The Art Biz

In this episode, I talk with Danielle SeeWalker, a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Native American stories are too frequently told from an historical perspective, but Danielle and other contemporary Indigenous artists want you to know that they're still here. They never left. We just silenced them for too long after stealing their land. Danielle has beautiful stories to tell, from which we can all learn. And she's dealing with the same stuff as other artists: balancing motherhood with her art and activism. We discuss: The symbolism in her work that came from a dream. The many hats she wears. The variety of art forms she works with. How she decides which projects to take on. How the rest of us can serve as allies for Indigenous people around the globe. One lovely takeaway from this interview is that Danielle doesn't separate her art from her life. Everything is connected. 📖 To read more, see images, find resources mentioned, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/seewalker-native-stories ⭐️ Connect with Danielle and see more of her art: https://seewalker.com 🔶 Sponsored by The Art Biz Accelerator 🔶 a coaching group for strategies, support, and accountability inside a community of artists who get you. https://artbizsuccess.com/accelerator ⛰️ The Art Biz is recorded on the traditional land of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute tribes, which was stolen from them after many broken promises and treaties. ~ ~ ! ATTENTION INDIGENOUS ARTISTS and BIPOC ARTISTS ! ~ ~ This is an invitation to all Indigenous and BIPOC artists, wherever you are in the world, to share your story here on The Art Biz. Here's how ~~~~> https://artbizsuccess.com/pitch-podcast/

Every artist I have ever worked with would like to squeeze more time from their busy calendars. After all, you are overflowing with ideas. You'll never have time to make everything you want to make, and that is incredibly frustrating. In this episode I share 8 tips for time management along with 2 truths to consider. 💡 HIGHLIGHTS 2 Truths about Time Management Time management is a lie. Instead, focus on self-management. The important stuff always gets done. 8 Tips for Time Management Make time for planning and use the brain dump when overwhelm creeps in. Understand your natural rhythms, and adjust your schedule to optimize your most productive hours. Honor your calendar and block out uninterrupted time for critical tasks. Turn repeated tasks into systems to eliminate decision-making. Group similar tasks together to save time and energy. Stop multitasking because it adds up to 25% more time to complete tasks. Automate everything possible, including follow-up for your subscribers. Learn to say No to invitations and opportunities that don't align with your long-term goals. 📖 Read full transcript, find resources, see featured artists and related episodes, and leave a comment 💬 MENTIONED (affiliate links) Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Organize Your Art Biz Grow Your List 🧡 Sponsored by the Art Biz Accelerator a coaching group to support and remind you that you're part of a global artist community.

Artist residencies, in whatever form they take, are invaluable to an artist's growth. But there are barriers to doing residencies—primarily the time commitment and cost. In this episode, I talk with Shannon Amidon, an artist who has created a residency especially for artists who might be parents or caretakers and can't commit to a month or more that some residencies require. In my research on artist residencies, I have discovered how helpful it is when the residency involves some kind of travel, during which you are slowly transitioning away from your daily life and toward a different mental and emotional space that opens up your creativity. The longer the travel, the better. Another plus is that the residency environment contrasts with your familiar surroundings. Shannon's residency is The Verdancy Project and while it's easy driving distance from Portland, Oregon, it's far enough out that you step into a new world. It's especially for artists who want to be close to nature. As you will hear, it provides an experience distinctly different from the one most artists are used to. We discuss: How The Verdancy Project is set up What the facilities are like What she looks for in her artists Some of the mistakes artists make on their applications How she learned the nuts and bolts of managing an artist residency Shannon also reveals how she manages to run the residency while maintaining the commitment to her studio practice. To read more, see images, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/amidon-residency Connect with Shannon and see more of her art: https://shannonamidon.com Get more info about The Verdancy Project: https://verdancyproject.com Related: The Traveling Artist: Residencies with Amy Clay (#149) https://artbizsuccess.com/amy-clay-residencies/ Sponsored by The Art Biz Accelerator * a coaching group to support and remind you that you're part of a global artist community. https://artbizsuccess.com/accelerator

There's no getting around the fact that you need confidence in your at and in sharing it with others. It's also true that you will be plagued by doubt and fear at points throughout your art career. It might be helpful to know you are not alone. It happens to everyone, and you're going to be okay. In the meantime, you have to get through the days. In this episode I talk about 6 tips to help you project confidence while you're trying to regain it. Load up on experience. Spiff up. Work on the outside. Visualize the situation. Try the charm offensive. Never belittle your work. Never apologize. To read a transcript of this episode, get links, see my featured artists, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/project-confidence Sponsored by Magnetic You, a program to help you create or freshen up your marketing materials and improve your professional presentation. Start now: https://artbizsuccess.com/magnetic

If you are an artist who loves to travel and explore new places, this episode is for you. I've been wanting to dig into the subject of artist residencies for a long time now. Fate put me in touch with Amy Clay. In this episode, Amy and I talk about her life as a professional artist-in-residence. She's gone anywhere from 4 to 6 months at a time, stringing together one artist residency after another to fulfill her lust for travel and build what she calls her visual library. We discuss: How this lifestyle started for her The various formats of artist residencies What she looks for in a location How residencies have made her feel part of a global artist community. To read more, see images, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/amy-clay-residencies Connect with Amy and get her free book: https://amyclay.com Sponsored by The Art Biz Accelerator, a coaching group to support and remind you that you're part of a global artist community. https://artbizsuccess.com/accelerator

Meeting people and building relationships is the most important thing you can do for your art career, especially when your goal is to be a full-time artist. This means you have to get out of the studio and socialize. In this solo episode, I discuss: Why everyone you meet is a potential buyer, collector, friend or fan. Where you can network, and why you shouldn't bother with artist organizations that aren't a good fit. There are many art worlds. You have to decide where to build your relationships. Why it's critical to network in real life, not only online. Why it's important to be authentic and genuinely interested in people. I leave you with a challenge of meeting 1 new person a month. If it's true that everyone knows about 150 people, imagine the potential from 12 new people a year. To read the transcript, see featured artists, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/being-seen Sponsored by The PEOPLE PLAN: A Success Workshop to Establish Strategic Connections for Your Art Biz. https://artbizsuccess.com/peopleplan

My utter bliss is to help artists make business systems that streamline their lives so they can spend more time in the studio. So when Skip Hill said he needed a system for following up with his collectors and important relationships, I knew I wanted to help. In this episode of The Art Biz, I walk Skip through the steps to create a plan for nurturing his relationships. We go through these steps to create his plan: What do you want to happen? By when does it need to happen? Or … How frequently does it need to happen? What do you need to have/acquire/learn to make that happen? And/Or what tools and technology will you use for the process? Who do you need to enlist to help? What are the exact steps needed to make this system hum? The steps in that last question provides the fuel. Miss a step, and your system crashes. To read the exact steps we created for Skip, see images, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/skip-hill-systems Sponsored by The PEOPLE PLAN: A Success Workshop to Establish Strategic Connections for Your Art Biz. https://artbizsuccess.com/peopleplan

Before the internet, artists were completely dependent on others to show and sell their work. We need to take a moment every now and then to be grateful for having the world at our fingertips. For being able to instantly send images of our art out into the world. For friends around the globe we would never have met 30 years ago. In this episode, I talk with artist Barbara Muir, who is unabashedly happy about being online. She reminds us of all the good things that happen because we are so connected. Key topics: A brief rundown of the opportunities that have come Barbara's way through her blog. Commitment to a blogging habit—now boasting more than 3,000 entries. Her practice of making a daily list of 6 things. The sweet ritual of leaving nightly letters to her husband. To see images, full show notes, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/muir-online-podcast Want to make sure you stay connected online and off? Check out The PEOPLE PLAN: A Success Workshop to Establish Strategic Connections for Your Art Biz. https://artbizsuccess.com/peopleplan

In this episode of The Art Biz, I'm joined by Kristen O'Neill, a team member of mine and an accomplished artist who recently created a 30-day daily art lesson challenge for her online followers. But in the end, it may have been more of a challenge for her than it was for the participants. Kristen and I discuss what she hoped to get from this challenge, how she organized it, how much of it was planned ahead, and what her workflow was like—including all of the platforms she used to share the content—and most importantly, what she would do differently if she were to do it again. First posted: artbizsuccess.com/challenge-oneill-podcast Highlights Details of Kristen's 30-Day Art Challenge and what she hoped to get out of it. (1:29) How Kristen shared the challenge while honoring her email list expectations. (6:10) Creating and organizing a workflow that worked all month long. (10:42) The time commitment and unexpected challenges behind the challenge. (16:35) Lessons learned from the challenges of this challenge. (22:25) Staying motivated and accountable throughout a challenge. (27:52) Tracking the participation, success, and results of the challenge. (30:15) The value of Pinterest for artists. (38:30) What Kristen would do differently next time. (41:07) This Week's Action Your assignment this week is to consider how you are stretching yourself in and out of the studio these days. Mentioned ArtBizConnection.com Kristen on Instagram Kristen O'Neil Art Related Episodes Art Biz Podcast Episode 78: How to Increase Your Productivity with Art Business Systems Quotes "I'm always looking for different opportunities and ways to reach out to more students and interact with more painters." — Kristen O'Neill "It's really important to honor what you say you're going to do with your list." — Kristen O'Neill "I picked up lessons more quickly than had I done the same amount of work spread over a longer period of time." — Kristen O'Neill "If you haven't figured out your system ahead of time, it's going to be harder than it needs to be." — Kristen O'Neill "Often we spend so much time guessing what is the right way to do something, and we could put that energy into just doing it." — Kristen O'Neill About My Guest Kristen O'Neill paints the essence of landscapes based on real locations, including those from recent collaborations with long-distance hikers. Her Oregon Coast Trail series was featured in a solo exhibition at the Grants Pass Museum of Art. Kristen graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now lives in Southern Oregon where she has become passionate about teaching art. She teaches both online and in-person, leads a field trip program that has taught art history to thousands of 5th graders, and is an Artist Mentor for Alyson Stanfield's community since 2018.

With nobody going anywhere in the spring of 2020, I contacted artist friends Lisa Call and Janice McDonald to see if they wanted to gather regularly to discuss art documentaries. Our little "club," such as it is, was in business. To date, we have met 57 times to discuss the art documentaries together. It's important that we are reminded we're part of something bigger than ourselves and what goes on behind the closed doors of our studios. In this solo episode I talk about why we do this as a group, where you can find art documentaries, how we stay organized, why it's important to diversify our selections, and how our conversations work. At the end I mention some of my favorite films. Read the "almost" transcript, find all of the links, and leave a comment Highlights All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was nominated for an Oscar this year. (1:24) We need to be reminded that we're part of a global art world. (2:57) What art history has taught me. (3:42) Why do this in a group? (4:52) Where to find art documentaries. (5:38) Why Kanopy is our top resource for art documentaries. (7:19) Our 2 lists for art documentaries. (9:24) Why diversity is important to us. (11:16) How our regular conversations work. (13:14) Good v. Bad documentaries—there is always something to be learned. (15:17) Some recommended art documentaries to start with. (17:19) Mentioned All films are linked on the accompanying post Lisa Call Janice McDonald The Art Biz Accelerator Artnet's list of top museum shows for 2022 and 2023