstances. It certainly did in college, at least for me -- the teacher would give an assignment, and I would work on it. Usually leaving most of the work until the last minute, but still, I would work on it. Whether I felt relaxed and inspired, or if I felt stressed and exhausted, I still did it, because at the end of that project was a grade, and that grade could decide the future of my degree.


"Real life," as many of us post-college noobs have taken to calling it, comes with the same demands -- it can just be a bit harder to understand how our actions will affect our future. Being in school gives us an artificial sense of movement and accomplishment, with graduation acting as the finish line. Once you're out of school, there aren't any finish lines, or checkpoints, or advisors waiting for you to come in for a degree check. You're just existing, same as everyone else, and you have to be accountable to yourself when it comes to setting and accomplishing goals.

Therefore, dear reader, this week we're challenging you to stop waiting for a teacher or a client to put the pressure on you before you create. JUST DO IT -- take 30 minutes every day to work on art. Even if you don't finish a piece this week, you'll still be a lot closer to finishing than you were when you started. Now grab your swag, and get creating!

Take Five With Mickey Pangburn

Name:
Mickey Pangburn

Creative Specialties:
Songwriting, Music, Singing, Painting, Latte Art

Current Location:
Tempe Arizona

Mini Bio:
In fear for her life, Norah B. took her then-3-year-old daughter Mickey Louise and fled her home in Knoxville Tennessee. Mickey's convict father was hot in pursuit, causing them to live in hiding for the next 15 years. Running from state to state, Mickey took to a life of secrecy and solitude; spending most days alone in her room making mixed tapes, and writing songs with an acoustic guitar her mother picked up at a yard-sale. In college she met and married drummer Jesse Pangburn, and the two studied jazz. They moved to Tempe AZ, and formed The Prowling Kind out of coffee culture meet-ups and late night jams. Their debut album, Tennessee, is comprised of glimpses into Mickey's tumultuous childhood, and Norah's young love of an outlaw. A story sure to draw you in.

Website: 
WEBSITE: http://theprowlingkind.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/TheProwlingKind
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/TheprowlingKind
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxcSXYIRRnxwDlMlryU2n1A

1) What is one thing you've learned as an artist that you wish you'd known when you first started out?

Use the time you think you’re “stuck in waiting”, to refine your skills. Allow room to be creative and practice without expectations. Those behind the scenes hours count. It’s what we don’t see, that makes what we do see (be it -on stage/canvas/film, wherever) worthwhile.

2) How do you cope with creative anxiety and societal expectations?

In the words of Regina Spektor, “People are just people, they shouldn’t make you nervous.” Maybe everybody won’t dig what I do….but that has to be Okay. It’s simple, but that’s how I see it.

3) If money was no object, what would you make?

What I make now, only faster. My mind goes a million miles an hour, pulling my ambitions right along. My pocketbook slows me down though and I think God intended it that way. I need to be slowed down enough to at least let the good stuff sink in and gain meaning.

4) How do you deal with the inevitable uncertainty that accompanies a creative life?

I’m a planner. Uncertainty can be terrifying. I generally freak out as a means of “dealing”. By the time I come to my senses (either as a result of my husband’s gentile rebuking/ or much needed prayer) I remember that this creative life is the only option for me. As humbling, disconcerting & uncertain as it may be- it’s what I was made for. I am happy to say however, my freak out episodes have decreased steadily over the years!

5) What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a creative person?

Just letting myself be me and letting a project be what it is. There’s always room and need for growth, but I realized that if I wait till I’m perfect at anything- nothing will EVER get done! If I change the harmony of that song one more time, I may never actually record it! Simply allowing myself to take each experience for what it’s worth, acknowledging it as a means of refining, or allowing it to be a testament to a specific season (and not the end-all-be-all summation of my creative expression!), has been the biggest and most rewarding challenge.

The Prowling Kind's debut album, Tennessee, drops on August 27th! You can read more about Mickey and their band on their WEBSITE! You can even download a copy of their first single "Babycakes" for free!

Driving While Creative: Trying To Function Normally Sucks

If you're anything like me, there's lots of stuff that inspires you, or at least lots of stuff that piques your interest. The problem is, most of that stuff happens while you're trying to do other things. For example:

Photo by William Lesch.

I live in Tucson, Arizona. If you've never traveled here, you should know there are two things about this city that are so stunningly gorgeous and distinctive, I'm shocked we don't have them printed on our city seal: our mountains and our sunsets. Tucson is located in a valley between the Santa Catalina, Rincon, Santa Rita, and Tucson mountain ranges Although our mountains do have a good amount of greenery when compared to the desert below, they also have a lot of exposed rock face -- which makes for AMAZING textures, especially in the late afternoon/early evening.

Which brings me to my next rhapsody: the sunsets. The Sunsets. Tucson's sunsets are, in my mind, to this day unparalleled by any sunset I've seen elsewhere. I mean, look at it:

And that doesn't even get into the saguaros, or all the super cool wildlife, or our absolutely epic monsoon season . . . (yeah, I'm a desert rat in love with my home, I know).

The point is, I live is a beautiful freaking place, and seeing all this stuff just drives me wild with inspiration. Only problem? It tends to happen when I'm driving.

Yes, because I am so enamored with the beautiful world I live in, I have trouble resisting an almost irrepresible urge to make some terrible decisions, along with some that are highly inconvenient, or just plain awkward for everyone involved, all in the name of capturing inspiration. These include, but are not limited to:

• photographing while driving (bad, BAD idea)
• filming while driving (ditto)
• stopping the car on the side of the road every five minutes to document the scenery
• totally, totally, invading someone's property just so that I can capture this one really cool thing (and 99.9% of the time it's the railroad that owns it, and those people can be quite intimidating when they tell you to get off the damn tracks)
• making mential notes to somehow get a picture in the future of some location, only to later drive past there and not be able to find it
• weaving like an idiot in my lane before I realize what I'm doing, all because I saw something gorgeous

Now, I don't mean to give the impression that all artists are bad at driving -- I'm actually quite safe on the road, so long as I keep my eyes squarely on the pavement and the cars around me -- but it sucks to be passing all of this great inspiring stuff, and not be able to document any of it, all just because I'm supposed to be driving. Freaking societal responsibility and traffic laws and whatnot, amiright??

In all seriousness, the great part about inspiration is that you don't necessarily have to get a picture of whatever it is that inspires you in order for you to remember it . . . but if you're thinking that a photo is the only way you're going to remember exactly how that light looked falling across that tree, you might want to have a designated driver.

Take 5 With Anne Condit

Kick-ass illustration by the artist, found here.

Name: 
Anne M. Condit

Creative Specialties:
I work primarily in pen and ink, but I'm learning more about digital methods. My sculpture background has led me to favor pattern & texture over color, generally. I find inspiration from old books of specimens, fairy tales, and science fiction. My graphic design work is another natural extension of my love for stories. The right typeface has as much narrative power as an illustration.

Current Location:
Huntsville, AL

Mini Bio: 
I have loved art since I was young. I studied sculpture & drawing at Birmingham-Southern College, where I earned my BFA.  A distinctly narrative quality emerged from my work. In any material or style, my art wants to tell a story. Because of this quality, I found myself drawn (bad pun! bad!) towards illustration. Honestly?  I just want to be my 3rd grade librarian. Except I will have designed and illustrated all of the books.

Website:
http://www.danslalunedesigns.com/


1. What is one thing you've learned as an artist that you wish you'd known when you first started out?

It’s okay to introduce yourself by saying, “I’m an artist.” You have nothing to be ashamed of-- the amount or quality of work you’re doing, the possible negative perceptions. For the longest time, I didn’t do so because I didn’t “feel” like an artist, I was just trying to be one. F*** that! If you’re trying to be an artist, you are an artist. Even if you’re just a high-school kid drawing ponies.


2. How do you remain positive and hopeful when either the ideas stop flowing, the work dries up, or the money stops coming in?

I try to always have a project going. Even if the piece isn’t very technically or conceptually challenging, I feel much more positive if I’m creating something. That endlessly quotable Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

I keep two inspiration boards-- one hanging in my studio, one on the website Pinterest. If I don’t have a deadline or an organic inspiration, I look to those for new project ideas.


3. What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a creative person?

Time management, in the forms of procrastination and saying “no” to people. I am a very people-oriented person, so it’s difficult for me to carve out studio time or decline project opportunities. Sometimes if you’re the “creative one” in a group, people will automatically turn to you for artistic projects.

I’ve had great fun taking on some of these challenges, but you also have to consider 1) If it’s within your scheduling and technical abilities; 2) If you can make the person happy. If you draw like Edward Gorey and your best friend wants a Thomas Kinkade mural, you might want to think twice.


4. How do you cope with creative anxiety and societal expectations?

On the one hand, I want to create revolutionary, important work. On the other hand, what is revolutionary in art anymore? Society expects art to be controversial-- so much that controversial art has become boring. Then you also have people who just want something pretty to hang over their couch. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I would like to create art that people buy initially because they think it’s beautiful. But I want them to one day be sitting on that couch and be disturbed. Not necessarily grossed-out or upset. But I want them to notice a subtext, and wonder if it’s the artist’s intention or if it’s all in their head.


5. If money were no object, what would you make?

I would go to an old church, or chapel, or some kind of sacred space, and transform it into a massive encaustic installation with beeswax. I would paint it in the winter, then let it slowly melt in the warm Alabama summer. I’m not sure what I would embed in it, that would depend on the history of the location or what’s fascinating to me at the time. But I like the idea of a piece changing and revealing itself. I think that walking through the piece would be overwhelming-- the warmth, the smell of the beeswax.


6. What moment/place/time/setting lets you function to your fullest creative potential?

I hope I still haven’t found it yet. Right now I do best in my studio space, right after breakfast. I’m not hungry or tired, and I haven’t committed to anything else in the day.

7. Do you have a ritual way of preparing to create?

Yoga pants are a must. Music, radio, or background noise so I don’t feel lonely. Coffee. Ridiculous amounts of coffee.

8. How do you deal with the inevitable uncertainty that accompanies a creative life?

I think about this moment: when I was cleaning out my childhood bedroom, I pulled out my old portfolio. I started flipping through the stuff that I worked so hard on, but thought was crap at the time. I’m still unsatisfied with my work, but it’s gotten better. It was in that moment I decided I wanted art to be a part of my life, no matter what, and I would fight for it.

There and Back Again: A Creative's Journey

Hopefully, your metaphorical mountain
has less metaphorical dragons.

Yesterday, Kadie talked about NeilGaiman's method for finding your mountain. While this sounds fairly simple, much like identifying what you want to be when you grow up, it gets significantly harder to do once you've graduated.

We're here to tell you – it's okay to embrace the process.

In photography, sometimes you have to wait until the light is right. In painting, the canvas may need to dry before you can apply more color. In writing, you can go through drafts and drafts (and drafts) before you come up with something you want to share with anybody. Dance and theater and comedy and music all require hours of rehearsal and preparation.

Why should it be any different in life?

We have this narrative in our culture, that once you're an adult you need to have everything figured out – where you're going, who you are, why you're here. We've touched on it before in this blog, here and here. Artist after artist after artist has also challenged this assumption, from Jack Kerouac's On the Road to Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx's Avenue Q, to Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture, to every Adam Sandler movie ever. And that just covers a few of the works from American pop culture.

The reality is, finding your mountain takes time – sometimes a lot of time. I first tried my hand at Jackie Battenfield's exercise about four years ago – and my answers were dramatically different from what I'd say today. I was planning on going to grad school – NOPE – I was planning on becoming a professor (probably not), and I was planning on having all that stuff accomplished by the time I turned 28, so I could get to settling down and having one of those baby things my friends keep talking about, but still keep up with my thriving art career.

While none of those goals are on my horizon today, at least not in the form I originally anticipated (Would someone please tell my 22-year-old self that building a career takes more than a couple of years? Thanks), I'm still glad I travelled toward what I thought was my mountain – again, and again, and again. The reason? Each time I started working towards my then-goal, it brought me to a new perspective in my life – at which point I'd spot a goal that I wanted even more. At 16, I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I had no idea what that looked like. At 26, I still don't really know what that looks like, but I know that it involves having time for my family and friends and making enough money to support my foodie fine dining habits. This is the hill I'm on today, and I think I know what mountain I'm aiming for – but that might change at the next overlook.

And that's okay.

Take 5 With Kylin Jewell

We get back into our Take 5 series with Kylin Jewell, a multi-talented and multi-passionate artist who's come to some pretty significant realizations in her life post- art school. Check it out! 

Name: Kylin Jewell

Creative Specialties:
Drawing, painting, dancing (ballet, jazz, modern) aerial silks, yoga… being up-side-down, hula-hooping, jewelry making, hair/ makeup, modeling, sewing and costume design, basic wood and metal-working, teaching any of these activities…

Current Location: 
Tucson, AZ

Mini Bio:
Kylin Jewell’s art is documentation of the processes she employs to uncover the relationship between emotion and emotive content. To one degree or another her work has always revolved around a central idea of feeling held captive by our own thoughts, actions, and the ‘inner realities’– or the escape to sublime states of being after the process of letting go, meditating, and allowing for a more spiritual connection. In a sense, her ultimate goal in creating is to tap into the universal experience of feeling.

Kylin was born in 1986 in Tucson, Arizona where she has spent 26 years improving on and perfecting her passion. In 2005 she graduated from Tucson High Magnet School with a performing arts endorsement and was credited for her AP 2-D portfolio. In May of 2010 she received a BA in 2-D design with an emphasis in painting from the University of Arizona. In August she will leave behind her desert home for life in the city of Chicago. Here, she will delve further in her interest in the ‘inner-self’ and begin her career in Art Therapy.

Website:
Currently, some of my artwork can be seen through my Facebook page. In the fall, I will have a website running through SAIC.

5 realizations I had that changed my life and the way I define myself as an artist:

DREAM BIG
1) If money was no object, what would you make?

I think it’s important to remember that we are all creative beings. Some of us don’t tap into it, or have little faith in our artistic ability and thusly do not nourish the imaginative spirit. Many have ways of being creative that aren’t in our traditional definition of the term so they don’t recognize their potential.

That’s why I have chosen to introduce myself with my dreams…

This is why I (we) create. Because we are able to dream.

If I had all of the financial resources imaginable, and could employ a crew of any number, I would make… SO MANY THINGS!!!

First and foremost, I would knock out the brilliant interactive idea my significant other and myself proposed to the Burning Man grant committee this year. It is a large-scale, multi-medium, interactive, two-phase sculpture with fire elements.

It would be nice not to feel limited in terms of resources for completing more paintings and drawings, but my interest in art has developed into something that goes beyond satisfying an internal need to make something that is both aesthetically pleasing and healing for myself anymore.
I want to, and will - after two years at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Master’s in Art Therapy program starting this Fall! – be in the position to help others find their voice and discover healing through art making. As made obvious by the career I am pursuing, I am more interested in being a first-hand witness to the emotional response to a project and getting the audience involved in the creative process than I am in fulfilling documentation of the images and designs constantly swirling through my mind. I want to know how opening a conversation about art, through the act of creation, can not only bring people together but can also help individuals work through any dis-ease in their lives. I trust in my creativity to bring joy into my own life.
I suppose I am just curious to know if my beliefs can be supported. If art making affects the minds and hearts of all beings in the same manner, and, if it does, I would like to uncover its potential for emotional/ psychological rebuilding in all beings.

In a magical world with no financial limitation I would travel with sculptures like the one we plan to bring to Black Rock City someday. I would research the reaction and interaction of art, people, music, etc. and project that I would find my hypothesis to be supported by my findings.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES
2) How do you remain positive and hopeful when either the ideas stop flowing, the work dries up, or the money stops coming in?

I really try to be an optimistic person but I must admit, I went through a dry-spell for nearly a year after I received my Bachelor’s in Studio Art.

At the time, I was ashamed and extremely disappointed in myself.

I am supposed to be a painter!
I am supposed to be selling my work!
I am supposed to… 
 
I am sure you are all familiar with a similar internal mantra, no?

But the fact of the matter was that I was uninspired, unmotivated, and painfully unsure of my next step. I needed a job but knew that selling my work was going to take more energy and devotion than I felt like I had at that point in time.

In fact, over the past couple years since graduating I have come to realize how little interest I have in selling my work at all! (More on this later.)

Luckily, I was not relying on my artwork before graduating as a means of income so not having that resource post-degree didn’t make much of a difference to me.

Just when I needed it most, I was given the opportunity to teach art to elementary school aged children. It got my creative juices flowing again because I had to train my mind to think about making art in a way I hadn’t in my entire life. For so long it had just flowed, and now I had to inspire students – some who didn’t have the same innate interest for mark-making, color, shape and light as I had as a child. More so, I had to inspire myself! My livelihood depended upon it!

I was forced into a new state of mind that wasn’t so concerned about the final product of what I drew or the concept behind it. I had been given a time-machine into the most creative sources on Earth – something that got lost along the way with all the schooling and the aging – the mind of a child!

Yes, my classes were about learning how to draw a certain objects and how to best use the mediums chosen for each project, but it became something so much more than that – we were playing! Creating from an intuitive source and letting the story write itself as we went along. If that wasn’t divine inspiration on learning to trust myself again, how to be okay with taking steps toward the next chapter of my life, I don’t know what is!

This approach not only brought joy to my students, but there was an upwelling of healing for my own tired heart as my students and I connected over common human emotion and the desire to leave our mark.
I realized that I had to reevaluate how I thought about my work.

To abandon old processes and concentrations so that I could allow myself to breathe. I had to give myself the freedom to make art that I might hate when I was done with it. It was absolutely necessary to allow myself to make mistakes again. To make in a manner of complete abandon the way the five-year-old version of myself had.

Now, if I find myself feeling unsatisfied with my work or feeling stuck I know I need to spend some time drawing with people half my age. Or, at least check in with my inner-child and get back to a place where I am not over thinking my work.

The mission of feeling financially secure in your artistic endeavors can be an equally daunting task. It’s hard not to get upset when you spent all that time working on a grant proposal and the funds are awarded to someone else.

My S.O. and I didn’t get the Burning Man grant by the way, but the project hasn’t been abandoned yet. There are other options available to us if we are willing to network, to spend more time setting up “kick starter” web pages and accounts, and if we refuse to lose sight of the purpose for our art.

Know that a lot of the time you have to meet up with the right people, who will become your support system for a specific project. Sometimes we just don’t know how to present it to the panel of judges and the whole “there’s always next year” thing starts to make a lot more sense. Other times it means we need to expand our audience.

Trial and error is just as important to us in building our reputation as an artist as it was when we were first learning to make a balanced composition.&

If at first you don’t succeed…

Well, you know the rest.


BE THE SOURCE OF YOUR OWN MOTIVATION
3) What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a creative person?

The greatest challenge I have faced as a creative person is two-fold.

1. Finding the confidence within myself necessary to pursue a career that others may have trouble understanding.
2. Coming to terms with the financial and emotional struggles I face because I have chosen to follow my passions instead of seeking out the most comfortable or lucrative career.

It is so easy to allow the opinions and seeming lack of support from the most important people in our lives (parents, friends, etc.) discourage us from listening to our hearts.

What I have discovered over the past year, during GRE exams, tears, graduate school applications, interviews around the country, financial planning, and yes… more tears… is that sometimes a loved one’s concerns over the steps you are taking in pursuit of your goals aren’t voiced because they don’t want you to be happy. It’s not that they don’t want you to succeed or don’t believe in your ability to meet your goals. Family and friends – we worry about each other. This is no mystery!

So, it is important to keep in mind that a lot of the time things that come across as unsupportive are said out of fear that you are taking a path that they know virtually nothing about… beyond the “starving artist” stereotype.

I implore you to follow your own arrow, and not let their words dissuade you from a calling.If it brings you bliss and you are willing to work for it – why not?


KNOW WHY YOU CREATE
4) How do you cope with creative anxiety and societal expectations?

This is something I must deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Sometimes it is extremely difficult for me to ignore the bits of advice given to me with all the best intentions and to truly trust that my inner-voice is guiding me in the right direction.

Because I am who I am, and have developed a profound interest in yoga – in the form of an Asana and Meditation Practice – I believe in an internal source of knowing.

I am creative, therefore I am meant to create…

But there is extreme trust there.

I have to believe that

      a) my gut instincts are valuable and valid
      b) I deserve to do what makes me happy.

My Practice now spills over into every aspect of my life and gives me the confidence I need to completely trust my decisions and myself.

In addition, I have taken a page from the book of my students and made the decision to embrace my creative spirit. It is, without question, one of the best things I have ever done for myself. It hasn’t been until the past six months that I have really wanted to start projects that have nothing to do with youth or school. It is what my desire, along with encouragement from my SO, to make interactive sculptures.

Because of the things pushing me to create, I don’t think of making a profit off of my ideas in terms of money. A successful piece would bring a sense of clarity to at least one person who aids in its construction, if not many.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH CHAOS
5) How do you deal with the inevitable uncertainty that accompanies a creative life?

I trust in the chaos of the world around me because I have no other choice – unless I want to become bitter and immobilized by my fears of the unknown.

Remember all those stereotypes and naysayers we mentioned earlier?

Well, they have their place and don’t come without some hint of truth.

Making a living as an artist is not easy work, but we wouldn’t have chosen this path if it were.

Tell me you never had to hide a smile when someone criticized you for wanting to be an artist, going on about how much you would struggle to make ends meet!

Admit it, you liked the idea of this challenge.

We wouldn’t want to create if we didn’t have questions about the world we live in. If we weren’t trying to figure it out.

We wouldn’t have these questions if we knew everything.
(Do you see where I am going with this?)

Without the uncertainty of the future there would be no need for creative thinking. No questions to be answered. No problems to solve.

When we allow ourselves to embrace the unknown we can actually be present in our lives, and in our work. Sometimes things are going to go well, and sometimes there are going to be bumps in the road.
It’s life and a reality someone in any profession could encounter.

If my intentions are good and I continue to push forward even when things get rough – if I refuse to quit dreaming – I can use the uncertainty of my future as motivation to use my creativity as a solution to any hardship I may face.

Why Do You Make Art?

Over at The Greater Good, there is an amazing article featuring the responses of seven artists to the question, "Why do you make art?"

In a week talking about art asking questions, it's important that we also remember to ask questions of our art -- why we do it, what it means for us to be artists. These practicing artists, coming from all different backgrounds and influences, summed this up better than I ever could. Here were some of my favorite parts:

Gina Gibney's choreography. (Andrzej Olejniczak/Gina Gibney)

Gina Gibney:

I make art for a few reasons. In life, we experience so much fragmentation of thought and feeling. For me, creating art brings things back together.
For me, making work is almost like keeping a journal. Giving that to someone else—as a kind of gift through live performance—is the most meaningful aspect of my work.

A portrait by Judy Dater.

Judy Dater:

I like expressing emotions—to have others feel what it is I’m feeling when I’m photographing people. [...] I think photographing people is, for me, the best way to show somebody something about themselves—either the person I photograph or the person looking—that maybe they didn’t already know. [...] I feel like I’m attending to people when I’m photographing them.

 Pete Docter:

I make art primarily because I enjoy the process. It’s fun making things.
And I’m sure there is also that universal desire to connect with other people in some way, to tell them about myself or my experiences. What I really look for in a project is something that resonates with life as I see it, and speaks to our experiences as humans. That probably sounds pretty highfalutin’ coming from someone who makes cartoons, but I think all the directors at Pixar feel the same way. We want to entertain people, not only in the vacuous, escapist sense (though to be sure, there’s a lot of that in our movies too), but in a way that resonates with the audience as being truthful about life—some deeper emotional experience that they recognize in their own existence. On the surface, our films are about toys, monsters, fish, or robots; at a foundational level they’re about very universal things: our own struggles with mortality, loss, and defining who we are in the world.

An image from "The Problem of Possible Redemption 2003," staged at the 2004 Whitney Biennial in New York. (Harell Fletcher)

Harrell Fletcher:

By the time I got to graduate school, I was not so interested in making more stuff, and instead started to move into another direction, which these days is sometimes called “Social Practice.” [...] I think of it as the opposite of Studio Practice—making objects in isolation, to be shown and hopefully sold in a gallery context. Most of the art world operates with this Studio Practice approach. In Social Practice, there is more of an emphasis on ideas and actions than on objects; it can take place outside of art contexts, and there is often a collaborative or participatory aspect to the work. So back to the question why I make art. In my case, the projects that I do allow me to meet people I wouldn’t ordinarily meet, travel to places I wouldn’t normally go to, learn about subjects that I didn’t know I would be interested in, and sometimes even help people out in small ways that make me feel good. I like to say that what I’m after is to have an interesting life, and doing the work that I do as an artist helps me achieve that.

Kwame Dawes

Kwame Dawes:

I’m trying to capture in language the things that I see and feel, as a way of recording their beauty and power and terror, so that I can return to those things and relive them. In that way, I try to have some sense of control in a chaotic world.
I want to somehow communicate my sense of the world—that way of understanding, engaging, experiencing the world—to somebody else. I want them to be transported into the world that I have created with language.

James Sturm:

I like the question “Why Do You Make Art?” because it assumes what I do is art. A flattering assumption. [...] Whatever the reason, an inner compulsion exists and I continue to honor this internal imperative. If I didn’t, I would feel really horrible. I would be a broken man.

KRS-One:

I was born this way, born to make art, to make hip hop. And I think I’m just one of the people who had the courage to stay with my born identity. Hip hop keeps me true to myself, keeps me human. Hip hop is the opposite of technology. Hip hop is what the human body does: Breaking, DJing, graffiti writing. [...] The manipulation of technology is what humans do, that’s art.

Or take graffiti writing. Put a writing utensil in any kid’s hand at age two or three. They will not write on a paper like they’ll later be socialized to do, they will write on the walls. They’re just playing. That’s human.

Now go read the rest of the article, get inspired -- then come back and tell us why YOU make art!

Challenge #5: Take Yourself Seriously

Okay people -- we've had our playtime, we've exchanged encouragement, now it's time to buckle down and take yourself seriously. Not just as an artist, but as a business person. You'd like to get paid for your work, right?

If that's the case, you're probably going to need business cards.

Here's a handy-dandy .PSD template to get you started. If you don't have access to Photoshop or would rather create your own template to work from, the standard dimensions for business cards are 3.5" x 2".

Now, I know how easy it is to say, "Oh yeah, I'll do that one day, right now I just need to focus on my actual work. Marketing can come later." Here are five reasons you might want to rethink that.


5) Business cards make it a lot less awkward to give people a way to get in touch with you.

• Think about it: you're chatting, you mention what you do, they mention that they're looking for someone who does just that, and then --- you awkwardly attempt to give them your contact information on the back of a grocery receipt. Soooooo classy.

4) Business cards give you a lot of bang for your buck.

• There are some great sites out there for printing affordable business cards -- we particularly love Moo.com and Vistaprint.com -- but you can also print your own as you need them. Once you have your card design, get some cardstock and ink, and go crazy -- or, if you're like me, go print them over at a copy shop where they have the giant paper cutter (it saves SO MUCH time). Voilà -- not only do you now look super professional, you also have a tiny paper army of mini advertisements working to get your name out there.

3) Business cards give you superpowers.

• Remember that tiny paper army I was talking about? You might not be able to be everywhere at once, but they can. All you have to do is carry them along in your pocket and leave a few at businesses and public spaces where you feel your future customers might frequent. Be sure to ask permission before you set them down -- most places will have a spot where they display related businesses' materials. And be sure to keep up a relationship with the places you've left your cards - the cards might be able to talk for you, but it's the people working at these establishments that are going to be referencing your cards when customers ask.

2) Business cards are another chance for you to make art.

• Wouldn't it be fun to make little pieces of art that you could give away and make people smile? My favorite version of this is what photographer and street artist Katie Sokoler did when she found she was out of business cards:
  


Now that's a card I'd pick up and want to learn more about! Here's a list of a bunch of other brilliant and creative ideas to get you started.

1) Business cards not only help others take you seriously, they help you take yourself seriously.

• Since quitting my 9 to 5 and going full time freelancer, I've dealt with my share of friends making jokes about my "job" and "working" from home. While these statements may have been intended purely as jokes, they still brought up a deeply-rooted fear I have about freelancing; that I'm just spinning my wheels, not actually growing a business. Taking direct business-related action, like creating and distributing business cards, not only helps me develop my company, but it gives me tangible things to point to anytime I or other people question my progress. No, it's not the cure-all, but it is a productive way to combat those fears.

Convinced? You should be. Even if you're not, how about you make some business cards and pass them around this week anyway? There worst thing that happens is a couple more people hear about about what you do. That can't be too bad, can it?

Take Five With Cassie Fox

Mini Bio: 
Cassie Fox generally keeps busy by kicking butt and fighting for the issues that are important to her. When not attending to her superhero duties, she spends her time in Tennessee with her amazing husband and two adorable mini-humans.

Creative Specialities: 
Poetry, Prose, Photography

The Best Way To Describe Her Is: 
Passionate - about her family, about her friends, about the issues that matter to her.

Personal Pages: 
http://thewretchedpoet.tumblr.com/ 

1. What is one thing you've learned as an artist that you wish you'd known when you first started out? 
For it to really, truly count, your art has to be your voice --it's not enough for it to come from your hands, or your mouth, or your body. Every pen stroke and brush stroke and adverb and pirouette have to be wholly and authentically a gift from your soul to yourself and the world around you. Be appreciative of what other artists have to say, but learn to say your own truths, and let others appreciate you. 

2. What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a creative person? 
I believe creative people are, by nature, extremely open – open hearts, open minds, open arms. We embrace all that we see, all we can sense and touch and dream – the beautiful and the horrible, the sweet-smelling and the decayed – and sometimes, we watch it crumble in our hands, everything reduced to a tiny pile of ashes or a burning pile of rubble, smoking at our feet. Sometimes, it seems like all the great triumphs and all the great ills of the world we live in sneak in under my skin, and when the input becomes greater than the output, I begin to feel claustrophobic inside myself. Words get bottled up in my bones, and extracting them can be a long, difficult process. 

3. If money were no object, what would you make? 
I would make everything. I would write the sun up into the sky and I would dance with dawn. I would draw lazy lunchtime daisies and photograph the faces of the fields around my house. I would sing out across a hundred sunsets and I would tell stories to the moon. But mostly, I would write – poems, prose, a single word, ten thousand words. 

4. What moment/place/time/setting lets you function to your fullest creative potential? 
I am both blessed and cursed with an imperfect but persistent muse. It doesn't so much matter where I am or what time I am there as where she is at any given moment. I think of her as kind of an older sister, one who comes home from college every once in a while, and who is really present and in the moment when she's there, staying up talking with you until three in the morning about all the things you're too embarrassed to mention to your friends, giving you your first wine cooler, lighting up a joint for you and not laughing when you cough, telling you in a hushed whisper to never shave down there because it's insanely itchy growing back and totally not worth it; but she dates these skeezy guys who leave bruises and she never eats enough and she has scars you don't even want to ask about, and she's just really wise and really funny and really amazing, but also really fucking broken. Which is all a very long way of saying that I write whenever the hell she shows up. 

5. How do you deal with the inevitable uncertainty that accompanies a creative life? 
I accept that being creative is not just something I do, it's something I am. When I was eight, we had a small pool in our backyard, and I spent most of the summer sinking to the bottom, learning how to hold my breath for longer and longer periods of time. By August, I'd worked my way up to two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, and the last thirty were the worst; sitting under four feet of water, pressing on top of me like a living thing, my eyes wide open and staring at my brother's brown legs, my lungs like liquid fire, counting, counting, imagining what it would be like to simply open my mouth and breathe, would it hurt, would anyone notice, wouldn't it be the best way to go, to inhale and then look right at the sun, so that a beautiful muted light was the last thing you saw before you closed your eyes? Not creating feels like that – like I'm eight again at the bottom of the pool, my chest expanding as big as the earth, ready to burst. And in the same way I always made it back to the surface in time, lungs sucking in sweet air that smelled like blue hydrangeas and tasted like chlorine and clover, I create, sentences and paragraphs and photographs and it feels just exactly like breathing.


For more from Cassie, be sure to check out her Tumblr.

Take Five With Kate Selby

Mini Bio:

Kate graduated with her BFA in Studio Art and her BA in Creative Writing, with a Minor in Music. As you might guess from the 2.5 degrees, she has a bit of a problem focusing in one creative area. These days, she runs a graphic and web design company with her husband Chad and four fur babies in Tucson, AZ, has an obsession with Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, and aims to be a mixed-discipline artist and midwife when she grows up.

Creative Specialities:

Electronic mixed-media installations and sculpture, graphic design, large-scale paintings and drawings, singing opera, writing poetry and short fiction.

The Best Way To Describe Her Is:

Multipassionate multipotentialite, doing her best to spread love in the world.

Personal Pages:
http://www.kateselby.com
http://mrs-degree.blogspot.com

1) What is one thing you've learned as an artist that you wish you'd known when you first started out?

Honestly, I still feel like I'm just "starting out" - I graduated from my undergrad almost two years ago, and though things are starting to become clearer for me, most of the time I'm left feeling very lost in how to move forward in my art career -- and impatient with myself for feeling so lost.
Yet when I really look at what I've been doing on a day-to-day basis, I can mark a slow trajectory toward my living a more creativity-oriented life. I guess that's the one thing I've learned -- that I need to stop expecting my career to materialize overnight, and just enjoy the process.

2) Do you have a ritual way of preparing to create?

Absolutely not. Maybe one day I will, but right now I'm very much still in a place of "I create when I have to," such as for a design commission. Which is not a bad thing, necessarily -- and it definitely uses a skill I learned in art school, making something up on command -- but otherwise my creativity is something that sits in the back on my head daydreaming while I get through the work and necessary obligations of my life. When I get a chance to let it out, I'm blessed that, at least so far, I have the problem of too many ideas to work with, not too few. I suspect it's kind of like a dam - right now, 99% of my creative impulses are stopped up immediately, because I either don't have the time or don't feel like making the time, so when I get a chance to open the floodgates they all come rushing forth. If I should ever get the chance to tear down the dam, I expect I'll have a big creative flood of work, and then I'd fall subject to the same high and low seasons of inspiration as everyone else.

3) What moment/place/time/setting lets you function to your fullest creative potential?

I need to have had a decent night's sleep. I need to not feel rushed. I prefer to have worked out and spent some time playing with the furbabies first. Time of day doesn't matter so much to me, as much as being able to stop worrying about external obligations -- so it helps if I've already checked Facebook and my email, and if I have my phone nearby. And being alone in the house, or working after Chad has gone to bed, really helps -- because I always feel like I'm missing out on participating in my relationships if I lock myself up to create when there are people around. I see that impulse needing to go away as I get to the point of having kids; I'm going to need to learn to be defensive of my time. But at the moment, the best thing I can do for my creativity is get the other stuff out of the way, so that I can unplug and just work.

4) If money was no object, what would you make?

What wouldn't I make?? I would make everything - I would make these fabulous clothing designs that currently only in my head, then photograph people dressed in them in these fantastic situations. I would make these giant LED wired sculptures, invoking renaissance art figures through the medium of old electronics all stuck together. I would make the giant mosaics that I've been dreaming about, and bronze sculptures forty feet tall. I would go nuts - and then I would stage a solo show out in the open in the middle of Central Park. Maybe with walkways twenty feet above the ground, and the art all suspended around the walkways. And I'd be in the middle with a symphony orchestra, singing opera. Because why not?

5) How do you deal with the inevitable uncertainty that accompanies a creative life?

 Carefully. Probably too carefully, though I'm trying to get better at that. I was still working a 9 to 5 up until three months ago, and even now I have my supplemental income jobs. Quitting my full-time job was a huge step forward for me, as far as embracing "living a creative life" (though I would argue that it's not necessary for you to quit your job in order to have a deeply creative life -- in my case, it was a step towards transitioning to the kind of life I envision my creativity thriving in). Post-graduation I had this narrative running about how I needed to prove that I was "making something of my life," despite having the type of degrees that people always joke about being a sure path to working in the food service industry and nothing more (which is a whole other classist, snobby issue that I can get into some other time). I took a lot of pride in being able to point to my having a salary, to having work-provided benefits. I was also often very unsatisfied, because I felt like, here I was, successfully escaped from the eighteen years of my life spent in school thinking about how I was wasting my life and never getting anything done, now sitting in an office thinking about how I was wasting my life and never getting anything done. I'm still not getting everything done that I want to do (see Question 1), but now that I'm taking more control over my time and giving less of it over to other people's agendas, I feel like more of my daily work is worthwhile.

I've been running the Twin Wicks Design business with Chad now for a little over a year, and while we are currently still finding new clients on a regular basis, I know that that won't always be the case, and there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thinking about what will happen when that time comes. I came across the term "lateral freelancing" not so long ago, and it pretty much perfectly sums up what I want to do with my life from a work perspective -- if I have enough different income sources flowing in, then even if one thing has bad month, the other ones will be there to carry me along (income diversification, anyone?). Not to mention, it keeps me from feeling bored -- and I'm often surprised at how easily my different business ventures can feed into each other. At some point, I'm hoping I can add my fine art creations, writing, and singing into the mix, but in the meantime I'm thinking of this time as laying a firm foundation for my creative life to stand on.

To get to the point, I deal with the uncertainty by making sure that I'm never putting all my eggs on one basket. Especially because I'm terrible at not dropping stuff.