Moments in your creativity and/or career of elevate emotion, whether good or bad, are signals to tell us when

something has gone well or it has gone poorly. Take note of them and keep a list so that you can use those
milestones as touchstones, or the ability to refer back to them to elevate your art and business.

For example, one of my milestones was being featured in an exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography.
I noted that it was a milestone because it was my first museum show and a lot of good press came out of it. Now I
use that moment as a touchstone, or a signal that I should aim for more museum shows, something that might
further elevate my career.

The same goes for creativity. A recent milestone in my creativity was applying oil paint to my print. The print sold
a month after I created it, my gallery was excited, and it is now a touchstone of how I can create higher priced
original pieces that are more marketable through my galleries.

It is equally important to note bad milestones, or things that didn’t serve you well. An example of that for me was
speaking at certain conferences. They didn’t pay the fee I needed to make it worth it and they took me away from
my family. I now count those experiences as markers of jobs I shouldn’t pursue because they didn’t bring enough
wealth or happiness.

Write down milestones in your creativity and/or business:

Which milestone actually made a big difference in how you created or the
success of your business?

Were there any milestones that you marked as bad, and would not repeat in
the future?

How can you focus on pursuing more opportunities like your positive
milestones?
When we think about branding, it is often associated with a business and a product. For our purposes, branding
isn’t something only associated with business but instead with art and creativity. Branding is storytelling, and we
are all storytellers at heart.

Most companies brand themselves into a product. Commercials are filled with reasons why you should buy the
thing they are selling. Even artists fall into this trap. However, some of the most successful companies in
the world branded themselves into an idea. Some common examples are that Apple isn’t selling a product, they
are selling innovation. Disney isn’t selling a movie, they are selling a family experience.

If you can brand yourself, your art, and your business into an idea rather than a product, you will be able to
change and grow as you wish. You will be less tied to a specific offering and more tied to a way of being. I
have been able to change gears several times, both with my art and with my offering, while not losing a core base
of patrons. The reason? My brand is an idea: I inspire you to create authentically and to think deeply. That ethos
comes through in almost everything I do, and the result is that when I change course, people are more likely to
follow me because of a connection to shared ideals.

What ideas do you stand for?

How do you want to make people feel with your art and presence?

What do you want to be remembered for?

How can your products support the ideas you stand for?

Can you alter the way you communicate about your brand to always point to
the idea instead of the product?
There are many layers that unfold as you continue through your artist journey. Rather than saying we’re like
onions, which are finite, I’ll say that we are like a cosmic onion that has never-ending layers. That’s
right, we artists are the cosmic onion of the universe and it is our job to keep on peeling.

The way we find meaning in our art is to find meaning in ourselves and how we internalize the world around us.
In that way, all art is self-portraiture. Even when it is a portrait of someone else, we are choosing how we felt it
was important to capture that image.

For me, deeper meaning is found when I ask myself, and answer honestly, what makes me uncomfortable today?
The answer to that question could be the trigger for you to find a deeper way of creating. Depth does not have to
equal discomfort, but it does for many artists.

Another way to find depth in your art is to ask, why do I create art at all? And further, how do I want to make
people feel with my art? These questions are great touchstones for you to take into consideration, but each artist
should have their own way of triggering a deeper level of thinking about the work they do.

How can you make yourself more uncomfortable in the practice of your art,
through technique, concept, sharing, or another avenue?

Do you put active meaning into all layers of your art? Subject, color, location,
set design, wardrobe, props, technique, etc.

What does your art make people think?

What does your art make people feel?
How does your art make people act?

Why do you create your art?

Idea fluency is the ability to call to mind many ideas that are full of depth and innovation. It is a practice that a lot
of artists wait for rather than chase. There are many ways we can practice idea fluency, and they are outlined
here. But it is also important that we understand where idea fluency comes from.

We may associate idea fluency with its opposite: creator’s block, or the inability to create. Most often, people
experiencing creator’s block will fall into one of two categories. The inability to come up with anything at all, or
the inability to figure out what comes next. For most creators, we fall into category number two. It isn’t that we
can’t think of anything at all, it is that we can’t settle on something concrete, or that we don’t know how to
execute.

Studies show that there are two areas of your brain responsible for creator’s block. The first is the area of your
brain that forms words. This is why free writing is such an amazing tool for practicing creativity. The second area
of the brain is responsible for making connections between tasks or stories. The more we can exercise those parts
of the brain, the more adept we can be at overcoming creator’s block.

I recommend you make at least one of these exercises regular practice.

Write for five full minutes without stopping on any topic.

Create a creativity schedule. Choose day(s) of the week and hours within those
days that you can dedicate to focused creativity.

Create an inspiration schedule. Choose days of the week and hours within
those days that you can set aside purely for stimulating yourself creatively.

Create an accountability practice by finding a partner or a group you can

check in with once a month about your creativity and productivity. The saying
is true - if you don't use it, you lose it.
Building an idea is one of the most complicated things artists do. Remember the cosmic onion?
Conceptualization is where the cosmic onion really blooms. Conceptual art, referring to art where idea comes
first, is really the art of understanding yourself and being able to translate that into something visual.

The first part of conceptualization starts within. How can you translate something you fee, experience, notice, or
are interested in to a visual image? The second part of conceptualization asks how you can connect your personal
experience to a viewer.

The more deeply you understand where you fit into the art world - in history, technique, and concept - you will
become more adept at creating works that resonate.

Is there an idea or theme that resonates with you lately?

Choose visual elements to put into your image: light, wardrobe, color,
location, character, props, etc.

Choose symbolic elements to put into your image: theme, time, etc.

How does this idea touch on possible common experiences with an audience?

How does this idea touch on possible common emotions with an audience?

Is the image abstract or representational?

Does some part of the image make you uncomfortable?

What is your call to action with this art?

Creating a single image is a different experience from creating a series, but it is important that we think of them
as connected. Often, a series begins with a single idea, and often a single image. That can be the least daunting
way of thinking about a series. Series work often causes analysis paralysis. There is so much to consider in a
series that the sheer load of it is too heavy and we back away feeling overwhelmed.

A single image requires us to think of theme and visuals so that we can emote through an image and
communicate an idea. A series requires us to consider those same categories, but to add a through line. The
through line considers how we will visually and thematically create cohesion across multiple images.

When I plan a series, I usually aim for 10 images to start. It can be more or less, but 10 is a great number to aim
for when planning.

Free write a list for two full minutes of random words that pour out of you.
Once the list is finished, go through and circle one word that you feel most
connected to right now. That word will be your theme.

Write as many visual ways of representing that word as you can, and then
choose a visual that excites you right now to run with.

How can you expand that visual and theme across ten images? Consider
storyling, and if you want to move linearly as we do in narrative storytelling
(beginning, middle, end) or conceptually, where each image tackles the same
theme in a slightly different way.

Are the images visually cohesive? You want to strike a balance between
finding interest in all of them individually, yet also knowing the images are
meant to be seen together.
Writing an artist statement is important when creating any work. An official artist statement can be anywhere
from one paragraph to one page long, but we don’t need to think about artist statements as a highly official thing
right away. It can be a sentence, a blurb – anything to get your mind thinking about the work you’re doing in a
cohesive way.

I encourage you to write an artist statement about your new series before you start making the art. This can force
you to think deeply about all aspects of the series before starting and can change how you create to add more
depth. I did this for all of my series, and I consistently find my series work has more depth and refinement
because of it.

A great artist statement will answer the questions of WHY do you need to be the one to create this work, HOW
are you going to create it, and WHAT is the work about. When writing an artist statement, do not get caught up
in fancy or fluffy language. Be concise and most of all, personal. The best advice I received on an artist statement
was that they wanted to know why I had to create this art, rather than posing existential questions about generic
themes.

Write an artist statement pertaining to an upcoming series. Answer each

segment in 2-3 sentences:

What is the series about?

How are you going to create it?

Why do you need to be the one to create it?

A good way to beat creator’s block and to get out of our own heads, which too frequently sabotages our creativity,
is to change the way we think about ideas. We are taught, naturally, to begin at the beginning. That’s where most
books and movies start. That’s where we are taught to begin when we think of ideation and content creation.

But what if we flipped the script on how we think of ideas? Changing the order of how you do a task can be an
amazing way to see it from a new perspective and awaken a part of yourself that was dormant. Even though our
ideas are varied and we don’t simply create the same thing over and over again, the process of finding ideas is
often exactly the same.

For me, I tend to think of theme first, then visuals, and then how to connect that to an audience. Try changing the
way you think of your art.

First, answer the question: How do you want to make the viewer feel?

Now, plan your image from that point and go backward. If you know how you
want to make someone feel, what visuals might support that?

Now that you have some visuals, what concepts fit into those visuals and
emotions?

If that way of thinking isn't backward for you, map out your own creation
process. Try to put it into steps 1, 2, and 3. Then plan backward and see if your
creativity is challenged in a new way.
Branding within art is a complicated topic because a lot of people are turned off at the idea of art being a
commodity. I’ll rip the Band-Aid off right now and say that for many artists, art is a commodity. It is a product
that gets sold to keep artists creating. That doesn’t mean that the process of creating art is any less meaningful
and valuable, but simply that moving into a career in the arts means considering how you operate as a brand.

The good news is that branding is just storytelling.

When we think about branding, you can read it as story. If someone asks you to define your brand, you’re just
telling the story of you.

And if you think that sounds a little crazy, remember that the biggest companies, and even artists, in the world
put this into play. Check back to Worksheet 2 to reference companies as stories. Personal narratives are
important in the way you communicate your art. It ingratiates your audience to you and makes people more
invested in your entire offering.

What is your personal narrative, or in other words, the story you want to tell
about yourself?

What is the narrative of your art, or in other words, the story your art tells to
the people who view it?

What is the narrative of your business, or in other words, the story your
clients hear when they interact with you on a business level?

What is the overall story of everything you're offering? This might be several
stories, and that's okay!
I have always felt that finding clients is the hardest part of a business. I remember attending a lecture about eight
years ago about how to attract your perfect client and the speaker talked about identifying your perfect clientele:
age range, interests, etc. I had no idea where to begin.

Everyone? I thought. Why wouldn’t we all just say everyone?

That was when I realized I may never jive with that way of finding clients. I couldn’t pin down my perfect client
because they didn’t exist. My feelings about this have been justified over and over as more experiences have
aligned me with people of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences.

It is likely you don’t feel like you can easily answer the question of who your perfect client is all the time.
Especially when your work is fine art based, it becomes almost impossible to guess who needs to see your art.
That’s why we have to change the way we think about clients. Instead of asking who needs to see this, since that’s
an almost-impossible question to answer, ask: who could get my work in front of new people, or who could pay
me for what I do?

Write down a list of potential clients who could buy or market your work.

What are the needs of the people who could potentially buy or market your
work?

How can you meet the needs of people who could potentially buy or market
your work?

How can you become a part of their community?

Create a schedule to reach out or interact with those people.