Lisa Call

Markings #12    ©2007    44"x 32"

Giving

One of the things we talked about in Christine Kane’s E-seminar in January was what she termed expansive giving. Sharing our resources because we are inspired to do so. It goes beyond donating money to charity and for some it’s related to tithing. Many that believe in the Law of Attraction have a bunch of rules about what constitutes this type of giving back to the universe.

I’ve always donated some portion of my income to charity each year but it’s never been a huge amount. When I made the decision to rearrange my life to make a living from my art I decided to build in the giving up front so it’s a part of my business.

At the end of each month I work through my art business finances and give 10% of my gross income to others. I’ve decided I don’t have any rules about what this might mean. Some months I’ve given the money to charities that support causes I believe in. Some months I’ve given the money to people that have helped me or inspired me. Some months I imagine I might buy something to support an artist or small business owner and then give the item to someone else. I can imagine all sorts of ways of giving back to my community and the universe without feeling trapped by someone else’s rules.

It’s been very fun the last few months to sit and think about where I want to give my money. And I’m thrilled to say that every month I’ve had at least of bit of income so I can give.

This month I sent a check to FINCA, an organization that provides financial services to the world’s lowest-income entrepreneurs so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living.

Courage

In many ways the point of expansive giving is about opening up and trusting that the universe always provides. That there will always be enough. It takes courage to not hold on to it all too tightly.

I know when I first make the big leap and quit my job I’ll be living a different standard of living. From software engineer to artist just starting down the road to being self-supporting. When I first thought about it I was pretty scared. Then Christine introduced the idea of giving away 10% of our income I thought "no way, I’ll barely have enough to live on". Those thoughts are about fear.

So I made the decision in January to commit a full 10% of my gross income to giving, sharing and donating. I don’t want to live my life being afraid. Courage is my word of the year and this is part of that. Trust and love are a lot more fulfilling than fear.

Moving Progress

I’ve had painters at my house all week painting inside and out. Everything inside has been draped in plastic for a few days as they were spraying the walls (I have an 18 foot high ceiling). So just like last week not much art is going on at my house. I’m out of the house all day and just home at night to sleep in beds in the middle of the room. My son thinks it feels like a haunted house in here with all the plastic.

This long weekend, it’s memorial day weekend here in the US, the unofficial start of summer. It isn’t going to be much of a holiday for my family. I’ll be working on small house and landscaping projects all weekend with the help of my kids.

We’re in the home stretch. I’ve now got a real estate sign in my yard that says "Coming Soon" with the goal of having that switch to "For Sale" the first week in June.

Markings #12 - Moving Sale

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, all of my artwork is for sale. The above piece is one of those pieces. It’s full retail price is $2500 and through June 15th it’s available for $1500.

For those curious about my pricing, it’s roughly $230-$260 per square foot based on the year it was made. I round up or down to reach an even number. If you are interested in purchasing Markings #12, or any of my available work please email me.

Structures #62    © 2007    33" x 19"

A Slow Reply

Eight or nine months ago Meagan asked me the following question on one of my posts:

Something a little off topic, but still related: How do you know when your art work is “good enough” to start marketing it? (Obviously this isn’t a problem for you, Lisa, since your art is amazing!) Previous commenters (Ed) have mentioned that in the beginning of their career, they sold stuff that really wasn’t very good. How do you know when your art work has reached that particular level?

I’ve had a draft of this question sitting around waiting for an answer ever since. As I wasn’t up to a dissection of my studio newsletter as promised, I decided to go back and deliver on an older unanswered query.

It’s about Growth

The article I wrote was about selling my artwork (click to read). My thoughts have changed over the years and today I will answer this differently than I might have 3 or 5 or 8 years ago when I was not looking to pursue an income generating career from my art.

Today my answer is: You are ready to start marketing your artwork when you are ready to take that bold step and put yourself out there. It’s a big leap as it comes with many risks but also many rewards.

Sure, five years from now you might look back and think "Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I tried to sell that junk." But that’s the future. What matters is right now, today, this moment. How do you feel about your artwork? Are you happy with it? Do you think it is good? Do you want to market it? Great - go for it.

And I don’t think that’s such a bad future, to be a bit embarrassed about your work from years back, because it means you are growing as an artist. This is a great thing. Maybe something to look forward to.

How Will You Handle Set Backs

Artists are often advised to ask others for opinions about their work. Is it good enough? Will it sell? While this isn’t bad advice I’m not sure I’d recommend that. I suggest just going with your intuition. If you have the desire and resources to market your artwork, then go for it!

What’s the worse thing that could happen? You might fail on first try. The question is, what will you do with that failure? Will you let it destroy your dream? If so maybe you aren’t ready. I think this is probably the single most important question to answer.

Sure you might never face rejection, but chances are good you’ll face more than a few "we aren’t interested" situations. As Christine Kane says:

SWSWSWSW: Some will. Some won’t. So what? Someone’s waiting!

[Read her excellent article about not taking things personally here]

Even if you do face failure you might learn something. You might get better and grow. You might find new ways to do things. You might meet people that want to help you over that hurdle.

When you are ready to fall down and get up and keep on going. That’s when you are ready.

I’m Finally Ready

I’ve been making art that I really love for the past 10 years. Yet I’ve never taken the leap to go after an solid income with my art. I always have an excuse:

• I need to build up cash reserves.
• The kids are only at home for a few short (18) years.
• This work isn’t quite good enough yet.
• No one buys art quilts.
• I could never replace my software engineering salary with an art income.

Well, no more. I’m doing whatever it takes to get rid of the day job and replace it with the art income.

First up on the list of to-dos is to sell the house that requires a really big income. If I wait until I have enough money from my art to pay this mortgage it could be a pretty long wait. So I’m short circuiting that problem and downsizing.

It’s a huge task and when I think of all that needs to be done to get this huge home on the market I freak out, which is the reason I’m still here. I thought about moving 6 years ago after my divorce and then again 3 years ago, but I didn’t have the courage to do it.

Now it’s the year of courage, which gives me the focus needed to work through all that needs done. I don’t think about the huge list of to-dos. I make short lists of easily doable tasks. Things I can accomplish in a few hours. I’m just focusing on each step, one and time, and steady progress is made every day.

In the meantime I’m not ignoring my art. I’m in the 7th day of Artist Breakthrough Program with Alyson Stanfield and it’s fabulous. I’ve made huge strides in getting my new website ready to go. Tomorrow I’ll blog about how I did with my goals this week and what’s up for next week.

And yes - at some point I’ll write about all I learned when doing my studio newsletter. Hopefully you will not have to wait 8-9 months for that answer.

The above image was the one I selected for this post 9 months ago, I can’t tell you why. It’s orange. Maybe that was it.

O’Keeffe House, Ghost Ranch
©2008 Neil Myers
24" x 36"

Ghost Ranch Painting

First, the art. Arizona painter Neil Myers found the photo below on my blog and asked if he could use it as reference for one of his paintings. The wonderful results are above. You can see more of his amazing work on Neil’s Website.

I love that Neil contacted me and asked for permission to use my photograph and I’m even more thrilled that he will pay me a 5% commission when the painting sells for that use. Very cool. Thanks Neil and good luck with the sales.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s House at Ghost Ranch

Taking a Leap

Last week I made a big decision. I’m putting my house on the market. Selling my big suburban dream home and beautiful studio. I’m downsizing - smaller house, smaller mortgage, smaller studio, smaller commute. I’m going to leave the suburbs and move to Denver close to my kids’ school.

My word for the year is courage and this decision was a huge opportunity to use that word. I’ve been in this house for 13 1/2 years so moving is going to be a big change. Yet it all feels right. I’m excited about the positive changes in my life that will come about as a result of this move.

Giving up my large studio in the short term (I’ll likely move again in 6 years when my daughter graduates from high school) feels like the right decision. I know I can make art anywhere and I’m determined to keep pushing my career forward. So that is exactly what will happen.

Markings #10    ©2007    69"x 77"

Another Sign on My Wall

In January I started a series of posts about intent and things I do to help me hold my intent and stay on track. I got sidetracked with all the postings about my show, Markings: Repetition and Pattern, now on exhibit in Boulder but it felt like a good day to write about fear so I’m combining the two topics.

In 1998 or 1999 I read Who Moved My Cheese along with millions of other people.

My favorite quote from the book, which I immediately wrote on a piece a paper and hung on my studio wall:

Real Courage

I had just joined my first critique group and I was terrified. I had a group of women I respected that were going to tell me what they thought of my art. I started to second guess everything I was doing in my studio. What would they say, would like like it, could I handle their comments?

The fear ground my art production to a near halt. I remember sitting for long periods of time staring at this sign. Slowly I let the message sink in and I went back to work.

Real courage is not about waiting until the fear is gone before you proceed. It’s about proceeding in the face of fear. I rarely let fear stop me from creating now but I can still taste that feeling I had almost 10 years ago. And I’m not going back there.

I still have self doubts but I don’t let those voices speak very loudly anymore. I now act as if I am not afraid and move forward and the fear slowly dissolves.

Enough Time

When I wrote the post about there always being enough time to do the important things in my life, I mentioned that when we find ourselves not doing something it is likely to be something that we don’t really value.

The other thing I find is that I avoid things that I am afraid of. I use the excuse there is no time to do it, but the reality is I’m afraid of it. Recognizing this fear and admitting to it is a huge first step to just getting on with things. To having the courage to do it anyway.

Fear is not comfortable but the only way I know to make it go away is to face it head on. It’s why my word for the year is courage. Much of the marketing stuff I used to claim I don’t have time for is really stuff I’m afraid of doing. My intention is to become a self supporting artist and to hold this intention I have to face fear every day and just do the marketing work anyway.

Markings #10

Back in October I posted some images of Markings #10 in progress that capture the texture that is created with my extensive surface stitching. This piece is the largest artwork I’ve made to date (not counting traditional bed quilts I’ve made) at almost 37 square feet. It took me 55 hours to do the surface stitching on the entire piece.

It also speaks to what I wrote about Friday, the disruptions in the pattern. I feel that without the unexpected changes in the pattern, my art and my life would get a bit monotonous and stale. The trick is to appreciate these disruptions for the beauty they provide instead of getting bent out of shape, just like the mice in Who Moved My Cheese.

Related Holding Intent Posts

Transitioning and Intent
Holding Intent - Part I [Realistic Goals]
Holding Intent - Part II [Excuses]
Holding Intent - Part III [Focus]
Holding Intent - Part IV [Enough Time]
Holding Intent - Part V [Self Care]

Markings #16    ©2007    45"x 68"

Courage

I decided I wanted to give an artist talk during my show because I think there is huge value in talking about ones work out loud. I do a lot talking about my work in my head and I do a lot of writing about it, which are both super valuable. I’m looking to add more speaking about my work to my life.

It was also about courage. Doing something that seems scary is the only way to feel courageous.

For me getting up in front of a group of people and talking isn’t super scary because I love teaching. It is a little scary, I can’t deny that, but standing in front of group of people and rambling on is something I love doing and it’s why I love teaching.

My biggest fear was not standing up and talking but that I wouldn’t shut up and people would wander away bored.

Preparation

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I wanted to say about my artwork and wrote up an outline for the talk. I didn’t really practice it much other than to run through the outline in my head and get down the order of things I wanted to say and try to remember the main points I wanted to highlight. I think I do a better job speaking when I just ramble about a topic rather than repeat a rehearsed speech.

One thing I knew is I had never gone to an artist talk, or at least not one I had remembered so I was a little nervous I didn’t really know what one was. When asked by friends at work what an artist talk was I said I wasn’t sure as I had never seen one and probably should.

So the universe stepped in and a week before my talk a friend invited me to go see an artist talk at a gallery here in Denver. I didn’t find the talk very good but it was a great experience because while sitting there I finalized the outline for my talk by thinking about the things I wanted to hear as an audience member.

Intending an Audience

In early January I set an intent that there would be 30 or more people at my opening. This gallery has no mailing list of it’s own as their goal is to decorate the walls of the lobby of the theater. Although the gallery has amazing traffic going through during performances, which is why I love showing there. So those 30 people were most likely to find out about the show as a result of my publicity efforts (blogging, postcards, trying to get the press to pay attention).

I journaled about my intent for 30 people, told a few people about it and asked them to send me good thoughts along those lines.

The week before the opening many of my friends told me they weren’t going to make it to the opening. I tried not to panic and think: Where were those 30 people going to come from when the people I thought might be there weren’t going to be there?

Instead I told myself that this meant I would get a chance to meet new people. I took a deep breath and continued to believe that 30+ people would attend.

The Talk

Although I didn’t count, the number of people in attendance through the opening was near 30 with over 20 in attendance at my talk. Woohoo. I was thrilled.

To top it off an amazing artist I’ve had the pleasure of working next to in a workshop for 2 weeks came to my opening. From Chicago! She flew out to Denver just to see my show. I’m still smiling. What an honor and wonderful surprise.

I feel my talk went well. I said what I wanted to say and I loved every minute of it. People asked really great questions and I met some new people after the talk and enjoyed getting to talk with them.

And no one wandered off bored because I wouldn’t shut up. (at least that I noticed)

Markings #16

Another piece in my show, Markings: Repetition and Pattern. My thought in this piece was to include a wide open area in the composition. I had to rework the design a few times but I’m quite pleased with the final results. I’m definitely going to explore this idea in future work

In addition I managed to put a bit of white in this piece. One of my goals in 2007 was to put some white in my work. I didn’t get much in there but this is a start.

Markings #7    ©2007    64"x 72"

Markings - Artist Statement

A while back I posted my first pass at an artist statement for the Markings series. Here’s the latest version that I’m using for the show: Markings: Repetition and Pattern.

I began drawing in 2005 and was quickly fascinated with cross hatching. I dispensed with drawing objects and became obsessed with drawing pages of closely spaced parallel lines in abstract patterns. I love the quality of the hand drawn line and wanted to capture the beauty of basic marking making in my textile paintings. The Markings series is a result of that investigation.

The series refers to the comfort humans derive from repetition. We are soothed by the well known patterns that result from duplication: telephone poles in a line, a grouping of trees in a forest, our unchanging daily routines. The artwork also raises the question of how we handle the unforeseen, a break in the pattern. Disruption is often inevitable, no longer making it unexpected but part of the pattern itself.

Artist Talk

Today is the artist reception for the show up in Boulder [links for parking and directions are on my website here]. I spent yesterday evening baking cookies for the event. I love baking and it seemed like a good way to relax before my artist talk today. First time I’ve ever given one but the word of the year is courage so I decided to give it a try.

Starting today and running over the next 14 days I’m going to post the images of the 15 pieces of artwork in the show. I’ll follow it up with installation images, so those of you that can’t make it will be able to see it virtually.

I’d send you each some cookies but wordpress doesn’t have that feature yet.

Markings #10

I decided to start with the piece on the show postcard. If you click the image you can see it in better detail. This is one of my favorite pieces in the series. It feels very Colorado to me - tree trunks and blue sky.

Here’s a detail of my usual very close parallel line surface stitching:

 
I too have jumped on the Resolution Revolution and picked a single word theme for the year.

My word is courage.

My last post took courage - to be honest about what I feel about my tracking of time in the studio and to take action on it.

My thought in picking this word is that I have some things that I want to deal with this year (revamping my art career high on that list) and it will take courage to see them through. The year is only a week old but already the word has helped me on a number of occasions.

I’ll get back to some art pictures soon. I have a date with my camera and photography wall this weekend.

In the meantime some images that indicate I have more than enough courage to do anything I want if I just put my mind to it. I was 43 meters over the river - just standing on the edge of platform was success. It was one of the most empowering moments of my life.

 
 
If I can do that surely I can market my artwork authentically.