Building an Art Business Is a Choice, Not a Sacrifice
Steven Sweeney said he couldn’t get the feedback to perform (hope that hasn’t transpired to any one else). He wished to include this:
I resolved final February, on the afternoon of a day in the place of work cubicle that started off as any other, to choose an uncertain regret above a sure one. The latter would be to desire, late in life, that I’d taken gain of both equally my eager fascination in and intense coaching in drawing and portray. The former “regret” involves strolling away from the bi-weekly paycheck, the well being and retirement positive aspects, the relative certainty of being aware of what I would be “doing” every working day for get the job done. I moved all my dwelling space household furniture to the eastern 1/3 of the house and converted the other 2/3 to a painting studio–daylight lights method, blackout drapes, easels, a year’s supply of paints, medium, canvas, boards, brushes and frames. I had offered my corporate employer six months’ observe, so that I could properly teach my replacement. In the 10 weeks now considering the fact that “retirement,” I have expended 80% of my times working with other folks’ complications (significant, not trifling), but the term is receiving out that there are moments when I will not decide on up the cell phone or reply to your electronic mail, simply because I’m in my studio. It is not a pleasurable very little pastime, it’s my new vocation, my occupation, my operate. I will very likely miff relations and shed contact with some buddies around this. So be it. Past evening I made and printed new business playing cards.
I have joined a team of like-minded people (Outdoor Painters of Minnesota) and will join lots of of them near the Canadian-Minnesota border in late January to paint plein air winter scenes for a week. (About this, a gallery proprietor, a plein air painter himself, remarked just yesterday, “You’re nuts.”) But most importantly, I know that I want to expend a yr developing up an stock of large-high quality do the job, to evidence my talents as properly as my intentions. I see many paintings just about every day that are “better” than what I at this time make, and nevertheless they keep on being unsold. This does not prevent me. I’ve bought paintings in the earlier, and will do it all over again. I have to get the job done smarter than I did just before. Prints and notice playing cards I have developed from my paintings continue to be pretty preferred, but I need to have to source inexpensive vendors of the components. Indeed, I’m experience a fiscal pinch presently, which just means I have to transfer on transforming my priorities. In shorter, I cannot do it all at the moment, but I can do one thing every single working day, and “something every single day” is the variance between do or do not. Last of all, DVDs, guides, workshops and classes deliver data and inspiration, but right up until I’m pushing paint all over on canvas or board with my possess hands working with my very own products and abilities, I’m no artist. Whether or not I regret the variations I have built in the earlier 9 months is mostly up to me. I can have the mind-set about it that I choose. So far, so excellent.
– Steven Sweeney

