Fresh Rx.10 with Kesha Bruce

Fresh Rx.10

I’ve been a full-time artist for nearly 20 years now and I’ve worked hard to build a client list of people who are interested in my work. I work in my studio about 30 hours a week and I show and sell my work on a regular basis on the national level. My biggest problem is that at this point in my career I feel a bit stuck. I feel like I’ve lost that spirit of discovery and adventure I had as a young art student. Any ideas about how I can get it back?
Painter, Chicago, IL

Sometimes in my own studio practice, I find that I get to the end of one avenue of thought and there’s just nothing left there to go on. I’m done. Or I may find that an idea that I started out working on with absolute excitement, now just seems plain boring. When this happens, I have two solutions that always work for me:

Take a sharp left.
Stop everything and go in a completely different direction. In some cases, it may be as easy as switching mediums. Working with new materials, or restricting the materials you allow yourself to use is a great way to set up problems or obstacles that will force your brain to find a way to “work around.” Most of the time the work I produce when I’m creating in this mode never becomes finished artwork. But that’s never the point. The point is to get a fresh perspective. I like to think of it as Creative Research and Development. 

Stop and refuel.
It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to create great work. When I’m having a series of days where I find I’m super low on both energy and motivation, I wise up and realize that instead of forcing myself to move ahead at half mast, I really need to rest and refuel. I’m a big believer in the idea of artists and Creatives taking serious and planned “down time” in order to sustain themselves long-term. Too often we out-put all this creative energy and then we forget to refuel. We get so excited and busy working on projects and activities that when our creative “low fuel” warning light comes on, we don’t pay attention. Just because your creative inkwell has temporarily run dry doesn’t mean there aren’t any exciting new ideas left in there. Perhaps they just need more time to germinate.

In July 2009, Stefan Sagmeister gave a great TED talk about The Power of Time Off.

Send your questions to Kesha Bruce: freshartinternational@gmail.com
Subject Line: Fresh Rx

Fresh Rx.1 with Kesha Bruce

Solutions to Your Creative Dilemmas

When do I need a web presence, 
and how should it look?

Unknown poet, Prince Edward Island

If you have a body of work to promote and you’re ready to begin the process of getting it in front of people, then this is the perfect time to start thinking about building a website. But the when isn’t nearly as important as the how. Above all, your web presence—whether it be a full website or a blog—absolutely needs to be professional and well designed. Too many Creatives make the mistake of spending time, energy and money on sites that not only display their work poorly, but also aren’t designed to promote and market their work.

The basics:

About or Bio page—This is not the time to hide behind your work. Introduce yourself in a way that gives website visitors the chance to get to know the person behind the work. Your well-crafted bio and professional portrait go a long way towards building a connection to on-line visitors.

Contact Information—If, after viewing your work, a website visitor wants to contact you, but can’t easily find your e-mail address, or phone number, they’ll likely leave and never come back. Make it easy for people to get in contact with you. If you get this part wrong, all of your other hard work will have been in vain.

Portfolio—This is the place to show a small selection of your best and most current work. You don’t need to include everything you’ve ever created here. You only need to show enough work to give a viewer an entryway into your work.

Sign-Up Form—What do you want a website visitor to actually do once they’ve finished viewing your site? How do you intend to get back in touch with them once they click away? A sign-up form of some sort is a simple and easy means to collecting visitors' contact information so that you can invite them back to your website or to an actual event long after they’ve wandered off to another part of the cyber world.

No matter what your field or medium, a website can and should be more than an on-line portfolio. The entire purpose of the website is to introduce yourself, present your work in the best way possible, and most importantly, to begin building relationships with the people that visit your site.

On-line Resources:

Easy and Affordable websites: OtherPeoplesPixels

Sign-up form and mailing list software: Mailchimp

Send me your questions. I'm here to help! Kesha Bruce: freshartinternational@gmail.com