A Bit of Creative Marketing

Barrel Cactus
by Keith Bond

Keith Bond has the natural ability to see beyond the picturesque beauty of a scene to portray the spirit of the of the landscape. He has the gift of capturing the true essence of to the place and paints an emotional response to the scene, rather than the literal depiction.

Keith is not only an acclaimed artist but also writes regularly for the FineArtViews Newsletter. Recently while reading some of the back issues I ran across his article about 'Home Shows', and how they can be a new venue for artist.

We are all looking for ways to sell our art in today's economy. Keith's article, Home Shows, outlines how to use this venue, step by step. I had a small showing in a friends home last year. It went well but had I had Keith's insightful knowledge and instructions I know I could have done better.

I encourage you...take a few minuets to read Keith's detailed, thought provoking article. It's a great way to get your work in front of people who are collectors and do it in an intimate setting.

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Psalm 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.
Psalm 28:6-8 (in Context)

Kreativ Blogger Award...passing it on

Karen at Karen Blados Artist and Designer presented me with the Kreative Blogger award last week and I'm just getting around to passing it on. Karen is a successful graphic designer, sharing both her art and her life's struggles on her blog...sometimes humours, sometimes very serious. but always making you 'think'. Her illustrations are pure 'eye candy' from the candy jar. I enjoy visiting and hope you will as well.

I now need to list seven things about myself:

1. I love to listen to soft jazz while working in my studio.
2. I enjoy 'doing alleys' on early evening bike rides.
3. At the age of 30 I won the Demolition Derby at our local fair...great fun!!
4. With regret I tell you that I have never visited a foreign country.
5. I will do anything to get out of housework.
6. I used to show and raise Standard Schnauzers.
7. I would 'die' for a piece of my daughters coconut cream pie.

Finally, I'm passing the Kreative Blogger Award along to seven other deserving artists. I hope you will take a few minuets to visit their sites and enjoy their beautiful art and inspiring words.

1.Fay Taylor...works in Watercolor, creating the most wonderful paintings, telling the story of her Oregon country side. I once told her that "her paintings made me want to ride horses".

2.Karen Cooper...works in Acrylic. Her lively figurative paintings interpret our everyday life. They are bold with color, posses wonderful composition and stimulate your emotions.

3.Susan Carlin...works in Oil. Susan is a portrait artist. Her portraits are exciting...she has a real talent for not only capturing the essence of the subject but the emotional feeling of the moment. Susan freely shares her talent in weekly online painting sessions and workshops.

4.Karen Hargett...works in Pencil and Pastel. Karen started out as a pencil artist working in graphite and has most recently fallen in love with pastels. Her graphite drawings are to be envied but I have to admit, I just love the soft smokey quality of her pastels. She has a style all her own and a great eye for composition.

5.Annlein Beukenkamp...works in Watercolor. Annlein is someone whose ability and style I envy. Her paintings are loose and expressive. Annlein's willingness to let the medium just be itself is evident. Most definitely an inspiration and a quality to aspire to.

6.Belinda Del Pesco...does Watercolor and Printmaking. Belinda's paintings fascinate me. She has done many paintings of interiors and has the uncanny ability to capture light and shadow in a way that makes you feel as though you are there sitting in the room.

7.Tracy Hall...works in Watercolor. Tracy paints the most wonderful miniatures. I'm amazed at the detail she packs into a 1.75 x 2.25 space and I believe you will be also. She also shares a video tutorial on her blog that you won't want to miss.

As you visit these wonderful artist's websites and blogs...be sure to let them know much you appreciate their dedication and willingness to share. It is through the works and words of other artists that we all learn the most. ENJOY

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Romans 8:28
[ More Than Conquerors ] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:27-29 (in Context)

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When You Feel The Pain

Written By: Sue Smith

"I'm stuck, in a rut."
"I'm frustrated and discouraged"
"I'm stressed out; everything's urgent."
"Maybe I just don't have what it takes."

These are a few of the opening sentences in Stephen R. Covey's new book, The 8th Habit, From Effectiveness to Greatness.

If you follow this blog, you know that I read a lot of books, and about 75% of them are not about art. But "Art" doesn't live in a vacuum, apart from the rest of our lives. What works and doesn't work in our "real" world is the same sort of stuff that works or doesn't work in our "Art" world.

If we were in our early 20's, our "Art" lives would be different. We'd have the time and freedom to explore ideas, themes, techniques, and problems with the enthusiasm of one who sees no end in sight. As we age, though, it's natural that "the end" begins creeping toward our horizon. I received an email recently from Casey Klahn who explained,

"One thing I've discovered as an older artist is that it is important for me to start "at the top". I am not a school kid, after all!"

I remember feeling times of great urgency, a limited window of opportunity that I was going to miss - and still do. I remember pushing myself nearly to the point of exhaustion and then feeling frustrated with the results - and still do. So how do we achieve a sense of balance between the urgency of the Muse and the realization there might not be enough time left to do all we dream about doing?

Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• Believe that there is enough time to do what you are supposed to do. Once I freed myself from the belief that time was working against me, my life became easier. I would walk into my studio and not feel the self-imposed pressure to create something that would "sell now!" In fact, I realized the more I tried to answer that demand of "sell now!" (which was a form of needing to justify what I was doing) the worse my work became - and the more frustrated I felt.

• Realize that the "top" is only a marker on the spiral, just a "starting point" for the next growth cycle. I understand where Casey is coming from when he says he needs to start "at the top." Because we are entering the art market at a mature age, the art market expects a high level of competency. Our work can't be excused as young and brash, full of passion, short on technique, but loads of potential. So it's necessary to study artists working at the levels of competency to which we aspire in order to ensure that our work is comparable before we approach the market.

• Growth requires us to "hate" our work periodically. I once had an exercise t-shirt that read : "No Pain, No Gain." I wasn't into pain, so I never saw much gain. Its the same with art. Being stuck, feeling anxious, frustrated, angry, experiencing the emotional pain of hating what I'm producing - I used to dread it. I still dread that moment of walking into the studio and looking at the painting I just finished and immediately "hating" it. But I've come to realize these are messages from my unconscious, my artistic soul, telling me, "hey, you gotta move on here! Your work was fine for where you were last year, but this is Now."
  

• Become your own best mentor. Be kind to yourself. When you grow to the point of recognizing there is something missing in your work - rejoice. It means you've developed your "eye" to the point where you're able to progress, and that you're not suffering from what Robert Genn calls "Kalopsia" (an interesting read in the click-backs). And as your own best mentor, take on the responsibility of learning what else you might need to know at this point on the spiral - whether you watch instructional DVD's, read books, draw daily, paint daily -- whatever you do, begin to expand your practice consistently.
  

• It's also okay to work within your comfort zone. Out of curiosity, I started reading art blogs coming out of the New York Art Scene. I quickly discovered that I didn't belong in that rarefied world of artspeak, critical laceration, bizarre theory, shock art, power plays, movers and shakers, blog wars, hoaxes and non-hoaxes pretending to be hoaxes...okay, too much hyperbole here. My point is only that it's better to focus energy where you know you want it and not spend it where it drains away your enthusiasm. Activism, while fondly remembered, might be better left to the young.

So what is Covey's 8th Habit?

The 8th Habit "is to Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs" (p. 5).

Interesting, huh?

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This article is reproduced with permission.

Copyright...2008 Sue Smith

To Get more of Sue Smith's thoughts about art visit her blog at:
Ancient Artist: developing an art career after 50
Sue Smith fine Art...website

This article originally appeared at the following URL. http://ancientartist.typepad.com/ancient_artist_developing/2008/05/sunday-salon-wh.html

PS...make a "Point"...leave a comment

The Seven Characteristics that Distinguish Older Artists over Their Younger Peers

By: Sue Smith

I went back to college when I was 51. I sat in chairs designed for the young, next to my fellow students who were also...well, young. Adding insult to injury, I needed tutoring -- from the young -- to learn the new technology that these kids in their late teens and twenties grew up with and used as casually as I once used the rotary phone.

It was culture shock. But more than that. It was the shock of realizing I was rapidly approaching the gray realm of Old Age. My first small encounters with...ageism.

Ageism is insidious in that it is so acceptable. Logical. It is also based -- at least with regard to late-life creativity -- on scientific research that reinforces traditional views about aging and the mental and physical decline models.

Even when it comes to "creativity" -- something that can't be touched, tested, or accurately measured, let alone understood -- the scientific community still relies on research that is "objective" and "measurable" -- sort of like trying to catch a fish with your hands. The easiest one to grab becomes the archetype for the "Creative Old Guy."

But I recently started reading a book by Martin S. Lindauer, titled AGING, CREATIVITY, AND ART...A Positive Perspective on Late-Life Development.

This is a very recent book, with a copyright date of 2003, and reads like a research paper with numerous citations.

It is still worth the effort.

Because here is the good news. According to Lindauer, new research reveals that over time, creative people increase both the quality of their artistic output, and the quantity, over their lifetimes, with productivity peaking during their 60's, but the quality of the output remaining steady at the lifetime highs well into the 70's.

Even for artists working in their 80's, their quality ratings were higher -- get that, higher! -- than when they were in their 20's and 30's.

How can this be?

According to Lindauer, there are seven characteristics that distinguish "old artists and late art from young artists and youthful efforts."

• "Older artists have more knowledge and are less career oriented.
• "They also have less energy - the only case where older artists were at a disadvantage to younger ones..."
• "...which they compensated for with greater maturity, concentration, and self-acceptance."
• "Older artists were also less critical than their younger counterparts."
• "However, in two areas, creativity and experimentation, older artists were seen as equal to younger practitioners." (2003, pp.187-188)

Further, while discussing the age at which an artist's "Old Age Style" might emerge, Lindauer wrote, "...the 60-year-old artists, and many of the 70-year-olds who were studied, were 'too young' to have an old-age style."

Re-read that last part again: even the 70-year-olds were too young to have an old age style!

Sometimes the challenges of reinventing yourself at mid-life can seem so daunting that you want to give up. I know that for me, discouragement became my constant companion to the point where I nearly gave up on the whole "career" idea, caught up in my fear of having "missed the creative boat."

But knowing that, at 60, I am still decades away from having an "Old Age Style" has renewed my energy, sending me back out into the creative world with rekindled optimism.

I hope to see you all there!

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This article is reproduced with permission.
Copyright...2008 Sue Smith

To Get more of Sue Smith's thoughts about art visit her blog at:
Ancient Artist: developing an art career after 50
Sue Smith fine Art...website

This article originally appeared at the following URL:
http://ancientartist.typepad.com/ancient_artist_developing/2008/04/the-seven-chara.html

PS...make a "Point"...leave a comment