Lisa Call

Structures #59
©2006 Lisa Call
70" x 56"
Textile Painting
 

The Brain

I’m currently reading A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink and am finding it quite interesting.

I’m not too far into it yet but being a software engineer I can definitely relate to the outsourcing of the left brain software jobs. The people remaining in the US doing software tend to be more right brain software architect types. And managers.

There was a discussion in the book about chess and why computers do it better than humans and it made me think of my textile painting Structures #59 above (a definite right brain association). This quilt has always looked like a chess board to me. In a rather abstract kind of way.

Busy

With the new position as scrum master at work (ie project manager kinda) and the 160 hours slated for my studio work over the next month, and driving kids about town I’ve had really busy. Little time for chatting or focusing on the art business.

I figure that’s okay as it’s all an ebb and flow. I’ll come around to super busy art business stuff again here soon.

Tonight was the final lecture at the Denver Art Museum in this series of the Logan lecture series. Beverly Semmes gave an interesting talk about her work. The big purple robes in Denver were her first sale to a museum, and in fact her first sale of any kind of her art. What an awesome piece of news that must have been to receive.

ACEO #38
Textile Painting
©2009
3.5" x 2.5"
$40
Purchase Here

ACEO #36
Textile Painting
©2009
3.5" x 2.5"
$40
Purchase Here

New Artwork

These 2 new aceos are a bit of a departure for me. To date all of my aceos (except I think #2) have been inspired by existing artworks by use the same fabrics as I used in a larger textile painting. These 2 I just went with some hot summer colors and had fun with them. Same with ACEO #37, which I posted the other day, loved that bright bright yellow to play with.

It feels really good to have new work coming out of my studio again. It seems everything has been on hold for about 5 months so this is way cool.

Because I sold all my small work in January it’s also been a chunk of time with not much income coming in. Between the art sales and fabric sales (sold half of them the first night), I’ve got a bit of cash flow again. Woohoo. So tomorrow I’ll be ordering more fabric for dyeing.

Thanks everyone for the support.

Really Super Productive Week

In addition to getting in 18 hours in my studio (3 over my goal of 15 per week) I also worked on my art business 28 hours this week (along with the 40 hours at the day job).

At the beginning of the week I worked out a method on how to record and track art business time and after I refine it over the next few weeks I’ll post details on what I’m doing.

My inbox is down to 29 emails again and this time I’ve figure out a way to process emails that seems to be working. Again – after I get it refined a bit (as in figure out what the heck I’m actually doing that seems to work) I’ll write about that also.

Now I need to focus on getting caught up on blog comments. I think there is about a month outstanding. And the last 2 posts about my studio need to come to closure.

Completion – it’s good thing to feel, things are really clicking for me and I’m loving working on my art.

Weekly Planning

Now I’m off to do my weekly planning. My super high productivity will slow down a bit. My planning needs to reflect the expected time with kids.

As it’s summer, the kids’ schedule is a bit wonky. I’ll have another 5 days with them at their dads, then they return on friday and be with me until July 5th. So the number of hours getting things done will decrease as they still like spending time with me (sometimes – being teenagers it becomes less and less each month so I try to maximize the time I can with them.)

Photography and Weeds

I’m very happy with how much better my photography is turning out these days. I still have a bunch to learn but I’m not nearly as frustrated as I was before.

My second private photo class is sunday. Time to talk printing, then I can get on some old todos that require a printed portfolio.

I’m also meeting with my builder this weekend to talk about a covered patio. I can’t afford to build it at the moment but I need to put in some landscaping so I’m going to get a design so I can plan the rest of the yard accordingly.

I had hoped to do landscaping earlier but the universe had other plans for that money, so now I’m working on plan B, which is do the minimal to keep from getting a big fine for not having any landscaping. Got my first nasty-gram from the city last week. Oops! Apparently 2 foot high weeds are frowned upon.

This is what happens when you work 86 hours a week. Something has to give:

Page From My Sketchbook Used to Track Studio Time (click to see larger image)

Tracking Studio Time

I wasn’t planning on writing tonight but I want to write this down while I still remember the thoughts I had today thinking about the post I wrote last night and some of the comments that were left.

I mentioned several times on my blog that I track my studio time. The posts I wrote early in 2008 ( This One and Another One ) are very interesting reads.

These posts indicate a change I made in tracking studio time. I went from being very systematic about it, to taking a more laid back approach. It was all part of the search for who I wanted to be.

I’ve since decided that is a bunch of crap-ola. Yep – I’m going back to a definite plan for how much work I want to get down in my studio.

It Didn’t Work

I discovered that trying to take the "Oh, It doesn’t matter, I’m more floaty and creative if I don’t put rules around it" approach to studio time resulted in my getting significantly less done.

In Jan-Mar of 2008, right after I devised that crazy scheme, I did basically nothing in my studio. My kids were in Europe – I was home alone – there were no excuses or distractions. It was simply me being less systematic. As a result I would often say "I’m tired" or "I don’t feel like it" and stuff like "I’ll do it tomorrow".

None of that stuff really results in things getting done. Instead it’s a good way to get nothing done but have a lot of lofty reasons for why I didn’t.

Like "self care is just so much more important than making art". Hm – NOT! Making art is the #1 thing I say I want to spend my time doing. Not avoid doing.

Why Does A System Work?

So I’ve thought a lot about why my old way of doing things, with rules and precise tracking, worked and I think the answer is it is basically the same thing as setting a timer.

There has been tons written about boosting productivity by using a timers (check out these google results). I think my old plan was essentially that. I timed myself.

When I walked into the studio I trained myself to look and the clock. That was it – timer was running. I didn’t stop working until the time was a even increment of 15 minutes. And then I wrote it down.

Because the timer was running I wasn’t tempted to run off and do other stuff, like check email or do my laundry.

When I left my studio the timer was off – I wasn’t racking up minutes. So I’d hurry back to get the timer going again.

I know this sounds kinda crazy but after seeing it in action and reading all the timer and productivity stuff (my favorite person that write about this is Christine Kane) I’m convinced – it really works. And not just for studio stuff. I now use a timer for my writing and planning art business stuff now also.

I have been spending 15 minutes each morning entering addresses into my snail mail mailing list. Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot but over time it adds up and with no big drama effort, I’m going to have the last 18 months of avoiding this task whipped into shape.

Going with No Goals

In my attempt to be more floaty I also gave up setting goals for how many hours I would spend in my studio each week. I decided to just let it happen. As I mentioned – it didn’t.

What happened is the emotional side of me got all excited and it had a field day. Woohoo – we get to run the show and stop her from doing what she wants.

I only made art when I felt like it. Or when I magically had time.

Okay – really – I work full time as a software engineer. I’m a single mom every other week with 2 teenagers constantly wanting stuff. I own my home, have to pay the bills and do all those house things that need done. There is the yard (okay there was the yard – it’s now dirt). Family, friends, quack quack quack.

I don’t have time to put in 20 hours a week in my studio so of course if I give myself an out I’m going to take it. There weren’t any goals so it didn’t matter. No disappointment so why bother doing it.

Thumbs Up To Goals

So forget that no goals thing. I’m now setting my goal to 15 hours a week. I’m making it lower than before because I also plan on doing a lot more art business stuff than I used to.

By setting goals I have something to aim for. I may not always make that goal but by identifying it and writing it down I have a much better chance of making my goal than without writing it down.

By setting goals I am no longer giving the emotional side of me free reign to do what I want. I get scared or worried or anything about what I’m working on. Great – recognize the feelings – but I’m not going to let it stop me from pushing forward.

Eventually those feelings realize they aren’t in control and they get a little less loud.

By setting goals and being systematic I’m significantly more creative and make much more art than when I’m all new-agey. Trying to be like those non-driven people I sometimes think I should be like, who always seem more creative and spontaneous and fun, didn’t work for me at all.

I need structure and systems for my creativity to work.

The Past

I used to put in 20 hours a week in my studio. Always. Every single week I’d prioritize the creation of art and I would make sure I found the time to make art.

Then I decided I needed to change my life. I wasn’t happy, things weren’t working. I was letting things into my life that I didn’t absolutely love. I wasn’t making choices, I was just letting life happen.

So I took some time to discover what I really wanted. The first step in this process was to eliminate things from my life that weren’t working. The boyfriend, the clutter in the house and eventually the house.

This lead to the remodel project, which I’ve been writing about weekly since last August. Wow. I contacted the contractor in July – we started the design in August. That is 10 months of construction on my brain.

The house has been 99% done since the end of March but I needed April and May to settle in, get the punch list finished and write about the process.

The Present

So now – here I am – where am I? I certainly have changed my life. I love living in Denver vs. the suburbs. I love living my life with intention. I love my new home and new studio.

The turmoil is over and when I look back it’s been 2 1/2 years since I’ve been at this place (the year prior to my move my father was ill and passed away, as did 3 other close family members) with no big things to distract me.

This is a very exciting and scary place to be. I know myself. I know this is the time when historically I am very likely to create yet another diversion to keep me from having to answer that scary question:

"What Do I Want?"

It’s good to know this – to have the awareness. Because this time, I’m not going to do it. No boyfriends, no more moving, no more building. This is it. Just me and my dreams. Time to create them.

The Plan

I’ve been working on answering that question last 4 months. Thinking about what I love doing. Writing, reading, thinking big.

I’ve made tons of notes on scraps of paper it’s been fun to hint around at the answer to the question. Wonderful fun ideas coming up daily.

This dreaming part, which is wonderful and fun and vitally important, is now ready to take a more definite shape. I have a good idea of what I want, now time to make it concrete.

I’m ready to move from dream to plan so for that to happen I am putting the following task on my todo list daily:

- Planning – 30 minutes or more

I’m taking all those wonderful ideas and pulling them together into a cohesive plan that I can take action on. Priorities and systems and schedules.

And all of this is very fun, but it’s also pretty scary. Cause it’s a lot of work. Because all the big dreams that my right brain came up with, my left brain is saying "You are going to do WHAT? Do you know how much work that is? Do you even know how to do that? "

So I think those thoughts and still I move ahead, cause in addition to distractions I’m not letting fear stop me either. I just think about the next 30 minute planning session and I am making steady progress forward – turning the dream into reality.

And, because first and foremost I’m an artist and love creating art, the other thing on my daily todo list is:

- Create Art – 1 hour or more

I am committing to returning to 15 hours (or more) of studio time every week. I debated going back to 20 but decided I’m doing more art business work so I’ll stick with 15 for now.

I’ll let you all know how things progress.

Studio Posts

I’m not quite done with my posts on building a studio. Next up will be a post on my studio storage.

Tomorrow I plan to catch up on all the blog comments I’ve failed to respond to the last few weeks and see if there are other studio topics I need to cover based on the questions.

Once that is done I’ll need to think up another theme for my blog posts for June. Hm. Somewhere I had a list…

My Office

Focus

The past few days I have been intently focused on getting moved into my house. Last week I tried to unpack and settle in and also do some art business stuff. The result wasn’t real productive. The old proverb that says something like “If you chase 2 rabbits both will escape” pretty much applied.

When I’d try to sit and do some writing the piles of boxes around me would start distracting me and I’d start to unpack. Then I’d feel guilty for not doing the business stuff so jump back to that. Ack – totally 0 forward progress.

So now I’m just unpacking. That’s enough along with work and kids and all the other stuff I normally do. Few more days and I should be done, which means I’ll be able to take my final ‘after’ photos of the remodel.

The house is 99% done. They have promised to finish up the punch list this week. So soon it will be time for a house warming party. My daughter said she saw that on the Sims but didn’t know people did it in real life. Guess she’s about to experience a computer game in real life.

Art

This weekend I decided it was time to get art on my walls as the furniture was all in place and I’m just about finished with that process. It’s amazing how many hours it takes to sort out an art collection and choose homes for each piece and then fill in the empty spots (admittedly most of the space as my art collection isn’t very large yet) with my own textile paintings. Hours and hours – very fun hours.

I have 2 or 3 more pieces to go up and I’ll be done, for now. One of the last pieces will be Markings #12 but first I have to fix it so I can hang it right side up. Long time readers might recall it hung upside down in my last solo show and it wasn’t until I posted the images on line I figured it out.

In the photo above you can see Markings #15 hanging in my office. Below it are my very cool pencil holders made by Paula McCullough. They are just perfect on that shelf over the desk.

I don’t have local gallery representation yet so my house gets to be my local showcase of art.

Slides

This blog post is a way to avoid the chaos currently surrounding me in my office. I’m in the process of organizing and moving in but I’ve hit the ‘it’s a huge mess in here what should I do next’ part of the process and tired.

The big white bag in the middle of the floor is a trash bag – full of 90% of my slides. Tossing them out. I am keeping 1 slide of each textile painting so I’ve only tossed out the obvious ones and later on I’ll do more sorting. Five of the notebooks on the shelf are slides and I suspect I can get that down to just 1. Then I’ll put it in my basement and not look at it again forever.

I was pretty ruthless when I moved and tossed out and gave away a ton of stuff. I’m being even more picky now and have a big mound of things I will be getting rid of over the next few weeks. One of them is my slide projector and screen. No slides, no need for a projector. Anyone want it? I have a spare bulb and a few extra carousels also.

I have to say, I really prefer this digital world. Keeping track of images and entering shows is much easier for me now. Yay for technology.

Hand Felted All Wool Pebbles
© 2009 By Chrissie
Printed With Permission from the Artist

Five More Weeks

I sat down with Jim, my general contractor, yesterday and we went over the plan for finishing up the remodel/addition. Five more weeks to go. And pretty much right on schedule even with all of the things I added into the project. Having awesome weather really helped, plus the crew is excellent.

Although I’ve moved into my studio and new bedroom those rooms aren’t yet finished. I spent many hours today washing drywall off the floors as I’ve decided I’ve had enough drywall dust in my life. I’m far from done with this task but it’s good to get started and I think by end of the week I should have it cleaned up (just in time for them to come back and finish the new drywall in the existing side of the house).

I’m also going to start painting colors in my bedroom and office tomorrow and I’ll start moving my stuff into the laundry room cabinets and organizing my kitchen cabinets. (See the latest construction photos here: Feb 4 and 5 and Feb 6).

The Plan

With all the house activity there hasn’t been a lot of art or the business of art going on at my house, which is not okay with me. So extending the discussion from last month, habits, I’ve decided to create a daily plan for the next 5 weeks to keep me on track.

From now until March 13 I will be spending most of my non day job time on the house but I’m also including the following in my daily schedule:

Studio Time:

• M-F: 1 hour – first thing in the morning (before turning on the computer)
• Sat-Sun: 2 hours – first thing in the morning (before turning on the computer)

Art Business Time (not to include email – but making forward progress on other goals):

• M-F: 1/2 hour – immediately after dinner
• Sat-Sun: 2 hours – late afternoon before dinner

Answer Email (I did pretty good keeping up for 1 week but am back to a long inbox):

• M-F: 1/2 hour – 9-9:30pm
• Sat-Sun: 1 hour – after dinner

While it’s tempting to skip the art while I’m in the last bits of hour stuff, I know I’ll be happier if I make time for art. Plan starts tomorrow. Goal is to make 6 out of 7 days for each of these activities and these are minimums – more time on art is always welcome if I’m so moved.

I’ll report in a blog post each sunday how I did for the previous week.

Felted Rocks

The above photo is one of my most recent new art purchases. A saw a link to these amazing felted rocks via twitter and immediately had to buy some from the makeyourpresentsfelt etsy shop. Chrissie custom makes the stones for each customer (how cool is that) and her packaging is amazing.

I collect real rocks and these felted ones are a must have for my collection. They are even better in person then they look in the photo so if you a rock collector I highly recommend them (she’ll relist them in her shop if they are sold when you check – so just check back later – it’s worth the effort).

If you aren’t a rock person check out this really cool bracelet made with felted beads – if I wore jewelry I’d buy it myself. Love the colors and the felted beads are too cool.

Lines #15
©2008
3" x 3" – Mounted on stretched canvas
Sold

Email

I get a lot of email. I think we probably all get a lot of email. I’ve tried a zillion different ways of dealing with it, none of it really working out.

I tried the David Allen method of stuffing it all away in a folder to keep inbox at 0 – yay – that was great – inbox was at zero, folder was full of unanswered email. The illusion of having things under control is pretty useless. Several months back I tossed all those unanswered emails back into my inbox, I’ve still got 20-40 of them left to deal with (like putting off an art consultant that wants a portfolio – crazy – what was/am I thinking?).

I had a huge ah-ha moment the other day realizing that my major problem with email is that I don’t really think it should take anytime at all to deal with. Pretty simple really, I needed to accept email is important and it does take time. Then the answer is obvious – just take the time to deal with it properly and stop resenting it, it’s the life line of my art business.

When I schedule my days I never build in a chunk of time to properly answer my email. I set aside time to make art and run errands and do specific art business tasks like answer interview questions or mail out work that has sold.

Well – duh – email is important – it’s mostly how I communicate with the world – I need to schedule time to answer it. Checking email is not the same as sitting down and answering it.

I know, I’ve read all about scheduling time for email but for some reason the value of doing that never really sank in until about a week ago. I think because I sit at a computer 8 hours a day for my day job I’ve always thought email isn’t something that needed this type of focus. I’ve now changed my mind. The 145 unanswered emails in my inbox, most since the beginning of this year, also convinced me that I need to do something different.

Email Habit

Time to develop much more efficient and useful emails habits. My initial plan is to first clean out the email queue and get my inbox back to 0. I figure this will take most of January. After that my plan is to set aside 30 minutes each morning before to handle art business email and another 30 minutes after work.

I’ll try that out for a few weeks and if it doesn’t work I’ll tweak it and keep trying til I find something that works. Maybe I’ll need to set aside more time a few days a week to deal with the emails with larger requests or that take more time to process.

I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

And big apologies to anyone that sent me email the last 3 or 4 weeks and I’ve not yet answered you. My plan around the beginning of the year for email was to completely ignore it. Which explains the long inbox. Sorry!

Photography

I have recently rephotographed a few of my newer textile paintings as I came to brilliant observation that my 2 lenses are quite different in quality. While the zoom lens is great for taking construction photos the colors are less than impressive. So I must remember to put the nice 50mm lens on the camera before photographing my artwork.

The red in Lines #15 above is much better (although still not 100% accurate – it’s really a bit more towards candy apple red than this version of slightly more orange red). I’ve decided to do the cropping, etc of these little pieces one at a time over the next few days, which conveniently gives me some images for my posts the next few days.

Home #4
©2008
4" x 3"
Sold

Plan to Have Energy

My daily schedule:

• 5:30: Wake up
• 6:00: Yoga
• 6:30: Prepare for day
• 7:00: Work in Studio
• 7:30: Breakfast and get kids out the door to school
• 8:00: More Studio
• 8:30: Leave for work
• 5:00: Home from work
• 5:00: Dinner & family time
• 7:00: Studio
• 8:00: Art business/Office Work
• 9:00: Write Blog Post
• 9:30: Read 1/2 hour then sleep

My life isn’t always exactly like this but in general this is what I get done each day. My kids live with their dad every other week in which case family time is replaced with more studio and art business time.

When I first started working the day job I didn’t do anything when I got home other than watch netflix movies. After 6 months to a year of this rather sluggish behavior I decided I’d had enough laziness and I got rid of my TV.

Then I told myself I was not exhausted and that I had plenty of energy to make art. So that is exactly what I did. I’d get home from work and head to my studio and work for hours.

Now I do this daily. On my drive home I visualize myself working in my studio. I tell myself I have a ton of energy and I focus on the positive. I don’t participate in conversations where people complain about being too busy or tired to do anything as I feel it has a negative impact on me.

Having a positive attitude about what I can get done has been a big help in have all the energy I need to do anything I want.

Art For Sale

I stitched Home #4 along with Home #3, posted yesterday, with the thought it would be an ACEO to offer for sale via my studio newsletter in December. But apparently I can not measure and it turned out too big. I haven’t yet mastered the diagonals of these little houses so I do a lot more resewing and recutting than with my Structures and Markings series and they still don’t always turn out as I expect.

So now this little single house textile painting gets to be called Home #4 and is for sale for $35. Please send me email if you are interested in purchasing it. Shipping is $1 in the US and $2 elsewhere. I accept payment via paypal or checks in US dollars.

I was going to point out the stitched doors in the houses yesterday but forgot so check them out on this little piece. Maybe windows will be next as I had a discussion about windows with my builder today. We also talked about all sorts of other things, like bathrooms and keys. We’re getting closer to starting!

Insights

This evening is interview #2 in the Insights Artist Interview series with Alyson Stanfield. I love getting a chance to hear what these artist have to say about their careers. Success stories are wonderful motivation to keep on going.

Structures #72 detail

Time in Studio vs Art Career

Last week I wrote about looking for balance between making art and the business side of an art career. I’m still pondering the issues for myself and thought taking an informal poll of other artists would be interesting.

So I asked: "question for artists: On average – per week: 1) how many hours do spend creating new artwork? 2) how many hours spent on your art business?"
on both twitter and facebook. Below is the summary of the answers (art/business).

- 20/20
- Some weeks 40/0, others 0/40
- 25/30
- 10/30
- 10-25 / 20-30+
- 25-30 / too much time promoting and organizing.
- ideally..20/20..lately 5/15
- 5-15 / 15
- 6 / 10-12
- 7-12 / 2
- 30/20
- 2/3
- 0/0
- 1/2

I pulled out just the numbers and deleted the comments, which were quite interesting, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to repost them here. If you go to search.twitter.com and search on @lisacall you can read the full replies to my query on twitter.

The info I glean from this is that the business side of art is a major commitment. Now that I’ve made that commitment it is no wonder I’m feeling the need to readjust.

Thanks to all the twitters and facebookers that answered the question as it was most helpful.

How about you, blog reader? How much time do you spend in the studio vs. the office?

More PFD Fabric for Sale

I sold 220 yards of fabric but have a bit more Prepared for Dye Fabric (PFD) Pimatex Fabric I’d like to sell. I wrote a post about this fabric here: Kaufman PFD Pimatex Fabric . I’m selling this fabric to keep my account at Kaufman open (they have a minimum purchase amount per year to order from them directly – I’m very close to meeting that minimum).

I’m selling the fabric to those with US shipping addresses only for $4.50 a yard + shipping. Total cost for different amounts including shipping:

5 yards – $30
10 yards – $55
20 yards – $100
25 yards – $125

If you’d be interested in purchasing some fabric please send me email the amount you’d like to purchase. I accept checks and paypal.

Structures #73

In addition to a couple hours of art business work, I’ve managed to get in 3 hours in the studio today. The first time in months and months I’ve been so focused on art making on a workday. Woohoo. Course it’s an hour later than I would like to be going to bed but I’m making good progress with the surface stitching on Structures #73. It takes me about an hour per square foot so I have maybe 6 or 7 hours left.

The above photo is another detail show of the textile painting.

Structures #72 detail

In The Studio

A few weeks ago I included an image of Structures #99 in my studio newsletter (you can see it here: Lisa Call’s October Studio Newsletter). Completing this textile painting was fun – only 1 more and I’ll be at 100. Woohoo. That feels like a big deal.

I haven’t figured out what I want to do for #100 yet. I had an idea it needed to be special in some way and with that kind of pressure, yikes, I can’t come up with anything special that feels right.

So instead I’ve decided to make this a full 100 completed pieces of art. Structures #72 and Structures #73 aren’t actually finished. They are both basted and waiting for me to add the surface stitching.

Both are very large pieces so I originally was going to wait to finish them until the new studio was built. Then this week I changed my mind and brought out #72 (detail above) and am working on it. I had started it during my move preparations earlier this year so I only have about 1/3 left to go. My goal: the stitching is finished by the end of the week.

Home Remodel

Speaking of my new studio, I got some excellent news today. My house (with addition) appraised for an excellent price so the bank approved my construction loan and I got a great interest rate to boot.

I close on the loan on the 24th and will start building hopefully the 27th. We should have the permit from the city some time next week. Everything came together nicely.

Yay!!! I’m getting closer.

Pretty much it worked out way better than I might have expected, which is so often the case.

Resources

A few artist resource I want to recommend. First are some artist interviews that Alyson Stanfield is presenting. I signed up for all 5 of them. I’ve found listening to artist talk about their business and their choices is a huge benefit to me so I’m looking forward to hearing what they have to say. I missed the first one but the great deal on these is you can download the mp3 to listen to over and over again at any time. If you are interested here’s a link: Insights – Artist Interviews with Alyson Stanfield.

In addition, Alyson is taking applications for another artist breakthrough program that starts in November. I participated in one this spring and it was excellent. I am thinking I might do it again later next year after my studio is finished also as it really great to have some group energy to keep a project going. Here’s a link for that: Artist Breakthrough Program

For truth in advertising, these are both affiliate links, which means I get money if you sign up through one of these links, which is nice, but it’s not why I’m recommending them. I’ve recommended Alyson’s stuff long before this program was in place because I believe in it very strongly.

I’ve known Alyson for years and have taken several workshops and classes with her. I can honestly say if it weren’t for her I’m not sure I’d be very far along on the art business path. She’s makes it all so clear and obvious. She’s the best so I’m always happy to send business her way.