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Creative Capital Artist Development Project

As promised.  Scoot closer.  I’m going to tell you all about the workshop I attended this past weekend.  Ready?  Do you have your cup of joe in hand?

First, I must tell you about the people who presented this great wealth of information to us.  Creative Capital is “a national grant-making not-for-profit organization that gives project-based funding directly to artists in five categories: performing arts, visual arts, film/video, innovative literature and emerging fields.  Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has completed 6 grant cycles, committing nearly $20 million to 325 artists’ projects.”  Our teachers were peers, fellow artists–having trekked through all the same problems we’ve had.  Hence, the whole weekend was to-the-point, practical, and immediately applicable.

This will be a whirlwind tour, but if you have further questions, please feel free to e-mail me.  I’d be happy to explain further.

I’ll give highlights by topic.

Strategic Planning:

2% of those who write their goals down end up with 98% of the wealth and success.  Write down 1-year goals, 5-year goals, 10-year goals, and lifetime goals.  These may shift, so you’ll have to revisit.

Make the market for the art.  In other words, don’t make art you don’t want to make.  Instead, find where best to sell it.

Look at your life the same way you look at your art.  Protect it; value it.

Think big: What would you do with more time and more money?  What can you give others to do?

Make your art something that matters to you.

Ask yourself questions like: When am I most creative?  When do I need time off?  [Here it was suggested that you have a 15-minute meeting with yourself every Monday morning, just to plan your week.  Also, this includes checking your e-mail and doing other business type tasks.  Can these be done during certain hours of the day, so that you’re not squandering valuable art time?]

Suggestion: Watch Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero video.

Make it your goal to make 20% more next year on your art (or whatever it is that you’re working on).

Business Plan: This is the public face of your Strategic Plan.

You need: a mission statement, a definition of your product (very detailed; what are you selling?), an overview of the market (find out what the top of the market is and start tailoring yours accordingly), an analysis of the competition (what are they doing?  what should you be doing?), an operating plan (a calendar of how you plan to execute the work), principals and partners (a list of everyone who has supported you and whom you want to support you), financial projections (surround yourself with people who will help you get there…an accountant who will explain tax breaks, a financial advisor, your bank), and an executive summary (which highlights the impact, longevity, and financial return of your business).  Sound complicated?  Breathe, breathe, breathe.  Take one step at a time.

Suggested book to read: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury.

Promoting Your Work:

It’s all about how you communicate about your work.

Document your work.

Talk about your work to friends, family, donors, organizations, etc.

Write about your work.  In other words, what is your message?  Who are you trying to reach?  What are the marketing tools you can use?  What am I trying to achieve with marketing efforts?  [Tools will be different for each person.  There’s not a one-approach-fits-all kind of deal.]

If you were to think about a bulls-eye, with the unexposed audience on the outside (these are people who have never heard of your work), and each circle approaching the center having labels such as “exposed” (they’ve heard about you vaguely), “connected” (they’ve probably bought a piece or been to an event) and “core” (they’re the ones you can count on being there every time), could you think of ways to bring each outlying person closer to the core?

Web, Blog, and E-mail Essentials:

If you want detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to build a website (and what to think of), Creative Capital has set up an amazing wiki called Internet for Artists.  Check it out!

Start with Blogger or WordPress.  They’re easy to navigate, and you can tailor them to what you need.  Full help is available on their websites.

Look at specific bloggers you admire.  What would you do differently?  What would you like to emulate?

Blogs must be visual and easy to navigate.  They must share your passion for your art in some way.  Have a contact page and plug-ins or widgets for gathering e-mails or comments.  These can be found by Googling “e-mail widget” or “comment widget.”

You want your blog to be “sticky.”  This means people keep returning.

Be a trusted source of information.

Update regularly.

If you make videos, you can place them on Vimeo or YouTube to increase your audience.

For e-mail newsletters, stagger them.  If you send more than 50 at a time, they’ll most likely become spam.  Think of telling a story in the arc of your e-mail.  Reward the readers somehow.  Thank them.

Social Networking: This refers to Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in, MySpace

This increases web presence, and it’s not necessary to think that it would waste your time, if you use it wisely.

Facebook is a closed set–you and your friends.  Twitter is an asynchronous set, in that people who are not your friends can read your stuff and pass it on.  It’s a news-you-can-use type of system.  You can adjust the settings so that you are seeing only what you want to see.  Think of it like a radio station.  You choose who you want to follow.  It’s up to you to fine-tune the “signal.”  And when you do, you can sift through it faster.

Hootsuite can help you manage all this.

Communication:

In your work, you’ll have to meet with people eventually.  If you’re going to an event where you know people’s names, Google them so you know who you’ll be meeting.  Develop your strategy.  You have to be able to walk to win (meaning, you have to be able to say “no” to win).  Sincerely compliment what they’re doing.  Social networking is not about hitting them with your projects over appetizers and drinks.  Remember their name (or get their card) and e-mail them later, giving them all that information.  Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse what you’re going to say (if meeting them again or talking on the phone).  What’s the worst thing they could say to you?  What’s the best thing they could say to you?  Then, follow up.  Immediately.  Then later, to keep in touch.

Guess when the best time of the week is to call someone (when you’re asking them to do something for you)?  Thursday afternoon.  They won’t say they’ll get back to you, because there’s no more time in the week.

On a phone call, you want to do some bragging and branding.  That is, you’ll want to contextualize yourself for the person you’re calling or meeting.

Again, the book suggestion is the same as above.  Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury.

Supporting Your Work: This refers to grant proposals or getting donors.  Some of these opportunities have been compiled at NYFA Source (New York Foundation for the Arts).  Check it out.

It’s hard.  You know that.

Start with what you’ve got.

Interview a friend about your work.  How would they describe it?  That might help you to describe your work with new vocabulary.

These things take time, so start early.  Think of it as a school essay where you have to be very clear of your goals and your objectives.  Don’t use difficult or pesky words.  Be clear.  Be passionate.  Simplicity is good.  EDIT.  Ask someone to read it critically.  Trust their opinion.  Meet the deadline.

Fundraising:

If you have a website or blog, look up Amazon’s Affiliate Program.  If people go to your website, and link to Amazon through your site, you can make money.  [I haven’t been doing this.]

If you have an event coming up, gather up friends of all backgrounds and brainstorm about what you could do.  No idea is wrong.  Everything is written down.  You might come up with new audiences, new venues, new tactics.

Someone at the workshop mentioned a CSA (Community-Sustained Agriculture) idea as applied to art.  People buy shares for a certain amount, then when the time comes, they pick up their “basket” with 3 pieces of art in them.

Kickstarter offers a way to jump-start your dreams by funding ideas and endeavors.

Recommended book: Tour:Smart by Martin Atkins.  Applicable to rock bands that are touring, but the principles can apply elsewhere.

Budgeting:

Write down all your necessary expenses to live your life for one month.  Don’t scrimp.  This includes rent, health insurance, car insurance, food, gas–all the necessities to just live your life.  Multiply by 12.  Write the total down.  Now figure out how much money you need to support your art (paper?  paints?  other supplies?) per month.  Multiply by 12.  Add this to your first total.  Now you have a total income where you can live comfortably.  Divide this by 52 and you have your weekly income.

If you’re in debt, work with a licensed creditor to get out of debt.

Sometimes creditors (such as credit cards) will forgive a certain amount of debt, if you pay them 60% of your debts…or some agreed upon rate…in one lump sum.

The worst thing an artist could do is to think he/she needs to starve in order to do art, and fostering that notion is a disservice to artists everywhere.

Art Business Management: I won’t go into much here, other than to say that this was a mini-course in business skills such as employing someone, writing contracts, negotiating, budgeting, cash flow, time management, organization, marketing, and business etiquette.

Whew.  Are you exhausted?  Overwhelmed?

Start with the little hints that meant something to you.  Baby steps, remember?  And if you don’t know what I’m talking about (when I say baby steps), rent What About Bob? for a good, hearty laugh.

An extra bonus today–for artists who are mothers or mothers who are artists.  Anna Clark at Salon has an interesting article called “Art vs. Motherhood” you might want to take a look at.  [Thanks, Becky!]  She introduces a trailer for Pamela T. Boll’s documentary Who Does She Think She Is? It’s all about women who’ve had to struggle to make way for their art, despite what society or family has to say about it all.  Many famous women artists don’t have (or didn’t have) children.

Ciao, my friends.  Have the loveliest of days.

One Comment

  1. […] met Jo Wood at the Creative Capital Workshop I attended in May.  Check out her amazing landscapes done in tiny beads.  Incredible, aren’t […]

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