A New Year. Transition into hope. The prayer to leave behind what is broken, nourish what breathes life. Answers to both are there if only we choose to look. The beauty always comes in the unexpected, the unknowable, unforeseen moments that define us. Gratefulness is the ability to relish the moments without distinction or judgment. Integrity is the willingness to admit our humanity and forgive our ungratefulness. Opportunity abounds for those of us humble enough to accept the effort to live with integrity as a perpetual work in progress. For me, some days are better than others.
This blog is about creative business and how the artists who own them and/or run them can come closer to themselves – as a business. Now is when I am asked, what can I do to get better, go to the next level, discover a new possibility. My answer: only do the things that matter. Matter to you as an artist, your clients who crave the underneath of your art, to those surrounding your business (employees, colleagues, vendors). Ignore the rest. If you embrace the notion that your creative business has a purpose beyond money, what is it and can you live it? Are you willing to not only acknowledge the purpose, but be unyielding in its defense? What do you have to do to make that defense possible?
Nobody can see what you see. If they could, they would not need you, your art or your creative business. How far are you willing to go to show, teach, guide those who desire to see what you see? “Trust me” is always a short cut to yes and the cancer to those who seek to become other. Do the work because you can, not because it validates anything about you, your art or your creative business. Own the responsibility to have others see the world through your eyes, even it is with their lens in mind.
Read everything. Study all that inhabits your world and the world next to it. Then let it go. At a certain point, where your feet are on the ground is all that matters and all that can matter. By definition, everybody is an amalgamation of what has come before. If you choose to live in a reflection of those who have the answer, however, you miss the beauty of what is yours and yours alone. In the end, the path has to be only for you, your art and your creative business.
For those that want specific advice for improving their creative businesses in 2016: write down the five things you did extraordinarily well in 2015. Ask yourself why you are so proud of each effort. It has to be more than you made the most money on a particular project or that you pulled it off. No, it has to be what you did that makes you stop and say: that was good, really really good. Even if 2015 was brutal, there are always five moments. Of course, if 2015 was ridiculously awesome, it might be hard to limit to five. Either way, five. Then ask yourself what you can do with your art and your creative business to do those five things better. Specifically, what can you do IRRATIONALLY to make those five things better. Irrationally, in that it will not make any sense to the outside world why you would ever do such a thing. Then go do it anyway. Nothing else matters.
When we stumble in 2016, as you and I both will, my prayer is that we are able to find our humility, integrity and gratefulness despite the all powerful temptation not to. The work is its own reward and moving closer to its purpose worthy of our unwavering effort and desire.
