Create an Epic Art Career. ON YOUR TERMS.
Honestly, when I first started out as an artist I had no clue what I was doing.
I grew up in a small farming community and didn’t come from a family of artists.
I didn’t even realize that someone had to design the box of cereal that I ate from every morning.
All that to say . . . I had no idea—at all, about what it meant to be an artist or what it would take.
I spent years trying to figure it out and even longer to map out a process that I know works for others.
But here’s the thing:
Creating a Career is Not So Different than Creating Your Art
You see, I’ve discovered that just like there is a process behind creating art,
there is also one behind creating an art career.
I tell my clients, "I’ve spent the last 15 years figuring these things out (the hard way)
so that you don’t have to." While there is no clear cut, “just do this” formula,
there are absolutely certain steps that you need to take along the way.
Like anything, your art and your art career is a developmental process.
There are stages and milestones and thresholds that must be crossed.
There are 5 essential steps—the same ones that I have used to go from a starving artist
to a thriving international one.
These are the same 5 steps that have been supporting artists around the globe as they make their art,
have solo exhibitions, do residencies and find the most interesting and sustainable ways
to make money doing what they love.
These artists have learned how to make their art, monetize their mission
and take their work into the world in the most interesting ways.
How to Become a Professional Artist
Step 1: Claim Your Calling
The first step to Becoming A Professional Artist (one that is powerful beyond measure),
is to recognize that you have the power to create your own reality
and that creating your reality begins with making a commitment—a fierce and powerful one.
Some part of you knows that you are here to make art (even if you struggle to admit it)
and that you are here to do very big things. It all starts with making the commitment to both:
Claim your Calling and Call Yourself an Artist.
Once you can say, “Yes, I am an artist.
Yes, I’m here to make art and I’m committed to making it happen,”
everything starts to change.
Step 2: Get Clear and Confident about Making Your Art
Until you’re making your art on a consistent basis it’s nearly impossible for anything else to happen.
Having exhibitions, selling your art, monetizing your mission and building your tribe
all depend on this one essential truth:
that you show up and make your art when you want and how you want. Nothing less will do.
Step 3: Exhibit Your Work and Speak Your Truth
Having an exhibition is like a coming-out party for artists.
As you move into being a professional artist it’s essential that you show up
and allow yourself to be seen, but for many artists the thought of exhibiting their art
is both an exhilarating and terrifying prospect.
We’ve become conditioned to play small and ask for permission from the gatekeepers who typically grant it,
leaving us to feel powerless and desperate.
Around here we believe in reclaiming our power and creating exhibitions that we love.
The way to do this is to discover your Divine Right Audience, Your Perfect Venue,
and the conditions that most support you in having deeply nourishing and soul-aligned exhibitions.
Step 4: Monetize your Mission, Value Your Worth
Once you’re in the flow, making your art and getting your work out there
it’s time to Monetize your Mission and Value your Worth.
This means that you’ve also got to get rid of the limiting beliefs and starving artist B.S
that tells you that you can’t.
Until you believe, in your bones, that you deserve to make a living doing what you love, chances are you won’t.
Becoming the artist you’re here to be requires that you know how to ask for what you desire,
receive it, and create more abundance than you ever thought possible.
To do this you need to weed out your old money story, limiting beliefs, family programming,
and jettison the Starving Artist Mentality that’s been keeping you small.
Step 5: Enable a Community of Others
Now that you are consistently creating, feeling confident and valuing your worth,
it’s time to integrate all of your gifts, your particular creative process and your passion
for community into one cohesive Creative Calling.
All of the artists I work with know that their work is here to have a powerful impact on others.
Bringing all of your gifts together creates what I call your Uncharted Creative Calling.
I had a professor who once said, “We don’t know what you all will go on to do with your careers
because the truth is that the career you are here to have doesn’t exist yet.”
The same is true for you.
You are here to create incredible things - the likes of which the world has yet to see.
This means that you find a unique and unprecedented way to combine your art,
your ability to make money and your passion for sharing your gifts with serving others.
Step 5 means creating sustainability and deep fulfillment in your life and in those around you
be it through workshops, funded projects or traveling the world exhibiting and inspiring others.
Getting the Support You Need
The best and fastest way that I know how to create growth and transformation
is to be supported by others who get you and have walked the path ahead of you.