The Best Kind of Artist

After connecting with Gwenn Seemel over Twitter, I've been spending some time on her site and blog. And I'm really loving this woman. This clip is a repost of her video discussing general artist types (I'm still smiling over the academic artist breakdown), but you may want to check out her blog for some practical business advice from someone who's making a living from her practice. I'll include some links in next month's top 10.

Check out GweenSeemel.com.

Chase Jarvis and Ramit Sethi: Best Business Advice for Creatives

Peek-a-boo! Yeah, I know, "Where the hell has this woman been?" I've been away arting my life away, and now am back and just finished watching this vid that I stumbled upon. It's a discussion about business advice for creatives between photographer Chase Jarvis and entrepreneur Ramit Sethi. And boy do they ever get chit-chatty in a bromance kind of way, but that doesn't take away from the good content. If you've got 90 minutes to spare, it makes for a good chores-about-the-studio soundtrack. And I thought it deserved a repost. Enjoy!

Visions of Visionaries: Talib Kweli

MADE — a venue and artistic collective in the heart of Berlin — can be a gallery, a workspace, a studio, a stage or a laboratory. Most of all, it is an extraordinary venue that invites you to be inspired. Their interview with Talib Kweli (one of my favourite Brooklyn-based MCs) focuses on his thoughts about creativity, ambition and passion. It just hits the spot....

Arts & Upstarts: Wendy Edsall-Kerwin, Hammerstroke & Fire

Wendy Edsall-Kerwin
Jewelry artist and metalsmith

COMPANY:
Hammerstroke & Fire
HammerstrokeAndFire.com
"Using a hammer and a torch, I create metal art and jewelry focusing on textures and connections."
Started: 2004


What type of business do you run and why did you decide to start it? 

Basically, my business is the selling of my art — jewelry and metalsmithing (though I’ve recently added peripheral projects). I went to art school and decided then that this is what I wanted to do for a living. It turned out to be much different than I thought it would be, based on my academic experience.

Ghada Amer & the Top 10 Links of the Month

ARTIST: Ghada Amer, Trini, acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas

THIS MONTH: Film marketing advice; Canadian income tax and your small business; running your business on-line with $10 and a Google account; Internet marketing for novelists; and, more....

Free Your Mind

PHOTOGRAPHER: CALISTO, Free Your Mind

I had an interesting breakthrough last month regarding a creative project that I've stopped and started on over and over again. It's been going on for a few years and acknowledging the ridiculousness of it all made me come to realize that it would make for a valuable topic to write upon.

It's all about the Buddhist concept of attachment and how it can create unnecessary roadblocks in your creative and business life. Now, I'm not going to spend time giving you a detailed definition of attachment, because it would read like one hot mess.

The jist? It's the energy we invest into a core belief about ourselves, a person or a situation, which is usually based on past experience, memory, childhood conditioning, outside pressures, or our mindset. Basically...it's about not being fully present.

Not sure what this all has to do with artists, healers and business? Well let me briefly bring things back to that creative project of mine, which I've been wearing around my neck for years like albatross bling.

Relaxing Your Rules of Engagement

Photo credit: Ayu-mi-x/detail from Ayumi Hamasaki CD cover, AUDIENCE

As I entered week four of the spring installment of "Don't Get Good..." — my business intensive for self-employed artists — an interesting discussion came about in class regarding the importance of getting feedback from one's "tribe," as it may. It was rather apt, as the topic emerged during our session about identifying your niche.

Isis Rodriguez & the Top 10 Links of the Week

ARTIST: Isis Rodriguez, The Meditation

THIS WEEK: Endless requests to donate your work; 6 things potential buyers mean when they say they have no money; pricing secrets artists need to embrace; and, more....

PRINCESSdie & the Top 10 Links of the Week

Artist: PRINCESSdie, Bruce Lee 

THIS WEEK: Advice for aspiring recording artists, the truth about vanity galleries, leaving your 9:00-to-5:00 for your art, newsletter guidelines for non-profits, and more....