I learned a valuable lesson this week, the kind of lesson you can only learn the hard way. Yesterday, I spoke about my experience with a gallery owner who was unhappy with the work I brought her because it wasn’t summery enough. Unfortunately, she couldn’t articulate that, and instead dismissed all of my work as [...]
Category Archives: Lessons Learned
Apparently, my art is appalling. Interesting.
May 14, 2010 – 1:42 pm
I think this morning I’ve finally made peace with what happened at the gallery. It’s taken me 5 days of processing and meeting myself where I am – even if that means I’m cranky as hell. Or hiding under my sheets. But I tried to meet it all with mindful awareness, and just let myself [...]
A stamp of approval
May 11, 2010 – 1:12 pm
I just want to thank everyone for the support and the comments yesterday. It was really, truly helpful. I also think I figured out what was going on internally and why this was bothering me so much. Because as so many people have said, it’s just one person. One. Person. So it didn’t even make [...]
Back to the studio
May 9, 2010 – 9:55 pm
I went to talk to the gallery today about the pieces I’d dropped off on Monday (the gallery owner had been sick all week.) Of the 6 pieces, I left with her, she sent 4 home with me, saying they were “no good”. Too dark, too grim, not colourful enough. People don’t want art like [...]
Doing it for me
April 29, 2010 – 1:35 pm
I had a realization this morning. A really obvious one actually, but I can be dense sometimes. When I do something for me and my own reasons, I succeed. When I do something to prove myself, or get approval, or from a sense of guilt, I never get anywhere. Really simple, but it explains a [...]
Success & failure
April 13, 2010 – 7:45 pm
Two very loaded words, I know. And they’re tossed around so much that we don’t even pay them that much attention anymore. We just assume that they’re Important. The thing is though – what do they mean? What is success? What is failure? They’re tricky questions to answer. Is success making hundreds of thousands of [...]
Nourishment for the soul
April 4, 2010 – 2:26 pm
In my current extremely burnt out state, I’ve been contemplating ways to prevent ending up here again, which brought me to ask myself the question – what nourishes my soul? What makes me feel alive? Happy? Exuberant? What gets me really excited about life? And how can I add more of that to my life? [...]
Changing the world.
March 5, 2010 – 1:23 pm
The past few days have been pretty life changing. Nothing specific happened, but internally, some light bulbs have been going on. I feel like my entire emotional landscape has been flipped upside down and it’s brilliant. I’ll explain more in a few days, but first, I wanted to share today’s epiphany with you. Because it’s [...]
Pricing, Take 2
February 26, 2010 – 1:37 pm
Yesterday on Twitter, I asked how other artists worked out their pricing and I got some brilliant advice back. Contrary to yesterday, I no longer think I’m going to drop my prices – I’m going to raise them. When I actually sit down and do the math on my art, I’m losing money. I may [...]
2009 – The year I learned to build umbrellas.
December 24, 2009 – 9:06 am
Back at the end of 2008, I declared 2009 the Year of Non Suck*. I still don’t have my word or intentions for 2010, but I’ll post as soon as I have them. *This is a lesson in asking for what you want, instead of just asking for what you don’t want. 2009 did not [...]
