Starting An Art Business - Are You Ever Ready?
Perfectionism is the enemy of abstract art…This is clearly why I get so much joy from it!
I wasn’t “ready” to become a full time artist. I didn’t feel like I had a clear plan or a consistent enough practice, I had sold work but not enough to make a living from…But my daughter needed someone who could flex to meet her needs so I decided to chance it anyway.
Fast forward 18 months and I'm still here! And it’s still the best thing I ever did… despite working harder than at any point during my 17 years at design agencies.
I have never been one for waiting until everything is ‘just so’… but in my past life as an account director and new business lead I always set impossible standards for myself and worked tirelessly to try and hide the chaos and disorganisation at my core.
Of course it was never sustainable and the mask regularly slipped. In all honesty, I’m not sure I needed to be that person, but I was too afraid to be anyone else.
Not now!
Don’t get me wrong, my new life isn’t easy, I work way more hours, but they are infinitely less exhausting… because I get to be me.
My work/life balance is pretty poor, I’ll be honest. My house is a mess most days. So is my studio. Therefore so is my mind, and with an overwhelming sea of professional and personal to-do's constantly jostling for attention, it can be really hard to get a foothold on what I’m supposed to be doing.
So I paint.
And I remember that it's ok to not have everything figured out every single minute of every day. My old life demanded this of me. But my new one doesn’t.
Life is gloriously messy! My work allows me to be perfectly imperfect and show up as myself every day - a little chaotic and scrappy but someone who is passionate, wildly ambitious and determined to see the beauty in everything.
I’ve learned to love the mess. The impulsive, half baked ideas that somehow become something bigger…and the inevitable overwhelm that follows (please read ‘How I Turned a Dusty, Abandoned Mill Unit into a Pop-Up Art Gallery’ for more on that!).
Diving in feet first and thinking later is just part of who I am. I never feel ready, I always feel like an imposter and everything scares me… but I’ll usually do it anyway.
This impulsivity can seem reckless to some, but if I thought too long and hard I would be too scared to do anything! So perhaps it’s a super power, who knows.
But my advice to anyone in a similar position would be you really don’t know what you are capable of until you try… so stop trying to talk yourself down and just get out there and do it!
Krissy xx