Tag: time management

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Ten ways an art career can drive you nuts

Coast Guard Inspection, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

“Finishing, mounting, framing, prepping, switching out the last mixed colors on my palette… this art @#$% is a lot of work,” one of my students texted as he prepared for a show.

That’s why my first question to someone who wants to become a professional artist is, “Do you really want to work that hard?” I’m blessed to be able to support myself as an artist, but I’m under no illusion about what goes into a successful art career. Some weeks, very little of my time is spent painting.

Toy Monkey and Candy, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed.

Here are the ways an art career can mess with your head:

Financial instability: Many professional artists face financial challenges when starting out. It takes time to establish a reputation and generate a steady income from art sales, but it can be done. Professional artists are the canaries in the coal mine when it’s time for an economic downturn, and they will come. Make sure you have a backup plan.

The need for endless self-promotion: Yes, a successful art career rests on marketing ourselves and our work, and building a brand is crucial for success. But self-promotion is challenging to most normal people. I never want to be the person who says, “But enough about me; how do you like my hair?”

Subjectivity: While there are objective standards by which to judge art, success itself is highly subjective. It may have more to do with your external circumstances (your strong white teeth, who you know, being at the right place at the right time) as the quality of your work.

All of us hate rejection: Yesterday I was texting with a person who was rejected for a show for which I thought he was a shoo-in. We’ve all been there. Over time, we either develop thicker skins or we move on to doing something else, but at times we all complain bitterly about jurying. The wisest of us do it quietly, to our trusted friends.

Back It Up, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435.

The push and pull of communication and isolation: Art is communication, but creating art is a solitary activity. There’s great tension between needing to talk through our work at the same time as we should be buckling down alone in our studios. (Resolving that tension is one of the benefits of classes and workshops.)

Balancing creativity and commercialism: The professional artist must find a balance between creating art for personal fulfillment and art that sells. Omphaloskepsis is the luxury of the person who doesn’t need to work, but at the same time, there’s no point to churning out lighthouse paintings on black velvet. Your art career needs to find a happy medium.

No job security, no 401K, no PTO: As bad as corporate benefits have become, professional artists are, in comparison, out on the highwire without a net. We work project-to-project, often a year or more before we show our work. Our financial management must be very keen or we’ll be working at Walmart before you can say Jack Robinson, whoever he was.

Constant skill development: You never totally master painting; you just keep refining your skills until your hands fall off. A successful art career requires mastering new technologies and concepts. Staying relevant means continuously leaning into them. The art world bears little resemblance to that of my youth. Overall, I think the changes are great, but they do keep me on my toes.

Brooding Skies, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $522

Constantly foraging for opportunity: Securing exhibition opportunities and commissions is competitive and challenging. Next time you’re debating curling up with a good book or going to that opening, consider your art career and put your shoes on.

That blasted time management: I started writing this because something knocked me for a loop yesterday. I flitted between unrelated tasks all day rather than buckling down to what I had intended to do. Juggling multiple projects is the hardest part of my job.

My 2024 workshops:

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I don’t have time to do art!

I painted this when my kids had a snow day. Those are my son's toys, left outside in the weather, sigh.

I have two students of similar ability and background. They started taking my Zoom classes around the same time. One retired last year and can devote himself to painting. The other has a high-pressure job that eats up lots of his time.

Which do you think is making faster progress right now?

“I wish I could wave a magic wand and save you from 60-hour weeks,” I told the latter student. Then he did something that surprised me—he arranged a three-week block of vacation time to stay home and paint.

Over several decades, I’ve seen this pattern: young people paint until they acquire houses, careers and families. Then there’s a long gap when they never pick up a brush. It isn’t until middle-age that most of us pick up painting again.

That’s not simply because we have more time; it’s the realization that our time on earth is finite, and if we don’t start now, we’ll never do it.

The house across the street from my church, visible out the window.

Time management is a universal problem

I struggle for time to paint, too. That’s absurd, but there are lots of other demands on my time—lesson planning, writing this blog and marketing.

In fact, that’s a universal problem among artists. Many of my professional peers work second jobs to afford the time to paint. That can take the form of a day job, running their own gallery, or teaching.

I drew this fat dragon to entertain my grandkids. Then we went outside to look for his dragon lair.

Can you make time to draw?

I take my sketchbook to meetings, to doctors’ appointments, to church—anywhere I’m expected to sit quietly. If you’re sitting with kids, you can engage them in your drawing. Children love telling you what to draw and they don’t really care how badly you execute.

You can draw other people surreptitiously, on the subway, in waiting rooms, or in the airport. Start with a fast gesture drawing and fill in what details you can before they wander off. At first, you’ll feel self-conscious and a bit sneaky, but most people don’t notice and don’t care.

Any drawing, no matter how mundane, is better than wasting time playing on your phone.

Put away the cell phone

Recently, I’ve noticed my cell phone eating up time that I previously used to draw. I need to consciously put it away. That’s hard in a culture that encourages us to always feel ‘on demand.’

Make art a habit

I get up at 5 AM to write this blog, exercise, bathe, make breakfast, answer correspondence, and do a daily marketing meeting. I start projects in the early afternoon. If I maintain this routine, my brain settles into work with minimal hassle. Once the order is disturbed, I spend most of my energy getting back on track.

Our minds crave routine, so let’s give it to them. It’s easier to squeeze a half hour of drawing in after supper than to block out a week to paint, and you’ll improve more with brief, regular practice than with the occasional marathon.

If all else fails, draw your hand. It's right where you left it.

Stop beating yourself up

Our schedules, like our closets, are jammed full. We can’t add one more thing without taking something out. Years ago, Bobbi Heath taught me an organizational technique with post-it notes. When you’ve filled up your workweek, you… just stop adding stuff.

“What activity is netting you the lowest return?” my daughter asks me. That’s not just a financial question. We collect obligations like boats collect barnacles. Some we can shed, some are ours just for a season, still others are lifelong and non-negotiable. Once you’ve eliminated what you can, take a clear-eyed look at what’s left. If that means you only have four hours a week to make art, stop beating yourself up about that. Four hours is still better than no hours at all.