Your Art Matters

I sat at the table carving stone and felt a rush of excitement.  I haven’t felt this connected to my art-making in a long time.

So, it took me by surprise when my head jumped into thoughts like:

• What if I love this too much and need to close down UAS
• What if I start selling this? OMG, can you imagine the shipping costs, and how would I package this??

These are the thoughts that trap the thousands of artists we have in our community on a daily basis, so this is what I want to talk about it today’s episode.

PS. Don't forget from 17th - 21st APRIL we are hosting our annual YOU ART MATTERS event and we are running a KickStart your Art challenge to help you get fired up and excited about your art.

We will have a week together, so you leave feeling inspired, motivated and confident.

Click here to join us:

https://uas.unitedartspace.org/yam/

I am moving house soon so the shed needed a clear out. 8 years of ‘stuff’ accumulated and it was interesting what I pulled out.

It was full of paint pots, deck chairs, sewing machine, old trainers - the list goes on.  I pulled all this ‘stuff’ out and then my heart stopped…

At the bottom of the huge pile of stuff was my 15 year old sculpture.

It had been sitting underneath all this stuff for more than 8 years!!!!!!

I looked at it tossed on the floor, wondering how it was still intact.  I literally stood there and felt like I was picking a piece of myself off the floor.

I held that sculpture and memories of making it came flooding back. I could literally see myself in this piece of work. My marks, my hands, my feelings, my pain.

At the time of making this piece, I didn’t really like it. However, I really enjoyed making it.

Looking at it again, after 8 years I saw this work in a whole new light. It was me I was looking at, or part of me.

I could see it so clearly.

It was also a stark realisation that feeling like I was picking myself off the floor was in a way a metaphor for how I am feeling in my life.  There is part of my I have definitely pushed to the side.

It is no coincidence that this sculpture is ‘speaking’ to me after all these years.

I share all in this episode that I filmed with ‘My Friend, Sharon’.

Enjoy.

I remember sitting in a cafe with a group of UAS Hub members when Catherine and Lloyd turned to me and suggested I should start a podcast.

At that moment, I felt a sense of dread as I thought to myself "Ewww, I can't possibly learn and do another thing." Despite feeling apprehensive, I had already been going live on social media every week for over five years.

Their suggestion planted a seed, and I eventually decided to give podcasting a try. After all, I was already chatting every week anyway.

Now, 100 episodes later - and with over 66,000 downloads! - the Your Art Matters podcast has become one of my passions. I absolutely love recording my thoughts and hearing your feedback; it feeds my soul. I can't wait to record the next 100 episodes and share the journey with you.

Thank you for all your support.

“I love pain“

“Bring it on”

“Pain sets me free” These are words of advice from the book ‘The Tools’ by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.

In their book, they advise shouting these words every time you have the feeling of fear / pain. It might be right before you embark on something that makes you feel resistance or uncomfortable.

It may be when you have awful thoughts and paint a picture of negativity in your mind when you think of something that scares you, like having a show or selling for the first time.

The book went on to explain a super strategy for separating the feeling of pain from the thoughts we have in our mind and I have been using it this week with much success.

I share what the strategy is and how I have been using it in today’s episode.

How can you choose what direction to go in when you have a million ideas??

I remember my years at art school and being told the power of focussing my attention in a deeper way - I found it so frustrating. But, after years of resistance I finally gave in to the art of focussing and it has helped me build momentum and I’ve really learned when to say yes and no. In today’s episode I share examples of how I choose my direction, both in art and life.

Should you make art that sells?  Should you adapt your work so it sells?? Should you create landscapes in an abstract style as they sell for more?

In the past artists have come to me asking these questions but also telling me ‘I’ve been told my work is too commercial’ or ‘ my work isn’t commercial enough’.

In today's episode I will discuss what commercial art is, and whether you should make your work more commercial.

Last week I was sorting the kitchen drawer out, you know the drawer that everything gets dumped into?

I found my old school reports and wow, they were hard to read.  They brought tears.

Both painful tears and happy tears.

In this week’s episode I share personal insights into my past and how I went from despair to creating United ArtSpace.

I am a massive advocate for the arts and I am on a big mission to help people sell art and make a living doing what they love.

So, why am I not currently selling my own art?

This is what I cover in today’s episode, as I have worked in the creative industries for 20 years this year and during that time I have been a design assistant, full time artist, studio director, student of art and art history, founder of UAS and soon to be author ;)

In today’s episode I share my journey, the lessons along the way and why I am not selling my own art.

I am no cook, but I have been making soup recently - a veggie soup - and the first effort was a disaster. I added so much salt, I drank about 3 litres of water after I ate it.

I made it again and it was better.

Then I made it again and it was even better, this time adding a bit of garnish too.

As I was cooking the same soup over and over again, it got me thinking about how making and selling art is very much like cooking.

In this episode I share:

• How modifying the making and selling process one small step at a time can be the answer to what is/not working
• How you can create more powerful art and find what you want to do
• A list of variables that affect selling
• How tweaking just one or two variables can be powerful when making and selling

Enjoy

This is such a tough one to answer as there are so many factors that affect pricing and I have a whole course on this inside our UAS Hub membership.

But, here are some pointers to get you started:

• How to price as a beginner
• How to structure your pricing so you don’t just have one price
• How to price so you create value and desire

Join the Hub here https://uas.unitedartspace.org/hub/