Honoring my word.

It has come to my attention that language plays a big part in how we experience anything. Certain words carry power, making us think and feel certain ways. Last night as I set down to type out my business plans for the week, I realized that the word “Marketing” came up quite often in my text. I became present to how that word automatically shows up for me, with associations like, “hard”, “boring”, “repetitive”, and the list goes on and on.

When I think of “marketing”, a stack of postcards comes to mind, long lists of contacts and shipping labels. I think of being persistent, working hard and getting very little reward, cold calling and sacrificing more then half of my time doing stuff I don’t like so that I can have that little bit of time at the end of the day to play. And that is never enough time.

And that’s when it hit me. “Marketing” is an icky word for me. It limits my access to possibilities for creative promotion and satisfaction. It stops me in my tracks.

I have decided to toss out this word and replace it with a question “How do I show my artwork to people who would use it and buy it?” and suddenly a whole new realm of possibilities emerged. I don’t need “marketing” when I can have fun “creating space for my business to flourish.”

To get excited about this particular aspect of my business, I used something as simple as language to shift my perception of what I am actually facing. I created for myself a whole new game called, “Have fun showing people what I can do.”

I love the first sunny day after a week of gloomy rainy weather. The air is so fresh and crisp and the sky is clear.

I learned about being with people. To be with somebody is to be present to everything that person is and who that person is not. It is to honor that person by acknowledging them for who they really are. That means to have compassion for their flaws and mistakes and not to make them wrong or bad. Once I look beyond my judgments I can see the real person underneath.

My Birthright Israel Trip was a great success. I meet a lot of amazing people and saw and did more then most people will probably do in their entire lives. I am so grateful to have been given this chance.
Here is a play by play of all the things I did:

We landed in Tel Aviv,
Toured Jaffa and Streets of Tel Aviv,
attended some crazy Jewish party and danced my ass off
Visited the Ancient City of Caesarea
Stayed at a Kibbutz guest house and had Shabbat dinner there
Had the most amazing dinner at Rosh Pina
Hiked Jillabun,
visited the Olive Oil Press and bought to lip balm,
Relaxed in the Hamat Gader Hot Springs
Toured the Mystical City of Tsfat
Wine tasting at Dalton Winery
Meet up with Israeli soldiers
Hiked the Desert Oasis of Ein Gedi
Float in the Dead Sea
Stayed at Bedouin tents
Rode a Camel
Toured Ancient Roman Fortress of Massada
Stayed in Jerusalem
Visited city of David, Davidson Center, toured Old City and Jewish Quarter
Visited the West Wall
Visited Yad Vashem and Mount Herzl Cemetery

View all the photos from Israel here…

1. My Israel trip is less then a week away. I bought the travelers insurance, filled out all the forms, went to the orientation, bought an extra memory card to take pictures and am in the process of buying new clothes to take with me to the trip. I am super excited.

2. I am going from boring hippie nerd to sophisticated fun sexy nerd. As I started getting rid of all my old graphic tees and ugly outdated sweaters, I realized that I am in desperate need of new clothes. Therefore, I have decided to change up my style. I got a new hair cut and now in the process of buying new clothes. And I am actually starting to pay attention to fashion a little more.

3. Still prepping my illustrations to submit to Spectum 17. I’m almost there.

4. Holidays, Holidays, family…all that good stuff. I am looking forward to the New Year.

I’m taking a day off tomorrow. I deserve it. And that’s all I had to say

For the past couple of weeks I have been diligently working on my illustration portfolio. My goal is to have a revamped, totally awesome body of work to show to potential clients by April.  At that time I will be flying to New York to do Portfolio drop-offs. Meanwhile, I have also been cleaning up some of my older portfolio pieces so that everything can look amazing. I have noticed that some of my stronger concept pieces have a lot of rough edges that need to be cleaned up and resolved.  As I have become more skilled in digital painting, I can now look at my older work and see many things that can look better now.

In addition, I already choose two strong illustration to submit to the upcoming Spectrum competition. I am in process of cleaning them up.

For some time now I have been thinking a lot about branding.  A question that I have been asking myself for some time is, “what do I want to say about my work?” How does it stand out in relation to everything else out there? What makes me so special?

I have come up with a few key terms for identifying branding:

Style/image/voice–whatever you want to call it. I believe that this is the first aspect of my work that I need to address before I move on to everything else. As I have began to narrow down what I like and what I am good at, my style has really began to show through. I am becoming more decisive about what direction I want to go with my art. This has already been a long journey and I believe I still have a long way to go, but I am now more confident about the cohesiveness of my portfolio and I believe it already has the potential for success.

Presentation–Now that I have a style that works, how do I present it to the world? So far I have a website, a blog and a few social networking profiles. For my website, I need to revamp the look and feel of it in order to match it closer to my style. It’s not too bad, but could use a little more improvement to define my brand even more.  Another essential presentation tool is an actual book–a physical portfolio that I can place in the hands of art directors. Some say an actual book isn’t really important anymore because we have website now, but I still believe it can serve a good purpose. I can’t always carry around my laptop with me. A book is something that is less cumbersome and more fun to look at. I like the idea of building my own. Let the creativity out. And because I will be doing portfolio drop-offs, it will come in handy.

Words and language–that describe my work.  Basically anything that is written that tells the audience what I do and why they should care. Value statements, sales pitch, artist statement and a little bit of history. I want to people to care about my work and I believe words will help reinforce what people already see in my art. It will help people to put my work into context. My Blog is a good tool for this but I will also need to change some of the text on my website.

Marketing material–I am starting to develop ideas for promoting my art. Printouts, letterhead, logo, business card, postcards, direct mail pieces, envelopes, newsletters and pretty much anything else that relates to printing, mailing, sending and giving away. I have mentioned the more common promotional materials. I am also thinking of putting together some gift ideas (stuff with my art on it) to family and friends. I am looking for ideas for more unconventional marketing methods.

Now for some key questions about identifying branding:

1. What do I want to say about my work?
2. what do I want people to know about my work?
3. What kind of reaction do I want to get out of people when they see my work?
4. What market(s) do I want to specialize in?
5. What can I see myself doing with my artwork 5,10,15 years down the road?
6. What best describes my work
7. What 3 terms can best describe my work?

These are just some ideas that I am using as a starting point to take action in creating my brand.
For the next couple of weeks I will be developing more branding ideas.
If anybody would like to add some ideas of there own in regard to branding, I encourage you leave a comment.

I am almost finished with this piece. I decided to add a small creature on the staff and a flowing red cape.  This painting is on it’s way to portfolio status.

Another fun piece for my portfolio