Whilst sitting in a heat-less darkened movie theater

Over the holidays my wife says, "Let's take the kids to a movie." Turns out we missed the Fantastic Mr. Fox run. And the Christmas Carol run. So Alvin and Chipmunks: the Squeakquel was chosen.

The heat wasn't working in many of the theaters that day, so we got in on the senior citizen discount. It wasn't so much that it was cold, as it was that the heater continued to blow cold air.

My younger kids loved the movie, and I kept telling myself I was doing it for the kids. I was struggling not to post some snarky facebook status when my wife gasped and grabbed my arm.

"What?!" I said, turning to her.

"Your picture," she said. I looked back at the screen but it was gone. Turns out my Lunar Lander poster that Land of Nod carries was on the wall of the chipmunks bedroom. And I missed it. Guess I know one person who will be buying that DVD. Hopefully moviegoers will be paying better attention than I did.

The lesson? You are always where you are supposed to be. Even if it seems you would be happier elsewhere.

See a gallery of additional images from the film at reelmovienews.com

Happy New Year! Now let's make with the Valentine's stuff...

Sweetie Pie Conversation Heart Mini-Triptych ©2009 John W. Golden

Time for another year of this making a living from my art! I know I am very fortunate to be deriving any income from my art right now, much less all of it. It has been a new experience doing this during a down economy. Fortunately for me, people have continued to support my efforts, and I am extremely thankful for that.

I researched quite a bit this year. Mostly about the business of being a business by reading books that on the surface seemed to be very pop-culture, but actually contained a lot of business theory. One book was about holidays, and how the retail calendar is driven by holidays. To some extent, all retail businesses adhere to this calendar.

For some of us, it is merely a big push during the Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa season. I do a couple holiday pushes a year, mostly Valentine's and the December holidays, and it helps to even out the ups and downs of the retail calendar. Others take every opportunity to use holidays to drive sales. Once you are a business, you don't always have the luxury of not making the most of every opportunity to sustain your business. In some cases, if you don't promote to a holiday, it's like closing up shop for a while, as other businesses that do follow the holiday marketing calendar attract consumers, and your business just catches the occasional passer-by. Keeping this in mind makes it easier for me to not be so offended by the rapid transition to the next holiday retail displays.

The sales of the last quarter of the year can generate a lot of momentum for a merchant, and I often hear of proprietors who make most of their income on the days leading up to Christmas. Then the tumbleweeds start to blow by in January. As a business owner, it seems a shame to let any steam you have gathered just dissipate.

Now, I'm not talking about the big retailers like Target and Wal-mart. They always seem to have something that people need. But they also have to compete for holiday dollars. In this economy especially, they have to get those Christmas decorations down quickly and get the hearts and cupids up right away. It's about maximizing the opportunity for sales during a given period of time. It may look like greed, but they are businesses that have to stay afloat just like the rest of us. Not promoting when your competitors are promoting is not going to help one stay afloat.

People say it starts around Thanksgiving, but really it happens all year long. "It's disgusting!", we say. "Every year they start earlier and earlier." Christmas Creep, it's called, but it could just as easily be Cupid Creep, St. Patrick's Sneak, or Mother's Day... well, I can't think of one for Mother's Day. Maybe just being Mother's Day, a holiday created to generate commerce is enough. (Mom's do deserve their own day).

Point is, many businesses base their promotions on our buying patterns, and we tend to spend a lot of money during holidays. I think most people's complaints about Christmas Creep is directed more toward big retailers, the largest adherents to the holiday retail calendar. Who can blame the little guys for using whatever accepted reasons are available to encourage people to help keep their businesses alive? Especially these days? Who can blame the big guys? It would be nice to have a break from be sold to all the time. It would be nice not to have to sell all the time. Boon or bust, the competitive market is gonna creep all over you.

No blogging... must sleep!

The old familiar push at the end of the year. Little sleep, lots of things to keep straight, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It hasn't been a banner year for online art sales, but it has been good considering the state of the economy. I still get to this every day instead of digging ditches. Holiday sales are slower than years past, but to be making a living selling my art now? I count this blessing every day.

A slow economy spurred me to final get rolling on new projects, like my art blocks. I've long wanted to make my art in a format other than wall art. In the coming year, I'll get to branch out a bit into new venues with the blocks.

It took a long time for the blocks to really form into an idea. I had trouble sourcing blocks like I wanted, for one thing. Then one day, boom! There they were, in an unlikely place. I thought I was looking for single blocks that I could put my art on, but I saw these smaller, narrow blocks, and  I thought: Triptychs!

Course now that I have amassed the largest collection of small blocks on the east coast, and now that I have gotten used to the idea of probably looking strange purchasing blocks in that quantity (they are re-purposed, and for what they were originally intended, no one would buy more than a few), I see a lot of triptychs in my future.

Of course, now that I have more triptych block pieces than I know what to do with, I have stumbled on local sources for single art wall blocks in 6", 8", 10" and 12", as well as a variety of shapes for mini art blocks that sit on a shelf. Those are what I originally envisioned using, but could not find them (and I don't really have time to cut them myself).

So here I go, for more than a few years, thinking this is the idea I want to do. This is how I will do it. If only this one thing (finding a source) will happen. Then I can do it. Then life says: Interesting idea, but how 'bout you do it this way? You asked for a source, so you got a source. It may not be a source for what you wanted to do, but it's a source just the same.

Once I pursued the idea that life threw in my path, ways to do the ideas I had been lugging around for a while appeared.

Now I just need a way to explain to cashiers why I am buying so many blocks.

The artist as a directionless slacker... pt. 1

Don't ask me why, but I watched a holiday movie a year or two back where the main character was an artist-type. I think I secretly like bad, cheesy television because it makes me feel like I have taste. I don't like it for the quality, but for the fact that it makes me feel like I can identify bad quality. Backwards, I know.

But the way the artist-type character was depicted made me realize that the screenwriter's perception of the artist (and more so the person who wants to make a living from their art, and not more traditionally stable occupations) was that of a directionless slacker. All the other characters, except for the reluctant love interest, thought of the artist as one who could not figure out what they wanted to do with their life. Is that how the world sees us? Perhaps the writer(s) lived the situation before writing it into a movie. I don't really think that was the intended message of the movie: If everyone around the artist-type can just suffer watching all that wasted potential long enough, a straight-laced business type will eventually come along and take the artist off our hands.

As I look around these days, I think that business type has arrived. Not in the form of a significant other who takes the edge off the drifting artist, but in the form of the Artisan Entrepreneur. So, it's not in the form of some outside force or influence, but part of the artist-types themselves.

Artists are creative thinkers, and creative thinking is not always valued in the traditional workplace. So the artist-type doesn't always fit well in some traditional workplaces. They are square pegs trying to fit in round holes. If they want to be happy in their job, they often have to either find a (usually) lower paying job that requires little more than showing up and doing what you are told, or they have to find work in one of the accepted artist-type positions (see Graphic Artist, Copy Writer, Illustrator, etc.). The former type of job is more easily found, but worries the artist-type's circle of friends that the artist-type will never reach their full potential. The latter type of job exists occasionally in the traditional corporate world, but are more readily available in the creative corporate world of design firms and the like.

Seems there were always freelancers (Copy Writers, Illustrators, Designers) who liked the freedom of setting your own hours, having some input in what you create, etc. An early version of today's artisan entrepreneur. If you go that route, you're bound to learn more than a little bit about running a business.

Seems there have long been quite a few artists who could make their living by creating great art, and commanding high prices for it. But it also seems that route has often required someone else with business sense to manage and guide that career. Another route where the artist is bound to develop a business sense over the years.

But the Artisan Entrepreneur differs a little. They may have been the freelancer, and they may still be one. They may also have done the work-a-day job, and may still be doing that, too. For one reason or another, they are trying to move on from that. They may want more control over what they produce. It's a direction which does not guarantee success (not that the others mentioned do either), and in many cases that I have seen, you start out without really knowing the ropes.

I've done the freelance thing, and I have done the design firm thing, and I have done the in-house corporate design department thing. I've also done the day job that pays the bills. All of those jobs taught me something about business, which positioned me to make decisions in my latest iteration as working artist. I think all Artisan Entrepreneurs draw on their past work experience to some extent. But they also have to use their creative way of thinking to further their business, and they often do so in unexpected ways (that's the entrepreneur part). They also use their imagination and a pretty strong belief in their own ability to make a go of it.

To be continued...

I just can't do all this... Wait a minute... Yes I can... Stop talking to yourself...

Sometimes I have to ask myself if I seek out a schedule that is overloaded. Like I can not stand to be idle. Like I attract the hectic and challenging situations in which I find myself.

"Well, you do, you know", says myself.

9 years of freelancing (and the years prior of full-time employment) conditioned me to be able to work 20 hour days. I don't recommend it, but after a while of burning the midnight oil, I believe your body gets accustomed to the lack of sleep. And once you are conditioned to be awake, it seems you will be, whether you need to be or not.

Since stopping the freelance work and doing the art thing full-time, the hours got slightly better and the stress level went down. As my art business has ramped up over the last two years, and as I opened another shop to supply folks with the findings I use in my rings and video tutorials, the hours necessary to stay on track in both businesses increased, and the stress level spikes a bit every once in a while.

Most of the stress comes from making people wait for their purchase, and more often than not I put it on myself. To not let myself get stressed about a delay in an order seems like I am not giving that customer's order proper attention. Folks are great about being understanding and most times exceedingly patient.

From time to time (see Day to Day, or daily basis), I say to myself, "I just can't do all this". Though I have known for a while that if I tell myself such things that I am ensuring that I won't be able to do it all, I still do. It's only recently that I have begun to catch myself and to say, "I can do all this". Yes, I talk to myself. A lot. It's not like I buy myself 2 cups of coffee so that the 2 me's can each have one while we sit down and have a real conversation at the coffee shop. Yet.

What I try to remember these days, more than any thing else, is that none of what I deal with is truly a problem. I am so fortunate to have a business with stress to worry about. I truly believe that if I was still freelancing, or even full-time at a design firm, I would be facing down-sizing or a complete lack of projects. It is by pure good fortune that I am in the position I am in right now. Sure, I have to consider every day that I might sell no art, but I really believe that with the reach of the web, I can continue to find customers. I just have to make sure that my reproductions are affordable and continue to do things that put my name and my work out there.

I gave up long ago trying to understand why people connect with my ideas and images, and now just count it as a blessing that my art continues to connect. That's really all I can hope for business-wise, as that is what supports my art business. It is a job, with stress and problems, but if you have a job without stress and problems, you don't have a job.

So, on any given day, one might find me down on the capacity I have to do it all, or one might find me thinking I have it all under control. I just have to remember that I need to just be happy that I am being found by you and many others. And to hope that I am not talking to myself when you find me.

When what you wanted takes over - Part 5

Let me preface this next part by saying that this is one of those things that happened with elements that may be unbelievable for some, and may make total sense for others. I am still not sure that I believe all of it, but the benefit of it happening, and what I took away from it is, to me, undeniable. This centers around someone I did not know personally, who did not personally know me, who knew very little about me, conveying a message to me. But there was enough accuracy and little bits of truth in what was said that the message caught my attention, and through this message, I was able to examine and evaluate what was happening in my career and make a tremendous change there.

So, the person I did not know then, but do now, is a very metaphysical person. I myself am one who is open to others' beliefs and have not decided what my beliefs are on a lot of things. It's a struggle to figure out exactly how to present this event, so that you, the reader, can focus on what I got out of the event rather than the details of the event.

So, the streamlined version: This person sent me a message through a mutual friend. This message was that I had a fear of saying no to people in positions of authority because I was afraid of what would happen if I did. She also sent details of why she thought this was true. What she said related to the world of art, responsibility, paying for mistakes and feeling like a slave to something. The details had nothing to do with any events that have occurred in my life, but it made me think. It was true that I hated to disappoint people. And it was also true that not saying no was leading me to put myself in situations that I did not enjoy. Furthermore, I was often very bothered by things I saw on a daily basis where people didn't take responsibility for themselves and their actions, and paid no consequence for things they did that wronged other people. And most of all, I felt completely enslaved by my work at the time.

The last part of what this person said was instructions on how to overcome this fear. There were several steps, but the big one was to ask the universe, my higher power, etc., whatever it was that I believed in, to release me from the fear of saying no. And to do it often.

Now you gotta understand, I was not sitting around pounding my head on my desk saying to myself, "Why can't I say no?". Trouble saying no was not something I had identified in myself yet. I knew I preferred the feeling I got when I said yes to a job or request to the feeling I got when I said no, but it's not something I was working on as a person. I was really just wanting to know how I was going to get from creating most of my art for other people to creating most of it for myself, and in doing so, being able to make a living doing it. Whether or not this woman's message to me, from how she received this message to whether or not what the message said was true, it clicked with me. It helped me identify some things about myself, and it gave me something to do to move myself forward.

So, I asked. I asked to be released from my fear of saying no. I did it several times a day for several months. And it worked. I became able to say no to projects, which opened my days to work on Etsy and on new work. And being free to do both of those things led me to be able to take the next step that was crucial to becoming a working artist – being willing and ready to become one.

Next: The takeover begins...

When what you wanted takes over... Part 4

So I joined Etsy. For about 6 months I did nothing, and then last January (2007) I caught on to the benefits of listing frequently and renewing listings frequently. January of last year was promising enough that I began to think that it was possible to build sales to a point that taking on contract design work would not be possible. And that was a good thing, too, because the design work was dwindling. I never really went looking for projects before. I would just finish a project, enjoy the lull that followed, and something new would come along.

So as the something news became less and less, I was able to put more of my efforts toward Etsy, and a slow build began to happen. Sales on Etsy slowed a bit in February '07, but then they began to increase a bit each month. By May '07, I was pretty well convinced that Etsy could sustain me if I could sustain the amount of work that generating sales and filling orders requires. Where I had been working sometimes 8am to 2am days, I could now work 9am to 5pm days. I could certainly do that.

I went from fretting over projects that just couldn't seem to be completed to geeking out over how much faster I could fill orders when I replaced my slow inkjet printer with a new laser printer to make my shipping labels. I mean, we're talking about a 1 1/2 minutes per label to 5 seconds! Who wouldn't geek about that?

There were several key moments in those months that disconnected me from my old work life and made me ready to make a living from my art. Some of the things that happened were strictly tangible business-type things. Others were more mental and mindset-type things. And some were totally spiritual things that I still don't know if I believe but I was able to derive a meaning from that pointed me forward.

The first thing that happened was a spiritual thing, and involved a person that I did not know at the time, and who knew very little about me. This would have been around January, before I had begun to curtail my design projects. I was at the peak of my mental turmoil over not wanting to do contract design work anymore but needing to do it to make a living. I felt stuck in my job in that I felt I could not turn projects down yet and also that I could not turn down client requests for additional deliverables or changes to projects that exceeded the budget. I was afraid to say no.

Next: How I learned to stop worrying and love the NO...

When what you wanted takes over... Part 3

So my wife and I met. While we were dating, I began working as a photographer for our little local entertainment/lifestyle rag. I was horrible at going out and getting "the shot". I am not well-suited for journalism or service photography at all really.

The mag ran an ad for a Graphic Designer. Now I would like to tell you that I saw the ad and said, "Hey! That's my major! I should march right down to the magazine's office and declare, "Stop the presses! I've found you a Graphic Designer!" Okay, maybe not that part about stop the presses. That's a bit cheesy, but suffice it to say that an ad in the publication from which I was getting $10 a picture (average 2 pics a week) for a job that might mean I'd get to use the degree I spent 4 1/2 years earning and would mean a steady, though not all that decent paycheck, had absolutely no effect on me.

Fortunately, my wife noticed that I was a Graphic Designer and reminded me of the fact. So, I applied for the job, and got it. Then when I went to our local hospital to shoot photos for an article on the Candystripers program there, and the head of the Public Relations Department asked if I knew any Graphic Designers looking for a job, I again drew a blank.

My wife, fortunately, did not and whispered, for lack of a better phrase, "That's you, dude." Thus began the pattern of opportunities going unrecognized by me, to be followed by my wife pointing out the obvious. She has done it again and again. And every time an opportunity has run it's course, she has been the one to listen to my discontent, and the one to nudge me towards finally moving on to the next better opportunity. She is the one who found Etsy for me.

In true fashion, I ignored that opportunity for several months before finally opening up shop. Once I opened up a shop, I listed only occasionally until it became apparent to me that frequent listing would improve my sales. By this time, my wife had become my sounding board for my artistic and career endeavors. She had spent the previous year watching me chase that one thing that was gonna get me out of Broadcast Design and into whatever was next – CafePress, Imagekind, etc. and listening to me talk about the potential for those endeavors. None of those really took off and were abandoned or were put on hold once the great return never materialized. Despite feelings of "Here we go again," she has supported me each time, and I dare say that is probably better than I could have done.

Now she keeps me on top of all things Etsy, and is far superior to me on deciding what to list and when. So she is in charge of that stuff. And I just make with the art and the shipping all day long.

Next: 5 months that would change our world

When what you wanted takes over... Part 2

With my newly expanded exhibition space in the Golden Gallery, I spent the next year or so creating more abstract photography and "running" a fledgling freelance graphic design and photography business. I say "running" with quotes because I did not really know what I was doing. I sat and waited for the work to come to me mostly (never a good idea), but it gave me lots of time to play around with my art.

I had taken a serigraphy course in college, and I used those skills to create small runs of silkscreened shirts and dresses, and I thought that might be something that would take off for me. But...while I sold them all, I never made more than about 30 at a time, and maybe 200 in total, so that empire was never to be.

Now as I said, I had started selling my work at 11 years old, so my path, whether I knew it or not, was set from an early age. At the time of all the silkscreening, I think I was at a fork in the road. I could stay in my insanely cheap studio, and my cheap little apartment and make whatever art I wanted all day long. Or I could move forward. I could put myself in new situations that would inform my art and grow my skills by holding me to standards that were, at the time, higher than my own. I could use my degree (graphic design) to earn a living.

But first I had to do the one thing that would truly set me back on my path. I had to meet my wife.

Next: Okay, now we're ready to puke, but since we know you're gonna tell us anyway, go ahead and tell us the mushy details. And what about the rest of the 29 years of waiting?

Image from an animated station ID I did for TechTV

When what you wanted takes over... Part 1

This past year was one of those watershed years for me personally and for my art. After months of dipping one toe into the waters of Etsy, I dove...well, half dove, half fell in. While I certainly haven't discovered the meaning of life or the secrets of success on Etsy, I learned a lot this past year, and feel like sharing.

I was way over my day job. And I had a really cool day job. I designed for national and international broadcast clients. Chances are if you have kids about 10 or older, or are in your 20s, you saw some of my design work on TV. All that was great, and I worked with some amazingly talented and creative people.

But...increasingly, as the field grew more crowded with talent, you had to do so much more for the same budget to stay competitive. And I was already working 100+ hour weeks pretty regularly. And I kept saying to my wife, "I don't want to do this anymore" over and over. With a wife and 3 kids and a dog to support, I told myself just as much, "You have to."

Some folks would say I was manifesting, asking the universe to make things happen so that broadcast design would become what I used to do. I don't know, but I certainly was imagining myself as making a living from just the sales of my art.

I had been selling my art for a long time though. Since I was 11 years old. For 29 years. But it was never my job. I started with 2 linoleum block prints, which I sold from a corner of my mom's gallery. The corner was called John's corner, and would be my sole semi-permanent exhibition space until I returned home from college with a 4' x 12' Louise Nevelson-inspired wooden wall sculpture that demanded more space. I also had a small body of work of mostly abstract photography that I had created in school.

Next: Why did I wait 29 years?