“Remember to delight yourself first, then others will be truly delighted.”                                                                                     SARK

One of the many great things about a career of creating is what you need to stock up on in order to create.

Delight.

What Delights you?

Make a list of anything that fills you with Delight. Then do something Delightful every day. (Schedule it in if you have to!)

Julia Cameron calls this “Filling the Well”.

 This doesn’t need to take much time. What you get in return enables you to give from yourself with clarity and abundance. 

This path is about authenticity. When you are truly engaged with what delights you, you are connecting with your authenticity in a deep way.

When you share what you make with delight, it inspires others to feel it too.

How great is that? You get to feel good, make stuff, share it, then other people feel good.

Remember this the next time you are pushing, pushing your creativity to produce.

Go back to what Delights you and revel in it.

Make your creation from this place and you will always be on your right path. That path is infinite and expansive. There is no need to push. You can just breathe in the Delight and breathe out into your work.

You create what you are. So be Delight-Full!

What Delights you? Post in the comments.

My favorite tv show is “So you think you can dance?”.

I love that it is a combination of presence and skill, both have to hit at the right time for that 90 second dance and they usually do. How do the dancers do it?

Practice.

The dancers come to the show after training for years and having the courage to audition their hearts out. Now the real challenges begin.

They have a couple of days to integrate the choreography, a style of dance they may have never done before and a new partner.

They fall down- alot.

Then they get back up, they keep going.

The final dance is performed before millions of people.  If they are brave enough to trust the choreographer, their partner, the dance, their body and their soul, they pour the culmination of everything they embody onto that stage.

A decade or more of practice for 90 seconds of being in that moment, in that dance.

Those baby steps of practicing really add up.

Every day that you are present in your creative work you are creating everything that you are and laying the groundwork for more.

So keep showing up.

Practice.

Art is made to be experienced, first by you then by viewers. Putting your artwork into the marketplace is completing the cycle, yet this is a big challenge for alot of artists.

So what are the pros and cons of marketing your artwork?

Pros

Income, reputation, feeling successful, useful feedback, fans and support.

Cons

Rejection, criticism, feeling like you are not making work to the market or not finding the market for your work, doubt.

Why would anyone risk the cons?

Because it is the only way to grow as an artist.

The viewers and markets can vary considerably, from appreciate guests of an elderly home to a high profile NYC gallery. Unless you have the courage to risk putting your work out in the world, no one will ever be able to appreciate it.

This process may seem daunting in your head, so get it out of your head and start working on it. From any one place to any other, there is always a path in between the start and the finish. It may not be the one you expect, but if you can dream it, you can do it. It is already a part of you.

Fact is you’ve already experienced the cons at some point in your life. They are not there to pummel you down. They are there to help you grow, they act as signposts along the path, letting you know when it is time to realign.

It can be difficult to feel that way at the time but each experience, positive or negative is a chance to make another choice based on, or in spite of that experience. Instead of reacting, try proacting. Center yourself continuously during this process.

Making choices from your center will always keep you on the right track. You’ll feel good and that is success in itself.

What difficult choices have you learned from in your career? Post in the comment section.

Taking risks and being outside of your comfort zone doesn’t have to be a huge event. Any time you choose something a little more positive than where you are, you are growing.

The little steps add up. While driving a car from one place to another you don’t expect to arrive instantly. You leave from where you are and keep going in the direction of your destination until you inevitably get there.

The path may involve some detours, unexpected events, “are we there yet?” thoughts, but you know if you keep heading toward your destination, you will arrive.

Your starting place helps determine what type of action is growth for you. Running a marathon may be a risk for some and a daily habit for others. Growth can occur in an action as simple as going for a walk instead of eating a bag of chips.

So what is your idea of a risk? Post in the comments.

I’ve been collecting quotes about artists and creativity. I have a whole book of Picasso quotes. That artist didn’t hold anything back:

“No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

This was an artist who was so passionate about his work that he spent 7 years reworking “Guernica”, his work about the tragedy of war. He specifically chose  a palette of black and white so that his Cubist images of horror would be viewed as factually as the newspaper, so that his viewers could not deny the devastation that he presented.

Your art may not be an act of war, but I believe that all art is an act of courage. The courage to show up, to venture into the unknown, go back to the rest of life and then show up in the studio again the next day and the day after that.

What do you consider your art an instrument of? Post in the comments.

One of the reasons I love gardening is that I find it fertile soil (pun intended) for metaphors about making art.

There’s a story about a farmer who decides to put a baby pumpkin (still growing on the vine) in a glass jar just to see what would happen. He forgets about his experiment until the fall as he trips over the bottle among his field of big, beautiful pumpkins. In spite of the same growing conditions as the other pumpkins, the one in the jar only grew as big as the jar.

So, how big is your container?

The bigger you allow your art career dreams to get, the more possible it is to achieve them. What do you imagine your retrospective to look like? I imagined mine as paintings in a library, not realizing at the time that those books were the ones I had written and read.

Take 5 minutes today and imagine your retrospective. What would it look like? Where would it be? Who would be there?

Share your vision in the comments section.

“You can do anything in 15 minutes.” -Flylady

5 Great Reasons to use a Timer in the Studio

1. When you’re uninspired.
2. When you want to work all night long.
3. When you need to organize it.
4. When you’re juggling a few different projects.
5. When you are doing a supply/artwork inventory.

In the past couple of years, I have been amazed at the power of this little gadget over my procrastination thoughts. At first, I was embarrassed. Who needs to trick themselves into doing what they want to/should be doing?

Then I started noticing the affects  of these 15 min. tasks on my life. I am waaay more consistent. I rarely hit burnout. I am able to tackle studio/career maintenance not just the fun stuff. I am able to tackle tasks that I dread because it’s only for 15 minutes (9 times out of 10 it usually only takes 5 minutes!) Those are a few of the actual real results from utilizing this simple tool.

What can you do in 15 minutes? Post in the comments.

Creative DNA is the similarities shared by individual artists to each other throughout history.

Picasso’s creative DNA is different from Monet but similar to cave painters. Two Realism painters can have very different DNA. The DNA is about similarities of sense and approach to artmaking, not about style, but use of mark, color, composition, movement, timing/speed and light.

Experiencing one piece of art can bring up experiences of other, seemingly different, works of art. An artist is born with their DNA, it is their inherent visual sensibility regardless of their age, style, subject or medium. As an artist develops their work over time, bodies of work usually become more cohesive in feel. The artist’s sensibility (their creative DNA) will come through regardless of their chosen technique.

Who are your artistic ancestors? Post in the comments.

Today the litany of excuses was reigning supreme in my head as I was avoiding going to the studio to work. Well, I’ve been working so hard in there, I feel completely uninspired, surely it can’t hurt to take a day off…

That was what I was feeling. I decided to follow my intention to show up anyway.

Here’s what I did:

5 Steps to Get Your Butt into the Studio When You Really Don’t Feel Like It

1. Started playing music I really love.
2. Sat at my studio desk.
3. Opened up a of book of art exercises, deciding I would practice technique.
4. Completely ignored the art exercise book.
5. Started playing with some collages.

                                     = I made some art!

Yeah! This was very exciting for me. After I decided to let go of any expectations, I dragged myself in and then started to play, singing along to a new song I had downloaded. I started with nothing and ended up feeling curious and excited. Looking forward to tomorrow.

How do you inspire yourself to work? Post in the comments section.