Marketing

Welcome to part 3! This rather short segment takes the separate needs of Creator,Makers and Producers and matches up with the  Social Media channels that will best help them accomplish their goals. In the next and final installment of this series we will take a look at how these tools can best be put to work to supplement and bolster your marketing strategy. Once again please note that for simplicity sake the overlap between each segment of the creative spectrum is not being considered here instead it is assumed that overlaps will occur in varying degrees and intensities.

Creators

Brainstorming & Collaboration

• Microblogs / Presence apps Twitter, Pownce
• Photo sharing Flickr
• Video sharing YouTube,
• Interactive Networks shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network. Likemind, Ning
• Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites

Critique & Feedback

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce
• Wikis PB wiki
• Photo & video sharing Flickr,YouTube
• Social/Interactive networks shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network. Likemind, Ning
• Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites
• Opinion sites epinion,ask

Moral & Professional Support

• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning forum
• Event Networks Meetup

Makers

Visibility

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku, blog catalogue, good blogs
• Photo & video sharing - Flickr,Youtube
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn,  deviant art, Behance network, Ning
• Event Networks Meetup
• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Relationship Development

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
• Event Networks Meetup

Market Research

• Blogs
• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning
• Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites

Customer/Client Communication

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku,
• Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
• Event Networks Meetup
• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Market Connection

• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site

Relationship Development

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
• Event Networks Meetup

Producers

Visibility

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku, blog catalogue, good blogs
• Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn,  deviant art, Behance network, Ning
• Event Networks Meetup
• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Relationship development

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site

Market research

• Blogs
• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning
• Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites

Market Connection

• E-commerce: Etsy, e-bay
• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site

Customer/Client Communication

• Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku,
• Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
• Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
• Event Networks Meetup
• E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Coming up next…

A look at each of the segments to the best mix for each and to begin more detail examination of exactly how those mixes can work.

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

Marketing Monday

begins today, born from conversations with a couple of artists over the weekend. They  asked me if I had an thoughts about how they could use the winter down time to help build their businesses and their sales. The consesus was a winter long series focused on different aspects of marketing would be helpful. Here is a tentative list of subjects we came up with:

• Beginning the branding process- a brief outline to help give direction to the process along with some homework.
• Learning to use the 80/20 rule to get more productivity and sales.
• Getting familiar with the internet - Learning how to use the internet to increase your visibility and build connections with your following.
• Developing a show strategy- Finding the right shows with the right buyers and leveraging your existing contacts to bring you more sales.
• Developing a stay in touch strategy - learn how to build a keep in touch strategy that works on vitual auto pilot.
• Identify and develop other income streams - Relying completely on art fair or gallery sales greatly increases your vulnerability to economic shifts, find out if this strategy is for you.

There will be more as I think of them and please feel free to request expansion of a subject or even a different one.

Today’s Monday  Marketing tips start with Branding

Start the branding process
Now is a perfect time to step back and take a look at how your buyers see your and evaluate if it matches with how you want to be seen. A brand is not a logo or collection of graphic symbols instead it is the sum total of who you are, your values, your ideas, your personality. Branding is all about transferring value from your products to you, so that YOU are the value associated with attracting  buyers instead of your products. If done right your buyers will think of you first when they have a need or problem that you can solve because you will be foremost in their minds.

Briefly the steps to branding are:

• Know your vision and claim your vision. I wrote about this in an earlier article.
• Know your competition and claim your difference- As an artist your competition can range from other home decorating products to other artists. You need to not only examine who would buy from you but also who would best be served by going to your competition and why.
• Know your target market and claim your perfect customer - Successful small businesses know who their best buyers are, how they spend their time, how they make their buying decisions and where they hang out. They also have taken time to develop a profile of who they like most to work with. Refining all this information is important because it helps you develop a following of people you don’t have to sell to, who instead are eager to buy whatever you offer in short they are your ….Tribe.
• Know what makes you unique and claim it- As an artist your uniqueness is personal and emotional and in large part seated in your own value. Your uniqueness sets you apart whether you are vying for a gallery representation or to stand out among other artists at an art fair. It is the value you provide to your buyers above and beyond what others offer.
• Know how to spread the word about what you have to offer and claim your happy tribe- Knowing how you will attract the perfect buyers you described earlier is very important to your success. You will need to know which of the myriad of choices will work best for you and you must know that discovery of the right combination will take time and testing.

Tweet This

Before we go any further…

I want to point out that what I am describing here is a process, a way of looking at how we create whether it involves groups of people or individuals and what we need in the way of tools and environments to support us along the way. The  concepts and processes are not linear or pretty and admittedly leave lots of room for further exploration and development.

Let’s get going..

Now that we have the creative spectrum somewhat sketched out let’s see how it can work with the social media. The primary element of social media, in fact its’ keystone is connectivity at levels that far exceed what we could have imagined even a year ago. And… this connectivity has different levels of applicability depending on the users intent and goals.  Before we  look in detail at specific social media let’s try to find what  Creators, Makers and Producers  need to succeed, what tools are most useful to them. The brief list below summarizes common tools and methods, some have been available but limited in their usefulness.

• Brainstorming - This is one of the fundamental tools of creativity. While it is possible that it can be done alone,  in this context it is considered best used interactively with 2 or more participants.
• Collaboration -Whether between those working in like media or dissimilar media collaboration is often a tool for generating new outcomes. Often new ways of seeing the same problem/issue or a new direction or concept emerges through collaboration and interaction
• Critique and feedback -In order for creatives to successfully achieve their vision they need to engage the eyes, hearts and opinions of others as a reality check. Given their goal…does their concept or theory attain the desired outcome?
• Moral and professional Support - Just as critique and feedback are important to the creative process so is having access to moral and professional support. This kind of support can be everything from a colleague being a phone call away to a regular mastermind group that provides encouragement and professional mentoring. provide  user friendly  tools for dialogue.
• Background research - One of the early steps in a creative venture is background research designed to find out what if anything has been done before and what the results were.
• Market research - Separate from background research is the particular type of research linked to the branding process. Market research is important in the concept stage as well as the producer stage, however, the intensity of its use may vary throughout the spectrum.
• Client/customer support - Good customer support which can include helping customers use their products, to getting usability feedback is very important .
• Visibility- Visibility contributes heavily to a product’s success…  the more extensive the visibility possibilities generally the better the sales.  For visibility to work it must give the users the ability to be seen by their buyers.
• Customer/client communication -Being able to communicate in a direct and timely manner to  customers  keep them informed and up to date for new developments is a strong determiner of success.
• Market connection - Having reliable channels to connect to markets is also very important to ensuring good communication  with users and being able to respond to changes in market preferences.
• Relationship development - The relative ease with which potential relationships can be identified and developed between Makers and Producers and their markets as well as amongst their colleagues cannot be underestimated. This factor is particularly important now with the decline of traditional interruption based marketing.

Now lets take a more focused look at  these in relation to the Creators,Makers and Producers. A word of caution…this is at best an approximation and for simplicity sake implies that the spectrum overlap areas will also include overlap in social media usefulness.

Creators

Since this part of the spectrum leans heavily towards the conceptual  ( see part 1)   tools that will be the most useful are the ones most likely to enhance creative thought. Their primary needs are:

• Brainstorming
• Collaboration
• Critique and feedback
• Moral and professional Support

Makers

Again as described previously in part 1, this group starts to interact with the market while at the same time providing feedback to the original creators of the recipes and templates they are refining. Their primary needs include:

• Visibility
• Relationship development
• Market and background research
• Moral and professional support
• Customer communication
• Relationship development
• Market connection

Producers

This part of the spectrum’s needs are quite different than the others in that it is heavily market focused. The primary needs of Producers are:

• Visibility
• Relationship development
• Market and background research
• Customer communication
• Relationship development
• Market connection

In summary  the Creative community needs the following environments and tools:

• Interactive to easily sprout and nurture creative thought and interact with peers
• Relationship building to enable easy relationship development with their markets peers
• Market focused to help build and maintain visibility and disburse brand messages

The next step…

is to take a look at social media to see what tools are available and which type of  media works best for Creators, Makers and Producers respectively. Let’s first look at what constitutes Social Media by definition…Wikipedia describes it as

“Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.”

Organizing Social Media

• Blogs and Microblogs web site that allows individuals or groups to produce an ongoing conversation, microblogs limit uses to small bursts of information.
• Interactive/Social networking networks that allow users to interact directly either in real time of very close to it.
• Social network aggregation sites that gather all of the social media messages and content and categorize it for reading
• Events networks online networks that allow users to organize users around specific subjects and schedule live on-site meetings.
• Wikis a web site that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by it’s users
• Social bookmarking sites that allow users to save, recommend and comment on web content
• Opinion sites consumer evaluation, review of products and services
• Photo and Video sharing sites that provide a means of sharing organizing and sharing photographic and video content with users
• E-commerce sites that allow users to sell products they created or are re-selling

Matching the needs with the tools

Now lets organize these according to how they can help the creative community with an eye on the specific needs Identified earlier.

Brainstorming - Collaboration

Microblogs / Presence apps Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Photo sharing Flickr
Video sharing YouTube,
Interactive Networks shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network. Likemind, Ning
Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites

Critique and feedback

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Wikis PB wiki
Photo & video sharing Flickr,YouTube
Social/Interactive networks shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network. Likemind, Ning
Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites
Opinion sites epinion,ask

Moral and professional Support

Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning forums
Event Networks Meetup

Background research

E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
Wikipedia
Microblogs / Presence apps Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Social bookmarking Delicious, StumbleUpon,Digg, Mixx, Reddit
Event Networks Meetup

Market research

Blogs
E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning
Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites
Event Networks Meetup

Visibility

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku, blog catalogue, good blogs
Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn,  deviant art, Behance network, Ning
Event Networks Meetup
E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Customer/client communication

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku,
Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
Event Networks Meetup
E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Market connection

E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site

Relationship development

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
Event Networks Meetup

Part 3…..

will will take a closer look at just what and how Creators, Makers and Producers can utilize social media from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube.

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

In previous articles I discussed some of the broader issues and benefits related to Social Media/Networking and how this new tool could benefit artists. The first article “What’s up with Social media” I introduced the concept of “ambient intimacy” and how the growth of social networking via the Internet has increased our ability to build relationships with our buyers. In “How to use Social Media” I talked about how social media gives us the ability to engage our buyers, build relationships with them and eventually develop a tribe organized around our art and our values.

This series takes the Social Media examination a little deeper by examining who can benefit the most from social media and what tools are most applicable. And more specifically how each segment of the generalized label of creativity can benefit most from Social Media.

A recent post by Mark McGuinness  on the Lateral Action blog describing the best 10 social networking sites for creatives also carried an underlying theme…collaboration, interaction and feedback are important to the creative process. The underlying premise is similar to one I have argued about here…the elimination of geography, time and other barriers by the internet and most recently by the evolution of Social Media has  made collaborative tools available we could barely imagine even 10 years ago. That said, reading Mark’s post brought up some questions and issues I have been chewing on for a while.

The two questions came to mind:

• Why are artists either resistant or slow to use new methods of reaching their markets?
• Who is using the methods?

As I skimmed  Mark’s interviews I noticed two things:

• The primary users especially of the hard core social network sites (focused on providing collaborative environment) were really true creatives and not necessarily defining themselves through the traditional definition of art.
• The second thing was that I noticed I had been dumping anything and everything however remote that involved creating art into the CREATIVE hopper.

My ah ah moment was seeing that not all art is creative and not all creatives are artists!! Well, you might say DUH!! …but I think quite a lot of people make the same mistake. Dumping everything into the same pot without differentiation creates a lot of confusion and a sense of cultural disorientation. We have no criteria to organize, no boxes to slip things into all the while scratching our collective heads over the obvious  differences we do see within the creative community.

So I noticed that I felt a common bond, a like mindedness with those frequenting the more hard core networks. I could feel the excitement of creative juices. A frame of reference started to emerge …instead of a hopper of creativity maybe we need to look at it as a spectrum with different shades or levels each fading into the other. For simplicity sake I defined the spectrum as consisting of: Creators, Makers and Producers. This seemed to explain for me why I for example thrive on creative interaction and often feel lost without it while others tend to keep themselves isolated. So let’s take a closer look at these parts of the creative spectrum. The graphic below is sort of an abstract representation of how I see the spectrum, there is no significance to the size or color of each section…just in case you were wondering.

Creators

Creators are the original thinkers, the mashers who see possibilities in everything.

• They were born with a vision of their world or they have discovered their unique world view as they matured.
• They also seem to be naturally drawn to one or more mediums for communicating that vision and most importantly they generally seem thrive in interactive environments where they can explore the edges of their visions.
• They are the inventors, the early adapters the experimenters… fear of the unknown is not something they are familiar with.
• They tend to operate in a conceptual/theoretical world.

While admittedly there is a great deal of overlap possible here, those in the creator hue of the spectrum are not necessarily good at translating their concepts into reality.

Makers

That role of translator is given over to…The Makers. The overlap area between the pure creators and the  pure makers is the home of those who can straddle both worlds, they are the ones who understand the concepts clear enough to shape them into reality, they give the concepts form and process.

The pure makers are the ones who can take the recipe and adapt it within the context of their creative medium.

• They develop new ways to throw a particular  type of porcelain clay, or use a particular type of painting surface, or write a variation of a given code.
• They tend to be medium specific, developing a point of view or voice that shapes the techniques they develop and once set their style generally does not vary.
• These are the fine crafts people, who are not so much focused on production of a commodity as they are on giving form to their voice.
• They frequently refine  concepts developed by creators, into an array of techniques for working in their medium.

As makers move closer to focusing on production they slowly become..Producers.

Producers

Producers work from recipes and templates to produce a specific line of product in the creative spectrum they are the factory focused on numbers and replication. Producers are the artisans of the spectrum and also the distributors they bring the efforts of the creators and the makers to the ordinary consumer. In a sense their work is utilitarian it takes the maker’s pot off the mantel or bookshelf and places it on the table for everyday use.

Questions

• So where do you fall on  the cretive spectrum?
• Do these generalized categories work?
• How does each category interact best with social media?

Part 2 of this series will look at just how each part of the Creative Spectrum can use social media and what parts of social media work best with each of the three creative spectrum categories.

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

Just as you regularly go to your Doc for wellness checks you should also be doing the same thing with your brand.  The pulse of your brand’s heart and subsequent ability to circulate your message through out you tribe is extremely important to your success. You should make it a habit to check its’ health several times a year.  The best way to do this is to ask your tribe through a survey.

In addition to a survey of your tribe it is important to regularly review the health of your brand by looking at the following areas:
Are you known for a unique and distinct identity? Are you known for something more than your work?

• Check to see if you are known by who you are rather than what you make.
• You should be identifiable by your values, your presentation.
• People should see your work and be reminded of you how you see the world and what you represent.  In other words potential followers should be able to recognize the totality of your value, interactions with you should be seen in the context of their total interactive experience. They should think of you when they feel the need for bringing more art into their lives.

Are you known to the people you want to serve?

• is your uniqueness known to you
• do you know what makes you attractive
• what drives people to choose you over someone else.
• is your uniqueness known to potential buyers  do the people who would best be served by what you have to offer know

Is your message consistent?

• Does everything you present to the public project the values and quality you want to be perceived as offering? or are you materials, you booth, your image disorganized, inconsistant and lead to unfaithful representation of the value you offer.

Does your pricing reflect and communicate the value of what you offer?

• Your pricing should reflect your value not what you think the buyers will pay. It must not only cover your costs but also reflect your own value in what you have to offer.

Do you have to sell?

• In a nutshell you should not have to sell. People should be able to easily associate you with what how well you satisfy them and how enjoyable the experience of working with you is. You should automatically come up in their minds when they have an art related need.
• Having to sell implies persuasion or even worse happenstance…connecting with your buyers eliminates both.

Do you have little or no repeat buyers?

• More than just repeat transactions you should aim for repeat interactions as part of a long term relationship with your followers.
• To have repeat buyers you need be a leader, and a friend with your buyers. The most important element of repeat buyers is staying in touch.

Are you stressed and feeling a lack of joy from your work?

• This really needs no explanation….if you don’t derive joy from what you do you shouldn’t be doing it!

Audio version…click the arrow to play or click the download to download and listen later.



Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

Everywhere I look lately I see another Guru offering up another version of “how to succeed in tough time”, usually in form of simple check lists. Today I received a couple of them in my e-mail and I was struck by their similarity and realized that what is going on is everyone is saying that their lipstick works best for changing the look of the pig of our current cultural shift. In doing so for the most part they ask us to have “faith” in their lipstick without addressing the nature of the pig, they want us to assume that all pigs are alike and we all see pigs in the same way. Thus making their particular solution to the problem the only one or the best, or the most magical.

The lipstick solution is based on

• The assumptions most people look for the easy way to solve problems, the way that seems simple at first and appears to offer a quick solution.
• Fear generated by the impending changes
• Magical thinking that if you ignore something “bad” it ceases to exist.
• One size fits all thinking ( a mindset that is still stuck in the Mass approach to problem solving)

So before you take up the lipstick take a look at the problem, examine it through your eyes and your life then look at the lipstick to see if and how it can be adapted to you. If it still doesn’t change things or requires you to be something else other than who you are (not a pig) then toss it out! It is far easier to approach problems and bumps in the road when you have clarity about who you are and what makes you tick.

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

In his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Malcom Gladwell notes that one of the key factors important in creating a movement  (in our language that =art) is the Power of the The Few. Over and over products, people, actions, and movements  move from obscurity to popularity, from low parrticipation to celebrity status as a result of the actions of a few key players. He calls these people…CONNECTORS. Through their network of friends, aquaintances and inate love of collecting people the connectors bring the right people together. They are the ones who say ” I know Bob who knows Sarah, let me give Bob a call”. In most cases these connectors main goal is not to be seen as “the go-to” person but rather they delight in collecting people.

As we have talked earlier, we are in the early stages of the birth of a new way of doing things and for artists that means being able to build and rely on your network or tribe of supporters and followers. The first thing that should be on list in building your network is identifying the connectors because they are the ones who cary the most water for you and do so gladly. They are the ones who easily say “I know someone who would really like your work” and proceed to send not one but several people to you at your next show.

Do you know who your connectors are? What do they look like? Where do they hang out?

Leave a comment to let us know.

power of the few

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

Today while walking my pal Loki I started thinking about recipes and how they differed from deeper and broader approaches to a problem. For many years I did a lot of baking from cookies to cakes to french Brioche and I remembered that I always new what I was going to make, if it was bread I knew whether I wanted whole wheat or oat bread. I would pull the recipe from my file review the ingredients and then begin. this is where most people would continue…following the recipe, addint the right amount of everything that was called for and setting the oven at the prescribed temp.

As I thought more about recipes I remembered the hours and even days I spent in darkrooms. The process of developing film and printing images also relies on recipes. The film needs to be developed with the chemicals at the prescribed temperature with each successive step. The same was true once the film was dry and ready to print. The process followed prescribed times and temperatures. Like baking, if the recipe was followed the outcome would be the same regardless of who was using the recipe.

The “what if?” question

For the non-curious, the fearful, following the recipe is what life is all about…not breaking the rules or even bending them. Now don’t for one minute think I am advocating wholesale lawlessness…what I am saying is that there is a difference between the person who approaches life as something to experience, an adventure and one who lives from fear of failure mostly. One is not better than the other and we all make our choices along the continuum, somewhere on the more risky side of that continuum innovation starts to happen.

Those on the innovation side are the restless, the curious, the discoverers and more often than not they are also outcasts because of their deviation from the norm…these are the heretics, the original thinkers, the ones who see the recipe as simply the starting point for many different and unpredictable outcomes. They can take the status quo and project it into the future and see not only the predictable outcome but also an almost infinite number of variations all based on asking “what if”. They know that “what if” could lead to a great succuss as well as it could lead to a major flop. The difference for them is they learn, they adapt and they have faith in their process, knowing that the drama of failure is just that…a drama.

“Just tell me what to do!”

Today, many are looking for recipes especially given the current state of the world economy…we want a fix which is often code for “tell me what to do”, fix me but don’t ask me to learn to fix myself that is to scary what if I fail! The innovators know that the recipe is just the process which cannot work without knowing what the recipe is for, what the predictable outcome might be. If you want bread you get a bread recipe not a cookie one, and if you want a specific kind of bread a specific kind of recipe is needed…but for the innovator the excitement has just begun. The non-innovator will settle for the predictable. For the innovator the vision must come first so that the recipe can be adapted to changes in conditions, the room is colder than usual which means that the yeast will rise slowly if ever, a few pinches of sugar, a warm damp cloth will help the yeast rise.

Look inside…

If you are concerned as an artist about how to be successful in the face the challenges and uncertainties we are seeing everyday, if you are wondering how you can harness the coming changes…then don’t look for recipes first. Look inside yourself, rediscover your vision, revitalize your voice and rediscover what you really want to do. Once you have rediscovered your voice and owned it, also realize that your voice may change with time and you are in control of what if at all that change will look like. Only after you have the clarity of your vision tacked up on your studio wall should start to look at recipes. Your clarity and faith in your voice will lead you to select the recipe or recipes that can serve as your starting point.

Finally, because artists (most seem to at least) routinely challenge the status quo, mixing up their own adaptations of recipes they are well suited to lead because “what if?” is a question always present. That is why I have not discussed recipes. In order for the recipes to succeed we need to know where we are and where we want to be.

So what is your vision? Do you know with Chrystal clarity where you are and where you want to be? Does your voice reflect that? So here is something to help you get there…

Be a time traveler

Pick up whatever you use best to record your thoughts and go to a quiet place, take a few cleansing breaths,close your eyes and put yourself 2 years into the future. Look around as if you are there right now, this second! Don’t put any limitations on it and don’t look at as something you will do in the future…you are there right now so describe it…

• What do you see?
• What are you doing?
• Who are you with?
• What did you do to get yourself there?
• What is important to you? What do you value?
• Who are your friends? What is important to them?
• How are you making a living? What is like to work in the enviroment you are in?

Feel free to post your vision as a comment and if you don’t want to share it let me know and I won’t publicize it. If you would like some help feel free to contact me by e-mail.

I am looking forward to hearing from you…tell me about your future. Use the Comment button at the very bottom of this article (below everything else) to post your vision.

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

Tweet This

Children making art

My last post ended talking about Open Source Art and how it can be used to

• Raise awarness about art and the creative process
• Involve your followers inspiring them to discover their own creative vision
• Include them in your creative process
• Build Community and in so doing lead your tribe

A couple of weekends ago when I visited the Venus exhibition in Superior WI I got to see first hand real Open Source Art and heard from participants what it did for them. The Venus exhibit is a collaborative event between fiber artists and poets and one key part  of the event is a large community loom hanging from the ceiling out side the exhibit’s gallery. What I saw and heard was an amazing mash-up of art and community building which included both artists and people from the community of Superior.

Imagination at work

One story is worth sharing because of its link to the concept of open source art and tribes. Not to long after the exhibit opened and the community loom was hung Erika one of the resident artists discovered a young woman and her children at work on the loom, the kids were gleefully adding to the loom what ever they could find from the basket of materials sitting at the base of the loom. Instead of worrying about what the kids would do Erika engaged them and their mom and in the process was learned that they lived down the block from the studio coop and had never had the opportunity to “do” art nor did the mom ever feel she was creative or able to expose the kids to art. Erika encouraged the kids and their mom, in the end the family spent several hours at the loom and left with an entirely different view of themselves and their world.

By engaging this family, encouraging them and empowering them to create Erika lifted the veil of mystery from the creative process. That young family has returned with friends who also contributed to the loom…in the end more people learned about art and themselves.

The power within Open Source is its’ ability to raise awareness and in the process value, through inclusion. Open Source Art builds community through involvement  in much the same way that urban planners do when engaging neighborhoods and coaching them through change. In the end everybody benefits.

The Community Loom was not the only thing I have noticed about this project. Underlying the Loom is the

foundation of collaboration that ties the entire event together. Willingness to collaborate, is the first step to community building. By bringing together two very diverse art forms the project showed the world the meaning of hope and faith and the importance of having faith when approaching the unknown. The willingness of these artists to take the risk they did opened the door and invited those lurking around the fringe to join the adventure and the conversation.

That conversation can now be about value, about diversity, and most of all about the existence in us all of the fire of passion.

open source art

How did the loom affect you? Share your stories by adding a comment below.

Please join the conversation by completing the form below

open source art

Tweet This