Caring for Your Art

It can be exhausting being an artist.

There are so many seemingly peripheral aspects to be considered that on the surface appear to have nothing to do with the art of…

Creating art.

If you’re not yet supporting yourself by your art, you need to work to bring in a paycheck so you can keep yourself afloat while you’re working on your art.

If, on the other hand, you are able to support yourself though the sales and listening of your art – congratulations!

But you then need to focus on the business, marketing and all of the day-t-day work that goes into keeping any business afloat.

It can be a challenge to set aside that sacred time to create. And, as most artists know, that time does not necessarily result in salable art. Much of the creative process has to do with taking wrong turns, making “mistakes,” and discovering art that we don’t want to create.

What many don’t understand is that those moments, hours and often days of getting lost and heading in the wrong direction, are as important as those times when we hit that perfect note, or paint stroke or sentence.

For an artist, staring at a wall or getting lost down a rabbit hole are not just a part of the process, they often are the process.

And, although PR For Artists generally addresses how to launch a PR campaign for your art, or how to most effectively market your art and your career as an artist, we never lose sight of the fact that…

The art is the thing.

That being said, yes makes sure you take care of the business of art, the day-to-day must-dos associated with launching and sustaining your career as an artist and the marketing and promoting of your art, but don’t allow that seemingly endless cascade of duties, chores, obligations to completely overwhelm your art.

Every artist works differently. Some artists need to work on particular times and on specific days, other need a daily consistent routine. Some work for a specified timeframe and others stay at it until they literally drop. From my perspective, the specific process is not nearly as important as the fact that there is a process.

So, whatever your creative process is, care for it, tend to it and respect it.

Without it, everything else is superfluous.