It’s been a time of trial and change for me lately with our personal struggles with COVID and the way it has impacted my art business. It’s fair to say my life has been upended! With that in mind, I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching trying to figure out where we go from here.
And that is when Emily Jefford’s Share the Work free mini-class came to me earlier last week. I had seen Emily’s name recommended around the art community by people I admire (Naomi VanDoren, to name someone with an absolutely stellar and successful art biz).
Emily invited artists to try out her 5 day challenge which explores our understanding of our art and our business readiness, so I decided to take on the challenge!
I welcome you to explore the blog posts I wrote as I absorbed her lectures and did the worksheets for myself:
- Day 1 – Clarify Your Vision & Why It Matters
- Day 2 – Sharing Your Vision With Your Audience
- Day 3 – Turn Your Vision into Visuals
- Day 4 – Evaluate + Share + Evaluate
- Day 5 – Do A Brave Thing
To summarize, Emily’s challenge surprised me with just how much focus there is on understanding what meaning your art has to others, but ALSO what meaning it has for you, if you’re comfortable with the act of creating it, what value it brings to your life, etc. This is important because, as I’ve realized with my many bouts with burnout, if the work isn’t fun for you to physically do, how do you hope to make a permanently sustainable business?
I had some big revelations along the way so I recommend you folks read the blog posts for the details! May they be useful for others who might be wandering the same road of creative entrepreneurship that I am.
I also got to create a brand mood board, which is something I had never thought to do. It felt great to define a vision for my Birthstone Goddesses with more intention!
(I also created a blank template of this board you’re free to use. Enjoy!)
My New Instagram Account
The very last day of Emily’s challenge asked me to do a BOLD thing and my choice was to create an all-new Instagram account for my Fine Art endeavors! It was scary, but it feels so very good to finally do this. Over time, my main account has become more about my personal characters, comic experiments, etc. It’s been more challenging to elevate my fine art pieces when I’m also sharing a silly comic about my D&D party’s latest misadventure or fan art memes on the same account!
So please welcome @AngelicShadesArt which will now be the exclusive home for my Birthstone Goddesses and other gallery-minded projects! I’d be so grateful if you gave it a Follow and helped give it some love.
I may occasionally double-post to my main account, @AngelaSasserArt, when I feel there’s common interest, but otherwise, @AngelaSasserArt is going to be all about my original characters, storyworlds, ttrpg adventures, and other illustration and geekery!
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I hope my musings prove useful to you guys! Did you take the Share the Work Challenge too? Did you have any revelations along the way?
I’m looking forward to learning more from Emily as I progress into her Making Art Work full time course for artists in March! Till then, I’m going to take the knowledge I learned from Share the Work and start working towards an even more bold and beautiful adventure for my Birthstone Goddesses!
❤ Ang