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Centering Your Life

What does it mean to live a life with art at its center? This question comes from a remarkable retrospective of the abstract painter Joan Mitchell’s work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Katy Siegel, co-curator of the exhibition, describes Mitchell as “a woman who managed to make art the center of her life and refused to let anyone tell her what being a woman meant.”

In order to create a full life with art at its center, Mitchell needed to expand the center itself. She incorporated into her art many different sources of inspiration: poetry, music, landscape, urban environments, her natural surroundings, as well as the influence of the iconic painters Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Matisse. She expanded the center by deepening the purpose of her art, demonstrating how painting could simultaneously express physical experience and complex emotions.

To live with art at the center of your life takes courage and passion and confidence. In order to make your art center larger, you may have to experiment, to take more risks with your work. If putting art at the center means claiming a larger place in the art world, reach out to mentors for feedback and advice. Build your community of supporters so that you have the confidence to grow.

To make art the center of your life you might also have to shift the center. Mitchell needed to move to France in order to free herself from the limitations of the New York art world. Shifting the center may also mean rethinking your own purpose, your media and materials. You may decide to combine the different parts of your art practice, or explore entirely new directions.

What steps can you take now to put art at the center of your life?

~ Mary

Mary Edwards, Ph.D
Career & Life Coach for Artists
“Left Brain Skills for Right Brained People”
Instagram: coachingforartists.maryedwards

Making Choices

Women artists think they need to do everything and do everything well. You take on the troubles of friends and family and rarely say no to a request for help. Even though you are committed to your art practice you let others’ needs replace your own.

We know that artists require space and time and freedom. Yet the painters Elizabeth Murray and Kara Walker were able to have children as well as remarkable art careers. Agnes Martin eventually had to retreat into her singular self in order to produce great art. These artists teach us that there is no one model for combining creativity with a full personal life.

Be clear with yourself about your needs, and own them without apology. Let the people in your life know what you’re trying to accomplish, and then talk with them honestly about the support you need.

Start making conscious choices about how you manage your time. An artist I know recently decided to hide her cell phone in the garage for long periods every day so that it didn’t constantly distract her. Another decided to “unsubscribe” to a number of commitments that no longer made sense to him.

Sometimes your choices are symbolic. A young artist in Vermont, eight months pregnant with her first child, set up a corner of her living room as a new studio space, even though it would be months before she was ready to work there. Her choice gave her a daily visual reminder of the future she intended to create.

To shape a life and career as an artist means that you sometimes have to say no to other demands, even though you may disappoint people you care about. Be consistent, be clear, be kind, then let go of the guilt and claim yourself.

~ Mary

Mary Edwards, Ph.D
Career & Life Coach for Artists
“Left Brain Skills for Right Brained People”
Instagram: coachingforartists.maryedwards

Nurturing Spaces

I recently had the opportunity to teach a career skills workshop for artists at Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco. This remarkable organization offers support and educational resources for recently homeless young people. Their mission incorporates the Dalai Lama’s maxim: “When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.”

The workshop took place in their collective art studio, an environment created to support these young artists, who were mostly musicians. The studio was warm and welcoming, filled with comfortable chairs and couches, cubbyhole lockers for each person’s valuables, sophisticated electronic keyboards, musical instruments, computers and many snacks. The studio provided a physically, emotionally and mentally nurturing place where these artists could grow. It gave the recently homeless a home for their art practice.

During the workshop we focused on a checklist of career skills for creative people, but it seemed to me that they already had what many artists need. They worked in an environment that surrounded them with the knowledge that they mattered. They could believe in themselves as artists while they worked on their art, protected from the chaos of the streets.

The mind and the heart are interwoven in all of us, but this is especially true of creative people. If you are fortunate enough to have your own studio, make sure that it nurtures you. Even if your art space is just a corner of a bedroom or part of a garage, it should surround you with a sense of privacy and calm, safety and support. Organize it so that you bring everything you need together in one place, and make it a place you want to be.

Your art space is an extension of your artist self, the foundation for your practice.

~ Mary

Mary Edwards, Ph.D
Career & Life Coach for Artists
“Left Brain Skills for Right Brained People”
Instagram: coachingforartists.maryedwards

Building Confidence

Many excellent artists get stuck because they doubt themselves and their work. Overwhelmed by the competition, they think that everyone else is more accomplished and that success comes through luck or by some magic formula. I listen to their worries every day: “but I don’t have an art degree . . . I don’t know anyone in the art world . . . my work doesn’t fit current trends.”

While honest doubts will get you further than a raging ego, remember that your belief in yourself is both a powerful strength and a necessary first step in an art career.

Gender roles have created two familiar stereotypes. Many women artists keep apologizing for their work, while their male counterparts never pause in their self-promotion long enough to listen to feedback. Both extremes get in the way of building real confidence.

Confidence is grounded in an active, consistent art practice. You cannot believe in your work unless you are doing it, unless you are immersed in it every day or every week. Being deeply involved in art making is the foundation for everything else.

The next step is to take your work out of hiding and let it breathe in the world. This might mean entering your work in juried shows, or inviting people for a studio visit, or sharing new work with artist friends. Choose whatever feels like a safe place for you, and welcome the views of others you trust. Objective feedback helps you understand your own art: its strengths and areas for growth.

Never apologize for your work, for your effort, for the fact that you are an artist. Instead of discounting the praise you receive, accept it gracefully, as something you deserve. Practice talking confidently about your work and soon you’ll convince yourself.

~ Mary

Mary Edwards, Ph.D
Career & Life Coach for Artists
“Left Brain Skills for Right Brained People”
Instagram: coachingforartists.maryedwards

Speak Up!

Most artists are sensitive people, attune to emotions and perceptions that others miss. You see more, you feel more, you absorb more of the vibrations around you. Such permeable boundaries make you a better artist, but may also keep you stuck in your art career. You listen to negative voices in your head instead of saying what’s on your mind.

Your own sensitivity makes you exaggerate the risks of speaking up. Remember, people don’t actually know what you need unless you tell them, and you cannot predict their response. Relationships break down around communication issues all the time, and the same thing can happen to an art career.

Instead of imagining difficulties, speak up and start a conversation. If you’re not satisfied with your gallery’s efforts, stop worrying and talk to the owner. When you’ve been unhappy with your critique group for years, start suggesting how the group might be improved. Instead of envying the successful artists in your network, talk to those who might help you take the next steps in your own career.

When the voices in your head become worries that are holding you back, turn them into conversations with real people. Plan what you want to say, be ready to listen, and don’t give up too soon.

When you speak up and ask for what you need, you don’t always get what you want. People say no, or not right now, or ignore your request. Funny thing, though, you feel relief when you speak up. You finally “get it off your mind” so that you can let go and move on to other possibilities.

The more you practice speaking up for yourself, the easier it gets. Remember, your voice as an artist includes your actual voice, asking for what you need and deserve.

~ Mary

Mary Edwards, Ph.D
Career & Life Coach for Artists
“Left Brain Skills for Right Brained People”
Instagram: coachingforartists.maryedwards

Opening Doors

As the art world begins to open up again, it is time to think about your place within it.

If that suggestion makes you squirm, you are not alone. The introverts among us may be bidding a sad farewell to 2020, when it was possible to hide out without apology. The artist Nancy Nichols calls this phenomenon “pandemic withdrawal” and I think it is a real thing. If you have put your art career on hold in the last year, use this transition to consider the doors you might be ready to open, both within yourself and out into the world.

I like the image of a swinging door because it moves in two directions. When you open doors within yourself you create momentum that can help you break free. Internal doors can be the hardest to open, because your personal demons lurk behind them. Sometimes you find resentments and insecurities behind the door. Sometimes there are discouraging voices from the past, or even real trauma. Always there are fears—fears of success and fears of failure.

Closed doors are most frightening because they represent the unknown. Gently push that door open and see what you find. Give your fears a name and even a face, so that you can stare them down. You may be surprised to discover that you’re stronger, more resilient now and ready to take risks.

Let the rhythm of the swinging door move you out. You already know the steps you want to take, since they are alive in your mind or written on notes that you’ve kept for years. Gradually leave your nest and make your way into the new art world, which has never been so diverse and dynamic, so open to new ideas and new voices, like your own.

~ Mary

Mary Edwards, Ph.D
Career & Life Coach for Artists
“Left Brain Skills for Right Brained People”
Instagram: coachingforartists.maryedwards