Latest / EGGS! The Podcast / Eggs 455: From Police Force to Paintbrush - Embracing a Growth Mindset with Tim Packer

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Eggs 455: From Police Force to Paintbrush - Embracing a Growth Mindset with Tim Packer · EGGS! The Podcast

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momentum. And now back to the show.
1:39
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Exit Podcast.
1:41
Today's special guest is Tim Packer.
1:42
Tim is the founder and creator behind Tim Packer Art Academy.
1:46
Tim, welcome to the. Show thanks for having me.
1:48
I'm thrilled to be here. Absolutely thrilled to have you.
1:52
So let's talk a little bit about I guess your background a little
1:56
bit. You have kind of an interesting
1:57
story and you've come from maybe a non traditional or less than
2:02
expected place. So let's talk a little bit about
2:04
your history and how you got to where you are today.
2:05
Yeah, it's kind of a long story, but yeah, I started out when I
2:08
was 12 years old. I knew I wanted to be an artist,
2:11
so I took commercial art in high school, studied graphic design
2:14
in college, you know, came out at 19 years of age ready to take
2:18
on the world. And then just ended up in some
2:21
really low level positions, just kind of soul sucking work and
2:25
realized there was people that were a lot more talented than
2:28
me. And I just thought, you know,
2:29
the dream is not going to happen.
2:31
The Toronto police force was hiring and that seemed like a
2:34
good steady paycheck with a pension.
2:36
So I joined the Toronto police force and did that for 18 years.
2:41
And then I guess I was in my 30s and a good friend of mine on the
2:46
police force was murdered in the line of duty.
2:49
And that really just kind of struck me about, I mean, we all
2:53
know we're not guaranteed another 50-60 years or whatever.
2:57
But I had basically quit painting and most people didn't
3:01
even know I was an artist. And so that just kind of really
3:04
brought me kind of face to face with kind of my mortality and
3:07
thought, you know, I, I can't wait till I retire to get back
3:10
to painting. So I got back painting again.
3:13
You got pretty serious about it. And it was around that time too.
3:15
I was first introduced to the idea of the growth mindset that
3:18
you know, your talents, not something that's limited.
3:21
Your talent is something that you build.
3:23
And I kind of really didn't buy into it, but I thought, well, in
3:27
case it's right, let me live my life for a year as though that's
3:30
true. And so I really started working
3:32
on improving everything about my art and, and tackling those
3:36
things I knew I was that were weaknesses.
3:39
And funny thing happened, within a year I was a lot better.
3:42
Within three years my wife and I were talking about me leaving
3:46
the police force to paint full time.
3:48
And in 2000 I actually did that. And so that was, was kind of a
3:54
bit of a struggle 'cause I, I had a lot of skill, I'd earned a
3:56
lot of awards, but I didn't know how to turn that into actual
3:59
viable business. But around 2005 things clicked.
4:04
And that's when my, my current voice, I, I kind of, you know,
4:07
was disco, discovered my voice and that became very popular.
4:11
So then I had a very successful career as an artist.
4:14
But then I started realizing that, you know, that there's a
4:18
lot of artists out there kind of shared that same dream, but they
4:22
had no idea how to get there. And I also realized that a lot
4:25
of the things they were being told, I believe we're just dead
4:27
wrong. And so I started doing a
4:30
YouTube, started my YouTube channel, start sharing what I'd
4:33
learned with other artists. And then in 2019, I almost died
4:39
twice. I had the thyroid from hell.
4:42
But that you know, when, when you have those kind of near
4:45
death experiences again, you kind of take a look at your
4:48
life. And I just realized that I've
4:50
been playing it safe, just kind of doing the teaching as a, as
4:53
a, a side passion kind of thing on YouTube.
4:57
And if I really, really wanted to have impact with helping
5:00
other other people change their lives, I really need to get
5:02
serious and actually turn it into a business.
5:05
So that's when I decided I was going to switch my focus from
5:08
mainly just painting and selling paintings to to teaching.
5:12
So I started my online art Academy.
5:14
So that was in 2020. And we've, yeah, we've done
5:18
really well. We've helped a number of
5:19
artists, but we've done in five years, over 600,000 in, in
5:23
course sales. And yeah, it looks like this
5:26
year is going to be our biggest year yet.
5:28
And so, yeah, and I've had a, the, the best part about it is
5:31
I've had a number of students who have already gone on to kind
5:34
of great success and they're living their lives, making a
5:36
very good living from their art. Yeah, I know.
5:39
I love that. Well, thank you so much for
5:40
sharing that story. And one of the things that
5:42
really stood out to me was this pivot or this moment in your
5:45
life. We were talking about
5:47
discovering the growth mindset. Yeah.
5:49
And, and I think it's interesting, and maybe I'll just
5:51
project a little bit here. So maybe this isn't your
5:53
experience, but as a guy who's also artistic and has spent my
5:56
whole life drawing and doing things like that, I, I found
6:00
that I often struggle with sort of this scarcity versus growth
6:05
thing. Like, so I'll go through these
6:06
little waves where I'll feel like things are going good.
6:08
So it's like, you know, we're, we're doing good.
6:10
We're not hungry anymore. And I can just do what I want to
6:12
do. And then things will dip and
6:14
then it's scarce again. And then everybody's back into,
6:16
you know, back on their haunches and they're all worried about
6:18
money and all this stuff again. And then, you know, work will
6:20
come in and then it'll go away and we'll feel good and then
6:22
it'll fall back off. And so the scarce, scarce, what
6:26
do they call it? Scarcity mindset has been
6:29
prevalent in my career. And you know, I too, I sort of
6:33
have, you know, thought about growth as a mindset, but I
6:36
don't, I probably don't dwell there as often as I should.
6:40
So I wonder if you talk a little bit about just sort of first of
6:43
all, you know, what led to you discovering that, you know, or,
6:46
or making that decision to chase down something like that.
6:49
And then, you know, if you talk a little bit about how you
6:50
actually manifest it in your life.
6:52
Yeah, sure. So it was, you know, so that
6:54
was, it was when I was getting serious about just getting back
6:57
to painting just because, like I thought I'm an artist.
6:59
That's what I need to do. But I wasn't painting.
7:01
I had no thought of leaving the police force.
7:04
I thought that, you know, maybe when I retired, I could turn it
7:06
into a side hustle. But at the time, too, I was a
7:09
detective in the commercial crime unit.
7:11
I was investigating frauds over $2,000,000.
7:13
So I was like a very analytical mind.
7:16
And I thought, well, if I want to get serious about my art, I
7:19
need to do some research. So I bought a lot of books.
7:22
And there was one book. It was called Becoming a
7:24
Successful Artist. I thought, well, yeah, that's
7:27
that. That sounds like that's what I
7:28
want to want to learn. And it was interviews with all
7:31
these artists who were successful.
7:33
And there was one interview with a Canadian artist by the name of
7:36
Harley Brown. And they, and he said in this
7:39
interview that like, it's not about talent.
7:42
Like the idea of talent as some sort of gift that you have or
7:45
don't have is a myth. And he said it's all just about
7:49
hard work. And, and he said, you know, if
7:52
someone wants to become an artist and if they're willing to
7:55
give it all they've got and do whatever's required, he said, I
7:58
guarantee 100% they can be successful.
8:02
And I mean, I kind of, as I was sitting there reading it, I kind
8:05
of called BS, right? It's like that.
8:06
Like, screw you, Harley Brown. Like all these very successful
8:10
people say that. They say I didn't have any gift.
8:12
I just worked really hard. But it's kind of like, you know,
8:15
I believed. Yeah, you got sprinkled with the
8:17
Pixie dust when you were born. You've got it and I don't have
8:21
it. And I, and I, and I also, I was
8:24
kind of, I didn't want to hear this because I, I was thinking,
8:26
OK, what does that mean? That I gave up on my dream too
8:28
soon? Maybe I could have been living
8:30
my dream life now if I hadn't given up and just kind of made
8:34
the decision that I wasn't talented enough and, and I still
8:38
didn't buy into the growth mindset.
8:39
But I, again, I thought, what if he's right?
8:42
What if he's right? And I was at this point, I was
8:45
in my mid 30s and I still have a lot of life ahead of me.
8:48
So I thought, you know what, I'm going to live my life for a year
8:51
as though I believe that this is true.
8:54
And so I just, and the, the bad thing, Harley Brown didn't give
8:59
me a plan, right? He just kind of opened the door
9:02
to say this is possible, but I had no idea what to do.
9:05
But I just thought, you know, the first thing I'd read
9:07
somewhere else too, that to improve as an artist, you need
9:10
to paint at least three times a week.
9:12
So I started scheduling my painting time 1st and marking it
9:16
in the calendar, painting three times a week.
9:18
And then also I started looking at, you know, up until then what
9:22
I'd, I'd been doing is just really painting or drawing on
9:25
the things that relied on my strengths and avoiding those
9:28
things that were weaknesses. And one of the big weaknesses
9:31
for me was composition. I just had no idea about
9:34
composition. And so I threw myself into kind
9:38
of learning the theories of composition and mastering
9:40
composition. And, and again, by the end of
9:43
that year, my work had gotten amazingly better.
9:47
I'd, I'd got into a couple shows, 11 and a couple awards.
9:52
And by the end of that year, I just bought into the, to the
9:55
whole thing is, I guess this is true.
9:56
And so then I just kept doing that.
9:59
And then within three years, three years later, it's like I'd
10:03
been elected to a couple national arts organizations in
10:05
Canada. I'd, I've been a number of
10:08
international jury shows. I'd won awards, I'd sold a lot
10:11
of paintings. I was kind of very busy doing
10:14
portrait commissions and my wife how to get a conversation.
10:19
I just had a studio open house where I'd had a lot of sales.
10:21
I had a lot of commissions lined up to do.
10:24
And my wife said, listen, sit down, we need to talk.
10:27
And I had no idea what was coming.
10:29
I was actually kind of terrified of what we need to talk about.
10:32
But she said, you know, we need to talk not about if you leave
10:35
the police force to paint full time, but when you do that to
10:38
paint full time. And you could have knocked me
10:41
over with a feather because my wife is a banker and, you know,
10:44
I'm the dreamer. But she said to me, the one
10:47
thing she said to me that actually I think also was a huge
10:49
part of why I ended up being successful, She said, this isn't
10:53
about you being fulfilled. That's not why I'm kind of
10:57
suggesting this. She said, I actually think this
10:58
might be in our best long term financial interests if you
11:02
really pursue this. And so she said, but I'll make a
11:06
deal with you. She said, I'm I'm willing to
11:08
support you quitting your job, walking away from your pension,
11:12
just as long as you commit. Now, if it ever becomes clear
11:16
this is not in our best financial interest, you'll put
11:18
on a suit and get a job. And because of the unit that I
11:22
was working in, like I'd had the month long computer crime course
11:25
from the RCMP college, I had a skill set that was, you know,
11:29
easily translatable to the private sector.
11:32
So that was our deal. So in 2000, yeah, I quit my job
11:36
and started my life as an artist.
11:39
It's still after 18 years on the police force.
11:41
So the scariest thing I've ever done in my life is quitting my
11:44
job and walking away from attention.
11:46
Yeah, no, I totally get it. Well, and it's awesome that your
11:49
your wife really pushed that sort of thing, especially coming
11:51
from such an analytical standpoint.
11:52
We're sort of in a similar situation in my family, which is
11:55
my wife's a school teacher, but she's like the steady income.
11:59
Yeah. And then I'm the one that
12:00
experiments and tries everything out and flops and fails and
12:03
makes money or whatever happens. And but it's really on her nudge
12:09
to do that, you know, otherwise I probably wouldn't be doing it
12:12
either. Well, the thing I'm the thing
12:13
I'm proudest about too, is my wife was able to retire early
12:17
because things went so well. So now she golfs 4 times a week
12:21
in the summertime. And yeah, she, she was able to
12:23
retire a lot earlier than she would have if I'd stayed on the
12:25
police force. So yeah.
12:28
I love that. That's really awesome.
12:31
Can can we talk about like the first month or so after you quit
12:36
the police force and the you, you said you had a bunch of
12:41
commissions kind of lined up for portraitures.
12:43
Was that like your thing? Was portraits your thing, or did
12:46
you just do that because it was work?
12:49
No, that was, that was the thing that I really gravitated to
12:52
initially again, when I was, when I was deciding to get back
12:56
into art, you know, again, doing the research like, 'cause it's
12:58
like, what should I paint? And you know, everything said
13:00
paint what you love. And so I had two, two young boys
13:03
who were like 3 and five years old.
13:05
So it's like, well, I love my boys.
13:06
So I started painting pictures of my boys and I was really
13:10
good. Like I had a really good drawing
13:12
skill. So those paintings got into
13:15
shows and won awards. And then I started just painting
13:18
pictures of friends. Like if we'd be at a pool party,
13:20
I'd have my camera just looking for interesting, interesting
13:24
shots. And then I'd paint, paint
13:25
people. And then, you know, I'd have a
13:27
show every year at my house while I was still in the police
13:29
force. And people would come and they
13:31
pretty much all bought the paintings of that I'd done.
13:33
And then people started commissioning me to, to do
13:36
painting. So when I left the police force,
13:38
I already had probably, you know, I think there was, there
13:41
was 4040 hoppers in the fraud squad.
13:45
I'd done commissions for like at least 20 of them from, for their
13:48
kids, their wives, their whatever.
13:51
And so when I left, I thought that's what I was going to do.
13:53
But what I, what I ended up finding out was that I loved
13:56
painting people the way I wanted to paint them.
14:01
I did not really enjoy painting people the way they wanted me to
14:04
paint their people. And so after two years, I was, I
14:09
was fairly busy doing the portraits, but I just came to
14:12
hate painting portraits. I thought I would, I would
14:15
rather have root canal than going to the studio and paint,
14:18
paint a picture of somebody's kid in the shirt they want, you
14:21
know, in the pose they want. And so that was, that was kind
14:25
of terrifying because it's like, OK, now I've, I've left my job,
14:28
I've left my pension and I've let this turn into something
14:31
that I don't want to do. And luckily I had a good friend
14:34
of mine who was a very successful artist because I, I
14:38
had said to a few people, you know, that here's the sit like
14:40
this situation I'm in now that, you know, I just hate what I'm,
14:43
what I, what I have to do. But I guess my, I've made my bed
14:46
and I need to lie in it. And, you know, I'll paint
14:49
landscapes on the side and people will buy them 'cause they
14:52
go with the couch. But I'll never get the same sort
14:55
of, you know, respect for my landscapes and that that I get
14:59
from my portraits. And I'll just have to keep doing
15:01
this. And a bunch of my artist friends
15:02
said, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
15:04
And then I had one artist friend, I said this too.
15:06
And he just went up one side of me and down the other and told
15:09
me he was disgusted with me. And he was like, if you want to
15:12
paint landscapes, paint freaking landscapes.
15:14
But you know, who told you what made you think it would be easy
15:18
making this transition? Like, you know, you need to, you
15:21
know, you need to really dig deep on this and just just go
15:25
after it. It's like, what makes you think
15:26
you can't do it? So anyways, I came home and I
15:29
told my wife what Neville had said and I said, I'm painting
15:32
landscapes now. And of course she was like, no,
15:34
you're not. You've got, you've got a lot of
15:36
commissions lined up. But we, we, we came upon another
15:40
deal that I would spend half my time painting portrait
15:44
commissions and the other half my time kind of exploring what I
15:48
wanted to say in landscape and trying to figure that out.
15:52
And if it ever got to the point where my landscapes, you know,
15:55
were selling for as much as my portraits, then I could make the
15:58
switch. And now, I mean, most people
16:00
don't even know that I used to paint portraits because I've
16:02
been so successful now with my landscapes.
16:04
But that took another three years in the studio of just
16:08
trying things until kind of my ultimate voice came out.
16:13
And when that was discovered, like the world is not shy to let
16:17
you know, I went from, you know, barely making $25,000 in a year
16:22
in those first few years that when my current voice, the very
16:25
first piece that I did that you would recognize as my work now,
16:30
I was at a festival and that painting sold in the 1st 5
16:33
minutes of the show. The couple that bought it asked
16:36
me if they could leave it there because they were, they just got
16:39
there, they wanted to walk around and I could have sold
16:42
that painting 20 times. And I eventually took it down
16:44
and wrapped it up because people saw that painting and they
16:47
wanted it. And then as soon as I told them
16:48
it was sold, they just were disappointed and left.
16:52
And so that was, that was a good, I'd never had any of my
16:56
work at that kind of response. I'd I'd done reasonably well at
16:59
selling, but nothing like that. And then I did two more kind of
17:03
in that style and they were going into a charity auction and
17:08
they sold for double over what I was charging for my work.
17:11
And so that made me think, OK, maybe, maybe this is the time
17:14
now to kind of dig deep on this. And so I just, you know, hunker
17:19
down in the studio for a few months and I, I decided to go
17:22
into a big show in Toronto, the the Toronto Indoor Art Expo.
17:26
And I did 28,000 in sales in a weekend.
17:29
And then I had, and I had 10 gallery owners give me their
17:31
cards and asked me if I would please consider showing with
17:34
them. And it was kind of like, OK, so
17:36
I guess, I guess, I guess this is it.
17:40
And yeah, I've never really looked back from then.
17:43
Let's let's discuss pricing. That's one of those things that
17:47
like up and coming artists or anyone really in any industry
17:51
has a hard time figuring out. I'm sure portraits, you know,
17:55
it's you kind of do 1 you figure out time and commitment and how
17:59
it, how long it takes and studio time and expenses and stuff.
18:03
But something like a landscape, something that could take you
18:06
potentially hundreds of hours. I I don't know how long it would
18:10
take, but. Not that long, I'd be pretty
18:12
quick. OK, something that would take
18:14
you quite a long time versus and a different skill set versus
18:18
like same repetitive. Here's another photo of a kid.
18:24
Yeah, break that down for us. Yeah, Well, the whole pricing
18:28
thing, there's so much information out there.
18:29
I think that it's just wrong for artists telling people you have
18:32
to put your prices high so that people value it.
18:34
And, and you know, and I think that's the reason most artists
18:38
don't sell The, the reality is, and people say too, well, this
18:41
painting took me 30 hours. So what should I charge people
18:44
go, well, you should make X number of dollars an hour.
18:46
It's like, who says like when we start out, our time is not only
18:50
worth nothing, it's worth less than nothing, right?
18:52
We all start as beginners. So if you think about it this
18:54
way, if you take $100 worth of material and the canvas, the
18:59
paint and everything else, and you spent 8 hours and you create
19:01
a painting that people wouldn't hang in their house if you were
19:05
giving it to them, which is where we all start your time as
19:09
a negative value. You've just devalued $100 worth
19:11
of material to nothing. And then eventually you get to
19:14
the point where where people will pay you $100 for that
19:17
painting. And it's like, oh, OK, well, now
19:19
your time is worth nothing, but at least you're not devaluing
19:23
it. And then if you can make, you
19:25
know, $300.00 from that painting and it takes 80, well, now your,
19:28
your time's worth $2030.00 an hour, whatever.
19:30
But the public decides what the value of your art is.
19:35
And, and I, I guess I should mention too, one of the other
19:38
things most artists don't understand is there's not one
19:42
art world. It's like a bunch of different
19:44
art villages. And so, and the biggest
19:47
confusion is there's the village of academia and institutional
19:52
art. So that's where that's like
19:54
publicly funded galleries, museums.
19:57
That's the kind of stuff that's taught in a lot of universities
19:59
where postmodernism is really big, where it's all about the
20:03
concept, right? What did the artist feel?
20:05
That's where you get things like the meat dress with a banana,
20:08
duct tape to the wall, right? There was a an exhibit in London
20:13
in a. Very prestigious gallery.
20:14
It was, it was invisible artwork, basically.
20:18
That's what it was. It was like the emperor's new
20:20
clothes, right? There was nothing there.
20:22
But the artist submitted a description of what their
20:24
invisible piece of work was. And people went there and nodded
20:28
and talked about it and all that.
20:30
Like that's that village. The village where I live is what
20:34
I like to call the village of commercial sales.
20:37
And, and over in that other village too, artists get paid by
20:40
grant committees, by funding bodies, but it's not individual
20:44
people aren't buying those things and taking the banana
20:47
home and duct taping it to their wall, right?
20:49
It's it's, it's to be talked about.
20:51
But the village where I live is where it's real people buying
20:55
artists work to actually take home and hang on their walls or
20:58
on their home or in their office.
21:01
And the big difference is in those in that one village of the
21:04
academia, it's all about what the artist felt.
21:07
What did the artist feel? What was their message in the
21:11
village of commercial sales? It really doesn't matter what
21:13
the artist thought. What matters is how does the
21:16
viewer feel when they see the piece of work?
21:18
And ideally in that village, what we want to do is we want to
21:22
create work that stops people in their tracks.
21:25
It takes their breath away and they just have the feeling I I
21:28
have to have this. It makes them feel something so
21:30
good that they want to take it home and hang it in their walls.
21:34
And over in this village, study is study after study has shown.
21:38
And not only that, just sales bear it out that what the
21:40
average person really still values in art is everything that
21:44
used to be important in art up until the the 50s.
21:48
Things like skill, things like composition, things like craft
21:52
and beauty, things that actually get laughed at over in the the
21:56
academic side of things. But that's what real people
22:00
really value. And so artists have to kind of
22:03
understand first of all, that you need to pick a village.
22:06
And over in this village, the people decide what the arts
22:11
worth. Because what they'll do is
22:12
they'll walk around an art festival, they'll find like 5
22:15
artists whose work they like, and they think, OK, we're going
22:18
to buy from one of these 5. They're in our price range, and
22:21
then they'll buy from the cheapest 1.
22:23
And so that's the thing. So initially you start off very,
22:28
very low. But what happens is as you have
22:30
more and more sales, then you build the scarcity, then you
22:34
build the urgency and the prices start going up.
22:37
But initially it's better off to have your prices very low and
22:41
sell lots than to try and squeeze the last nickel out of
22:44
every painting and sell nothing. Because when you start selling,
22:48
it kind of creates a buzz and then you can raise your prices,
22:52
often in small increments. Are you selling?
22:55
Prints or are you selling original paintings every.
22:58
Time I do both so I said so my prints go from I guess like for
23:03
like a three foot by 4 footprint of mine is like about 11 or
23:06
$1200 and a three foot by 4 foot originals about eight $9000.
23:12
But when I started out, of course, you know, I was selling
23:15
2 foot by two foot paintings for like $200.00.
23:18
But ideally what you want to be when you're first starting out,
23:22
you want to be that person that's the best value in the
23:25
kind of against the competition, the people whose work is kind of
23:30
similar to you. Because what happens is you'll
23:32
sell lots and then you'll very quickly go beyond the price of
23:35
the other people because I mean nothing, nothing sells like
23:39
sales. When people see that you're
23:41
selling lots of work, that also reinforces their their kind of
23:45
feeling. Well, I kind of like this artist
23:47
work, but it looks like everybody else likes it too.
23:49
So it's like, OK, I'm more than they're more likely to buy.
23:52
Yeah. Now it's a funny thing because
23:54
you know, we talked briefly or what sort of kicked off this
23:56
topic was talking about pricing and and just trying to
23:59
understand value and there are a lot of things that factor into
24:01
value. And one of those things is what
24:02
you just touched on, which is just sort of social pressure.
24:05
Yeah. And you know, so your your work
24:07
can fetch a higher dollar amount if there's kind of a competition
24:10
here, which is, oh, well, he wants us now.
24:12
I want it. And so now I'm going to pay for
24:14
it, you know. And so I think it's kind of an
24:16
interesting thing. And and what I love about this
24:18
story that you just kind of told, I mean, around pricing.
24:20
Some of the things you talked about prior to that too, is
24:23
you've really described this. I mean, it's the life of a
24:25
creative person. But like, as we've discovered in
24:27
this, doing this podcast, that that same juice that applies to
24:31
your business or, or whatever it is and what it is is sort of
24:34
maturing into self-expression. And it's this idea that, you
24:37
know, you start in a position where you're doing the work that
24:40
is, you know, almost the commodity version of your work,
24:43
you're just doing the thing to make money.
24:44
And so, and I grew up or my whole career has been in
24:47
advertising and design and and so commercial art and, and
24:52
basically that's, but was my trajectory, right?
24:54
You, you spent a lot of years doing things for them.
24:57
Yep. And then as you get older or
24:58
more experienced or more well known or start making more money
25:01
or even just your mindset changes, you start doing more
25:04
work for me. You start doing more of the
25:06
things that you wanna do for you.
25:08
And so I wondered if you would just talk a little bit more
25:10
about just sort of, I guess you're almost inventing a
25:15
market, right? Like you've got to convince
25:17
somebody that what you're putting together is actually
25:19
worthwhile. You know, some things like maybe
25:21
are objectively easier to sell. Like, you know, I mean, not to
25:25
say something or put down a a landscape, but like landscapes
25:29
are beautiful and they have nature to rely on and things
25:32
like this, right. Where something, you know, more
25:34
that you might have characterized as being in sort
25:36
of the other village, which is, you know, I don't know, take any
25:40
of these weird things people are doing.
25:41
Yeah. You know, I mean, but, but
25:43
there's a market for both. And I think, yeah, that's what's
25:46
kind of exciting about it, is that there isn't a right answer
25:48
here and you actually can just pursue what you want to do.
25:51
Yeah, but you need to pick a village, yeah.
25:53
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense.
25:56
There's no overlap. What a lot of artists do is it
25:58
again, they get, they create work where it's like, I've got
26:01
this deeper meaning that I want to convey, but I'm gonna show
26:04
some of my skill and craft in there too.
26:08
And then the problem is no village bites because in the in
26:11
the academic village, it's it's they actually don't want to see
26:15
skill things that like that. The traditional stuff that used
26:18
to be valued in art is seen as as kind of bad.
26:23
And, and in that, and in my village, it's like we don't want
26:26
to see a little bit of skill. We want to see mastery.
26:28
And I guess that's the other thing too, is that, you know,
26:31
when you think about if you're trying to make a living doing
26:33
something that people do for a hobby and pay to do, then you
26:37
can't stop at just good in your growth and then try to make a
26:42
living marketing that. And I also see that's what a lot
26:45
of artists do. Like they get they get to the
26:47
point where they can produce work that's like pretty good,
26:50
you know, where people go. I like that.
26:52
And it's like, yeah, line up. There's a million artists
26:54
producing work like that. You need to keep going until
26:58
you're great, until you you produce work that's instantly
27:01
recognizable as yours that enough people just fall in love
27:06
with and we'll make poor financial decisions to own,
27:09
right? It's like if you want to be a
27:11
professional golfer, you can't be an 8 handicapper and make a
27:15
living, right? It's like you need to first of
27:17
all master all of the skills because there's a lot of people
27:22
out there selling pretty good art for very low prices.
27:28
So why is someone going to pay 8000 or $16,000 for one of my
27:32
paintings? It's because it's it's had a
27:36
objectively better painting. But but the thing to understand
27:40
too is in the village of commercial sales, like, how do
27:44
we how do we decide what is great art, right?
27:46
Like that's a whole that's the question.
27:49
Well, it's not a person or critic that decides.
27:51
The public decides, and the public decides by exercising
27:54
their vote with their wallet. And so it's like in this
27:59
village, you can I If you want to make a living from your art,
28:03
you need to produce art that people love more than most other
28:07
artists work. And because if you're just in
28:10
that group of kind of really nice, I like it.
28:15
You're in that group where people are still shopping based
28:17
on value, where they'll go, OK, well, this one's cheaper.
28:20
And that's why having a unique voice is so important too.
28:23
It's just like music, right? Like, music's the same thing.
28:25
You look on American Idol, there's all kinds of people that
28:27
come on that are technically great singers, but they sound
28:30
like a bunch of other technically great singers and
28:33
they end up doing corporate gigs.
28:35
But you have someone that comes out that just sounds unique that
28:38
as soon as you hear them, you go, oh, that's got to be, that's
28:42
got to be Springsteen, right? That's got to be Rod Stewart.
28:44
What? Whatever.
28:45
It's the same with art. If you can create something that
28:48
people love, but it's unique and you have a unique way of putting
28:52
together your art, then you're the only game in town.
28:55
They can't go to someone else and get a cheaper version of
28:59
that. Then the only question is, can
29:02
they afford what you're charging?
29:04
But most are to stop before they get there.
29:06
Most are to stop developing when they get to that Pretty good
29:10
point. And then they spend the rest of
29:11
their life trying to market that work, and that's why they're
29:15
starting. Yeah.
29:16
Well, So what do you think? Can we talk a little bit about
29:19
just I, I want to dig a little deeper on reputation and sort
29:21
of, I mean, you've described it as your voice, but, but I think
29:25
it's kind of the same thing, which is, you know, the, the
29:27
persona or the whatever you become the brand.
29:29
Yeah. And like we were talking about
29:30
before, like when you, when you start out doing artwork, like
29:33
you could probably make a living doing artwork that you hate.
29:36
And then you've kind of created this trap, right, where you're,
29:38
you're busy doing whatever artwork other people want, but
29:40
you're not actually executing on the thing that wanted made you
29:43
want to paint in the 1st place. Yeah.
29:45
And so so a lot of people have reputations.
29:48
They get it for a number of different reasons, right?
29:50
Some are, you know, crazy. They do wild things, you know,
29:52
to point, you know, back to your meat dresses or your your
29:54
bananas on walls and then other people, you know, maybe more in
29:59
your camp or maybe more in your art village that you described
30:01
is reputation is maybe less important and it's more about
30:05
just the output. And do I like it?
30:06
And is it on theme this year? And do people, you know, are
30:09
they are they into it? So it's kind of maybe a
30:10
different approach where I don't know.
30:12
And and you can tell us, Tim, I mean, obviously we're just
30:14
meeting you today, but like, I don't know.
30:16
I mean, like, are you the guy with the top hat and the monocle
30:18
that runs around? And Tim Packers, you know, this
30:20
wild, crazy guy? Or.
30:22
Like, you know, I mean, so what's your take on just, you
30:25
know, reputation in general as it depend, you know, or you
30:28
know, and you could call it brand, you can call it voice,
30:30
you know, whatever it is, but what's your thought about that
30:32
for? Art.
30:32
Yeah. I mean, I do think that I've,
30:34
I've often found that the, you know, that whole stereotypical
30:38
kind of thing of the artist of like wearing a beret and being
30:41
the delicate kind of genius. And I've often found that the
30:44
more affectation someone has, it's an inverse proportion to
30:48
the quality of their art. I mean, I was, I'm a member of
30:52
the Canadian Watercolor Society. I served on the board for a
30:54
number of years and was president, so I've gotten to
30:56
know, you know, a lot of Canada's top artists and a lot
30:58
of EU s s top artists as well. And I found that kind of the
31:03
more talented and successful they are, the more just like a
31:06
regular Joe they are. You would never guess that
31:09
again. There's little pretense or
31:11
affectation in there. But what I would say too about
31:15
kind of finding your voice about kind of that, and this is what I
31:20
recommend for my students too, is, is ideally you want to get
31:23
to the place where where three things are happening, right?
31:27
Where you absolutely love the painting process of creating
31:31
your paintings. That you're doing what you love
31:33
more than anything else in the world and you are happy and
31:37
proud of that. Paintings themselves to be able
31:39
to say, this is what I do. And then where enough people
31:42
actually love the work to sustain a really good living
31:46
too. And then the big question is,
31:48
how do you find that, right? And that's, I mean, the main
31:52
thing is first of all, mastering all the skills, right?
31:54
Drawing, composition, brushwork, kind of perspective, atmospheric
31:58
perspective, all that kind of stuff.
32:00
But then it's spending time in what's called process mode,
32:03
where you're out of your comfort zone and you're just trying lots
32:07
of different things. And the problem there with a lot
32:11
of artists is, you know, they develop a certain amount of
32:14
skill where they can produce kind of moderately competent
32:16
paintings, doing the things that they're competent, confident in.
32:20
And then they try something new and it doesn't work out.
32:23
And so it's all that didn't work out.
32:24
And then they try something else and it doesn't work out.
32:26
And now whenever they think of stepping outside of their
32:29
comfort zone, they get the fear of failure.
32:31
And the lizard brain kind of rears up because all the last
32:34
few times I've failed. But what's important to
32:37
understand is when you're in process mode, you're supposed to
32:39
have failures. So the very first thing you have
32:41
to do is when you're trying something you don't know how to
32:44
do. And this is actually for
32:45
business as well. When you're doing something you
32:47
don't know have you don't know how to do, you have to give
32:50
permission for it to fail before you start because that removes
32:54
the anxiety. And then if you fail, well,
32:55
failures we're learning happens too, right?
32:58
But in that process mode is also where breakthroughs happen.
33:02
That's where all of a sudden you might create a painting better
33:04
than anything you've done before, or there might just be
33:07
little 1 area in the painting that's like, wow, look what
33:10
happened there. Well, how, how did I do that?
33:12
Now you take that. Now when you go back to product
33:15
mode, you've got more tools, more knowledge, more experience,
33:17
more skills. So your, your caliber of work
33:21
just keeps going up. But while you're in that process
33:24
mode of trying all this stuff, you're keenly attuned to how
33:27
much do I enjoy painting like this?
33:29
How much do I like the finished result, and what's the impact of
33:33
people who see it? And so you're just kind of
33:36
continually guided by that and that leads you down a certain
33:40
Rd. where eventually you have that breakthrough moment where
33:44
it's like, you think, wow, I love painting this painting more
33:47
than I've ever loved doing a painting before.
33:49
I think it's my best painting I've ever done.
33:51
And the public goes crazy over it.
33:53
And then you're like, OK, I guess, I guess this is, this is
33:56
what I can do. I can ride this pony to the
33:59
grave if I want. And then you're never satisfied
34:01
too. I still spend every year I, I
34:04
spend maybe two or three weeks where I'll go off into process
34:06
mode because I think, well, maybe there's something else
34:08
that, but I haven't found it yet.
34:10
I found a few things that that I enjoy doing, but not as much as
34:15
as this. So yeah.
34:18
Yeah, I love that. So I, I'm not an artist.
34:22
Well, I guess I am an artist in in certain ways, but as far as
34:25
like drawing and painting and stuff like that, I've tried it a
34:30
few times and every single time I try it, I look at that I'm
34:33
like, oh man, that is a piece of junk.
34:35
Piece of it looks like crap. Like, you know, like you don't
34:37
want to show it to anyone. That little sketchbook that I
34:40
got is tucked behind the back corner and I only pull it out
34:43
when I'm doing rough stuff because I don't want anyone
34:45
seeing it. Nobody starts good I.
34:48
Know. It's, it's what it's, it's
34:51
funny, it's, it's exactly the same as music.
34:53
Actually, There are so many parallels with art and music in
34:57
terms of not even just the like the words like composition and
35:00
rhythm and kind of all this kind of stuff, but what it takes to
35:03
be successful, right? Is like it, it's, it's, it's
35:07
exactly the same thing. And again, in music, right,
35:09
especially in popular music, the public decides, yeah.
35:14
So nobody, nobody starts good at art.
35:16
And that's the that's the thing. I guess another thing that that
35:20
that's important to note too is when you look at people who are
35:23
extremely successful and extremely talented now, you
35:27
know, we tend to think that they were just like that.
35:30
And we don't see that they started as an absolute beginner
35:34
do an absolute crap. They might have just started
35:38
earlier, but I mean, I've never met anybody that when you look
35:43
at their very first drawings, you go, Oh my God, that's
35:45
brilliant, right. And same with, I mean, I tried,
35:48
I, I went to art college and I was the only person in art
35:53
college. When we go to parties, people
35:54
would pass the guitars around and I was the only one that
35:57
didn't play because so many people that play music also are
36:01
into art. And then I talked about that for
36:04
so many years. And my 40th birthday, my wife
36:06
got me a guitar and I started trying to play and and I quit
36:11
because it's like, this is so hard, right?
36:14
Like I don't have time to invest the amount of time to make it
36:19
even just get moderately competent here.
36:21
Like I need to be working on my business and that.
36:23
But I if I got to the point where I could, I could do Smoke
36:26
on the Water and the the intro for Law and Order, that's three
36:32
months I'm not getting back. It's like, yeah, that's.
36:35
What I always told my, that's what I always tell my boys, I'm
36:37
like, you can learn like 20% of guitar, you're better than 80%
36:40
of people and that'll work out so good in like your dating life
36:43
or whatever. Yeah, cuz.
36:45
I got teenage boys, yeah. So I'm like you guys just gotta
36:47
pick up 20% of. Guitar.
36:48
Nothing cooler than a kid that plays guitar.
36:50
Right. If you can just do something
36:52
with a little attitude and toss your hair or something, you'll
36:54
be set. Yeah.
36:55
So, so one of the things I wanted to dig into a little bit
36:58
more, and we talked about it more at the top was around this
37:00
notion of belief. You pointed out something, which
37:03
I think is hilarious because we've run into that on this show
37:06
a few times too, which is the basically the self help kind of
37:09
folks. They always seem to stop short
37:11
of a plan. So it's like you're going to
37:13
find all your success if you do this, you know, and, and you
37:15
talked about, you know, sort of setting your mind on, I'm going
37:18
to act as if for this year and see what happens.
37:21
I've done versions of this before.
37:23
The one that I think's the most hilarious or embarrassing or
37:25
whatever is I, I read think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill.
37:29
It has this thing in there about having a mantra.
37:32
And if you read it every day, you know, you can help manifest
37:34
this thing into reality. So every day I had stuck on my
37:36
wall this picture or, or that, you know, the sentence or two
37:40
that was, you know, oh, well, this year I'm going to make this
37:42
amount of money and all this kind of stuff.
37:44
I, I did not at the end of the year.
37:45
So unfortunately it was unable to manifest that.
37:48
But but I did later realize I was like, well, the problem is
37:51
these guys, you know, like the Napoleon Hills, like they
37:54
ultimately made their money selling the idea of this is how
37:57
you find success. Yes.
37:58
So they they were self help people.
38:01
That's how they made their money.
38:02
It's not like they, you know, built some kind of thing or
38:04
whatever, but this is how that guy made his money was by
38:07
telling people how to find success.
38:09
By selling the woo woo. Yeah, it's this weird circular
38:12
thing, isn't it? And, and I'm not putting down
38:13
that book because I, I think it's great and I think there's a
38:15
lot of real good knowledge in there.
38:17
But, but as it pertains to belief, I think there's a couple
38:22
different routes here. And, and 1 is so if we
38:26
understand that we can be free as artists to do whatever we
38:29
want to do, right? Chase the thing that you
38:30
actually want to do. And this may be one of the areas
38:33
where you actually could chase a passion.
38:35
I think you have a lot of people who believe they're giving all
38:37
they can give or they're doing all they can do or whatever, or
38:41
they may believe that they've already achieved it.
38:43
And so they're believing, you know, in the sense of, hey, I'm
38:47
trying to follow my belief and if I believe long enough, it's
38:49
going to work out. But I think for a lot of those
38:51
people, it just never happens, right?
38:53
And I think part of it is they're believing or they
38:55
believe they believe or whatever, but maybe they're
38:58
misguided or they're missing something.
39:00
So can you talk about just like a, as you teach your students
39:03
and as you start to work with people on finding belief?
39:05
I mean, I definitely believe in the part that is you have to
39:09
have faith that what you're doing is the right thing, right?
39:11
And I do think in general, even if it's a snow plow, you can
39:15
eventually push your way to some level of success.
39:18
Even if you're not talented or if you're doing stuff wrong.
39:21
In a lot of cases, I think just sticking with something long
39:23
enough will bear fruit. But I.
39:26
But I do. But where are you at on belief?
39:27
You have to have a plan too, right?
39:29
Like you can. It took me 5 years and I was
39:33
already an accomplished artist when I left the police force.
39:36
It took me 5 years to make $30,000.
39:39
I I had the opportunity to mentor a young artist who was a
39:43
daughter of a golf buddy of mine.
39:46
She just graduated from landscape architecture and she
39:49
got to know me and, and to her father's chagrin, my influence
39:55
kind of led her to tell them that she didn't want to be a
39:57
landscape architect, she wanted to be an artist.
39:59
And after four years of university and I started mentor,
40:03
I mentored her. We met every month and we filmed
40:05
all her stuff to go up on YouTube.
40:07
But she was able to make $30,000 in one year.
40:10
In her very first year and now her work sells for more, more
40:13
than mine. And that's the difference of
40:15
having a plan. But the biggest thing that I see
40:17
for like the people that believe I'm doing what I, I'm doing what
40:20
I believe. And I, you know, it's, it's like
40:22
I'm there, I'm creating the work I meant to create.
40:25
It's kind of like, you don't get to decide in my village, the
40:28
public decides and the public speaks.
40:31
And if you believe you're creating this work and you put
40:34
it out there and the reaction is that's not it.
40:38
And there's no amount of marketing or anything else
40:40
that's going to make people go, oh, all of a sudden I love this
40:43
work. So it's like back into the
40:45
studio. But the biggest thing that,
40:47
that, that I teach is like there's, there's a logical
40:50
progression of skills and concepts that you should master.
40:54
Because I, I think ideally you want to master everything about
40:59
art, all of the skills, all of the conceptual knowledge, and
41:02
then take that into the studio and trying to create whatever it
41:05
is you're going to create. But the first thing is to look
41:08
for the, the domino. What's the biggest thing right
41:11
now that I haven't mastered that if I master it, it would have an
41:15
impact on everything I do going forward.
41:18
And for most artists, it's drawing and composition.
41:20
Most I go out to an art festival, you know, I go out,
41:24
just walk around seeing. It's like 99% of the people
41:26
there haven't mastered drawing and 99% of them don't know
41:30
anything about composition. And composition in art is is the
41:34
same as in music, right? It's like if you've got a great
41:38
song that's beautifully composed, a group of
41:40
kindergarten kids can sing it and it still sounds beautiful.
41:43
And it's the same with a painting.
41:45
And if you've got a poorly composed song, even Michael
41:47
Bublé Can't Sing it good unless he changes the composition.
41:50
And so most artists are out there right off the bat, kind
41:54
of. They're producing work that is
41:56
poorly composed and poorly executed.
41:59
And then they're wondering why the world isn't rewarding them
42:02
for a living because they're like, I put my heart and soul
42:04
into that. And it's like, yeah, there are
42:07
people who put their heart and soul into singing in the shower,
42:09
but you don't get to make a living at it unless you are good
42:13
enough that people go, Oh my God, I love it.
42:15
I want to have it. Yeah, it's an interesting point.
42:17
Like as I've hired creative talent over the years, I've
42:20
always put like maybe a disproportionate amount of value
42:22
on hand skills and being able to do something with your hand and
42:25
work about, you know, work on composition and be able to draw
42:28
and, you know, being able to see things and then reproduce it out
42:30
of your mind. You know, and, and I know a lot
42:33
of people, especially younger generation folks have just grown
42:35
up in the computer doing graphic design.
42:37
So it's the equivalent of your person who just goes and buys a
42:40
paintbrush, but they never knew how to drew, I guess, or never
42:42
knew how to draw. And I think, yes, you can be a
42:45
very competent designer who can't draw.
42:48
But I find, at least for me, when I'm, when I'm hiring people
42:51
who are creative talent OR if I'm trying to work with people
42:53
who are creative talent, I typically find that the ones
42:56
that have developed a hand skill over their lives are, are are
42:59
typically the safer bet. You know, at least in terms of
43:02
their general ability to create output.
43:04
Doesn't mean they're the most skilled technically.
43:06
I mean, you can have really technical painter that can, you
43:09
know, paint his his butt off, but not necessarily be able to
43:12
draw a picture. I mean, I know lots of
43:13
photographers like that. They just, they know how to use
43:16
the machine that takes pictures, but they don't necessarily have
43:18
an artistic eye, you know, And so developing that skill, I
43:21
think is important. And I think too, it's just like,
43:24
at the end of the day, what you want to do is give yourself the
43:26
best chance possible to achieve success, right?
43:29
And I, I just firmly believe like I, I, I think of it like
43:33
when you come to the easel to paint, you've got your artistic
43:36
tool belt. The more tools you have in that
43:39
belt that you have mastered, the better chance you're actually
43:44
going to achieve success. And it's, it's kind of like, you
43:48
know, like if you can't draw very well, it's like, well, you
43:50
know, if you think of, you know, the, the gamut of all art that's
43:55
possible, if you can't draw very well, you're taking a lot of
43:59
that off the table that you're not going to be able to do that.
44:03
And then it's kind of like if you don't know, if you don't
44:04
understand color theory, it's like, well, that's a lot in art,
44:08
right? So I think it, it's just the
44:09
whole idea of first of all, just master all the stuff and then go
44:15
in and just see what you can create, go into that kind of
44:18
process mode. But I, I think it's, it's, it's
44:21
like, you know, it's like, do you have to be in absolutely
44:25
amazing shape to be a professional athlete?
44:28
No, there's some first baseman, there's some, you know, curlers,
44:31
there's some people who are not in great shape.
44:34
But that's not a strategy, right?
44:37
It's not a strategy to go, well, I'd like to be a professional
44:39
athlete, but I'm, I'm not going to get in good shape.
44:42
It's kind of like there are some artists out there.
44:43
Yeah, there are some exceptional artists out there who, who
44:46
really can't draw very well but are incredibly successful.
44:49
But that's not the rule. That's not a real good strategy,
44:54
right? I think it's, it's best to give
44:55
yourself the best chance to succeed.
44:57
And the one thing we can all do is continually learn and improve
45:00
and master the the the various skills and concepts.
45:04
So what are your thoughts on in in any like creative process?
45:12
There's like as a DJI, look up to other DJs as a musician, I
45:17
look out to other musicians and and dude, he's doing something
45:21
cool. Let me try that.
45:22
This is probably the same in like in the artist world that
45:25
you have other artists that you look at up to or you might try
45:30
to emulate as you're first getting started.
45:35
Is that part of the process or is that something that you
45:37
should avoid as an artist? No, it's it's absolutely.
45:40
It's just like music, right? I love hearing my favorite
45:43
artist whenever they start in start interviewing them like
45:46
musical artists. They the best usually have a
45:50
huge variety of influences that you know, it's like they maybe
45:54
maybe studied piano when they were a kid and then they were in
45:57
a in the high school band and then they had a garage band and
46:00
they played country for a while and they were in punk.
46:03
And now they're taking all of these influences and they're
46:06
mixing them up in their own way. So that's actually what I
46:08
encourage my artist to do. So when you're in that process
46:10
mode is identify artists whose work just, you know, takes your
46:15
breath away and makes your mouth water and then use them as
46:19
influences and kind of kind of go through first of all, try and
46:23
look at like, what's the filter that they they see the world
46:26
through? Like so like, you know, Van
46:28
Gogh, obviously it was just like strokes of broken color.
46:32
Chuck close, if you know him, one of my favorite artists in
46:35
20th century. He's got these big squares of
46:37
abstracts. But when you stand back, it
46:39
resolves into like a lifelike portrait.
46:41
But like try to try to discover their filter, how they see the
46:44
world differently and then what techniques they use.
46:47
And then try to paint your own paintings like them And do that
46:52
several times until you've, you've learned.
46:55
Because because your, your talent is just your skills,
46:57
knowledge, experience and creativity.
47:00
And when you're doing that, you're, you're pushing your
47:02
creativity, you're building new skill skills, you're taking new
47:05
learning, new experiences that you do that with several
47:08
different artists. And then you go into the studio
47:12
again, just in pure process mode and say, OK, now taking
47:15
everything that I knew before and everything that I've learned
47:19
by kind of using these influences, I'm just going to
47:23
try and create my own work, kind of mixing it all up.
47:26
And then that's where you're really focused on to like which
47:29
of those exercise that I really love the process and which ones
47:33
where I, I think there was something really cool that came
47:36
out of the paintings too. And so you're taking a little
47:38
bit from this artist, a little bit from this artist, a little
47:41
bit from this other artist, and then you're kind of mixing them
47:44
together and then you're just seeing what happens, right?
47:46
You might have a dog's breakfast.
47:49
You might. The one thing I would say,
47:50
though, is if you've mastered all of the technical skills and
47:53
you've mastered composition, all of this work still should be
47:58
pretty good. And I was in that mode for about
48:02
two years, where I was, I was doing exactly this.
48:06
And if you came to my tent at an art festival, people would walk
48:09
in and go, is this all by the same artist?
48:12
Because my work was like, all over the place.
48:15
And I would say, yeah, yeah, it is.
48:17
It's mine. And they're like, wow, like.
48:19
And I said, yeah, I'm trying to find myself.
48:22
But all of the work, because I had mastered the skills and had
48:25
a really good sense of composition by that, all of the
48:27
work was still pretty good. So I still sold most of what I
48:30
was doing, but I just, I wasn't getting that over the top
48:32
reaction. But the, the, The funny thing
48:35
here is I got so many people coming up to me, artists and
48:38
clients saying, you know, Tim, all of this stuff is pretty
48:40
good, but you know, you would do better if you just picked one.
48:43
Pick a niche and just kind of focus on that.
48:47
And thank God I didn't listen to them.
48:50
And that also is what a lot of artists do.
48:51
And that is the advice they're getting because no, it's not
48:54
time to pick a niche until you create that work that people go
48:59
absolutely Gaga over. And then if you love the
49:02
process, then it's time to pick. But what's the point of picking
49:06
a niche that is just getting the that's pretty good results,
49:10
right? And so fortunately for me, yeah,
49:13
I didn't do that. And I kept kind of just being
49:16
all over the map until that kind of aha moment came.
49:19
But most artists stopped before they get there.
49:22
And one of the reasons they stop is there's all of these art
49:25
consultants out there telling them pick a niche.
49:27
It's like, no, your niche will find you.
49:29
You don't get to just pick it. Yeah, no, it's interesting.
49:32
I mean, in business and, you know, in art, obviously, I mean,
49:35
people chase down this notion of of niching.
49:37
And I think for a lot of artists and, and creative types, they
49:41
feel like it's kind of putting up boundaries anyway, you know,
49:43
like they don't feel good about it.
49:45
And, you know, I, I have heard both sides of the case.
49:49
And I think in, in business, and sometimes it does make sense,
49:53
but I don't think it's so much about niching as much as it is
49:55
about getting your messaging right.
49:57
Or at least that's how it works in, in business is that, you
50:00
know, it's about being able to articulate what you do to the
50:03
people who want to buy it. And it's not, I mean, you, you
50:06
may niche, but it's not about putting up boundaries.
50:09
Instead, it's about definition and being able to define who you
50:11
are. And I think that, you know, for
50:13
an artist specifically, they have the great opportunity,
50:15
which is their, you know, definition of self can be
50:19
derived from a broad range of work or a number of different
50:22
things. You know, and to your point, I
50:24
think eventually you kind of do fall into the stuff that you
50:26
like to do and you draw the way you like to draw or paint the
50:29
way you like to paint or sculpt the way you like to sculpt.
50:31
And and you kind of figure that out, But the only way you get
50:34
there is through starting big, you know, or broad and
50:37
experimenting and trying things and, you know, and working your
50:40
way down. And to your point, I think a lot
50:42
of these artists get these consultants in their ear or
50:44
these YouTube experts or whatever.
50:46
And they, I guess niche too soon.
50:49
So they go for sure, I already know how to do this, so I'll do
50:51
that, I guess. But they're cutting out all the
50:54
exploration that would have led to better work down the road.
50:56
Yeah, I I liken it to this. It's like if the job is to find
50:59
your favorite food in the world, right, you got a lot of tasting
51:04
to do. And it's to find out what's your
51:07
favorite way of expressing yourself, whether it's through
51:11
paint, through sculpture or whatever.
51:13
You got a lot of tasting to do. And so you've got to try
51:18
everything. You, you don't know, you might
51:19
be, you know, you might be again, like me.
51:21
You know, I thought I was going to be the next great portrait
51:24
artist and I had a really good skill set.
51:26
There's nothing there to predict that I would become one of
51:30
Canada's top landscape painters, right.
51:33
And so it's like, yeah, you just, but the idea that, you
51:36
know, that artists start painting and then pretty quickly
51:38
go, well, this is, this is what I do.
51:40
It's it's like, I mean, occasionally it happens.
51:43
I I'm one of my students. Emily Valentine.
51:45
I mean, she's she's she started painting four years ago, five
51:50
years ago, joined the art Academy and she's just kicking
51:53
it now. But she pretty quickly kind of
51:56
settled on still lifes that she wanted to do, but they're
51:59
absolutely brilliant. And so she right after COVID
52:03
ended, she did her first show. So in Toronto, she sold out her
52:07
first show. She she raised her prices, sold
52:09
out her next show, sold out her third show.
52:11
Now she just sells everything she paints online through her
52:16
social media. She just won.
52:19
There's a what's it, what's the Kellogg's art competition?
52:22
It's like a big art art competition.
52:24
She won $50,000 first prize last year and that, and I mean, she,
52:31
she niched, she found her voice like literally in a year, which
52:35
I think is great, but it also kind of bothers me that jeez,
52:38
young whippersnapper like, you know.
52:41
I think it demonstrates, you know, that there's such a range
52:44
here and you know, for people who especially folks who are
52:46
sort of, I would say artistically inclined.
52:48
I mean, I agree with your point that it's not really about
52:50
talent per SE, but I think that there are a lot of people who
52:53
actually start developing these skills pretty young and they
52:56
just kind of work on it forever. So we talk about it on this show
52:59
as being this 10 year overnight success, which is seems like she
53:02
just landed on on still lives. But you know, was she always
53:06
drawn to still lives? Yeah, and she had the skill.
53:08
The best case. But she had, she had the skills,
53:10
but I'm just saying like, but The thing is, yeah, like she
53:13
found her voice very, very quickly.
53:15
And it's a great voice and people, people responded to it.
53:20
But yeah, that's, that's pretty quick.
53:22
But yeah, even for me. But the thing the thing that's
53:25
important for artists to know is that if you stick with the
53:28
process of doing this, you will find your voice.
53:33
But you know what most artists want?
53:36
Like they asked me, like, will you, can you help me make a
53:38
living creating the art I'm making now?
53:40
And the answer is probably no, because if that was possible,
53:43
you would be making like, because the public decides I
53:46
can't all of a sudden, you know, kind of wave a wand and say, OK,
53:49
now people are going to buy your work and you can't.
53:51
There's, if people aren't buying your work, you have an art
53:55
problem. And there's no amount of
53:57
business solutions that can solve an art problem.
53:59
It's like the, the, the, the, the number one thing is you need
54:04
to be consistently creating work that enough people are willing
54:07
to spend a fair bit of money to take home with them.
54:10
And so you need to figure out a way to do that.
54:13
And it's just that it's, it's not possible to kind of stop and
54:18
go, well, this is what I love and so I'm going to make a
54:20
living because you don't get to decide.
54:22
The public decides. Yeah.
54:25
So here in our closing few minutes, Tim, I just wanted to
54:27
maybe take a minute and just talk about sort of, you know,
54:29
the business of art in that I think a lot of, you know,
54:33
creative people anyway, kind of don't think of themselves as
54:35
being business people. They think of themselves as
54:37
being artistic and creative. And, and I do this even in my my
54:41
business. I mean, we've been in business
54:42
for almost 20 years now. I'm still just like, well, I'm
54:45
art guy first, you know, business guy, 5th, 6th, 7th,
54:48
whatever. And, and I still believe that by
54:50
the way. But I think for a lot of
54:51
artists, the notion of having to do their accounting or think
54:55
about the business or the processes involved in running
54:58
their business, you know, of our, I think it might feel a
55:01
little foreign to them because they just kind of want to come
55:03
and do their art. And so I wonder how you address
55:05
that with people. I well, I'm just straight up
55:07
that if you want to be an artist, you're an entrepreneur.
55:11
And every single thing that you hear and read about that applies
55:15
to entrepreneurs applies to being an artist.
55:19
And the other thing that I'll say, there's a couple of sayings
55:21
that I really hate. One of them is that if you do
55:23
what you love, you'll never have to work a day in your life.
55:26
It's like, yeah, that would be a nice life, but it's not reality.
55:31
I I like to change that so that if you have the audacity to want
55:34
to make a living doing the thing that you love, you better be
55:38
willing to work harder at that than anything you've ever done
55:41
in your life. And you also be better.
55:43
You better be willing to do the things that you don't want to
55:47
do, but that you know are necessary.
55:50
Things like marketing, things like doing the accounting,
55:53
things like, you know, learning social media, it it's kind of
55:57
everything. It's like you need to be willing
55:59
to do all of the stuff that's required to be successful.
56:03
The thought of just being able to go in your studio and paint
56:07
and then somehow generate a living from that.
56:10
It's that's like nice world if you could find it, but it's not
56:14
reality. You know, I, I get artists when
56:16
I tell people what I think they should do.
56:19
And it's like, well, I would recommend doing this.
56:20
And often I'll get, well, I don't want to do that.
56:23
And I, I just say, well, what you're saying is I don't want to
56:26
be successful bad enough to do that.
56:29
And that's fine because then your art should be a hobby.
56:33
But if you want to make a living, you are an entrepreneur.
56:36
And so business is, is necessary.
56:40
You have to do all the same things that that any
56:43
entrepreneur does for their business if you want to be
56:46
successful. Yeah, I think that makes a lot
56:48
of sense. Well, cool.
56:50
So as we're getting to the last few minutes here of our time
56:53
together, Tim, I wonder if you just want to take a few minutes
56:55
and kind of breakdown how people can connect with you or find you
56:58
online, join the business, learn more about your school,
57:01
etcetera. Sure.
57:02
Yeah. So, well, I just, I've just
57:04
released my new book You Can Sell Your Art.
57:07
It's a step by step guide to make a livable income from your
57:09
art. So it it's on Amazon.
57:11
They just search that on Amazon. They can find me on YouTube as
57:15
well. I have like hundreds of free
57:17
videos out there content to help artists.
57:20
And then I also have my online art Academy and that's at
57:23
www.timpackerartacademy.com. So I have a number of courses
57:29
that are kind of like just recorded courses.
57:32
And then I also have what I call my Hungry artist community.
57:35
And that's where you get all of my courses.
57:37
But every week I hop on a live Zoom call for a couple hours and
57:41
I critique artist work, offer coaching advice, and answer
57:45
their questions. Love.
57:46
It that's awesome. Thank you so much.
57:48
Oh sorry mate, go ahead. Oh, I was just thinking, that's
57:51
really cool that you have the online Academy where you can
57:54
work with people directly. Thank you so much, Tim, for
57:57
making time for us. Really appreciate you coming in
58:00
and talking about the art. Industry.
58:01
Well, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
58:03
Absolutely. And thanks so much to everybody
58:05
who tunes into the show this week and every week.
58:07
And we'll see you guys next time.