Donald Yatomi: 0:00

What is success to you?

Scott Ruthven: 0:02

You set a goal for yourself, and the goal might be lofty, right? You want to be a self-supporting professional artist,

SC Mummert: 0:07

you know that all takes a level of ambition and drive to go ahead and see that through, and you've got to have that work ethic to make that, you know, to make that function, and that directly to me that directly correlates into, you know, how much success you experience on some level.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:25

Welcome to the Faso podcast, where we believe that fortune favors a bold brush. My name is Laura Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips, specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. What does it actually mean to make it as an artist? Not the Instagram version, the real version, the one that looks different at 25 than it looks at 50, the one that shifts quietly under your feet while you're busy just trying to keep painting. I've had the privilege of sitting down with some of the most seasoned working artists I know, and when I ask them about success, the answers always surprise me. So today I've pulled together some of the most honest, hard-won perspectives from past guests on what success actually requires, what it costs and what it turns into over time. We often start our careers chasing milestones, the magazine feature, the gallery acceptance, the moment someone finally says you've made it. But what happens after that moment arrives?

Kevin Macpherson: 1:35

I guess having a vision, like as I said earlier, when I wanted to be an illustrator, I wanted to be the best, and I never had my parents never pushed me to do anything, you know. I didn't have that thing. Sometimes when people, maybe their parents were a lawyer, and they want them to be a lawyer, they, you know, kind of fight that, you know, they don't do what they want to do, so I had my own path, and I think I've always made my own choices, whether they were good or bad, and not tried to necessarily follow someone else's method of success, again, maybe that's a stupid thing, because there's great people that we can learn from, and you know, skip over some things. I some people I remember a very fine artist when we were starting out. He really stressed he wanted to get into the Southwest art magazine or something, and he finally did. He thinks, okay, now I've made it, but you every time you get into a magazine, and I've been in hundreds and written my books, and you know they're all little stepping stones, so I don't think there's one thing that's going to make you all of a sudden be the star, and you know we've all, you know, I always, I remember like getting articles, the up and coming artists, you know, like, you know, when we're young, all of a sudden, now 40 years are passed, you know, now we're the old guys, you know, like that old guy, he's still alive, they say,"Oh, Kevin's still alive, you know, it seems like it goes in a blink of an eye, in a way, and you know, so again, finding your path, that you enjoy the process, I think, is important to it. The struggles, I guess, I've always accepted the struggles. One of the hardest things for me that I have dealt with was always extremely shy, you know. I didn't, you know, I couldn't go in front of people in school, you know, I, I got out of even oral book reports. My teacher knew I couldn't do it without passing out, so she let me illustrate my book reports, and I think that was her name was mrs. Penny, so I love her to this day, that she helped me, you know, one more stepping stone of doing my art, and when I became a fine artist and was asked to teach, I literally had to go to a hypnotist for eight weeks just to get the courage to get in front of the people the first time, and and I would just have sweat attacks, and into this day when I still do keynote speaking for the Portrait Society, or the Plein Air Convention, or wherever it might be. I just was in Ireland a couple of weeks ago, and did that at the Art in the Open. I still have anxiety about that. So, overcoming that for me as part of my career, as getting out in front of people and sharing teaching, which is very rewarding to me, and I really see that's one of the best things I think the art has given me the opportunity to share that knowledge through my books and my workshops, but overcoming that fear that I had my whole life is one of the. Biggest struggles, but it's important that I force myself to do it, so I can add that much more part to my art life.

Laura Arango Baier: 5:08

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I can imagine how it's fascinating, because as artists, it's a very solitary career, it's a very in your studio or away from people in your own little world type of career, but it's, it's amazing to think that it's actually quite a social career, especially if you want to, you know, sell your work or have some success, right? You have to put yourself out there, so it's, it's very important, like you said, to overcome that. Wow, that's amazing.

Joseph Gyurcsak: 5:42

Yeah. yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 5:44

so actually now that we're on the topic of success, right, because obviously success has different meanings for everyone, but in terms of your career, what do you find has been the greatest key to your success?

Kevin Macpherson: 6:02

I think just continuing to do it, you know, to continue to strive to improve, and, and that word, improving, or, you know, is tricky. It's more like an evolution, I think. You know, there's things I painted 30 years ago I couldn't do today, and maybe some of those are my finest paintings, you know, like never know when you're going to get that great one, so you know moving forward every day and continuing, you might get that great one. There's. I was just in Ireland, as I mentioned, and I went back to a location that was near one of my best paintings I ever done. It was called Celtic Brilliance. That painting I did it, and the day before I painted that painting on location, I had eight weeks of painting in Ireland that I was just doing some miserable stuff. At least mentally, I got really depressed, and I never got that. For I don't know why, but I was.. I had one of my worst painting days right before my best painting day. So we never really know when that's going to happen, when. when all of a sudden something clicks, something works, and as I said, the evolution, as I continue to do new subjects or try different things, I evolve, and so sometimes my evolution, you know, my collectors sometimes say, "Oh, your work is changing, and I know what they mean by that. They mean I don't like it anymore, you know. I prefer what you were doing before, and so.. and that that happens. So, again, you have to, you know, trust yourself that you're moving in a place that might get you somewhere. So, sometimes we go down a path that you get worse for a while, right before something new happens.

Laura Arango Baier: 8:09

Kevin's point about stepping stones is one I keep coming back to. Success isn't a destination that you arrive at, it's something you keep redefining as you move, but staying in motion, especially when things aren't working requires something beyond talent, it requires structure. Joseph Gurksack came up as a professional illustrator before transitioning to fine art, and that background gave him something a lot of studio artists don't have: business discipline. He had a lot to say about what consistency, community, and honest feedback actually do for a career,

Joseph Gyurcsak: 8:41

you have to have an organized business artist, or well, let's, let's phrase it this way, professional graphic artist, or professional illustrator, at least in my time of coming up, you really had to be quite the business person, very organized, and you had several different hats at the time, you had, you know, your part where you had your skill, and you could do whatever you needed to do as far as being called to the job, but you also had to be able to communicate well with the different companies that you were working with, and you also had to understand your own accounting. You also have to understand how to be organized in your, in your studio, and deliver a job on time, and get have good rep record keeping, be your own photographer, and you know, at the end of the day, if you take, if you look at the total job description of any of these, and this certainly applies to fine artists too, but I like to say. There is an abundance of illustrators that became fine artists and became very successful painters in the fine art world, because they had the discipline in their illustration career, so that illustration career discipline really helped me in the studio, when I come into work, my studio is usually very organized, and I know exactly where I'm going and what I'm trying to do to get accomplished for that work, because I have galleries that need, you know, want the next painting or this, that so it having a structure and having a plan always in the beginning, not as much now, because I've accomplished many, many of my goals and been very blessed that way, but in the very beginning I was doing various self-help tapes and things like Tony Robbins and all this stuff, and trying to find structure to my career and trying to find, you know, the steps that needed to be done. One year, the five year, 10 year, what does that look like? Where do you want to be? You have to know where you're going to get there, so you have to have steps, and even though if you write out these steps, you might not accomplish them exactly the way it goes, but at least you have some sort of direction, and you will see if you journal your steps and your path, you will see that you most likely you will accomplish a lot of things on that list, you'll be able to tick them off and say I'm on to the next thing and check it off. So, yeah, I'm all about that. That really, when I was struggling as a transition from an illustrator to a fine artist, I was really struggling for order and direction, and I didn't know how that would happen to become a fine artist. I didn't even know what that meant. I was getting in really good galleries right off the bat, and I had no idea how good they were, and I blew some of those relationships. So, I learned really early on, whoa, this was a bad thing, and I can't get back in that gallery now, so yeah, no, you, you learn along the way, you have to have failure, you have to have failure, so you just gotta own up to where your weaknesses are, and then you have to work on them, because you're going to have really good strengths, and then you're going to have areas where you really have to focus on, hey, this is a deficit. Hey, I might be a really great painter, but I'm really disorganized, and I can't deliver these paintings in time. What's going on here? How can I do this better? So you always have to ask the question, how can I do this better? And if you get into a rhythm and a full blow, and you start to see, you know, hey, this worked. I'm having success. I'm getting into shows. I'm, you know, again selling the paintings, you know. You stay in that mode, and you slowly work in that, and you improve and extend yourself a little bit more. There was another turning point was in the early 90s. Artist magazine had John Howard Sandin, keys to success. He was a portrait pair. He's now passed away, but he had 17 steps. I know if I'm saying this now, people are going to ask you for it, so I'll send

Donald Yatomi: 13:42

you a copy

Joseph Gyurcsak: 13:42

of it, but yeah, I followed those 17 steps. It's not something you could do in a week, a month, a year. It's going to take many years to do the 17 steps if you really do them right, but that I credit with giving me the power, the direction, the organization to become what you term as a professional, right? Because you know at some point you're going to like, if I can liken it to, I tell my kids, I, you show up to a demo and everything changes. Well, and you planned on doing something a certain way, and you had to lecture a certain way, and this and that, and you were going to do this painting. It was pre-planned, and now you have hundreds of people watching you do this painting, and everything is wrong. Everything changes. Well, being a professional is having the ability to move when you need to, and change when you need to, and be seamless, and that that's not something you can.. oh, I got to train to be prepared, that happens over time through our unfortunate failures, you know, and people don't like to hear that, but you have to learn through. To the things that you did in the past. Oh boy, man, I really failed there. I've got to do better than that. So I have found that to be, you know, like so many other people have said, you know, the win when you're winning, there's nothing to learn from that. That's just a lot of fun. It's the end point of something, but there's nothing to learn from that. It's just the glory, right? But when, when you're going through stuff and you have to continually make adjustments, that's when you're really growing. It's a couple things, I think. Being.. I wrote down some things. being inflexible is really bad, you know, if something is, you can work on something, and you can be determined to push it through, and you can give something that respectful time to develop it, but if you keep running into a wall and there's absolutely no breakout, you really have to have some self reflection and look back, doesn't mean that you have to change everything, but there may be some adjustments you have to do to make your idea or your journey or whatever it is, work better, so being inflexible is not always a good thing. You can be stubborn and say I'm holding on to this, this is what I'm going to do in this night, that's great to a certain point, but I think you have to be able to take criticism, and you have to be able to sometimes allow yourself to hear other people's opinion, and you have to reflect on that once you hear it, because it may be a difference maker. There may be, say, if you're in your own little mode for a long time and you haven't reached out to anyone, it's probably a good idea to join a group or be part of something that's bigger than you, so that you can get feedback and the relationships that you develop as an artist over time are pretty invaluable. I have so many artists that I can reach out to, and they reach out to me just for a quick conversation to hear how they're doing, what we're doing, what's happening, what are you struggling with, that type of thing is really, we're just trying to get rid of this email here. Yeah, those kind of things be consistent. Being consistent is probably the biggest downer that I see with the young artists that aren't being successful. The reason why they're not being successful is they're probably having a consistency issue. So, if you had some success with something like I said earlier, maintain that, do that over again. Don't start a new foundation somewhere else. I mean, it's all in these success books and tapes, and whatever you want to, I mean, you hear these things over and over, but there is true that has it's valid, you, if you find something that's working, stay with it, do more of it, you know, and do it to the highest degree, and don't compromise on the level of product that you're going to put out there, it has to be your very best every time, and then the next one should be better than that one, so you're always trying to up your game, and also, like John Howard Sanders said, hit your self to a star for a time, be with someone else that has already made it, and that you're really loving their career. You don't have to copy them, but you have to see how what's making their thing tick so well, and how are they doing it, and if you can get in a situation where you can get a into a mentor program as a young artist. It's really valuable to get that, that personal time, one on one with a, with an experienced artist, and get that feedback, what they really need to hear, what you, what you really need to hear. As far as, hey, you're over here now, but you've got to do these things to get over there, and what's your goal? Okay, again, where are you going, and what are the steps that you're going to need to get there? We have to figure that out and break that down, figure out what you know, what are your weaknesses, where do. Have to work on those things, you know, that type of stuff. That mentality will get you there. And being disciplined, like I said, going in the studio, doing, having a certain time and a certain place to work. I remember we didn't move too far from our other house, it's just a block away, made the big move. My wife, my wife, God bless her, Lisa. She, when I was starting out as an illustrator, she's like, yeah. And I was teaching in this back room, and then we started having children. She's like, you can't do this in here, and they're like, well, where am I going to do it? She's like, no, you have to have a separate studio in the yard or something. I said, well, how's that going to happen? We can't do that. Yes, we can start looking at buildings and figure out what we're going to build there. So I'm like, really, and she's like, yeah, you need it. So I built, we had this barn built in the backyard, and that was my studio, and you'd walk down there, and the students could go down there, and I could do my work down there, and I could do my teaching, and it was, it was a valuable thing. You have to have a set workplace with limited distraction. It's very, very good for you to have a place that you can go to, and, like I said before, that's well organized, so that when you're ready to work, you know, look, the reality is, when you're a young artist, unless you're really successful right off the bat, you're going to have to have other jobs. That was my journey, I had really rough spots, and I had all these other jobs and things, and the main thing that kept me on course was teaching to other artists, so that I could always have my head in the game, and the second other thing that I always prided myself on was keeping the studio in an organized fashion, ready to go. Everything was ready to work when the inspiration happened, because if you're going to have to clean up for four hours before you do a painting, it ain't going to happen. So, and if you have a limited amount of time, I have over the years, over my journey, have sometimes very limited time to paint, so when I come in, it's I'm a nighttime painter. A lot of times I do a painting and I'm ready to go. I turn the light on, I can work, I'm organized. That kind of stuff will give you success, especially if you're on the journey. You start selling your paintings and enter shows, you have to be part of programs, find out where you, where your home is, where you feel most invited with whatever artist group, because there's going to be groups that you may, maybe never can get in, but there might be other artist groups that you'll be really accepted in some society on the I'm in the Oil Painters of America as a signature member, and I'm a signature member of the American Society Impressionist Society. So I have gained the level of signature level, and that takes a while to do that, but I'm part of those groups. I know all the artists in those groups, they know me. It's a great relationship. It's nice to have that support around you as you're growing as an artist, and also it kicks your butt a little bit when you go to a show and you see some amazing pains, you're like, "Damn, you know, I gotta my game a little bit more here, you know, because I remember the first time I got in Oil Painters America, I went there and I was like, okay, this is why I couldn't get in for like eight years, because I smelled the paintings and they were like, wow, they kick ass, so okay, it's a wake-up call. Okay, this is at another level. So, and same thing with the American Precious. I love those guys, and you go to the show, and you're like, God, all right. I love my painting, but look at that thing, you know? Like, it's good to do that. It sharpens you, you know? Does that make sense? All that stuff, right?

Laura Arango Baier: 24:24

Yeah, definitely. Because I understand, you know, we, a lot of us become artists because we're very independent, we're very introverted, we're very sometimes shy, and we almost exist in a bit of a vacuum, right? We don't really have a community, we stay in our studio, we paint all day, so I, it is a great, great thing, like you're saying, to go out, meet other artists, and feel a little bit challenged every so often in, in your ways, because they're also growth might stagnate, you know, it might be very hard to continue that growth if you're still doing the same thing over and over without. Maybe shifting that vision by saying the

Joseph Gyurcsak: 25:04

feedback,

Laura Arango Baier: 25:05

yes, yes, that is so key, yes, and actually that goes seamlessly into my next question, which is, What do you find has been the key to your success,

Joseph Gyurcsak: 25:22

I am. I've been always a competitive person. I don't want to say I was a full jock kind of person, but I was in sports, I was in football, I was in track, I was a captain of the track team. I think those early on things were good for me, because I had struggled. I didn't really learn, and this may be sound shocking to you, but I didn't really learn to read or write till I was in my 30s. So, the key to my success is perseverance and determination, sheer determination. I'll, well, first of all, you asked me early on my journey. I, you don't choose to be an artist, you don't wake up one day and say you're going to be an artist. I, at least, I don't look at that way. Yeah, people can want to become a painter and everything, but it for me in the soul, I mean, really, when you get down to it, I don't, it's a calling, it's a calling, because there's no way that you can stay with something for 50 years, I've been painting for 50 years, there's no way you could stay into for something with all the ups and downs that you would be able to come out on the other side in a better way if you weren't fully committed to it, you know, and it was a passion, and it's one thing to have a passion that's good and that's important, but you also have to have a burning desire, and you have to have, you know, that determination to follow through, and, like I said, I have changed God so many times over the years. There was a time where I was a Trump Lloyd type painter in the beginning, and I knew that that wasn't my calling. I felt it, it wasn't me, I could render like so many other artists, and I loved that stuff, but it wasn't me. So I had to keep going on the journey and find out where I really lived, and it all has to do with that perseverance, that determination, staying focused, and never giving up. The hardest times, when you're about to give up, I could tell you from my 50 year journey as a painter, when I was just about ready to throw the talent, something great would happen, because I had the fishing line out there for multiple things, and then as I got the bad news about, oh, you're not accepted in this show, you didn't do this, you didn't sell this, and then one good thing would happen and pull me along again, so you know, in order to, to, you know, keep going, you definitely have to get, like I said, the feedback, you have to get your peer, you know, feedback is really important, because when you, when you are involved with other things beyond your studio, those things help lift you up and give you more confidence. So, I know artists are going to lack confidence when they're, when they're failing and they're struggling. It's important to say you have to just keep working through it, and, and I remember one time there's so many turning points in my life, if you think about 50 years, but I was really down and having a really hard time and pretty depressed, and my wife said to me, Why are you doing this? And I said, she said, You used to do this because you loved it, and now I don't see that in you, and my God, those words were so penetrating, because I thought, oh my God, she's right. Originally I did this because I loved it, not because of all these other things, whether it worked out or not. And every time I come in the studio now, I think about I'm doing this, and I'm blessed because I can do this thing and I can do it well and I appreciate just the the ability to do it, I think when you're in order to have success, if I could wrap that up in something. And share that with the artists, is that you, you have to, you have to be completely free, your mind has to be clear, and that's the point where you're in the zone, and you're creating something incredible that sometimes after you finish the creation, you don't even know how you arrived there, and then that work or that art I have found when I share that, that speaks to the volume of people out there, and there's something undeniable about you painting some truth with your own vision, with your own heart, and if it comes out extraordinary, there's something that can't be denied about that. I have entered paintings that I was like, you know, this is this is this painting is like something to me, it's like, and other people feel it, whether it wins an award or not, but I get you get feedback, especially on social media now, but when you put it out there and people are giving you feedback, it's not, oh, I just need that feedback to survive, but it's important because you have a certain, you put a part of you out there, and when you put that part of you out there, and it's sincere, and it's real, and it's part of you. People are definitely going to recognize that, and I could say, you know, there is no term for being original or finding your style. Just paint where your gut and be free in your mind, and do your work, and the rest of it will will all fall into place, as if you just keep working at it, you know. Yeah, there are skill levels that need to be addressed, and all this stuff, if you want to reach a certain representational painting, or whatever, whatever painting, it doesn't have to be anything like I'm doing, or like any other artists do, but you'll find your zone if you're really digging down deep and you're following that path, and then you start sharing that path. I think a lot of artists I had students over the years that they were coming for a long time, they wouldn't enter their paintings and anything, and I'm like, no, you have to put that out there, you have to put that out there, you've been in this journey, and you know, now you start need to share, so just Saturday mornings with, I'm not traveling, I have a Saturday morning class here, and I've been doing that forever, you know, it's my way giving back. So, two of my students, three of my students were telling me about awards that they recently won, and they were so excited about it. Now, I've been working with these artists for a couple years, and I'm like, yes, that's what, not the awards, so much, but the fact that they put their work out there and let people see it. You can't really just live in that bubble and do the work, do the work. I know other artists that have never taken their work out, and I'm like, this is fabulous, you need to enter this or that, and they won't do it, but you know that's their loss. I mean, I feel like when you create a painting, it's got to go out into the world. My wish is that yes, it's going out to the world, it's going to find that. I just had a call from my gallery yesterday, one of my pains, the woman said she has to have the painting, she has, if she doesn't, she'll be sad. My God, what better compliment for success do you need to hear than that? Like, the person is actually emotionally attached to it before they even bought

Scott Ruthven: 33:55

it. Like,

Joseph Gyurcsak: 33:55

that's it. You made the connection. You only have to make a connection to one person at a time, when you're selling their paintings, too,

Laura Arango Baier: 34:04

that idea of feedback as a lifeline, not just ego validation, but real directional information came up again and again, and so did the question of what's actually driving you when you walk into the studio. If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to ask our guests live questions, then you might want to join our monthly webinar, The Faso Show, where our guest artists discuss marketing tips, share inspiring stories, and answer your burning questions in real time. Whether you're a seasoned painter or just starting your creative journey, this is your chance to connect, learn, and spark new ideas. And whether you're stuck on a canvas or building your creative business, this is where breakthroughs happen. Don't miss out. Ignite your passion and transform your art practice by joining us. Our next Faso show webinar is coming up on the 18th of July with our special guest, Timothy Tyler. You can find the signup link in the show notes. At Boldbrush, we inspire artists to inspire the world, be. Because creating art creates magic, and the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity, and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles, and a free monthly art contest, open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush, and if you believe that, to sign up completely free at BoldBrush show.com that's B O L D B R U S H show.com The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by Faso. Now, more than ever, it's crucial to have a website when you're an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special link, faso.com forward slash podcast, you can make that come true and also get over 50% off your first year on your artist website. Yes, that's basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal, considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly, e-commerce, print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won't get with our competitor. The art marketing calendar gives you day by day, step by step guides on what you should be doing today, right now, in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes, so that you can make more sales this year. So, if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year, then start now by going to our special link, faso.com forward slash podcast, that's faso.com forward slash podcast. SC Mummert has built a career that runs almost entirely on intentionality, he spent six weeks away from the brush just to understand the marketing, and what he discovered changed how he thought about creating altogether.

SC Mummert: 36:49

I'm just going to say it, because I think it's fair. You know, your own work ethic, your own self-discipline will have a tremendous impact on your own success. I feel, you know there's not going to be anybody to wake up and force you to go down to the studio and do this, you know, and ideally you don't need that anyway, but still it's not there, and so you have to have a level of drive, you know, to go ahead and I would say achieve to achieve any success, as I mean, I'm an entrepreneur, I would say that any, any artist that's out trying to do will say what I do. You have to be, you've got all these different hats you've got to put on, you know, where you've got your shipping hat, you've got your, you know, maybe your marketing hat, you've got all these different things that you got to do as an entrepreneur, and so forth. And so, you know, that all takes a level of ambition and drive to go ahead and see that through, and you've got to have that work ethic to make that, you know, to make that function, and that directly to me, that directly correlates into, you know, how much success you experience on some level. I think there's, there's that that interactive thing that, you know, my dad used to say, the harder you work, the luckier you got, you know. And I think that that's there's some truth to that, you know. If you have that, if you roll your sleeves up and you apply yourself because you love what you do, you know, when that happens, then it's remarkable what can unfold, you know. And again, I've experienced that. I've been very privileged to be allowed to do what I love for a living, you know. Grateful that is, that should probably be everybody's question that we need to ask ourselves. What happened to me? So, what happened to me? About, I'll make it up here, because it's, it's, it's almost like I can't tell what a year is anymore, because a year goes by for me, it feels like about 90 days or something, it's just, it's pretty odd, but so I'll just say, like, four years ago, maybe five years ago, I became disgusted with my own lack of understanding about marketing, and so I went ahead and put the brushes down for, I think, like six weeks, which is quite a spell. And then began to just read everything I could and try to immerse myself into this and really get a better understanding on marketing, and which helped. All that was beneficial. Then I went ahead and found a couple of coaches. I, in fact, I'm still working with a guy out of Australia, and there's another guy out of.. I was, I was getting coached by two guys, whenever out of Australia, the other guy out of Atlanta, Georgia, and I'd have these weekly coaching sessions, you know, when they were helping me with marketing, and. and that transformed me also, because there's it's very comprehensive, actually, in what happens when you begin to understand and get a better grip and dig into marketing, it actually helps you in the creation of your art. You wouldn't think it would necessarily, but what it begins to do, it helps you start to. It a grip on your audience that you're creating the art for, and so, for example, like we'll just use Nashville, that maybe that's the Center for Country Western Music, we'll say those guys know exactly what their audience is, you know, I, and when they craft a song for their audience, and they, they're making a song that they enjoy that they love making, but they also understand what their listeners and what their audience, what will appeal to them, and so it's a win-win. And so, what happens once you begin to understand marketing and maybe building an avatar for the kind of person you're in fact trying to create your product for, and so forth, and I'm not saying make something that you don't like, that's not my point, but the very, the very best thing that can happen is that you find something that you enjoy making and you find out it's also happens to be something that the audience is seeking, and so when you, when you, when you have that convergence like that, which is happening in my own life, frankly, right now, so when that, when that happens, then you have the best of best of everything, because it's all synergistic, you know, and so, but that a lot of that understanding with with marketing and so forth continues to affect almost everything that I do right now, including concepts for paintings, and so forth, and you know that creative element, that's it's a little mysterious, even to me, you know that. How you can kind of put all this together, and, and go to sleep, and wake up in the morning, you've got an idea that maybe you didn't have when you went to sleep, and maybe you're subconscious and worked on that, whatever, I don't know, but the bottom line is that something pops out, but this marketing element actually influences that as well, you know, whatever you, whatever pops out of you, you know, and then that again affects what you end up producing, and so as far as marketing, so what happens is this is this is interesting because marketing will always take time. Marketing will take time. Now, the marketing, the time could be you, besides some easels at a park with your work, and you're talking, you're interacting with people that may walk by in the park, and you're maybe you're talking to them about, you know, them buying your art, that's taking time, took time to set the easels up to drive there, set your art up, and so forth, time, so there's all that investment of time, so that same little micro example of is can be applied to almost everything, you, there's always time spent to end up being a success in art via via some marketing vehicle, and that vehicle can be the thing in the park. It can also be a gallery. The gallery is simply a vehicle to market your art. A show can be a vehicle to market your art, and so on and so forth. So, as long as we understand the vehicle and the price we're going to pay, whether it's time or a percentage that you give away of money rather than your time to stand there, you know, so forth. It's all picking a vehicle, and what's going to be the most successful fit for you. Maybe it's time on Facebook, you know, maybe it's, you know, however that's done. Maybe a social media like I'm saying, you know, it's just finding the vehicle that fits your own pre-elections, and you know what you feel is going to be your time spent best with your, you know, your personality, and that's all that's all marketing. And in my particular instance, I work hand in glove with the galleries that I'm in, and we, it's pretty remarkable, because it takes a very special gallery to work with me. I'll just, I'll just say that, and that's that's no criticism against anybody else. It's, it's just what I, what we have. Part of the reason why I have, I would say I would assign my success to is that I have galleries that I can take and give concepts to, and they will spend the time to take these concepts, and maybe I'll give them maybe eight concepts. I'll pick the number eight, and I'll say, well, here these are concepts that I've come up with. What do you think about that? And what they'll do is they'll actually take their high net or ultra high net worth clientele that they have this relationship with that I don't have that they've gone ahead and fostered and poured themselves into, but they'll take the initiative to go ahead and run those concepts past their clientele, and then the clientele will say, well, I think these, I don't like it, because I like them all, but that doesn't mean that the clients will, the people with the money, and so they'll go ahead and say, well, here I, these, and maybe they'll pick three or four out of the eight that are winners, and so then I'll go ahead and produce the three or 4p Paintings will say, and I know you'll be shocked to hear they're selling before they're off the easel. In many cases, because they're virtually pre-sold. In fact, I had - there's a national show here in the West Coast that wanted me in the show, and a guy got a hold of me on behalf of the guy running the show, and he said,"Well, here we just want a painting, he's mummer. He says,"I don't care what it is, we just want one of your paintings in the show. And I said, "Well, gosh, that's flattering. I said,"I don't have anything. And he said, "Come on, every artist has got paintings hanging around their studio. I said, "Dude. I said, "I don't. I said, "Come on over. He was a local guy that called me, and he said, "No. I said, "His name was Mark. I said, Mark, come over to the studio, you find a painting you can put in the show. I said, I'm wiped out. The only painting I have is on the easel. Now that's a.. any.. he said, really? I said, Mark, yes, you know. And I said, if it wasn't that way, something's wrong, you know? Because, because I want.. I want that's the level of success that I hope for, you know. And so, in the good news is that I'm very blessed that that's been happening that way, and but I'm trying to give you kind of a glimpse behind the scenes of the mechanics that, so there's this marketing stuff that's affecting the way that I create the concepts, and I get feedback from my galleries as well, they'll tell me, well, they don't like this, and this is why they didn't like it, but they'd like this, and this is why they like that, and so forth. So I'm getting all this live feedback, and I feel that all success is based on a all progress. I'll just say it this way, all progress is based on a on a feedback loop, on an accurate feedback loop. So if you saw, I couldn't even walk to my car if I did, if I close my eyes, which are my feedback loop, if I, if, if I try to walk to my car, maybe my hands become my feedback loop, or a stick, you know, and I can try to find my way to my car, but it's all based on feedback, and that's critical to an artist, because what happens if we don't have feedback, if we, and that could be that could be feedback from someone standing at at their easels in the park, and people are, and they're talking, then they're interacting, and they'll say, well, gee, you know, I, I like this landscape here, but I don't like the dog you painted here, and, well, why not, you know? And then you can start to get this feedback, so that's all that will all benefit you, and maybe sometimes we don't like hearing that, but I think it's all beneficial. I think even the bad stuff will help us, you know. We can go.. well, I don't think I'm going to do that again. We can, we can learn, but it's all based on this, on this feedback. And my galleries are very, very efficient and very good at doing it with me. And not every gallery is prepared to do that. There was a gallery I was up in Carmel, California, which is an amazing small town. Have you been there? So

Laura Arango Baier: 47:51

good things,

SC Mummert: 47:52

it's amazing, and it's just as high net worth. We'll just say very charming town that has.. last time I was up there. They had 82 galleries in this little small area, so just mind blowing. And so I poked my head in. I was actually asking marketing questions to one of the sales guys in this large gallery up there, and they said, "Well, here, just.. and so he introduced me to the owner, and I said, 'Listen, I'm an artist, I don't want to take your time, you know, if you're busy, please, you know, I'll let you go. Oh, no, no. And so they wanted to talk to me. And so then, well, what, you're an artist, look, let me see your art. And so the easiest thing these days is to whip your phone out, you know, and you can show somebody a picture of your art. Well, the next thing I know, they've got the other owner in, and they've got me back in a room, and they want to carry my art, you know, and which I mean, wow, that's very flattering. I appreciate that. And so we're talking about percentages and all that stuff, you know. Okay. Well, we'll see. Well, as it turned out, the reason why I bring that up, as it turned out, they were not prepared. They said what they said. They said,"Listen, you make 10 paintings, and then we'll pick six out of the 10 that we like, and we'll take the six, and I thought, well, if I do 10 paintings, I want all 10 to sell, I don't want to just have four back in my studio, right, and so, and I said, well, you know, I need, okay, because every region and market is different, so Carmel will have a different market than Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Santa Fe, New Mexico will have a different market than downtown New York City, you know, so forth, and so you ideally you're creating just like the Nashville with the country was, you know, you're creating product that's going to be a success in that market, and they weren't willing to spend the time to give me the feedback to be a success, I felt, you know, in their market, and I understand that I'm not here to criticize that. It's just that I, I'm looking for a gallery, and actually, in fact, I'm fortunate to work with galleries that will invest that time, and it's been very successful for both of us. Franklin,

Laura Arango Baier: 50:01

that convergence he describes making what you love and discovering it's also what your audience needs, that's the thing every artist is chasing, whether they name it or not. But getting there takes showing up consistently over years in the practical, unglamorous ways. Scott Ruthven is one of those artists who brings a genuinely unusual lens to all of this. He came to painting after a long career in business, and it shows in the best possible way.

Scott Ruthven: 50:27

I was thinking about this last night, so I'll start off with just bookkeeping and accounting, which seems kind of left field here, right? But it is one of those things. If you're going to be selling your work, then you need to have those skills. It doesn't have to be hard, but what's really hard is if you wait all year and you try to remember what happened. That's crazy, but you know there's a lot of tax advantages. Everything as an artist, you know, if you're going to paint, all your materials, all your time, your travel expenses are all tax deductible, so if you're going to claim the income and pay taxes on that, you should look for and record and keep track of your deductions as well, but it can be a lot, so but I do think about that as a business. This is my business here, and I try to keep up with that. I do keep up with it on a daily basis. It's part of my workflow, so bookkeeping is, you know, what I would say, accounting scares people away, but it's bookkeeping, recording your mileage, recording your sales, that kind of thing. So that came really natural to me, but so beyond that kind of, you know, mired down in the weeds bookkeeping stuff, you know, I became comfortable speaking to large audiences, being accountable to goals, and my communication clarity, and communication promptness, you know, having a product like we said that looks good, it looks good from the back, it's got certificate of authenticity, it's got the little things that people care about as a product, right? The frames clean, it doesn't have little smudges of fingerprints. I can't tell you how many times I go into galleries and you see a frame full of fingerprints and dust, and you know the artist has just reused that thing over and over again, or somebody has. You know, my business career taught me that, you know, those details matter, and you know another example is if you're you're in a show or you're not even going to a gallery, but you're in a show and you've got to ship work, follow the instructions, be prompt replying to emails, the coordinator, whoever's putting that work in to mount that show really appreciates that, and when you're somebody you want them to say, "Gosh, you were a pleasure to work with. When you can do that, Who I have so many examples where my name was top of mind with somebody because of a good experience, right? And then when an opportunity came up, my name was in the top of their top of their mind, and so I got another opportunity, because they thought of me, you know. So it's those details we got to produce good work, but that's kind of the given. It's all the other things, which can be a mountain of work. Honestly, it is running a business. You got to think about it as a business, try to be profitable, try to build on whatever you're building, so you've got a network, you've got collector base, you've got social media following, all of these things you're saying yes to opportunities, lot of times we don't, I want to say no to an opportunity, I don't really.. there was a movie a few years ago, probably too long ago, but I think it was called Yes Man, and he couldn't say no to something, and it changed his life, that's kind of, you know, the nutshell.. I couldn't remember all the details, but to a point, you shouldn't just say yes to everything and you're chasing your tail, wasting all your time, but there are a lot of great opportunities that come up, and they might be scary because they push you out of your comfort zone, but you have to say yes, because you never know where they're going to lead, who you're going to meet. I meet fascinating people when I travel to these shows, or I plan air paint. Sometimes I pinch myself. I think, how do I.. some of the people I know and have met, and the experiences that I've gotten to do, I never would have if I weren't like a TV personality or a rock star or something. I think, wow, this is amazing life. So, it can be a great life as an artist. Get out there, be uncomfortable, be professional, and you know, set, and then let's talk about goals for a minute. Goal setting is another thing I learned from business, and I think can be a struggle for artists. There's a great book that I recommend by Gary Keller, and it's called The One Thing, and this book, The Essence of It, I read it two or three times when. You know, basically every year for a few years when I first found it, because I thought it was a great reminder, and it's about, you know, how you, you set a goal for yourself, and the goal might be lofty, right? You want to be a self-supporting professional artist. Well, that's hard to undertake at one thing, and it seems daunting, and maybe you procrastinate because you don't know where to start, and so the whole concept of the one thing, which you should read, because there's probably a lot more to it than I remember, but my key takeaway that changed my life in business, and this was years before doing art full time, but you know, you take that thing, you have your goal, you got to know where you're going first of all, but then every day when you get up if you think about your goal, and you think, well, what's one one thing I could do today? The smallest little thing, it doesn't matter, what's that one thing I could do today to move me in that direction. And that should be one of your top priorities, and you should do that before you get sucked into the rest of your day. You have alignment where you want to go, and then you've got just one little thing, and you think I could do that one thing today. Maybe it's like I haven't sent a newsletter. I've never sent a newsletter. It intimidates me. Well, what's the one thing I could do today? I go into my Faso website and look at that newsletter link in there, and see what it takes, and just open that today. Maybe that's your one thing. So, now you got past that scary thing. Well, tomorrow is all right. You know what? Maybe I'll just write down an outline of what a monthly email or newsletter would be, and what you.. you know what happens is success builds on success. You say, I already moved forward a little bit, I can do this, and pretty soon you know we way underestimate what we overestimate what we can do in the short term, and then we weigh underestimate what we can achieve in a long period of time, or in a long distance of time, and you know it's just I see that over and over in myself, if I move forward a little bit at a time on a regular basis toward a goal that I'm really sure of, and this is really, you know, trying to review your goals every day, do they align with where you are, who you want to be, where you want to be, and then thinking about that one thing, and you know, some days that one thing turns into five things, but you look back over a year and you know you're amazed. I do a YouTube video or a YouTube channel, and I was looking at that. I pulled it up here. I have 78 videos on there now. If I, at the beginning of that thought. Okay, I need to start a YouTube and film 78 videos. I would be completely overwhelmed and never start. I can't even really believe that I've done 78 videos, which you know isn't a whole lot. There's people with hundreds and hundreds, right? But for me, I look at that and I can barely even remember doing all of that work. It just seems like, how did it grow, but it was just doing one at a time, a little bit at a time, whatever I had the energy for, and you know, then back over time, that's something that's built on itself. People have subscribed, it gets more views, I'm reaching more people, I sell more art, I sell art from that kind of thing. So that's a great book, and definitely one of the skills that I got from business is goal setting and holding myself accountable to achieving results over a period of time, so setting the timeframe for yourself and going after it as small in chunks as you need to for your your work and life situation

Laura Arango Baier: 58:42

through the one small thing today. I love that, because it makes the overwhelming feel possible. But all of these definitions of success - discipline, structure, marketing, community - they all still assume you know what you're building toward, and that's actually the harder question. Donald Yatomi came from the corporate video game world, which means he has a very particular perspective on what it costs to trade freedom for security and what it means to finally stop.

Donald Yatomi: 59:06

I mean, at the end of the day, it's like you're gonna, you're gonna flourish, and you know, flourish. When I use the word flourish, it doesn't always equate to money. It's like, what, what is success to you, right? What, it's man, when I was like, when I was working in the corporate world, doing video games, man, they pay you a lot of money, but you're, you're not really happy, you know what I mean, because you're in this corporate structure, there's so many rules and policies, and then it's a collaboration decision in regards to art, so you got the whole world deciding what your art is supposed to look like in video games, right? So, and that's your typical corporate structure, anyways, and you're sitting. Sitting on the computer from Monday through Friday for eight to 10 hours, and you're stuck, you know what I mean. And you know, for people that like to travel or take vacations, you have to go through all these steps to get permission to be allowed to go, and you know, it took me a long time to realize that, man, it's like that's you're giving up your freedom for money, so it's like, where do you put success? So that's why I told you that I love that last webinar with with John Master, or Don

Laura Arango Baier: 1:00:40

John, yeah,

Donald Yatomi: 1:00:41

he was able to articulate, I gotta watch it again, but he, he was able to articulate what was success to him, right? So it's a balance between income, freedom, and doing what you love to do, right? So that's you just got to put where, where your importance are

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:01

income, freedom, and doing what you love- three things that seem simple until you try to hold all of them at once. What strikes me about every one of these conversations is that success doesn't get easier to define the longer you're in it. If anything, it gets more personal, more specific, more yours. The goal posts move, and maybe that's not a failure of ambition. Maybe that's just what growth feels like. Thanks for listening. If something from today's episode landed with you, I'd love to hear it. Reach out, leave a review, or share this with an artist in your life who's in the middle of figuring it out. That's what this community is for.