Are you making what you want to make? I’m not talking about money here instead I’m literally talking about what you are making in your studio

As artists, we often go different routes to make money from commissions to making art to spec to making what you want & hoping it sells.

I’ve seen art biz experts talk about having two streams of art, one of which is your bread & butter art. Stuff you don’t necessarily like to make but it sells so it supports your other art making

We all know the reality is that money is a necessary tool right now. I won’t say evil, because wielded appropriately it can do great good in the world around us. But I wonder, if money were no object, what would you be making?

This is such an important question to ask yourself on a regular basis because I think we can lose touch with our wants & desires, focusing on getting through each day. It seems to me that when you chose the artist life, you chose to be different – to live differently – so slogging through your art business and making do is missing the point.

Is there anything you’re making that just causes you to want to drop everything and get a day job?

As we move through this year with cautious optimism, I think it’s critical to examine what you love about your art, your art business, and even your life, and what you’d like to change. I’m not saying, new year new you, but I am saying that we can use intentional change to create the art and lives we desire.

I’m going to leave you with this thought: I dropped portraiture, which I’d done for years and years, to focus on surrealism which has given me untold joy. Without once advertising a painting for sale, I’ve sold commissions and paintings from the moment I changed directions, with my clients telling me that the energy from my new work is what has attracted them.

I’m painting exactly what I want to paint, the work is bursting out of me and selling, because I put down what I should paint and followed my desires.

We have a short time to be artists; life flies past so quickly. At some point we need to honour who we really are, in our work.