Learning from Others
- Jun 6, 2018
- 2 min read
One of my guilty pleasures is Youtube, the other is Wikipedia. I can get lost on those two platforms for hours. Presumably this is true for others. Why else would both of those websites be so successful?
During one of my Youtube spelunking activities, I decided to expand my understanding on how to be a professional artist. In the olden days, you needed to go to a library to borrow a book on the subject. Or you needed to attend a school that taught you. Now we have this amazing ability to share our experiences with others, because we want to share and others want to listen. Not everything that people want to share is interesting enough to be worth listening to. Nevertheless, you can find gems hidden away, the more you spelunk through the web.
My most recent finding is a video done by an artist on how she made money with her art. What made this video so special and the reason I decided to write about it is that it had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with attitude and thoughtfulness.
The artist, Rhiannon, provides the following advice:
(1) PRIORITIZE - You need to make it a number one priority and dedicate all of your spare time towards it. Even if you have a job and work a full 8 hour day and kids... if art is important to you, then you will find time.
(2) PRACTICE - You need to practice and learn in order to get better and better. This will be a slow painful process, but needs to be done to hone your skills.
(3) IDENTIFY - Everyone needs to know that you are an artist and that is your profession. Show your pieces, share on social media, and make yourself known.
(4) ENGAGE - When you share, you need to engage with other artists and customers. Don't just put stuff out there and spamming everybody, also search and find others. Build real friendships and positive relationships.
(5) SELL - You need to find a market to sell your art. Be it local market, online like a website, etc. Keep your prices consistent.
(6) CREDIBLE - Stay true to your word and keep your commitments. This will create a relationship of trust and loyalty with your customers. If worse comes to worst, under-promise and over-deliver. Then go the extra mile to deliver something special and surprise them.
(7) PLAN - Make sure you understand your financial, social, and other obligations, and plan for them in order to be able to do art. Additionally, plan for art activities to do in order to be efficient, effective, and productive.
As you can see, this advice is not rocket-science or new or earth-shattering, but it is based on experience. However, the more you hear good advice from others you may adopt it as well.
Personally, my favorite is #3 because I think that it is important to identify as an artist truly and fully ... and I do not identify as one yet. This may become one of my goals for 2018.
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