Now What?

Knot II, Watercolor

There will be an optional closing Zoom call Thursday, July 16, 6:00-7:00 Central Time for those who can join in.  Please come ready to share:

• What the most valuable thing you are taking away from the workshop, and 
• What you have decided your next steps will be...
• If you cannot join in, or even if you can, please answer the questions on the comments below.  

Additional Materials

During this workshop you have:  

• Defined Your Vision
• Developed Your Goals and an Action Plan
• Articulated Your Artist Mission
• (Please note the additional Optional Next Steps Exercise at the Bottom of the Page)

From here on you will have a better idea of what you matters most to you, where you want to go, and what additional information you will be seeking out to take the next steps on your artists journey.  Below are a few additional worksheets that may help you figure out what your next steps are.  

Additionally, there are free art business resources and guides available to help you continue the journey.

Check our the Artwork Archive Blog Article: 
 An Artist Guide To Making A Business Plan (In Just 6 Steps)

Here is another excellent and relevant article form the Artwork Archive Blog:  What 14 Artists Wish They Knew at the Start of Their Career

Do not go it alone.  Find your peers and do it together

ArtistsU.org  Working Groups

Out of Philadelphia there is a group called ArtistsU that have created an incubator for changing the working conditions of artists.  Everything they  do is artist-run, free, and open-source.  One of their projects is the ArtistsU Working Groups.

Artists use the ArtistU Workbook (free to download) and meet monthly for two hours.
Artists in a Working Group make the four key documents for building a sustainable life:
​a plan, an artist mission statement, a budget, and a calendar.
Working Groups build a positive, realistic conversation around sustaining as an artist.

Often we are better at thinking and planning when we can bounce our thinking off of other artists.  Look around where you live and see if there are other creatives you would like to invite to be a peer group of creatives thinking through how you will build your art careers.   And you can do the same for them. Ask the people you would most like to spend time with and do not worry if they say 'no.' Give them a chance to say 'yes.'

​Two to ten people can make a working group.  Consider meeting up with each other regularly (with proper social distancing or Zoom) and help each other think through ideas for your careers.

Create Your Own Creative Consulting Circle

Generosity works better than competition (unless its friendly).  In helping others realize their dreams you will find yourself learning and dreaming bigger ourselves.  We do not have to do it alone.

​
​When we know someone is listening and caring we are more likely to speak the truth.  When we speak a goal or a vision to someone else we are more likely to believe it is possible.  When something is hard its easier to figure out how to address it with someone else.  When we have a success its more fun to share it.  When we get behind others and push them toward there goals too, we are standing right net to them when they get there.

~Okay then...How About One Person ~
​~Find An Accountability Buddy~

Art business coachAlison Stanfield in her Art Biz Success blog article Tips for Working with an Accountability Partner in Your Art Marketing does a great job of describing two artists being Accountability Buddies for each other.  Check it out.

What will you focus on next?

Here are two optional Exercises-Adapt them to be appropriate to your vision for your creative art career.

Optional Next Steps Exercise

Optional One Page Business Plan

In the comment area below please indicate what you plan to focus on next.  What is your next step to realize your vision for the art career you really want to have.  Please also share what the most important thing you are taking away from the workshop.

Your Artist Mission Is Your Guide

Your Artist Mission Is Your Guide

Knot IV, Watercolor, 18x24

Planning is a skill we already have as creatives 

and artists!

• We know how to imagine things that do not exist
• We plan how to make them exist
• We act and respond to discoveries we make in the process
• We deliver finished artworks to our audience​

 Creating a Mission Statement as a Guide

Your MISSION Guides Your VISION

• Think of your mission as that part of you that is bigger than yourself, as that generosity you bring the world.
• Most of us do not choose to be artists for the money.  We usually begin with having something we want to bring into the world.  
• We need to be able to tell ourselves and others why we do what we do, what we do, and the questions that we are driven to solve.
• When we lead with our mission our passion is visible and we attract others to our vision. Its the best authentic marketing we could ever do.
• We may need to adapt different versions of the mission statement for various purposes:  press releases, website, grants etc., and one so concise it can be an elevator speech. 

 You must be able to answer:  

• What you make?
• Why you make it? 
• So what,’ or; Why does it matter?

EXERCISE 4:  DEFINING YOUR MISSION & VISION

(Plan on taking 45-60 minutes to do this.  You can do this alone but it works best to be interviewed by another person.  Is there someone who can ask you these questions and write down your answers for you?  If not, above are the questions in a document you can print out and answer for yourself.)

1.  When and how did you decide to become an artist?

2.  Describe an early artistic/creative experience that inspired you.
 
3.  Are there teachers/ mentors important to your formation as an artist? How?

4.  Name the artists you admire.  

• What is it about their work or process that you love?

5.  Describe your process for a specific artwork. 

• Where did the idea or inspiration originate?  
• How exactly did you work on it?  
• What is your refining or editing process?

6.  What is the most meaningful project you ever created?

7.  What is the most meaningful connection with an audience or the public you have ever had?

8.  If the whole world saw your creative work….if your art were everywhere, children were taught about it in school, and it was purchased or shown in public institutions, how would the world be different?  How do you want your work to matter to the world?

EXERCISE 5:  ACTIVE DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE

Write ten active words to describe your art.  
This is a tiny haiku version of your artist statement.

​EXERCISE 6: ELEVATOR SPEECH

Write a one paragraph artist statement in the first person, (that you could say in the time it takes to go up 10 floors in an elevator.)

Use the phrases and sentences from the interview as well as words from your haiku statement.  Write with total honesty.  

In the statement answer the What, Why and So What questions.  Use YOUR voice.  Eliminate phrases that could refer to any artist. ( They are boring and not specific enough.) This statement is only about you!

Here are the exercises in a printable document:

Exercise4.5.6.Doc
​
Please share your artist's mission in the form of the elevator speech you created in the comments below by July 16, 2020.  By July 16th there will be additional materials posted.  

Planning Like An Artist

How to Set Goals For A Creative Career That You Can Realize

Knot 1, watercolor on paper

Planning is a skill we already have as creatives and artists!

• We know how to imagine things that do not exist
• We plan how to make them exist
• We act and respond to discoveries we make in the process
• We deliver finished artworks to our audience​

EXERCISE 3:  Goal Setting Exercise Based on Where You Are Now and Where You Are Going
 
Step I:  Pull out a pen and paper and answer the following questions for yourself as you consider what will need to happen for you to achieve your vision for a creative career that will give you your art perfect day.  The personal assessment sheet in can help you think about what you will need to take your next steps:
 

• What will you have to achieved personally, professionally, and artistically to live the artists life you envision? Dream bigger than you think you should. 
• Personally: (Everything in your life that is not making art or working):

• Professionally: (How your career unfolds. How your work is supported and delivered in the art world.)
• Artistically: (Your art practice, and the skills, time, and collaborations that make it possible.

 
Step 2:
Choose your top three goals, from any of the categories the assessment sheet. Choose the ones that you think will have the biggest positive impact on your world. (By choosing just three, you are prioritizing and you have shifted from making a list to making a plan.) Its good to remember that 95% of planning is choosing what not to concentrate your attention on.
 
Step 3:
Imagine having achieved each of your chosen goals.  Working backward, from having achieved each goal and identify the small doable action steps that you will have to have taken to get you from where you are now to where you want to go.

Review the steps as you have defined them. 

• If they are small enough you will want to get them done right away. (If you have a sense of procrastination the step is too big. Make them so small you cannot wait to get them off your list.)
• Sometimes the first steps are just gathering information and talking to people to figure out what you need to proceed. (Sometimes your first step is to figure out who you can ask for information, and your second step is getting the courage to ask.) Keep this plan easily available and review it regularly.
• Once you have the list, move a couple of the steps to you regular ‘to-do’ list daily or weekly.

 
When you start identifying your goals and action steps, you will become very clear about precisely what needs to be done for the goals to be achievable.   If for some reason you do not accomplish that goal, it will be obvious to you why it was not completed.    What you are starting to do here is to design and implement career strategies that can be analyzed afterward for their effectiveness 
 
SMARTER GOALS ANALYSIS

• Is it Simple? - 
  • If 'yes' then it Is easy to imagine doing and to do. Decide when you are going to do it.  
  • If 'no':The goal might not be simple enough. Consider how you can continue to break it down into smaller steps until it feels doable.
• Is it Measurable?-"I will do10 paintings by September."  If you can measure it you can see clearly if you did it.
• Is it an Action you can take? Wishing something would happen is not an action. (Pretend you are telling someone else to do this goal.  What action would they take?  Explain the who, where, when, what, and why for each project action in one sentence each.
• Is it Relevant – How does the action move you toward the goal? Why does it matter?  Who cares? Who does it serve?  Why do it now vs later?   If its not relevant to your goal than why spend time on it?
• Is it Time-bound – If its not scheduled its not as likely to get done.  Assign a start and stop time.  
  • I will write 30 minutes every morning
  • ​I will submit my application by Friday
  • I will photograph my new work at 1:00 on Wednesday (what do I need to do to be ready?)​
• Evaluate Periodically-Figure out a schedule for you to notice what you have done. I keep a journal with a 'to-do' list of action in the back of it.  I usually fill one journal a month.  I cross off what I have accomplished as its done and copy what is left into the next journal.
• Revise as needed- Things change, and your goals and the action steps you are planning to achieve them may change too.  It is okay to decide its time for your goals to change and revise your action plan accordingly.

Printable Exercise 3 Document:

Exercise 3

Printable Optional General Assessment Exercise

General Assessment Exercise

Printable Optional Specific Assessment Exercise

Specific Assessment Exercise

What did you discover that surprised you? What are you most excited about?  What are you most concerned about?  Where can you go to find the information to support required to take your next steps not that you have identifies them?  Please comment below by July 9, 2020.
 

Thriving as an Artist and Creative

Bollo Knot III by Helen Klebesadel, watercolor on paper

Thriving as an Artist and Creative

It is good to keep in mind that there are many different ways to create a successful career or business in the arts, and YOU are the one that defines what it is for you:

• the part-time or hybrid artist that makes the art they want and supports themselves via a day job that may or may not be related to the arts;
• the professional artist who seeks to make a living at his or her art via sales, commission, grants, licensing, or other income streams (prints, workshops, books);
• the ambitious artist who seeks national and international acclaim from the art world (not always associated with income);
• the creative who seeks to develop their creative abilities as far as they possibly can and share their art a widely as they can, and who seek to be a part of a creative community but who are less concerned with earning a living from their art;
• the activist artist who seeks to use their art to address social, political or cultural justice issues, in combination with one or more of the previous ways of building a career or business or creative practice;
• the community engaged artist whose practice of art is based in and generated in relation to and in dialogue with a community setting.
• the creative career with a focus that best fits your life and vision.

 
The bottom line is that you have to know what you want in order to get what you want.  Think about this questions and answer them for your self privately.

• What type of lifestyle do I want to maintain? 
• How much money do I need-or want--to earn from my artwork or related creative work? 
• What really matters to me the most…recognition, financial support, personal and artistic development, or activist or community impact of using your art to make a positive difference in the world?

What does success look like to you?

• Personal and Professional Recognition:  
  • From your friends and family
  • Being known as an artist and creative person in your community?
  • Appreciation for your art from venues and people you respect?
  • Acclaim from the art world and other artists
• Financial Success:
  • Making your entire living from your art even if that means compromises to your creative vision?
  • Supplementing your day job
  • A hybrid or art related career that provides insurance and income along with a significant amount of time on your art career? 
• Personal Satisfaction: Just having the time to make your works without concern for sales, income, or the business of art and being able to share it any way you can?
• Visibility: 
  • Having your work exhibited in local venues
  • Having your work exhibited prestigious galleries and museums
  • Having people write about your work and know about you?
• Voice, Activism and Community: Using your art as your activist voice to make social change as opposed to focusing on income?  Use your art to build and support community.
• Full time or part time?  Are you willing to be a hybrid artist, acquiring part of your income and your health insurance from another or a related career?  Are you willing to trade the amount of time that a second career will take so you can make the art most important to you without concern for market?

 
Honest answers to each of these questions will give you a sense of the types of goals you need to set in order to succeed on your own terms.


There are six things that help artists and creatives thrive:

1. A commitment to the process of making your art and creative work.
2. A vision for yourself and your art….a defined idea of success that aligns with your values and beliefs
3. A clear achievable plan with short term and long term goals, 
4. A sustainable budget, that includes rates for your time, likely income AND expenses, and strategies for bringing in revenue (both passive and active).​​
5. A realistic schedule that includes studio time, administrative time, AND downtime for friends, family and community
6. And an artist or business mission statement you love because it represents what you plan to do in a nutshell

We will NOT get through each one of these in the workshop  but we will make a good start in helping you:

• define your vision for yourself and your artist business and,
• begin to identify and think about your next steps

A concise and doable plan is your most important tool for building a sustainable life as an artist.  The larger goal is to move from reactive to proactive.  A 'to-do' list is really just a set of goals unless you have an action plan for how you achieve those goals.

You cannot have it if you cannot imagine it.  
You know better than anyone else what is best for you.  
As we go through the workshop feel free to adjust the exercises to make them more appropriate for you.  Everything we create started first in our imagination before it becomes reality.  The good thing is that you get to decide what success means.

 
EXERCISE #1. How Do You 'Spend' Your Time Now? 

What Are Your Core Projects in Life and Art?

Step 1:
Take a minute to write down as many of your own current personal and art projects as you can think of….The list doesn't have to be exhaustive, but as a guide, most people identify around 15 things.   You can finish this exercise and expand the list later.  
60 seconds:  GO…

Step 2:
Now, spend a few moments reflecting on each one of your projects.  In particular think about its importance and meaning to you; 

• What are the origins of the project (internal or external)?  Did you choose the project or did someone else convince you do it? 
• How many of your projects are consistent with your personality and values? Are they deeply meaningful to you?  Do they align with you values and beliefs?
• Are they manageable and attainable?  Do you have what you need to be able to complete the project successfully? (If not, where can you get what is required or who else should be doing the project instead?). Does it really need to be done?
• ​Do any the projects put you in touch with people you enjoy?  Do they lead to valuable or enriching connections?
• Which of the projects brings you joy, and which bring stress and frustration?  
  • Are they fun, pleasurable and enjoyable to do?  
  • Are frustrating, boring, or stressful?  If 'yes' are they finite and worth the effort because they matter to you? If not, let them go.

Step 3:
Look back at your notes and perform a kind of personal project appraisal. Zoom in on the handful of projects that are the most meaningful and relevant to your values and identity. These are your core projects and they are especially likely to affect your happiness and well-being. 

Are there any projects that you’ve marked as lacking progress, or that you’ve identified as highly stressful and feeling impossible to achieve? If so, and if these projects have little meaning or importance, then perhaps you should consider dropping them all together.  

Alternatively, if the stalled projects are necessary and important, you may have identified a key source of unhappiness in your life.  When projects get “stuck” in this way, consider new strategies for making progress, including reframing the project to make it more attainable. For instance: 

• Can you break the project down into smaller more manageable parts and tackle it in smaller steps?
• Can you involve someone else who will care about the project too, that you can consult and report your progress to...an accountability buddy? (Sometimes we will 

​Decide which projects you will let go of to be able to focus on the things that matter most to you, that are more meaningful and that better align with your beliefs and values? 

By assessing how you spend your time your projects on these dimensions, you can eliminate any that are making you feel hopeless and ramp up those that are a good bet to give your life a greater sense of meaning. 


Whereas your personality traits describe who you are, your projects describe what you do, and they are eminently changeable. You control what you say 'yes' and 'no' to.  


The purpose of this exercise is to identify a handful of life and creative projects that meet all the criteria for meaning and happiness: 

• they're achievable
• you're pursuing them because you chose to and not because anyone else wants you to
• they engage you by demanding that you to stretch and expand yourself and grow.

The goal is to have a career focused on sustainable core creative projects that feel within reach and are also full of personal meaning, reflecting what is most meaningful to you in life.


EXERCISE #2. Perfect Art Day Vision 

Step 1:
Imagine a perfect art day 5 years from now.  
Think about how you will spend your time.
Write a description of that day from when you wake up until when you go to bed. (It's a week day because you live such a balanced life that you get to take time off for play with family and friends on the weekend.  Also, do not forget to build in the daily activities that are important to long term health.)

Step 2:
What will have to be in place in order for you to achieve this vision of your perfect art day?  Think about how each of the parts of your vision for yourself are supported. What will have to happen to bring that part into reality?  This will help you define where you will be putting your energy to take the actions and make the decisions that will lead to this perfect day.  Jot down your thoughts.  We will go into more depth in the next section.

Step 3:
As you move forward, there are five questions to ask yourself before you say ‘yes’ to anything:

• Is it something you are choosing or bring pressured to do?
• Does it further your career or activist/community work
• Does it expand your bank account?
• Does it delight you or help you grow as an artist?
• Does it take you to places where you interact with people or places you enjoy?
• 
  

Here are Exercise 1 and 2 as a printable document:

Exercise1&2Thriving

The answers to your exercises are private.  You decide what to share.  

In the comment section below please share what the most surprising and significant take aways from this section have been for you.  Please post by July 2, 2020.

Art Career Resources

Knot VII by Helen Klebesadel, watercolor, 16x12

Art Career Resources

Online Artist Business Guides

First People

Native American Professional Development Series for Artists 

Making a Sustainable Life as an Artist (ArtistsU.com)

Working Group Curriculum

Springboard for the Arts:  Work of Arts Workshops

Work of Art: Business Skills for Artists  (free) Curriculum ~Excellent Resources for each aspect of your journey building a business in the arts. 

Creative Exchange ~ http://springboardexchange.org

Practical toolkits from artists and art organizations for creative, artist-led community projects and programs.

'Creating The Art Career You Actually Want to Have' ​an online workshop of the Oneida Nation Arts Program taught by artist and instructor Helen Klebesadel

Video slide show of the creative work of some of the workshop participants

(The above image will be replaced by a slide show of all the workshop participants once I have everyones photos. If you have not sent me a photo of your creative work for the slide show, please send it via email to me as soon as possible with its title and size.)

Welcome Workshop Participants 

Please check out the workshop description below.  
Helen Klebesadel and the Oneida Nation Arts program
welcome you to the workshop!
If you have questions about anything in the workshop please email your instructor, Helen at Helen@Klebesadel.com

Please do not leave without introducing yourself
in the comments section below.

​Workshop Description​

Sponsored by the Oneida Nation Arts Program, this online workshop will focus on your art, talents, and desire for strong community connections as you create a vision for building the meaningful creative career or business you actually want to have. 

The workshop was originally planned as an in-person one day workshop that would be a first step toward imagining the creative career and business you actually want to have.  We decide to try to achieve the same and more in an online, virtual workshop.  It will not be prefect or be as engaging as it might be to come together in a room full of like-minded people, but we will do our best to make it a valuable experience for all. 

The workshop is being taught from the perspective that creating a meaningful art career uses the same creative problem solving skills that we bring to our art making, so we are all already experts!

You are here because you have received the introductory email and invitation to participate from instructor Helen Klebesadel.

• Our online work will take place here and on email between Friday, June 19 and Thursday, July 16, 2020.  Exercises will be posted every Friday and due the following Thursday.  

• There will be at least one optional joint Zoom meeting on Thursday, June 25th, 7:00-8:30 pm.

• Please Introduce yourself in the 'Comments Sections' below using the introductory questions as a guide. 

• In the Zoom Call we will also do introductions and to meet each other virtually, using the same information. Helen will send an email explaining how Zoom works with an invitation to participate in the June 25th Zoom Call that will also explain how to join in.

• ​You are welcome to communicate with everyone about the workshop in the comments section on this website or you can email Helen privately with questions at Helen@Klebesadel.com

What will we be doing?

We cannot have it if we cannot imagine it.  Everything we create started first in our imagination before it manifests itself in reality.  

My goal for each of you in this workshop is to help you clearly articulate your greatest  vision for yourself as an artist, and begin to articulate and clarify for yourself the steps that will lead you toward that vision. 

We will use the on-line questionnaires and exercises in this private workshop blog to define what success looks like for each of us, using our personal values and goals to inform an initial planning process that will guide us through identifying our next steps toward realizing the career we have envisioned for ourselves!  We will start with a vision for a meaningful art career, and will begin creating a plan to guide us starting from where we are now and moving step by step toward that vision.

Materials for this workshop draw on Helen's experience as an arts professional, arts educator and owner of a small arts-based business, and draws on guidance from (check our their curricula during and after the workshop):

Making a Sustainable Life as an Artist (ArtistsU.com)

Springboard for the Arts:  Work of Arts Workshops

My hope is that your will leave this workshop with a clear vision and set of goals that will guide your actions to create the Art Career You Actually Want to Have.

​Introductions

Let us introduce ourselves to each other!  I have included my own introduction to get us started.

Before June 24th, in the comment section below please introduce yourself by writing the following. (Be brief but include what is important to you):

• Your Name?
• Where you are from and where do you live now?
• What are other things you would like to share to introduce yourself?
• What are your primary art forms and how much experience you have with them?
• Do you you currently have a business selling your creative work or anything else?
• Why you signed up for the workshop? What were you hoping for?
• ​What you will take away from the workshop if you are wildly successful?
• What is one small worry or concern you may have?

​