Let’s say that you want to make one new connection in the service of your career. Maybe it’s with a new gallery owner in town. What’s the best approach, given how anxious the whole thing may make you feel? Here’s a simple, 5-step process for making that connection: 1. Know how to speak about yourself, about your strengths, and about your assets. You need to create two or three strong sentences that communicate what it is you do (say, that you are an abstract painter...
Read MoreLate Deciding
I was chatting with an exceptionally creative person who introduced me to the phrase “late deciding.” He said of himself that he liked not to rush the “not knowing” part of creating and, rather than coming to conclusions prematurely so as to shut down the experience of anxiety, he preferred to “hang out” with the anxiety, allow himself all the time it took to actually know, and only then make the requisite creative decisions. He recognized what a strain this put on those...
Read MoreArt and Optimism
As a smart person, you no doubt see through much of life. You see clearly the realities of politics and social structures, the realities of the art world, the realities of health and mortality, and so on. All this excellent reality testing can make a person pessimistic, unmotivated, and sad. Often what is required in order for an artist to proceed is that he move to an “optimistic” place where he does less reality-testing, future-thinking and future-worrying and...
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