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Maybe your artwork is piling up and you just know that you have to make some connections in the art marketplace. Still, you feel paralyzed. Let’s consider the following six obstacles to marketplace relating that may be stopping you—and what you can do to handle them....

Over the past two weeks we’ve looked at ten rules for effective marketplace relating. Below are five more—that completes the list! 11. Negotiate. It is part of our repertoire of relationship skills to negotiate but we tend not to use that skill with marketplace...

Last week we looked at five sensible rules for effective marketplace relating. Below are five more. Next week we’ll finish up with an additional five. 6. Expect people to come with shadows. Everybody you’ll be dealing with is a human being who comes with all of the...

Relationships in the arts are complicated. You may be very friendly with a fellow painter and also quite envious of her. You may actively dislike a gallery owner or a collector but decide that he is too valuable to cast aside, maybe because he is your only advocate or...

Last week we chatted about the special challenges that artists face with regard to the issue of boredom. This week: what to do! We have a billion videos to watch to fill up our spare time, a trillion blog posts to read, and a zillion tweets to send and receive. We...

Boredom is a serious psychological and existential problem for many people and an especially serious problem for creatives in recovery. If you’re creative, you’re likely to find boredom unbearable. That dreadful feeling is a trigger for using drugs or alcohol or...

Below are twenty-five challenges, vulnerabilities, risks, and needs in an artist’s life. Each of these can cause an artist to want to soothe himself with a substance or a behavior—and over time that soothing can result in an addiction. 1. Biological Risks. These are...

I’ve worked with creative and performing artists for thirty-five years as a family therapist, couples’ counselor, and creativity coach. Over the course of that time I’ve acquired a good feel for why relationships in the arts prove so difficult. What do these...

What is your “list” and why would you want one or need one? Your list is simply the email addresses you collect of folks who might be interested in what you do as an artist, as a teacher of art, as a workshop leader, etc. It is one of the ways—perhaps your most...

Relationships in the arts are complicated. You may be very friendly with a fellow painter and also quite envious of her. You may actively dislike a gallery owner or a collector but decide that he is too valuable to cast aside, maybe because he is your only advocate or...