Five Artists share their 2009 Goals

One of the biggest bar­ri­ers to plan­ning is our fear of fail­ure which in turn stems from a ten­dency to think we are the only ones in the world sub­ject to “fail­ure”. Because so  much of us is exposed and vul­ner­a­ble when we cre­ate,  we miss the fact that many, if not all of us, at one point or another retreat into our stu­dios and miss the oppor­tu­nity to learn from those who have “been there done that” almost daily.

Men­tors can help us see that real cre­ativ­ity is about risk and risk always includes a good chance of not achiev­ing what­ever goal we had. More impor­tantly, we can learn from expe­ri­enced cre­ators that what feels like fail­ure at the time it occurs is really a learn­ing, a chance to revisit and adjust our goals and noth­ing more…it doesn’t mean we are bad peo­ple or worse. It means we tried some­thing most would not even think of because we saw value in it and decided to see where the path led.

Men­tors also serve as mod­els of adap­tive behav­ior and exam­ples that the world doesn’t  come to an end if we don’t achieve a goal the way we had hoped. As a result, men­tors show us the human side of liv­ing and creating.

So…I asked our fea­tured artists to help by talk­ing about their 2009 goals, learn­ings and expe­ri­ences. Robin Pedrero’s guest post last week kicked the idea off. Over the next few days I’ll be post­ing a sort of vir­tual panel dis­cus­sion respond­ing to the fol­low­ing questions:

• 01/11/10  What were your goals going into 2009?
• 01/12/10 What worked…why and how
• 01/13/10   What didn’t work and why
• 01/14/10 Lessons you learned from 2009
• 01/15/10 Tips on goals , expec­ta­tions and bounc­ing back or any wis­dom you’d like to pass on

To learn more about each artist click on their names.

What were your goals going into 2009

Jan Blencowe

| web site | blog | twit­ter | face­book |

By late 2008 it was obvi­ous that social media sites like Face­book and the newer Twit­ter were boom­ing. I had accounts on both be really no idea how to max­i­mize them for show­cas­ing my art­work. There­fore my first goal for 2009 was to under­stand these sites and find ways to reach out and con­nect with other artists, col­lec­tors, gal­leries, muse­ums and any­one who loves the arts.

My sec­ond goal was one of strip­ping away things that had become a bur­den. While I do love to teach, it had become a heavy load and I felt it was inter­fer­ing with the amount of time and focus I wanted to ded­i­cate to paint­ing. So by the end of 2009 I had grace­fully ended all my teach­ing activities.

Now to the meat and pota­toes! My cre­ative goals for 2009 were:

• Clearly defin­ing my unique style and authen­tic visual voice
• Writ­ing a well crafted artist’s state­ment that truly reflects the char­ac­ter of my work
• Museum trips to study the works of Hud­son River School painters
• Paint­ing trips to the Hud­son River Valley
• Work larger and in a more clas­si­cal format
• Cre­ate a thicker and more var­ied paint surface
• Strive to cre­ate a poetic aes­thetic in my work
• Fill a 50 page sketch­book with water­color sketches from life
• Par­tic­i­pate in a few group shows
• Limit the num­ber of juried shows I sub­mit work to
• At least 4 full days ded­i­cated to paint­ing per week

Kris­ten Stein

| web site | blog | twit­ter |face­book |

My goal for 2009 was to con­tinue to cre­ate beau­ti­ful works of art fueled by pas­sion and imag­i­na­tion. I wanted to fur­ther expand my art­work into gal­leries, bou­tiques, retail estab­lish­ments, and set design for tele­vi­sion and motion pic­tures. I also wanted to broaden the reach of my art­work through licens­ing and through the help of an artist rep­re­sen­ta­tive or agent.

Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes

|web site |etsy | twit­ter |

I was so new at this whole busi­ness thing, I didn’t set goals for myself going into 2009 (I know, I can hear the sharp intake of breath from the col­lec­tive art-selling world!). I just sort of stum­bled around for a few months, until I real­ized I needed to seri­ously get hold of my busi­ness and set myself some attain­able goals.

Liese Mar­tin

| blog | twit­ter |

In 2009 I wanted to make art sales higher than the yearly salary I make at my day job run­ning a gallery so I could go straight to full-time artist. What? I aim high! In the end, not count­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions, I sold nearly 800 items of my art­work in 2009, and made 75% of the salary I make at my day job. I really almost made it. Amaz­ing. Please keep in mind that I treat my art like another full-time job, spend­ing 30+ hours a week on mak­ing and mar­ket­ing it.

Jane Camp­bell

| blog | Twit­ter |

My goals going into 2009 were to put myself & my art out there more than I have in the past, step out­side of my box,
try new tech­niques, be more sched­uled, nur­ture & cre­ate more rela­tion­ships and work toward becom­ing a self sup­port­ing
artist.