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The Thriving Christian Artist - 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Professional Artist · Shine FM

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there's 10 things I wish I knew before I tried to become a professional artist.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if I had known these back in the day, they would have saved me a whole lot of frustration and probably a whole lot of money as well.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the first one is this you've got to start treating your art like it matters before it seems like it matters.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, all of us start our art careers as hobbyists.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We start doing what we do because we love it.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's listen, I think maybe subconsciously we all think somebody's gonna come into our creative space one day at our house or on the on the porch or in the garage or whatever and say, you are now a professional artist.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: But listen, that's that's really not gonna happen.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That that only happens when you decide to take your art seriously and this creative calling seriously.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, for me meant actually being willing to spend time and energy and and money on materials and giving myself space to do it, creating a space in in my house, giving myself permission uh to do it, letting my wife know that this was something that was important, and just start saying, hey, I think there's a gift here, and I think it's worth leaning into and it's worth paying attention to.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of times we wait for inspiration or we wait for confidence, and then we say, well, when I feel confident, I'll act.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've just found the the opposite was true in in my journey growing as an artist.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: The more that I would say, hey, this is important, and the more I would treat it as important and give it the time and space and energy and attention and all the stuff that it that it needed, the more confident I got as an artist.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that is just a big, big deal.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is this make as much art as you can.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I did my art as a hobby for 13 years, and I I jokingly tell my students all the time I was an ENT artist, right?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And every now and then artist.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of did it when I felt like it or when, you know, I was a basket maker early on in my career, still do basketry a lot, but that morphed into sculpture and painting and and all the mixed media work that that I do now.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I just kind of did it every now and then when when inspiration would strike.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that when I look at you know, the whole trajectory of my career over these last 30 years, in 2008, 2009, when I felt like I was really supposed to start leaning into my art as a career, and I started giving it focused studio time.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had a focused creative space, and I was I was creating, you know, five, six, seven, eight hours a day, four, five, six days a week.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, man, my skill developed, my um ability to talk about my work, my unique voice, all the stuff.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It, there's just no replacement for being in the studio.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, a lot of times when we're starting out, we we focus on taking classes and and going to retreats and doing all the things and hanging out with artists and scrolling about artists and getting inspired to be an artist, but there's no replacement for actually making the work.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I would say, you know, number one, obviously taking it seriously yourself.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But number two, you just got to make the work.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no replacement for that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, and this was a big one for me, don't believe the lie that it's cheating if you don't figure everything out yourself.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much value in finding a mentor, finding a teacher, finding somebody that is doing what you want to do at a level that you're not doing it at yet.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And whether that's your art, the art making process, whether that's the business or marketing side of things, um, whatever that is, listen, you can go so much faster and you can accelerate your journey in such a huge way without trying to reinvent the wheel yourself.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I tried to reinvent the wheel myself.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I never, I mean, I've actually only taken one art class my whole life in basketry and two in painting.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's been my journey and it's worked out okay.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd look at 13 years that I did my art as a hobby, just kind of putzing around with it, never asking for help, um, never looking at any books, getting tutorials, learning what other people were doing, all that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that was cool because it helped me to develop, you know, a uniqueness in my work that was not based on what anybody else was doing.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the other side of that is as I look back, I was making mistakes that were so elementary that that anybody that was had any kind of experience as a teacher could have helped look at what I was doing and say, oh, if you'll just, if you'll just do that right there, that'll change everything and it'll accelerate you into the thing that you really want to do creatively.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing is true with with the business side of things.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So many artists don't have any business experience.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like me.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I was I'd been in ministry for a long time.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had done marketing and some graphic design work and that sort of thing, but I'd never really been like a successful, you know, business owner as far as my creative business.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I when I started trying to sell my work and market and learn how to do this thing, I just started kind of copying and doing what everybody else was doing.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it cost me a lot of time and money and energy and mistakes that I just didn't have to have, you know, if I'd asked somebody for help.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the reasons I love doing what we do now in the Thriving Christian Artist coaching community in our pathway course, is because since 2009, you know, I've been helping artists talk about their work, learn to sell their work, learn to actually be successful and thrive at everything that God's called them to be as an artist without having to reinvent the wheel themselves.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's just this whole idea of this, you know, you got to figure it out by yourself, you can do it by yourself, you don't need anybody's help.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I just I just believe that's that one of the enemy's biggest lies uh to artists.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that you'll embrace this idea that God wants to bring a person or people into your life to help get you to the next level, teach you the next thing you need, man, that brings a lot of freedom and a lot of excitement in your life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, number four is the big deal, and it's one that I see artists really struggle with a lot.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this whole idea of you're finding your unique voice.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing that I would say that I've learned over 30 years your unique voice is not something that you find, it's something that develops over time.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why, you know, the earlier thing that I said about, you know, just make a lot of art.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no replacement for being in the studio.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Your unique voice is not something that you can manufacture.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And people that try to manufacture it ended up really just emulating what other people are doing.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, there's no replacement for those hours of being in the studio and experimenting and trying and loving your materials and playing with the with the forms or whatever it is that that you're doing.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your unique voice is something that you pay attention to.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You watch in your work and the trajectory of your career naturally and you kind of see what evolves.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love that because otherwise, we really just jump from emulating teacher to teacher, inspirational artist to inspirational artist, rather than allowing the thing that God's put inside of us to naturally appear.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a journey and it's going to unfold.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, after 30 years, mine is still unfolding.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I started with traditional baskets, and then I started bringing in sculptural elements, and I started using copper and other recycled metals, and then I got into encaustic wax, and then I started using some clay, and then I got really inspired by cold wax and abstract uh, you know, painting.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now what I do is kind of a combination of all of those things.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's no way 30 years ago that I could have manufactured in my own mind where I am today.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is an evolution.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let yourself enjoy the place in the journey that you are and allow that voice to emerge.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is such a gift to yourself and also those that get to see your work.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that really brings us to number five, which is this your art career and the development of your art career will probably take longer than you think.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's not something that you expect somebody to say that is uh, you know, part of my business is coaching artists, right?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And helping artists.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember somebody told me years ago, a business coach of mine, he's, and I think it's something somebody famous said at one point, that a lot of people overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in three years.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as I look at my own life, I look at the students, you know, that I've coached thousands and thousands of artists now over the years and developing their art journey.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that first year, a lot of times, is just getting your footing and just understanding what is it that I want?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where is it that I'm going?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of art do I really want to make?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of business and life do I want to have in this season of life I'm in?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But man, once you get that foundation going and you start building on that, it starts compounding, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And sure, there are gonna be slow seasons, life's gonna happen.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be deaths in the family, there's gonna be sickness, there's gonna be uh, you know, sales that don't go through, there's gonna be shows you don't get into, there's gonna be all those things, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so don't put all this pressure on yourself of thinking, well, I'm 35, 55, 85.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: This has got to happen.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that no, you're in the sea, you're in the perfect season of life that you're in right now.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'll just allow your art to unfold and your career to unfold with diligence, yes, get up and focus on it, make it important every day, but allow it to unfold, trusting God on the journey, man.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you really start to thrive.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how you really start to enjoy the journey rather than living in this pressure cooker, because I don't know about you, but I can't create under that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of pressure not only shows up in your life and in your health, but it shows up in your work as well.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, number six is this learn to evaluate your work, the artwork that you're making without making it about you.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I find that the enemy loves to do is take any problem or any challenge that's going on in our life and make it an identity problem rather than a problem that that can be that can be solved, a process type type problem, right?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if every time you make a mistake in the journey uh in your art or every time a piece doesn't happen, you know, the way that you you think it should, if you turn that into, I'm a bad person, I'm not a good artist, God didn't really call me to this.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I should, if you're always playing those games, you will never be able to pursue and and and thrive in the creative calling that God's got for you.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've just learned that's a part of being in community, part of having a mentor, part of watching the the trajectory of other artists.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You start to realize that, hey, everybody creates ugly art.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I made a lot of ugly baskets before I made pretty ones.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I made, well, I'm always experimenting.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always playing with things here in the studio that that don't work out, that don't um look exactly like they thought.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But listen, those are the tuition that I'm paying in my growth as an artist, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't go to school to be an artist, but I'm learning every day by the things that I create.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm choosing not to make those mistakes about who I believe I am.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you can separate those things, man, that will save you a lot of time and heartache in your life.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right, now, number seven is one that I didn't want to hear, and you probably don't want to hear either.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, if you're gonna be a professional artist, you've got to learn the business side of things.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, really, truly, if you're growing a business, either part-time or full-time, whether you're wanting to make like 500 bucks extra a month or you're wanting to replace an income.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've got students at all different levels.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: My art has been my primary income for a lot of years.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your business, the business side of things, the marketing, your website, social media, learning to develop strategic partnerships, applying for shows, photographing your work, uh, sales tax, paying your taxes, all that kind of stuff.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be like 50% of the stuff that you do on a regular basis.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I know most just generally creative people are like, ah, I don't want, I don't want to hear that.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, if you don't, you don't have to do it, but you won't have a business.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: You you'll have a really nice hobby.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's one of the things that you have to realize is that you, if you're an artist and you believe God's called you in the marketplace and you want to do this professionally at whatever level, whether as retirement income, you know, to supplement or to replace that income or just, you know, side money, whatever it is, you're gonna have to learn those things.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal those are all things that you can learn if you're willing to give yourself to it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the the big thing that I did, I remember years ago, I was trying to get some help uh with with our with one of the businesses that we had.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I told my business coach, I said, Well, I don't do numbers.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, you don't do business.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't know your numbers, then you can never grow your business.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, I just had to have a come to Jesus moment in that moment and just realize, hey, if I want to do this thing, I'm gonna have to learn how to market and how to sell, how to talk about my work, how to put it out there in a way that that builds desire and interest with people.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: See, a lot of times people think, oh, well, I'm just doing this for the Lord.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just doing this as a spiritual thing.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, your business and learning the marketing side of things, that doesn't make you some slick salesperson or selling out.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, your business and learning to market your work is the vehicle that gets what you do to the marketplace so that people that need it can see it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it's just gonna sit in your in your closet and in your garage, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So learning to do that is the vehicle.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, I want to say whether you're 35, 55, 85, or anywhere in between, you can absolutely learn to do those business things and learn to create a business that works for you in the season of life you're in.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something you got to be be scared of, but realize that is a non-negotiable.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, speaking of the marketplace, number eight is um, you got to get your art out in front of as many people as possible as often as possible.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big things I think that I see in a lot of my students, and and I did that you know early on, is I'm like, why am I I need to sell more?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I not selling more?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I wasn't applying for shows, I wasn't making enough work, I wasn't marketing myself.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so just like I said, there's no replacement for for being in the studio and making a lot of work.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no replacement for for being in shows and applying to galleries and being in exhibitions and doing pop-up shows and being out in your community.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the hard thing for artists a lot of times is that we're so passionate about what we do that we think everybody else is passionate about it too.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're passionate about what they're doing, right?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's our job to be out in front of people and learning to share our work.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to be a professional artist, it is incumbent upon you to learn how to get your work out to as many people as possible.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it's kind of like what Jesus talked about of, you know, having a candle, having a light, and putting a bushel over it, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're designed to shine.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're designed to be seen.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your work is designed to be out there, but we're the ones that have to take it out there and make sure that it gets seen.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, along with that, number nine is something that's been so key for me over the years, and it's that you don't have to have a massive audience uh for your work.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to build the right relationships.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my trajectory of success in in my art as I look back over these 30 years, and again, you're talking to somebody that sold hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own personal art, recognized by the Smithsonian.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in countless magazines and features and commissions all over the world.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I've been doing this a long time and and thank God, humbly successfully.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I can none of that has been tied to social media, none of that's been tied to website traffic, none of that's been tied to um any big marketing-y or uh tech hack, you know, sort of things.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: They've all been tied to relationships.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, God put me in front of the right person at the right time as I'm faithfully showing up, right, and doing the things that that I know to do, make my work, share my work, learn to do the business side of things.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm doing that, God will begin to bring me in relationship with the right people at the right place at the right time.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: But listen, learning to cultivate relationship is so much more valuable than spending all your time beating your head against a wall trying to figure out how to get Instagram or YouTube or social media or you know to work for you or to get in that right show or whatever.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just believe that the kingdom of God is based in relationships.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're faithful to what God's called us to do day by day, and we pursue the relationships that he opens up for us and we intentionally go after those things, there's so much life and so much opportunity and so many open doors that happen, not because we're the best artist ever or because we're the best marketer, but just because God begins to work in the relationships that he opens for you.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things that as I look back at my own journey, every major opportunity, feature, open door, you know, that I've ever had is all come through a person rather than a marketing hack.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I would say, you know, number 10, uh, and there's probably so many more of these things I could, I could sit here and talk about.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: We could do a series for the next five years about this.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the last thing I would say is this stay faithful for the long haul and trust God with the outcome.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, this may be the most important, important thing because one of the things that all of us artists are guilty of is wanting the dream that we have to happen on the timeline that we feel like we have to have.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if I've learned anything as an artist and walking with the Lord and as a successful entrepreneur, rarely are the timelines that I have in my head the timelines that actually end up working out.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It always takes longer.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's always a little more circuitous, it's always a little more winding.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just going to be from A to B to C.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is it's God is while He's leading us to the things that He's put on our heart, He's also developing us.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's also getting people ready and things ready and opportunities ready.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's also working things out of your life so that you're prepared to receive every good thing that he's got for you.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, man, if you can just learn that every day, my job is to get up and be faithful.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that as I'm faithful, it always leads to fruitfulness.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And whether I understand the timeline or whether I don't understand the timeline, God has a plan to prosper me and not to harm me and to give me a hope and a future.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the one that's leading my life.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you can understand that and stay on this journey with him, whether it takes a month, five years, 10 years, the next 30 years of your life, I promise you, you're gonna have fulfillment.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna thrive in whatever God has called you to in the marketplace as a professional artist.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, friend, if you are tired of trying to do this by yourself and you would love to have uh me to help you as your mentor to not only point you to Jesus, but also point you to all the things that I know work in the marketplace right now, not only to grow your art, but also to grow your art business, please be sure to check out the Thriving Christian Artist Pathway Course and community.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the link is right here in this video.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, let me know in the comments which one of these uh made the most sense to you.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've had a challenge with some of these things.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to know where you are on your journey and what I can do to help you uh as a part of growing uh this YouTube channel and helping artists to thrive in everything that God's called them to be.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love you, friend.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to watch this next video.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's gonna be a great, great blessing to you.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, till next time, you were created to thrive.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.