Superbad. Advice.
So for twenty years I've been barking up the wrong tree with my art practice. No wonder I had a mental breakdown only two years into working with metal to make sculpture. See, I thought you were supposed to focus with maniacal intensity on what you were making and the business side of things would sort itself out. No. You're supposed to be spending a good chunk of that time making contacts, talking with people, networking, schmoozing, marketing, all that shit! Fuck!
I started out doing markets, but I would stand around all day bitching with stall holder mates and making almost no attempt to talk to customers. I didn't know I had to. No wonder I became super bitter and depressed and then lost my mind and became a dribbling mess and ended up on a disability support pension and on top of all that had kind of a bad time.
If I had actually spoken with potential customers and listened to them my business would have blossomed. Instead I drove myself insane endlessly second guessing why I wasn't selling enough of my metalwork.
From early on I had my own style and I got amazing offers from people that probably would have made me lots and lots of money. But I couldn't follow through, I was too busy going loudly and publicly mental because the pressure when there should have been no pressure was properly brain-breaking.
Apparently 2015 is my year of understanding why shit happened, which suits me, because so very much of my life has been wasted on mistakes based on the wrong ideas. Popular wrong ideas too. How many artists are told before they even begin that art is not about making money?
I have learned that art about expressing yourself is nice but if you're not getting paid you will lose that self. Well, not that the self is real, but that's a whole other series of bongs and trippy music.
(blog entry partly based on last night's conversation at the Exford with an excellent stand up comic.)
Tickets to my awesome comedy show
I started out doing markets, but I would stand around all day bitching with stall holder mates and making almost no attempt to talk to customers. I didn't know I had to. No wonder I became super bitter and depressed and then lost my mind and became a dribbling mess and ended up on a disability support pension and on top of all that had kind of a bad time.
If I had actually spoken with potential customers and listened to them my business would have blossomed. Instead I drove myself insane endlessly second guessing why I wasn't selling enough of my metalwork.
From early on I had my own style and I got amazing offers from people that probably would have made me lots and lots of money. But I couldn't follow through, I was too busy going loudly and publicly mental because the pressure when there should have been no pressure was properly brain-breaking.
Apparently 2015 is my year of understanding why shit happened, which suits me, because so very much of my life has been wasted on mistakes based on the wrong ideas. Popular wrong ideas too. How many artists are told before they even begin that art is not about making money?
I have learned that art about expressing yourself is nice but if you're not getting paid you will lose that self. Well, not that the self is real, but that's a whole other series of bongs and trippy music.
(blog entry partly based on last night's conversation at the Exford with an excellent stand up comic.)
Tickets to my awesome comedy show
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