Sarah on wisdom and sharing

What are the most impor­tant lessons you have learned about being an artist and sell­ing your work?

One of the lessons that I’ve learned in the past year is that I’m the only one in con­trol of my career and noth­ing and nobody is going to make it or break it except for me. I kept get­ting these excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ties where every­one said I’d do really well, and noth­ing hap­pened. It also taught me that suc­cess is really, really bor­ing. I suc­ceed the most sales-wise when I’m just doing my thing and focus­ing on what’s impor­tant to me – con­nect­ing with my audi­ence and cre­at­ing great work.

I’ve also learned that I need to cre­ate work that’s impor­tant to me. I have to dig deep. When I do that, I cre­ate work that’s mean­ing­ful to me and mean­ing­ful to oth­ers, and that’s my job at the end of the day – to cre­ate mean­ing. And those are always the pieces that I can’t keep around – they fly off the shelves.

One of the lessons that I’ve learned in the past year is that I’m the only one in con­trol of my career and noth­ing and nobody is going to make it or break it except for me.

Focus on what you love first. That way what­ever you decide to do,  will come from the right place.

Are you help­ing other artists, espe­cially emerg­ing artists, develop their voice?

It’s not some­thing I do in an orga­nized kind of way, but I cer­tainly have an open door pol­icy on my inbox. Other artists have emailed me ask­ing for help and I think they’ve always ended up with more than they bar­gained for – I have a ten­dency to write nov­els in response. It’s a topic I’m pretty pas­sion­ate about.

I’m also still an emerg­ing artist myself, so I think more than any­thing I like to offer sup­port to oth­ers in the same boat. It can be a dif­fi­cult place to be in, so some­times hav­ing a cheer­leader can be really helpful.

If you could pass on one gem of wis­dom to other artists, what would it be?

Don’t think you have to con­quer the world by tomor­row by teatime. Every­thing in our cul­ture is about faster, bet­ter, eas­ier. Tips for being an overnight suc­cess, ways to build your career faster than ever, and how if you don’t do x,y and z, you’re going to fail and nobody’s ever going to pay you any attention.

It’s per­fectly okay to let your art career grow organ­i­cally. You’re allowed to take your time. It doesn’t mean you have to go slow – you can go as fast as you want to. But what­ever you decide to do, do it for you. Don’t waste your time liv­ing up to society’s expec­ta­tions of where you should be when.

Focus on what you love first. That way what­ever you decide to do,  will come from the right place.

About the Author:

Sarah Lacy is a reg­u­lar con­tributer here on the blog. She is an amaz­ing young artist who drips wis­dom and pas­sion, for life and art, so much that she clearly is an old soul. She is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the energy, self insight and pas­sion we des­per­ately need in the gen­er­a­tion of artists and cre­atives who will replace us.

Sarah makes “art that reminds you to dream, to breathe, to laugh breath­lessly in the rain”, in doing so she hopes help peo­ple learn “to feel again”.

Sarah’s pas­sion and love for what she does has been chal­lenged by the her con­stant com­pan­ion of Chronic Fatigue Syn­drome. As a per­son who knows all to well the chal­lenges of liv­ing with a debil­i­tat­ing chronic dis­ease I was impressed with her courage, open­ness and unwill­ing­ness to sur­ren­der. She has a lot to tell us not only of art but also of life…

You can find Sarah here:

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