Be Fearless
In terms of marketing your art successfully you do need all of the traits listed in the previous post 6 Traits to be Successful in the Art Market. If you add “lack of” to any of the 6 traits you will struggle to acheive success. Lack of Confidence. . . Lack of Drive . . . Lacking the ability to be alone. (Ummm you get the idea.) Of all of these things though, fear is the most dibilitating issue that artists face. It can be immobolizing and cause stagnation. I could have added Fearlessness as triat #7 but it is such a major player, I thought it deserved it’s own post.
Everyone has fear issues.
Fear of acceptance like will I get accepted into that show, or will the buyers be interested in what I do.
Fear of failure is when you are waiting for things to be perfect. Your skill level to increase, the right timing. Fear of failure causes you not to act at all. And the only way you will become successful at art is through action. Whether it be creating it or selling it.
Fear of the unknown, like how will my life change if I decide to go professional. Will I still have time to do the things I love.
But in order to be successful in the art market (as well as in anything else) you must push past it. Many starving artists become starving artists because they are allowing fear to hinder their progress.
In truth I don’t have the answer to handling your fear issues. (I think that is probably in the realm of a shrink) But I do know what worked for me was just doing it.
Sometimes I play the Whats the Worst That Can Happen game. What’s the worst that can happen if I screw up this painting, Hmmm. Well . . I toss it and have lost a few hours of my life. If I posted it on my blog, then the world has seen that I don’t always create wonderful art. Hmmm. Not such a travesty. I mean it’s not like I’ll come down with malaria and die or something. So I move forward. Always keep moving forward. Stagnation will kill a career.
I’ve included the Art & Fear book in this post because I do actually have it in my library. My art group was reading it a few years back and most of them found it very helpful. I found it interesting, but at this stage of the game I have worked through a great many of my fear issues. (I did this by doing by the way) I still have some fears, don’t misunderstand me. But the more I work the art thing the fewer and more infrequent they become.
Tags: business
Thank you, this post is so helpful to me. I’m not really looking to live off my art (although eventually making some money to cover my art expenses would be nice) but as someone who is just starting out on the creative path I’m finding there are a lot of fears to overcome.
I agree, that we have to just DO IT. I was afraid of messing up at my first life drawing class, but I went anyway and things turned out fine. I’m a little afraid of our exhibition coming up, but if I wait until I feel I am good enough, when will that be?
The first of anything is always scary. But the wonderful thing is you are doing it with a friend. No matter what happens it really should be a great experience for you. How exciting!