Sketchbooks
I just got home from the Building Creative Business Expo in Denver. Millions of ideas floating around with hundreds of artists sharing their experiences - it was an amazing atmosphere.
While some of the workshops I selected weren’t quite what I had anticipated I still came away with pages of information and ideas. Gallery owners, art center directors, business people willing to share tips on how to startup and run a small business, museum PR folks and other artists all came together to help each other out. Incredible energy. I give a huge thank you to the city of Denver of organizing this event. The mayor even stopped by for a few minutes to welcome us.
This year I took my sketchbook and took notes in the sketchbook itself instead of my routine of grabbing a random notebook that eventually gets lost in the shuffle, which generally means I never look back at my ideas on how to take what I learned and use it for myself. Now I’ll have the info with me all the time and I can refer back to it.
I’ve decided my sketchbook, which I used to just use for drawing and sketching, is now going to be more multipurpose. I’ve been struggling with how to track how much time I spend on the business side of art and while I’ve meant to do this the past two months it hasn’t happened. I’m going to use this sketch book for that also. I hope this keeps me a bit more motivated on keeping up with the business side of things. I have to admit I’m not really hitting many of my business deadlines right now.
I do a similar thing with a sketchbook that never leaves my studio. I keep notes about each piece as I’m working on it, how I feel about the current work, what’s going on in my life that might be effecting my work, design ideas for the future, etc. I also track the amount of time I spend in my studio in this sketchbook and having it there in black and white each month really helps me focus on my goal of 20 hours a week. Time to give the business side of my art the same respect.
As an extra bonus I got to spend a bit of time talking with Cynthia Guajardo who I first me through her blog. She is a ceramist that works in quilting on occasion and I love her work. Especially the piece I recently purchased, her interpretation of Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night as a softpainting. Beautiful work.
Cynthia’s setting up a ceramic studio in her garage and I’m looking forward to watching the progress on her blog.
I’m still without the ability to download images from my camera so no pictures today (follow the links and look at Cynthia’s work!). Tomorrow I’m going to bite the bullet and tear my computer and computer desk apart again and see if I can figure out why things aren’t working. But right now I’m off to the studio - I’m hoping to finish Structures #50 tonight (hopefully photos tomorrow!)
Posted by Lisa in: Art Marketing, Being an Artist, Marketing
jafabrit said,
March 4, 2007 @ 7:39 am
How lovely you got to meet cynthia :)
I think if you include your business side also it will be much easier to see the correlation between the creative side vs the business side and the impact.
cynthia said,
March 4, 2007 @ 8:53 am
It was good seeing you again, Lisa! I learned a lot from the expo and will be going forward soon with some of the info…but I have to say some workshops were definitely better than others. I need to look over my notes again, but when I got home, I didn’t think about it until this morning.
I just checked out artrocket…there’s a small mention of fiber buried in some section I read.
Thanks for the mention.
Lisa Call said,
March 4, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
Jafabrit - I’ll be in Ohio in May - maybe I can meet you also!
Cynthia - I definitely had to laugh at this some workshops were definitely better than others - seems to me the ones we were in together were a bit on the lower quality side. The guy at artsocket added fiber because of my blog post. Cool! I think your ceramics would be excellent for that site.
Frances said,
March 5, 2007 @ 2:29 am
Lisa re your camera download problem have you contacted the manufacturer I had a problem with mine and when as a last resort I contacted Fuji they asked for the serial number then told me there was a problem with a batch of serial numbers mine being in that batch so they sent me packaging etc to send the camera in to be corrected, I did point out to them that there was no mention of this on their website, hope you get the problem sorted,
lucky you for having such a wonderful event, some Artists have told me that they find they need to spend more time on marketing and business than creative work, some as much as 75-25 percent of time,
jafabrit said,
March 6, 2007 @ 6:53 am
where in ohio lisa? That would be very nice :)
Lisa Call said,
March 6, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
I’ll be near Lancaster OH from April 29 - May 12 taking a workshop. Maybe the weekend in between we can meet somewhere - I’d love to see your work in person.
Susie Monday said,
March 6, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
I actually keep one sketchbook going with EVERYTHING in it, from planning and sketching to notes for reviews to teaching dates and data, even mailing lists of people in classes and events, then I “download” pages into the places where I file things, into my tickler file for dates, etc. by either cutting them out, or more frequently, making a copy on my all-in-one copier. I find that if I treat my sketchbook as a kind of portable inbox, i tend to keep track of stuff better.
Lisa Call said,
March 12, 2007 @ 11:30 am
Susie - what you say makes so much sense. And I see that the more I think I should put in there the more useful it becomes.