Ask the Artists: Following Your Passion

At this point, you’ve heard me talk a lot about following your creative passion. It's not easy, and it’s not right for everyone, but it can be totally worth it if you put in the time and planning. With that said, there is no one set approach. What works for your idea and your talents may not fit someone else. As such, I’d like to share stories of other artists and makers to help you see your path. I asked a handful of local creative entrepreneurs how they’ve turned their passions into careers. As one of them pointed out, this is a loaded question. For some, this is still a long term goal, and they have valuable advice to share about being a work in progress. Others seem to have known all along that this is what they were meant to do. So what’s right for you?

Benefits of Doing What You Love

"Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life."

As entrepreneurs we tend to surround ourselves with sentiments like this, and as creatives, we're uniquely more likely to get to do wonderfully fun things that are easy to love. We're doing out best to follow our dreams, make the world a better place and focus on what we feel we can best contribute. While it takes a lot more than this to be successful, the "Do what you love" mindset is a wonderful motivator. Passion gives us drive and helps us get up each day to spend time on what makes us happy. But why does this happiness matter? Aren't jobs a means to an end? Work should first and foremost put food on the table and pays bills. Then what you have leftover you can spend on fun, right? For those of us lucky enough to find, or make, jobs that marry what we love and what will make a living, we don't have to settle. In fact, we get to reap far more signifiant rewards!

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Time to Get Networking

We’ve already talked about the importance of networking for artists as well as the do’s and don’t’s to be successful, but how many of you are wondering how to actually get started? It seems like the business world has meet-ups and happy hours every week, but where do artists find the connections they need? Certainly the professional development opportunities I mentioned last week can be a great source for finding like minded people and key players in your industry. But beyond that, what should you be setting aside some precious time for? As a fellow small business owner, I know how important every hour is that you could be spending on your passion projects, so networking should be done efficiently and productively. Let’s talk about how to be in the right place at the right time to meet the people that are good for your goals.

Stress Less With These Busy Season Tips

Does anyone else feel like the end of year season just went from 0 to 60 in a week? While Black Friday seems to start earlier and earlier every year, the holiday rush still hits all at once. Hello December! For those of you with handmade gifts to promote and orders to fulfill, this can be the most hectic time of year. No matter how much prep you get in before, long hours are inevitable. But when it comes to closing out the year with a solid sales record, the work is worth it! I know you can do it, and here my top 10 tips to help you manage stress and round out the year with a happy, albeit busy holiday season!

Art Event Application Best Practices

While we just hit summer, we're officially in the season of important application deadlines for winter and holiday art events. In Austin that means Blue Genie Art Bazaar, Cherrywood Art Fair, East Austin Studio Tour and more. Knowing that many of you artists and crafters sell the most during gift giving occasions, I wanted to highlight a few tips for entering art events so you have the greatest chance at acceptance. In future posts we'll move on to how you can be successful once you're in a show. I want to help you demonstrate to the organizers and jurors why you'd be a great fit!