It's funny. Or maybe not so funny. Often when we begin to pursue a passion as a source of income we lose the wonder and drive for that passion. It seems that in the "making a living" from it we feel like we're drowning in the details of being in business for ourselves, and we forget why we love to do that thing we do.
Reminding ourselves of what our passion means to us personally is the key to building success in pursuing it as a business. That vision of yourself as artist, baker, or candlestick maker and the contribution you bring to the world through your loving endeavors is critical to your well being.
And this vision is the one thing you need to be clear about when pursuing a business based on doing the things you love.
In The Guerilla Exhibitor™ (GX), a business course for artists and creative pros, this is exactly the initial topic we tackle - first reminding ourselves why we love our art form, and then crafting a Vision Statement that is inspiring and meaningful to us. This statement will call us back to ourselves and our passion-even in our darkest moments. (The bonus is that we get to this point by using art -and we end up with a treasure that helps remind us of that inspiration!)
The Artist's Vision Statement
The process of getting to the Vision Statement is simple in structure-but sometimes a bear in getting through the emotional and mental tangles generated by the opinions, attitudes and judgments about the arts people seem to hold (this means you dear artist).Before I outline the steps for you to take to create a Vision Statement, I ask that you adopt a fundamental, necessary practice when exploring your inspiration and love for being artist - be gentle with yourself.
This is not an exercise to beat yourself (or others) up - rather you are looking, clinically and respectfully, at all that is there for you about your identification as artist, so you may get to the real heart of what drives you, and inspires you, as an artist.
Okay. Here we go.
SUPPLIES YOU'LL NEED
- scratch paper (or a journal or notebook)
- an empty box - small (say 4x4x4" - can be paper, wood, tin - with a lid or a flap - it can be a wooden or papier-mâché box like those you can pick up at a craft store)
- collage glue
- paint brush (for the glue)
- magazines or other source of images
- scissors and/or a craft knife
- markers (optional)
- acrylic paint (optional)
- glitter glue (optional - and one of my favorites)
- nik nacky things (optional - ribbons, buttons, wrist watch parts, etc.)
Set-up an area where you will be uninterrupted. Give yourself a few hours for the entire exercise-get the kids to a babysitter, send your spouse out with their friends to go for a 4-hour hike or bike ride, let your roommates know you need quiet time to work on this personal project. And then...
The first step is to unload from your mind everything you know about the attitudes, opinions and judgments you, your community, the world has about the arts, your art, yourself as artist. Look at it from as many angles as you can imagine. Do this on paper. (In the course this is a conversation lead by the course leader on paper, in group discussion, in partnership with other participants in the course). Write down the negatives on one page and the positives on another. Notice which category has the most information. Which one has the most powerful "feeling" attached to it?
Here are some common statements to prime the pump: most artists are "starving artists", or only when you are dead will you become famous, or it's hard to make a living as an artist, or art isn't a real profession, or artists are gods and goddesses.
Then after you've unloaded all that onto paper, pick up the negative portion, and ask yourself - where do all those stories come from? Who's sitting on your shoulder, or standing next to you talking into your ear saying these things? Like for real? And who's choosing to listen to those opinions?
Then evaluate all that information, all that storytelling, in terms of the impact it has on you-where is it zapping your energy, your willingness to try something new, your enthusiasm, your quality of life? Are you measuring up to your ideals and how does that feel?
Follow that same process this time with the positive portion. Write out a list of words and phrases that describe what you love about your art-creating it, hanging or performing it, having someone buy a ticket or purchase a work. How do you feel? Write all that down.
