Finally, a new update to my blog! Since my last post, I have a new website, all new work, and a new hairdo!
So much has changed, yet some things stay the same. I am changing and growing for the better, and leaving some old fears and bad habits behind that have inhibited my ability to find out what all I am capable of creating and doing in this precious allotment of time I have here on this beautiful planet.
I am more devoted to my work than ever before.
December 2012, I decided I needed a new business plan. Some type of framework, and setting of goals to realize my dreams as a Maker. I wished for some type of a business plan for a creative type, like myself. You know the type: she has lots of ideas, is constantly inspired, yet easily distracted, and gets bogged down, and overwhelmed in the "business side" of making Art. Add to that, a heavy dose of shyness, and fear of rejection and you have a bit of a mess when trying to make one's Art viable, or profitable. I had confidence in my work, but how, and where do I begin?
One morning in January 2013 I received an Email from "Creative Live!" a website I found through my friend, Terry Golas. "Right Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee" was the title of the email. BINGO. A three day, FREE, live webcast led by Jennifer Lee. FREE? I'm in. I signed up for the webcast, bought the book and the kit. I dreaded the thought of being glued to my computer for three days, especially on a weekend. But I WAS glued - Jennifer was a very good presenter, had great ideas and knew exactly how to speak to CREATIVES. She has taken all the basic elements of a traditional business plan and tailored it to us.
I have been putting the ideas and practices to work for the past six months, and I feel more confident that I can not only accomplish my goals as an artist, and am finding more ways to grow my work as an artist.
Of course, this is a lot of work, and life has a way of sending me roadblocks, but I am learning to get back up and dust myself off, and keep going. I have learned to reach out to my wonderful and supportive friends when I need help. I can not do this alone, none of us can. I am now working with Laura Burns, of Laura Burns Consulting, who also is a teacher of RBBP. (right brain business plan) We get together and set goals for my business, and she has been excellent at connecting me with others to help me accomplish my goals.
I am working hard on this. One of my goals is to be able to teach others how to reach their goals as a Craft Artist. My passion for Art began when I was a small child, watching my grandfather make things out of wood, or any other types of natural or found objects. I knew I wanted to make things also. As I got older, I loved to draw, paint, but especially make things. I still have some of his work, these items are so precious to me. As I child I thought they were the most beautiful things in my world. He was an artist in my mind.
But I must tell the rest of the story. As an adult, I visited him in his apartment in Waxahachie, TX. I walked in and the whole apartment was filled with items he had made. Carved wooden chains, carved and fabricated objects amazingly inside of a bottle, delicate carved wooden fans, little chairs made from twigs and string, every shelf filled with his work. He gave me several items. I wished out loud for a way that he could sell his work. After he passed away several years later, I was speaking to some people that knew him and cared for him. I asked them about the items he had made, and if they knew where they were. "All that junk? Oh, we threw all that out." was their reply.
The thought of his work being lost haunts me still. It is my fuel to guide me as I seek ways to make my work sustainable and viable. Fuel that I need to keep putting my work out there, to find those who appreciate it, so that my work, my god given talents, are not wasted or put aside never to see the light of day. I meet artists like my self often, right here in Houston, who struggle like me to make this job of "Making" work. We have to keep trying to grow awareness of the value of the work of local artists.
Recently I visited The Craft Guild of Dallas. It is a wonderful facility for artists to work, take classes, sell and promote their work to the public. The following was on a sign in their gallery:
"When you buy from an independent artist you are buying more than just a painting or a novel or a song. You are buying hundreds of hours of experimentation and thousands of failures. You are buying days, weeks, months, years of frustration and moments of pure joy. You are buying nights of worry and days of total excitement. You aren't just buying a thing, you are buying a piece of heart, part of a soul, a private moment in someone's life. Something that puts the life into living."
That says it all for me, how about you?
Until next time,
Mary Jarvis
So much has changed, yet some things stay the same. I am changing and growing for the better, and leaving some old fears and bad habits behind that have inhibited my ability to find out what all I am capable of creating and doing in this precious allotment of time I have here on this beautiful planet.
I am more devoted to my work than ever before.
December 2012, I decided I needed a new business plan. Some type of framework, and setting of goals to realize my dreams as a Maker. I wished for some type of a business plan for a creative type, like myself. You know the type: she has lots of ideas, is constantly inspired, yet easily distracted, and gets bogged down, and overwhelmed in the "business side" of making Art. Add to that, a heavy dose of shyness, and fear of rejection and you have a bit of a mess when trying to make one's Art viable, or profitable. I had confidence in my work, but how, and where do I begin?
One morning in January 2013 I received an Email from "Creative Live!" a website I found through my friend, Terry Golas. "Right Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee" was the title of the email. BINGO. A three day, FREE, live webcast led by Jennifer Lee. FREE? I'm in. I signed up for the webcast, bought the book and the kit. I dreaded the thought of being glued to my computer for three days, especially on a weekend. But I WAS glued - Jennifer was a very good presenter, had great ideas and knew exactly how to speak to CREATIVES. She has taken all the basic elements of a traditional business plan and tailored it to us.
I have been putting the ideas and practices to work for the past six months, and I feel more confident that I can not only accomplish my goals as an artist, and am finding more ways to grow my work as an artist.
Of course, this is a lot of work, and life has a way of sending me roadblocks, but I am learning to get back up and dust myself off, and keep going. I have learned to reach out to my wonderful and supportive friends when I need help. I can not do this alone, none of us can. I am now working with Laura Burns, of Laura Burns Consulting, who also is a teacher of RBBP. (right brain business plan) We get together and set goals for my business, and she has been excellent at connecting me with others to help me accomplish my goals.
I am working hard on this. One of my goals is to be able to teach others how to reach their goals as a Craft Artist. My passion for Art began when I was a small child, watching my grandfather make things out of wood, or any other types of natural or found objects. I knew I wanted to make things also. As I got older, I loved to draw, paint, but especially make things. I still have some of his work, these items are so precious to me. As I child I thought they were the most beautiful things in my world. He was an artist in my mind.
But I must tell the rest of the story. As an adult, I visited him in his apartment in Waxahachie, TX. I walked in and the whole apartment was filled with items he had made. Carved wooden chains, carved and fabricated objects amazingly inside of a bottle, delicate carved wooden fans, little chairs made from twigs and string, every shelf filled with his work. He gave me several items. I wished out loud for a way that he could sell his work. After he passed away several years later, I was speaking to some people that knew him and cared for him. I asked them about the items he had made, and if they knew where they were. "All that junk? Oh, we threw all that out." was their reply.
The thought of his work being lost haunts me still. It is my fuel to guide me as I seek ways to make my work sustainable and viable. Fuel that I need to keep putting my work out there, to find those who appreciate it, so that my work, my god given talents, are not wasted or put aside never to see the light of day. I meet artists like my self often, right here in Houston, who struggle like me to make this job of "Making" work. We have to keep trying to grow awareness of the value of the work of local artists.
Recently I visited The Craft Guild of Dallas. It is a wonderful facility for artists to work, take classes, sell and promote their work to the public. The following was on a sign in their gallery:
"When you buy from an independent artist you are buying more than just a painting or a novel or a song. You are buying hundreds of hours of experimentation and thousands of failures. You are buying days, weeks, months, years of frustration and moments of pure joy. You are buying nights of worry and days of total excitement. You aren't just buying a thing, you are buying a piece of heart, part of a soul, a private moment in someone's life. Something that puts the life into living."
That says it all for me, how about you?
Until next time,
Mary Jarvis
