Five artists share tips on goals & expectations

One of the essen­tial traits of pro­fes­sion­als in any field and one of the crit­i­cal fac­tors that deter­mine the life time and growth of any field of endeavor is the will­ing­ness of the mas­ters to be stew­ards of the fields con­ti­nu­ity. Art is no less impor­tant than other left brained skill sets, in fact I would argue that its’ role in cul­tural sur­vival and growth is crit­i­cal. In that sense, it is impor­tant for artists and other cre­ative prac­ti­tion­ers to ensure their artis­tic skills sur­vive by devel­op­ing their own replace­ments i.e. the next gen­er­a­tion of artists.

While this ret­ro­spec­tive is based on a theme of shar­ing and mod­el­ing pro­fes­sional prac­tices, this last install­ment offers a final excla­ma­tion as our five artists offer tips rel­a­tive to learn­ing from goals, intents an expectations.

What tips can you pass on to younger/emerging artists about goals, inten­tions and expectations?

Jan Blencowe

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Goals are far bet­ter than res­o­lu­tions when fac­ing a brand new year. Res­o­lu­tions are easy to aban­don and excuse because you lack that mys­te­ri­ous thing called “will power”. Goals on the other hand are part of a plan, with con­crete steps to take and there­fore seem much more obtain­able and in fact have a bet­ter chance of being real­ized because of that.

Expect excel­lence of your­self but with kind­ness. Being an artist is hard. It takes a lot of inner courage just to cre­ate and even more to put your work out there. Sur­round your­self with kin­dred spir­its and sup­port­ers. Allow your­self peri­ods when inspi­ra­tion dries up, and paint­ings that bomb. Respect your vision and your process, dig deep and believe in what you do.

There’s no sub­sti­tute for plain old hard work. Give your­self the lux­ury of time and allow the fruits of hard work to man­i­fest them­selves over the years. Every once in a while look back and look at sev­eral years’ worth of work , forge a deep appre­ci­a­tion for what you have accom­plished and celebrate.

Kris­ten Stein

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For me, I don’t try to set unre­al­is­tic goals. I do try to push myself to fur­ther expand the reach of my art­work but in ways that seem fea­si­ble for my cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.  I am always will­ing to lis­ten and learn and try to incor­po­rate new infor­ma­tion into my sales and mar­ket­ing approach. Everyone’s approach is dif­fer­ent and what works for one, might not work for all. So lis­ten­ing to other’s suc­cesses and fail­ures can help you out­line your busi­ness strat­egy. I am hope­ful that the econ­omy will con­tinue to show improve­ment and that the suc­cess made in pro­mot­ing ‘the hand­made move­ment’ will con­tinue into 2010.

Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes

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Once you’ve been in busi­ness for about a year, you should have a good idea what each month’s rev­enue should be for you. Set your­self a goal of 15% increase over 2009 — it’s not an unat­tain­able num­ber, and you might even sur­prise your­self by sur­pass­ing this number.

Liese Mar­tin

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Aim high, work harder than you thought you could, never give up and remem­ber… you are a sep­a­rate entity from your work. If some­one rejects your work, they are not reject­ing YOU. You have an incred­i­ble gift in the abil­ity to cre­ate, feel blessed to have that out­let even if you don’t sell a lot of artwork.

Please encour­age oth­ers. Their suc­cess will not harm you.

Jane Camp­bell

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While step­ping out of my box this year, I came to under­stand that people/customers are often resis­tant to your artis­tic changes, and as artists we are in a con­stant state of change. When you paint Angels for instance,they expect you to paint Angels, any­thing new is not often met with same appre­ci­a­tion, how­ever, as an artist you can not let your­self become stag­nant. Express your­self, stretch your imag­i­na­tion, try new things, paint things that please you, enjoy what you do regard­less of whether you think it will sell or not or whether oth­ers will like it or not. Being an artist is a bless­ing and a privledge.  I say learn how to make a chicken last for 3 din­ners and cre­ate cre­ate create!