I searched my heart and mind trying to think of what was the one ingredient you must have if you wish to have any degree of success as a self-promoted artist. I looked back on my career and those of others I have known who overcame the odds of "making it" and we all have one thing in common. We all have a flaming passion for what we do. After my first book I got an email from a lady in Maryland screaming at me. She said, "I thought you were one of us until I read how you made it in the end of The Mystery of Making It. I was appalled at your boyish cavalier attitude about money."
I wrote back to find out why I was not one of "them". It seems because I said I had three small children to feed and thought I could sell enough art to accomplish my goal I was a capitalist mercenary of the worst kind. How dare I talk about earning money so bluntly didn't I know art was an ethereal gift from God and we should never consider it as a product for monetary gain? Because of her I added one paragraph telling of my deep-seated passion. I guess until her startling email I had just taken it for granted all artists understood you must have passion. Passion is the breath we take, the water we drink to sustain ourselves. Without air and water we perish, without passion an artist will wither and blow away. If I'm an iconoclast then so be it someone needs to kill the art school myths.
As we exchanged emails I came to realize she was concerned I had not told what really drove me. She took it to mean that I had no passion for my work and that is was just like a 9 to 5 day job to me. Let me say from my point of view if that were the case it would have been okay. I cannot judge what motivates people. We are all moved by one of four things or a combination of these four things: money, romance, recognition or survival. Perhaps later on I'll go more into detail on how all four affect us. I did say perhaps because I never know where this keyboard and cursor will eventually lead me. In the other books I was always saying later on I'll cover this and never got back to it. Don't blame me...blame my keyboard it never took me back. Each day is an adventure as I sit down to write before the sun graces our mountain peeks out the studio windows.
Romance and passion can be inter-exchanged. We have a passion for the person we are romantically involved with. We have a passion for the romance of living. We have a passion-romance for our art. Mikki and I have talked often if we won the Lottery or Mega Bucks we would keep on painting and writing. I would give my books away for free if I were independently wealthy. There is one thing we would do. We would buy a condo on The World. It is a three hundred million dollar ship with one hundred ten resident condos. The ship will travel the world stopping at the exotic port-o-call. We would set up our studio on ship and watch the world literally pass by. The cost is up there. Three million gets you an eleven hundred square foot apartment. For the space we need the cost would be around five million plus the $95,000 annual maintenance fees. To do this we would have to either step up our current income a tad or win one of the two I mentioned. Since we don't gamble we have reduced our chances to zero and the fact we are not into trying to earn a humongous sum of money I guess it will just have to remain a dream. I'm sure if you are interested in a space for yourself you can find them online at "The World at ResidenSea". If you don't want to purchase you can rent a condo for $15,000 a week. Mikki and I are working on renting a space for an hour. That fits our budget better than the weekly rate.
We came very close a few years ago of being part of something similar. Norman Nixon had a dream to build a city at sea. He designed a ship that was a mile long and would accommodate jet airplanes landing. It housed sixty thousand people. Mikki and I got to know Norman when he had his office on St Armand's Circle near Sarasota. I worked a deal for us to do his décor art in exchanged for a studio-home on his new ship. It would have been about $900,000 in art for the store-home suite. The floating city was called the Freedom Ship and was so big that if hit by an eighty foot typhoon the vessel would only move a few inches. Norman designed and built off shore oil drilling rigs and used the same concept designing the Freedom Ship. With FedEx flying on the ship daily it would have worked. The city at sea was planning to stop for two of three weeks near the major cities of the world. They would offer tours of the ship, bringing thousands and thousands of customers onboard. We planned to open our studio-gallery in the front part of our condo and use the back part facing the ocean for our residence. I dreamed of sitting on our balcony and watching whales jettison from the water as we slowly glided from port to port. Talk about a passion satisfied, the Freedom Ship would have quenched our thirst for travel. One interesting aspect of the Freedom Ship was Norman planned to make it a country issuing passports and private banking. It was a tax haven with its own income tax. Thus it was named the Freedom Ship because it gave freedom from high taxes. Our maintenance fees were to cover our income taxes. Can you just visualize the ease of selling tourist visiting the ship? Mikki and I would have earned some serious money and played at the same time. Our passion for art and our passion for travel encapsulated into one compact space. Norman was never able to raise the initial four hundred million to get the project under way.
To me art is like the Freedom Ship. Our art is an adventure. It is a dream come true. I have always wanted to be an artist. As a small cotton haired boy, wearing overhauls, no shoes and a pair of big black eyes I stumbled into the county library. A kind and caring lady gave me some crayons and paper and suggested I draw. I think I was five at the time the Liberian gave me the opportunity to draw the bug hit me. I loved ridding into town in a wagon each Saturday with my grandfather so I could rush to the library and stay there until time to go home. I never lived with my mother or dad. My grandparents raised me until my grandfather died when I was seven. With his death my art died with it. I did sketch and doodle some but nothing on a serious level. I remember having to write about what I wanted to be when I was in the third grade. I guess I was about seventeen at the time. Well maybe not that old. I wrote a paper saying I wanted to be a commercial artist. I didn't have a clue what a commercial artist was. I find it funny how prophetic those words were. I am a commercial artist because I paint to earn a living. We who earn money from what we produce are all commercial artists. You don't have to do paste-ups for the weekly newspaper to be called a "commercial artist." When you sell your first piece of art you have become commercial.
As I matured I discovered sports. Then I started seeing how male artists were portrayed in the movies. They were always limp-wristed, wearing a beret, carrying a pink poodle and smoking a cigarette in a long holder. That image did not connect with a macho football player from Texas. I was raised on a west Texas ranch where men were men and those that were not concealed it for fear of their lives. The "Macho man" was born in among the live oaks, bluebonnets and cactus of west Texas. My youth was spent on the back of a cowpony or the athlete field. Art vanished like the dust from after a rainstorm. Looking back there was always that passion to paint but I suppressed it. I didn't dare let it slip or I may be exposed to be somehow less of a man's man. I had more than my share of street fights just to prove I was not the sensitive type. Yet no matter if I won the fight or got my head bashed in I always felt sorry for the pain I inflicted on the other guy or guys as the case from time to time. Tough guys should not feel compassion for a dudes broken nose or cracked ribs from a blow the sternum. I will not try to write the story of my life in this first chapter but I promise to tell you how that passion overflowed and I took the plunge at the age of thirty-seven and decided to become an artist. I sold my first painting on February 14, 1970 for $10 to a lady from Peru. I became that commercial artist and an international one at that on Valentines Day. I had kept the desired to be an artist suppressed as long as I could...then it exploded into my life like a Maui sunset. Never before or since have I felt the smothering need to be successful as I did back when I started. The spark of cinder that began in a small remote country courthouse library tucked away on the third floor kept alive until one day it ignited and stared to burn. That passion refused to be extinguished. Nothing could have prevented me from making it once I sold that first piece. I have a feeling many of you know what I mean. You got a taste of selling and now you want more. There is something magical when a person uses money they earn to purchase what you make. It is the fuel that keeps our passion aflame.
I remember listening to a man speak about his addiction to alcohol. He said the first drink he ever took he knew he had to have more. One drink was never enough...yet his one drink was too many in his case. His passion for alcohol was all consuming and landed him broke, in jail, destroyed family and homeless. He could not stop with will power alone and finally gave into his higher power. His passion was negative my art is positive. I think both have equal power over us. I cannot paint and he could not drink.
In 1990 while visiting San Antonio I was on the wrong end of a police car chase. They were after two illegal aliens in a stolen car. The thieves ran a red light and smashed into the passenger side of my vehicle. The impact ripped my right shoulder apart making it impossible to raise my painting hand. My relationship with Mikki was only a couple years old. I told her that I had two choices. I could either not paint or learn to paint with my left hand. Talk about a challenge. I could not eat with my left hand little alone paint with it. I had to place the brush in my left hand with my right and then stab at the canvas. The work was very loose at first. I knew color so that was in my favor. As I got better I found a market and started selling them under the name Gauchér. Which I'm told means "lefty" in French. It was my passion to paint that gave me the incentive to try and learn to paint with my opposite hand. So lady in Maryland I "are" one whatever one is. It was a thirst that needed quenching as sure as the alcoholic needs a drink. His mind was consumed with finding a drink and my entire being was consumed to learn to paint with my opposite hand. Did I get great? No. Did I get good enough to earn a living with my left hand? Yes.
Whiteism: We can do anything we want to if our passion runs deep enough.
I was speaking at a prominent art school and a student asked me to describe passion. I had used the phrases determinate passion, silent passion, transitory passion, engrossing passion, boisterous passion and a few other adjectives describing passion. I never occurred to me this group of brilliant students would not know what passion was. Before I could garner an answer a tall thin redheaded, freckled faced young man with John Lennon glasses stood and said, "Passion is the suffering of Christ."
"That is called a passion but that's not the passion I'm talking about," I shot back. I continued, "It is the lust, fervor, fire, zeal and devotion to ones chosen field the same emotion we have when we fall in love."
"Please explain," came from the redheaded young artist.
Ouch!!! I thought I had nailed it with my academic answer. Needless to say I was stumped for a moment. How do you explain high? How do you explain an ocean to a blind person? The image of ocean did come to mind standing before one hundred and fifty thirsty students. "How many of you know how to swim? I pointed the audience with my finger and went around the room. The majority of them raised their arms. "How many have swum in the ocean?" Again over half lifted their arms indicating they had. "Then for those of you who have experience swimming in the ocean just imagine you have wadded into the deep until the water has covered your head. How desperate would you be to breathe?" I paused and waited to see if I got a response.
From the front row came a gasp then the words started to pour out of a gorgeous girl in her early twenties. "I almost drown last year at spring break. I got in over my head and didn't know how to swim. I know what you mean. I had a passion to breath with every fiber in my body."
She had succinctly illustrated my example. She grasps what passion was. I told the group that until they had a similar passion for art they would surely drown in commerce.
Many days you will want to give up because of rejections and failures. Passion to be an artist will help you prevail where others fail. I remember as a young man I would have walked though an ice storm twenty miles to get one kiss from my sweetheart. I had a passion for her. No pain was too great to get her warm embrace. As a young man I had many sweethearts that I felt the same passion. Many became uninteresting after the conquest was complete. Once she began to pursue me rather than me doing the chasing I lost all passion. Your love for art cannot be so capricious. Fickle works in love a lot better than art. In love there are millions to choose from in art there is only one career. You either fall in love for good or you will never get another to select from.
I mention Grant Teaff my hall of fame football coach friend. He was a young assistant coach at Texas Tech by the time he was twenty-five years old. His beautiful wife Donnell was the captain of the Tech cheerleaders. Every time the team scored a touchdown at the home games their mascot circled the field. The mascot was an ivory black stallion named "Charcoal Cody" ridden by a man dressed to look like Zorro. As Charcoal Cody was sprinting around the outer track he collided into Donnell hurling her to the ground. Grant just happened to see the accident and rushed over to help her. He has told me on many occasions that it was love at first site. Her big azure blue eyes looked into his and his passion to know her began to roll like the thunderclouds of western Oklahoma in the spring. He knew right then she was the dream come true. They began to date and the rest is history. The Teaff's have been married for over forty years without ever losing one ounce of passion for each other. Neither has ever questioned their commitment to each other because the passion has grown and grown into a raging inferno. I think this is the passion we need to succeed as artist.
Passion is not an easy word to describe. It has its roots in Latin meaning to suffer; thus, the suffering of Christ is the Passion Play. There is suffering associated with passion. We suffer when things prohibits us from working on our art. We get withdrawals like and addict does the drug of choice when we don't get to paint. As much as I have enjoyed the writing the desire is not way near the level of my wanting to paint. If I don't get to the easel my entire being aches and longs for the adventure of seeing what a new day in front of a blank canvas brings. So in essence my passion is associated with suffering. The suffering of longing is my passion of painting. I am confident if sculpting, quilting, metal work, beads or faux painting the desire would be the same. Art is my life.
I want you to examine where you are and decide if you have that fervid passion that will carry you when you are rejected time and time again. Trust me if you are an artist you are going to get rejected. All of us do. You will send slides in to a show and have them returned with no explanation. You will be doing shows and have folks walk past and snarl making rude comments. All of us have experiences similar rejections. Frankly it goes with being an artist. I wish I could direct you well enough where you would never hear negative things about your work but to do so would take more time than I have to spare. I must admit I have been able to spare my mate much pain associated with rejection and unflattering comments. Once she began to paint her voice I moved her in the direction of where she is now. We pushed and pulled her work moving closer and closer to producing a product with almost no customer resistance. Even folks who don't care for her genre say nice things about the execution of the work. I probably could do that for you if we spent twenty-four hours, seven days a week for fourteen years together. On a scale of one to one hundred her rejection level is about 0.02%. Ten years ago is was around 15%. Twelve years ago the negative level was probably as high as 25%. She didn't begin a bullet proof as she is now. We had to work at improvement. Her passion to be the best she could be made improvement possible.
Before you jump my bones about my passion for Mikki go and read her Love Story at www.senkarik.com. This will slow you down and let you understand why I am her biggest fan. She has more courage than three of me. It is because I know where she came from that gave me the power to sit aside my fame and glory so she can have hers. I have had a wonderful day in the sun and now it's her turn to shine. I have an ardent passion to see her achieve the recognitions she deserves. You are the benefit of what I have learned that works and what that does not work. My vehement passion to see her reach the top has made me learn the art business from a different perspective. I had to discover how to help another artist reach the top. For me it was as natural as breathing. For those of you who have read The Magic of Selling Art you will already know I knew sales and marketing long before I chose to be an artist. Doing it for another person took me totally retooling my thinking about how art is sold; how, to reach the top if you don't have my selling skills. Not bragging, just fact few artists do have my charismatic selling skills. Mine were honed on the streets as a youngster and perfected in my survival. Some things impossible to teach you must walk on the fire to know how it's done.
So for me to show you the way, be your guiding light there is one thing above all you must have. If you don't no matter how much I preach and shout or how long this book you will never make it unless you have a fiery and fervent passion to be an artist. You must have a resolve come hell or high water you will find a way to succeed. You will never, no never give up no matter what the odds. I want to teach those with a poignant feeling about their art. If you do, I can show how to self-promote yourself and your art. If you don't have this intensity then please allow me to be honest, you have little chance of succeeding.
Whiteism: Your passion must be tempered with patience. Maybe long-suffering patience would be a better word.
Right after 9-11 I had several artists tell me they were closing their studios to seek employment in the general population. I didn't discourage them. I understood they were lacking in the one ingredient necessary to succeed. It was not a life or death choice for them to be an artist. Those of you who feel like we do understand where I'm coming from and those who don't connect either have not become passionate about your art. You may or may not ever reach the plateau of excitement we are on. It may never be the most important thing on earth for you. Make no mistake I'm not suggesting it become your God. There is no replacement for ones relationship to their God. God, friends and family members are on a different plane. I'm not talking about that deep abiding love for those we love and care about or our walk with our Lord. Those are separate and different aspects of our living. I'm talking about our vocation and for Mikki and me our avocation as well. There is a complexity of balancing who we are with what we do. We are people with friends, family and God first and what we do for our lively hood is next. I just want to reiterate that I'm not suggesting you abandon your life to pursue your art, just emphasizing that if you choose to earn your living making and selling art it has to be your driving force.
My books are chocked full of repetitive phrases about someone sending me an email, letter or fax. I don't do that to tell you how popular I am but to share the information I daily get. The most amazing thing about this correspondence it the preponderance of hardships many go through just to get time to make their art. A housewife, mother of four, worked full time as a bookkeeper and yet still found time to make her art. My heart went out to her. She didn't want to complain but could not restrain her emotions. Seems her husband refused to be of any help. He actually resented her wanting to be an artist. He berated her efforts and made fun of her work. She said that her youngest was her fan and did tell her the work was good. She asked permission to send me some photos. Impeccable detail and pristine colors accompanied her wonderful draftsmanship. The lady was flat out good at what she was doing. She had what I describe in detail in Mystery a voice. The subject matter was strong. It does get touchy dealing with a married woman because I don't want her husband to become jealous and take it out on her. I encouraged he write me. To my surprise I did get an email from him about two weeks later. He was on the defensive saying he didn't want to stand in her way but. There is always a but! But, he could not see her going anywhere with her art after all she was not a real artist but a dabbler. He added in the myth about starving artists. Showing me he knew what he was talking about he wrote that even the great Van Gogh didn't sell any painting in his lifetime. I could not resist when I replied so I pointed out that actually Vincent had sold two originals before he left at the age of thirty-seven. I shared with him the success that I had seen with Mikki and assured him his mate was already painting better than either of us did when we began.
In his next email Tim opened up. He seemed to be receptive. He said something that jumped off the screen like a bolded, highlighted word...he wrote, "Barbara has such a passion to paint." He went on to explain he would not mind "LETTING" her be an artist if he felt they could earn any money with her dabbling. He told of how she would paint in the kitchen after the children were in bed while he watched television. I think from the tone he resented her stealing a few hours a night to work on her art.
I fired an immediate response. "She can if you will do what I've done and set aside your wants for help Barbara with her wants." I expected he would email asking for my physical location so he could come and kick my butt or do nothing pretending my email never came it.
To his credit he in turn shot back a lengthy letter telling me how much he loved her, how they had married in college while she was taking art at the small Midwestern community college. He explained they needed the two incomes to pay the bills and the burden of raising four children. Their feeding, clothing, spending money, cars and education of four kids I could empathize with. I had already been down that road having raised two boys and two girls. In time he opened up and said he was in sales and loved to do woodworking. He made the mistake of telling me because I immediately went to work on him. I showed him how he could be part of her dream by making her frames. I didn't tell him he could buy them cheaper and better built because I wanted him involved with his wife and her desire to become a full time artist. I pointed out how his sales experience dove tailed into what she needed. I even involved the children. The younger one was easy but the others took some doing but the husband and I persuaded her. Yes I did say the husband. I empowered him by making him feel significant by simply pointing out he could use all his vast knowledge and experience to mold her into a super star in no time. I talked straight and told him he could indeed earn money selling her art.
For those of you not comfortable about me talking money in all my art books I want you to think about it for a moment. If you want it as a hobby you would not be reading my books. The fact that you are reading my works tell me you are serious about earning a good living producing and selling art. The only way I know to tell you are to be open and frank about how to earn money and the amounts you can earn.
Back to Tim and Barbara. When I stopped chatting back and forth via emails he had become her agent, framer, money collector and they were doing small church festivals, outdoors shows and a gallery was planning a one-artist show for her in the fall. He was as active as a hive full of bees helping her. The children became her fan when they saw people buying her art. One arranged for her to paint a demo before the local high school assembly. They began to make some sales. She was happier than she had ever been. Her passion to paint was being fulfilled. I wish that I could report a more pleasant ending to this uplifting story. Not so he was involved in a small airplane crash and was killed at the young age of 39. The initial shock was devastating but a strange thing came into play. Barbara's art began to empower her and take up the void left when Tim left them in a flash.
Barbara, a couple of months after his sudden death wrote me a wonderful personal letter thanking me for helping them bridge the gap that had threatened their marriage. She said the past fifteen months with Tim at her side pulling for her was the best in her entire life. She said the joy of him being on her team working side by side had given her confidence. She thanked me for giving her permission to follow her dream and making it possible by enlisting her spouse and children. She told me Tim would have wanted me to continue with my art so the children and I will start working shows again next month. I have my first gallery show in November (this was September) and I want to make Timmy proud of me. The rainbow ending out of all this is she sincerely believed she would be earning enough selling her art to resign from her day job and paint full-time. Mikki and I FedExed Barbara the first copy of The Magic of Selling Art as a love gift. Barbara when you read this know young lady you are our hero. We admire your spirit and determination to press on with your passion when many would have folded their tents in similar circumstances.
How many of you are like Barbara? How many want to succeed so badly you are willing to scratch, claw and work impossible hours to "Make It"? I honestly believe Barbara is the norm rather than the exception. The more I'm in contact with artist from all over the country I see that drive and determination to keep on pressing forward. I think this is one of the reasons so many of you get taken by the leaches in the industry. You are grasping for straws in the middle of the sea of no information. Art consultants can sell you on their program with ease because you are vulnerable, scared and wanting a Tim in your life to show you the way. You are susceptible to by any book or take any seminar that gives you a glimmer of hope for one reason. You have an abiding passion to become a full time artist earning enough to pay your bills and have a little left over at the end of the month. Without passion you would not max out your credit cards to pay some agent, consultant of rep to show you the way.
I'm not sure passion can be taught. It can be flamed into a fire if there is already a spark in the kinder of your heart but if you don't already have that one basic quality then seriously art is not for you. If you would be happy doing anything other than making art then this is not for you. Think about it for a moment. Would you be happy doing any things else? Is there some line of work you had rather be doing? It is no sin not to follow art. Many of you have been to art school and have followed the training into the field when all along you had rather not be here. Now is the time to stop and look at where you are. Art is not the correct path for all. It is better you stop now than three years down the road. Just be honest to your heart. Take the Texas druthers test. I "druthers" be raising chickens than making that stained glass window. If you can honestly say you had rather be doing a different thing while you are working on you art then you have reason to believe you are not cut out to be an artist. If you cannot be honest with yourself then you will never be honest with anyone.
Self-promotion is not just for those doing shows and promoting your work. All of us need to self-promote. We cannot sit back and wait for our gallery or rep to do it all. As we weave our way through the maze called "Self-Promotion" I will show you how to satisfy your passion and find your dream. We will make it fun and very easy to do. I want one day to write about you as I have Barbara and Tim in this chapter. Please share your successes with me via letter, email or fax so in turn I can let others know it can be done. Together we can make a difference. We can turn that passion into living high and having fun making art.
Whiteism: Success is paying attention to small details.