Mindful Marketing Practices, Step One

 AUDIENCE 

       This image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagogeek/4333114156/

 Since I’m endlessly curious, clearing my mind to practice mindfulness is important to me. So are setting intentions. I started this year with a personal vision quest – eight full days -- through snowstorms and subzero temps (in Chicago, I’m told, the zookeepers even brought the polar bears indoors!). 

 My retreat unfolded this way. First I happened onto a self-inventory called "The Gifts of 2013" from Susannah Conway. I spent New Year’s Day writing until I had filled it all out.  When I reviewed what I had written about the pluses and minuses of 2013, I savored the confident, positive woman I saw reflected back to me.

 A few days later I met with two fellow artists with long corporate careers and much expertise to discuss our desires and directions for 2014. I acknowledged that I am very savvy about marketing for others but not on my own behalf.  Could I change that mindset and still be true to my own values? Indeed I can.

As I take steps this year to make my work more visible, then my audience -- those people who will invest in my works -- will find me. How can people purchase my work if they don’t know it exists?

Just who is my desired audience? As I visualize them, here's what I see:

• You appreciate contemporary art. It ignites your interest and delights you. You surround yourself with original art in your home and office.

• You have confidence in your taste. You trust your instincts.

• You're informed. You learn about the artists who interest you.  If possible, you visit their studios and connect with them personally.
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•  You're comfortable with contemporary art. You make it a point to visit museum exhibitions and gallery shows because you enjoy learning.  You spend time with a work to really see and appreciate it.

• You share your enthusiasm for the arts and artists with your friends, family and co-workers. You may be low-key about it but you are definitely an advocate for artists. 

• You think for yourself. You enjoy purchasing art that will increase in value but you don’t make your purchases based on profits. Today’s stars come and go in contemporary art as in music and movies; you choose to buy art that captivates you rather than follow trends and passing fads.

• You are a genuine, compassionate and interesting person. You probably wouldn’t find visual art appealing if you weren’t!

My audience is out there – and since I  have a clearer idea of who they are, it will be easier to develop ideas for how to reach them.

 

 

Finding Calm

Pages 3, 20" x 21", silkscreened, dyed silks. Reverse applique, raw edge applique, stitching.

Armed with focus, determination and an impressive plan for my artwork this year, I envisioned producing the next group of pieces in the Parables series in high gear.

Normally, when I start creating a new piece,I go to sleep with a question and wake up with an inner image in my mind of where to begin. That idea either works or leads me to one that does.

This time, however, the Mt. Everest of ideas surrounding language imagery felt like a tangled mess. My mind kept racing, ideas kept piling up and competing -- no clarity, no focus, no "seeing" a clear idea to begin the new work. Just more and more ideas competing for attention.

Clearly,a curious and troubling situation, but only in that one direction.

Work with the Seeds pieces bubbles with excitement, focus and productivity. The small work above, completed this weekend, investigated a number of new options.

Here were the "what ifs" it explored: What would colored threadwork look like on the black and white printed surface? What if I layered two fabrics on top of one another and cut through some of the seed shapes to reveal the fabric underneath? What will a strong golden yellow look like as a contrasting color? How would it work to add a single french knot at the center of each seed shape?

This small work excites me with even more new options. So it isn't my creativity that's suffering, it's something else that's going on with the language imagery.

Eventually I recognized yesterday I needed to take all that unpleasant and distracting burble of ideas in my head and spill it out on paper.

As I wrote, my inner churning and chattering began to quiet.I began returning to that inner balance point that is so crucial for me. I need calm.

I think I revved up my inner engines to take on 2009 and create new language pieces like a racer in the Indy 500. But all I started doing was spinning my wheels and overheating in the pit.

I'm throwing out the whole idea of speed and action. Instead, I'll visualize a quietly flowing stream and me moving along with it. If new Parables pieces aren't ready to emerge, I'll give them the time they need.

We all talk about trusting our process. Right now I have to live it.

Choosing a Word for 2009

Statue in Siena, Tuscany of Romulus and Remus being fed by a she-wolf

We can thank Christine Kane for spurring thousands of us who read her wonderful blog posts to set aside making New Year's Resolutions and instead choose a theme word for attracting desired outcomes in the New Year.

In 2008, I chose the word "fruition" and the images it generated were excellent tools to help me focus and identify specific desires. As the year ended, I listed my accomplishments and am proud of them.

With new opportunities already presenting themselves for 2009, I wanted to choose a theme word that encompasses my clearest intentions.

Confidence is one choice, the desire to feel at my very core that I am worthy and wonderful. Feeling confident about the quality and merit of my work will shine through my applications for new exhibition opportunities. Being confident and self-assured will assist me in meeting new people and networking professionally.

Being confident will increase my commitment to taking care of myself with exercise and healthy, nourishing foods. Possessing confidence will erase the fears that surface when a new work isn't going well that my work isn't "good enough."

In the past I've been able to move forward with bravado and tons of hard work, but now I desire genuine self-esteem to help attract wonderful outcomes. So "confidence" is indeed an important quality, one I wish to make an integral part of my being in 2009.

However, confidence alone doesn't seem quite encompassing enough for what I desire for 2009. Being confident is an attitude, an emotional preparation and mindset but not an outcome. Alone, it doesn't generate images of my desired results.

So I am also choosing a second word to pair with it -- "flourish". The dictionary descriptions of this word are heady and exactly what I desire to actualize in the coming year --"a luxuriant growth or profusion" ..."to reach a height of development or influence"..."to achieve success." The two words bridge my inner and outer worlds; they're a perfect fit, like a pair of comfortable new walking shoes.

So I am entering 2009 holding "confidence" and "flourish" in my heart; like Romulus and Remus,the legendary twins who founded Rome, I envision these two words growing up to build a shining new city for my artistic life in 2009 (minus all the slewing and slaying that go along with Roman myths, of course!).

Interestingly, one of the definitions of "flourish" also is "an ornamental stroke in writing or printing", so the word even relates to my body of work that is evolving through my fascination with letterforms and language imagery.

I love the layers of meaning and intention in choosing these two words, in linking them visually with the twins Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf (my wild woman self?!)and how strong and powerful the images are that these two words generate together inside me. The New Year is underway; may the power of "confidence" and "flourish" manifest in wonderful ways as 2009 unfolds!