Jennifer Balkan: 0:00

Do it because you cannot not do it.

Jeff Legg: 0:04

Talent is like here, and desire is way up here. Yeah, I mean there is an element of talent I think that is very helpful, but unless you really you know love to do it and have the desire to do it, talent really doesn't mean a whole lot.

Stephanie Marzella: 0:23

It's discipline. It's 100% discipline. That's the biggest thing I can attribute to making it in this career.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:30

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 about or 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. Every artist knows the romanticized version of the

life of the artist: 0:56

the gallery shows, the canvas, the hours of creation. But the artists who actually make it will tell you something different. They'll tell you about the days when they didn't feel like showing up, the months without sales, the phone calls they had to turn down, the routines they built not because they were inspired, but because inspiration alone was never going to be enough. Today's episode is about the one thing that separates working artists from wishing artists: discipline. Because it was never about talent, not luck, not even passion. Even though that helps, discipline. We've pulled together some of the most honest moments from past guests on what it actually looks and feels like to build a creative life from the ground up and keep it standing in the long run. Let's start with something simple that most artists overlook until it's

too late: 1:43

deadlines. Scott Tommen Powers built his career as a gallery and show artist, and he's very clear about what makes that possible.

Scott Tallman Powers: 1:51

It's not easy, as you know. You know, doing workshops, doing commissions here and there. Commissions were really tough for me over the years, I do them every once in a while, but I have different, different, different rules about how I handle it. I need to have complete freedom, and you know, selling sketches and and other little things like that. But workshops is a pretty big. That's a pretty big thing, and and I highly recommend. I highly recommend people keeping that extra. Keeping that. If you're doing workshops, keep doing workshops. Even if you start to sell everything you paint in the galleries, keep the workshops. Keep that extra revenue stream. Always hum it. I made a mistake. I I stopped for a while, and I shouldn't have. And so I'm starting back over these past few years of you know teaching and everything else, and and and now that I have a new studio here, I'll be teaching out of here, and bringing people from out of state, and then locally, and also doing some little videos from around the mountains here, and other things, and doing some online stuff. But but I just think it's so important to have that extra thing going on in the background, you know, you know, because it's it's a roller coaster ride, and even whenever you're selling everything you paint, you're not always going to sell everything you paint. You know, you're going to have some dry spells, but if you have a good engine humming in the background, that's that's that would be a wise choice.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:42

Making deadlines is the floor, not the ceiling. Chris Krapinski takes it further. For her, discipline isn't just about showing up; it's about only saying yes when you truly mean it.

Chris Krupinski: 3:52

And a discipline-you have to have a discipline. It's-it's easy to get sidetracked. You know, if if you're in the middle of something, and somebody calls and says, "Hey, you want to go do this? How many times do you think, "Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun. Let me go do this, and how many times I'd have to say,"Oh, I'm, I'd love to, but I'm in the middle of something right now. You, it's discipline. Discipline's so important. Again, it comes, you know, whenever I put every, whenever I committed myself to two hours a day, that's a discipline, and you have to live up to that. If it's there's so many factors.

Laura Arango Baier: 4:33

Yeah, yeah, and actually, it just reminded me of a quote that I recently heard, and I loved it, and that is, self discipline is the highest form of self-respect because you know you're you're setting that boundary, right? If someone like like you just said, someone says, "Oh, let's go out and go do this really quick, it's like, "Sorry, I promised myself that I would be doing this instead, so I have to say no. But we can schedule for a time when I can say yes because. I'm busy, and I have to prioritize these things in order to make sure that I feel good and that I'm okay. Again, you can't give from an empty cup, right? You have

Chris Krupinski: 5:09

to. Oh, absolutely.

Laura Arango Baier: 5:11

Yeah. Oh man. But yeah, there's so much that goes into it. And one of the things that I that you mentioned that really reminded me a little bit of what you said about how you've been able to sell your work is also that in the graphic design aspect, it's also word of mouth, right? It's also people being like, "Oh, I heard about this person, and they do such an excellent job, and I can totally recommend them. And I feel like that's that's so common within the art world, but we forget that it's also common and outside, you know, in worlds outside of the art world where your work speaks for itself, right? That's again back to the it is the fact that you have to do something really well, right? You can't sell like something that doesn't work or doesn't you know even look good, because that's just putting the cart before the horse, right? The horse pulls the cart, and that's beautiful work, and that's how you keep it going. Oh, and then the importance of community.

Chris Krupinski: 6:07

My whole life, anything that I would do, anything, I don't care what it was, anything. I'm not going to do it unless I can do it to the very best of my ability, because if you do it to the very best of your ability, you're going to have a good time with it. If you just do it because oh, I committed to this, now I have to do this, you you're not going to be happy. You're not going to do a good job. It's just it's just a waste of everybody's time. But if you if so, only say yes when you mean it.

Laura Arango Baier: 6:46

Yes, that even

Chris Krupinski: 6:47

means to yourself. You know,

Laura Arango Baier: 6:51

totally. Yeah, because there's like I feel like I relate to that so much. Like if if you're gonna do something, why would you do it, you know, mediocrily? You know, it's if you're not gonna do it with your heart, right, or with all that passion, just say no, you know. Yeah, and then you can use that energy for something else because that's totally fine. But yeah, I totally relate to that because I feel the same about how I cook. I feel the same about how I knit, how I paint.

Chris Krupinski: 7:27

Absolutely,

Laura Arango Baier: 7:29

yeah. I would

Chris Krupinski: 7:29

I would plan when I was working with the kids. Like I said, the on all night grad party. Well, I said yes that I'm gonna I'm gonna do this decorating committee. This is gonna be the best all night grad party ever, and in your head you have to say that to yourself so you get your whole team excited. You're excited, and you don't feel like you're wasting your time, or you don't say, "Oh gosh, I I committed to this, so now I have to do it, because that attitude with anything is going to create something that's half baked. So if you get excited and that goes with your artwork, that goes with my graphic design. That if you commit yourself and be excited about it, and you're going to do the best job you can, more likely you'll succeed.

Laura Arango Baier: 8:22

That commitment to doing things fully or not at all is something Jeff Legg learned not in the studio, but running a bicycle shop. When he finally made the leap to painting full time at 30, he brought that business discipline with him.

Jeff Legg: 8:35

Yeah, I have to give my dad a lot of credit. He was very much an entrepreneur all his life, and he always encouraged me to make my own job. You know, he said that's really the only way to find fulfillment and also really make a decent living. So he gave me the risk-taking genetics, I guess, to to do that. Just I had little kids at the time, you know, so it was a pretty big decision to go go full time without any track record at all. But I I will say that I was pretty confident that I could produce the work. It was the marketing of the work that was probably the most difficult part. But having the experience in the retail business, even though it was a bicycle shop, not art, it taught me a lot. Just about you know being disciplined and marketing and bookkeeping and you know all the nuts and bolts and you know moving parts of running a business. So there's definitely an advantage to to have having gone through that. And I really truly think if I had started trying to be an artist and selling my work in my early 20s, let's say, that I probably would have failed and and maybe not be an artist today, perhaps out of discouragement. So. gaining the confidence through owning a business and running a business and some maturity. You know, I was 30 years old when I decided to pull the trigger on painting full time, and so yeah, it was still not not easy at all. Lots of hours painting, lots of hours painting, and you know trying to to master the craft and always having a mindset of 100% you know, wanting to do my best work, not compromising, not not thinking thinking about quantity, but always thinking about quality, and and you know, being true to myself and truth, you know, seeking truth and beauty was always my goal, and you know, trying to communicate, you know, what I saw as beautiful, I suppose, was just really key for me. One other thing I wanted to mention that I I get the question you know from students in particular or people make a comment you know you're just so talented you know and the there's a conception that artists walk into a room, they wave a magic wand, and you know a painting appears. That it's it's essentially just all talent, and there's no discipline or work. That's so far from the truth. In reality, talent is like here, and desire is way up here, so yeah. I mean, there is an element of talent I think that is very helpful, but unless you really you know love to do it and have the desire to do it, that talent really doesn't mean a whole lot. And I I knew guys in you know in high school that were like just super talented like way more talented than me, but they did they didn't become artists because they just didn't have the desire to do it. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there that I don't think at all that you know you can have just a thimble full of talent and take that extremely far through discipline and hard work and some training. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you what you said that you know there's way too much emphasis put on originality, you know, because I don't think there really is anything that's original. It's pretty much all been done, but so I have no problems with doing something that's been done, but just do it my way, or do it, you know, do it better than what has been done in the past. I think it's really important to think about.

Laura Arango Baier: 13:44

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 13th of August with our special guest Kathleen Dunphy. You can find the sign-up link in the show notes. Desire over talent-that reframe matters, especially for artists who came to their practice later in life. Stephanie Marzella speaks directly to that and to something we don't say enough: that being an artist takes courage, not just skill.

Stephanie Marzella: 14:37

I speak to the people who can come to it a little bit later in life, you know, and that it's not always. Oh God, I don't know how you would say it. You know, everybody uses the word passion. You know, and of course we all have. You know, it takes a lot to be an artist. It's it's not an easy career, and. I equate the word discipline and drive. You know, you know, natural talent is great. You know, but you can learn. You can learn to have talent. You know, with perseverance. So, I think that that's really important, and that it's not always you're not always born with it. I think artists are willing to go out on a limb, you know, because like flying without a net. It takes a lot of courage to be an artist. It takes a lot of courage for a parent to send their kid to art school too, you know, and artists are young at heart. Like they don't, you know. I have artist friends who are, you know, almost 80 or in their 80s, and they you would never know it. There's no. It's like a ageless. It's ageless. Everybody is hardworking. They're fun. They're adventurous. They're still out there in nature. They're still camping. They're traveling. It's a pretty unique group of people, and I'm honored to be that. That is what I I can do for a career, but I think that a lot of people may have like a misnomer that we're just having fun, you know. Like, you know, everybody's just like you get to paint all day, you know, and but there's like so much more to it, and you're not sitting in front of your easel, you know, like going. It's you. You have. I am exhausted after a day of painting. It's like a trillion decisions. Every mark you make is a decision, and sometimes we talked about this the other day, like you make a mark, you you do something that's amazing, like and you're like, I can't even believe I just did that, and in the next minute you destroy it accidentally, and you're just like, no one's ever gonna see that, it doesn't exist anymore, you know. But it's um, I hope I leave a mark. You know, I mean, who knows? You know what's going to go down in history anymore. But you know, I I think I've made my my mark, and um, I'm you know I'm I'm proud of that. So, but I I'm just lucky to be one, an artist. Your heart and soul is tied to your work, you know. Like, not underestimating, or because I've never really even done that many traditional jobs. But like, sometimes I think, oh, it would be nice to have a job where I'm not emotionally attached to it. You know, my work is emotional, and I put a lot of effort into it. And then you know when when you have it out there on the market too, or you know in a you have a flurry of sales and you're flying high, or and then all of a sudden there's a month you're just like, what's happening? You know, am I going to be able to pay my mortgage? You know that is not easy. So when people are like, oh, you're an artist, you're so lucky. I mean, they they really have no idea what what they are talking about, as far as the scope of what it takes to be an artist, and we do-I think collectively we do have a joy of life that a lot of people don't have, and you know, we will take the time to like go chase a hurricane, you know, to take photos and to you know sit somewhere to watch sunset and to walk in the woods and do all that stuff. You know that's like an added plus, but it takes tenacity, man. Perseverance, discipline. Discipline is the biggest thing. If you don't have discipline, you are not going to be able to get over those hurdles when you're questioning your talent, you know, when you haven't had sales for a while, when social looking at social media and you know every you know everyone posts. You know, we're not going to post, oh, having a bad day today, or you know, painted horribly today. You know, we're gonna paint our triumphs, our accolades. You know, and sometimes that's hard. You know, if you're in a slump, and then you see, you know, other your friends, whatever, your colleagues winning awards or doing this or that, and it's it's discipline that gets you through that, and the best thing as soon as soon as you get back to the easel, and soon as you start painting, you you go into that zone, and you know that is the best remedy for any of those, especially the down moments, is to just get back to your easel. That's. That's the place you need to be, you know. But there's a lot of other things it takes to be an artist too, you know. There's a lot of the business of art, networking, shipping, creating, packing, unpacking, ordering frames, ordering supplies. Besides overcoming the financial struggles of it, I would say, and I've said it before in this interview. is is It's discipline. It's 100% discipline. That's the biggest thing I can attribute to making it in this career, and making it through. I'm a really emotional person. I can get depressed. I can get down. All my friends know. You know, when I'm talking to them on the phone, I'm like, ah, you know. But um, it's it's perseverance. It's it is it really comes down to discipline. I think that's the. Some people say passion, whatever. I think it's discipline. You know, it's like you gotta you gotta get in that studio. You know, can't be here and there, you know. Granted, if you're juggling a job, that you know that makes it a lot harder. But it's just, and you have to have a style now. So, so that's one thing younger people ask me about approaching galleries. How did you do it? How did you approach galleries or whatever? And the one thing is, you have to have a body of work. I mean, that's. I think, and it has to be. It has to look like you did it all. You have to. You know. You have to have a style. You know. You don't want to, unless your style is like really, and you do. You can do whatever. People, dogs, landscaping, and it all. You know. You know. Some artists can do everything. I. I wish I could, but I can't. And land. My my heart is in landscape. But the you have to have a solid body of work where it's signature work, you know, like that. That's who you are. Now, granted, our work is going to change gradually over a course of a career, but you can't bring in you know approach a gallery with random different paintings or you know different mediums. You have to look like you're solid in what you're doing, and they have to know you're going to be producing that kind of work, and you're going to be bringing it in regularly. You know, you know they can't be when you when you get to this level. Like you know, my gallery, they call me. I probably missed a call of theirs a handful of times in the 10 years they've been eight. I don't know how long it's been eight or nine years. This this gallery. I mean, they're like, I don't care what I'm doing when they call. They're I'm answering the phone, you know, and whatever they need. I'm very fortunate that my gallery is here in town, and they are responsible for the majority of my sales, and I could just paint the work and drive it downtown. I don't have to pack it or ship it. I'm spoiled, you know. But it's I don't know. Again, lost my train of thought, but that's it's you know tenacity. I don't know, but and living with other people, sharing costs, sharing costs, you know. But the when you're approaching galleries, like you have to. Well, when I moved here, I was represented by a lovely gallery too, and a little bit smaller. And but I would-I had no friends here at all. I didn't know any. You know, I knew of the artists through social media, but I didn't know any. So I went. I would go every month. Charleston has a art walk, and I would start out at the gallery that represented me, Dave Gallery, and then I would go right down every month down to the best galleries, so it's kind of like a line of them, and I'm I made a point to make that people knew who I was. You know, I would be like, I'm new in town, blah blah blah, and I was there every month. And the part of the reason I think Reinert, I was always I always ended the art walk at their gallery because their gallery was the most fun, had great food, and they you know represented some great people, and you have to really put you know you have to put yourself out there, you have to put yourself out there in the eye you know, in that in the gallery you just never know. So I wasn't even really sure. I I know I wanted to approach them eventually. I'm not even sure how it it kind of organically came about. But someone had seen one of their buyers who only bought work from their gallery saw my work somewhere else and was very moved by it. And then that woman who I've never had the privilege of meeting. Told Rein Art Gallery, you really need to check out this woman's work. Nobody does skies like she does, and that's how that came about. Word of mouth, you know. You're like you never know, and they took it to heart. You know, they checked out my work, and and that, but they knew me from coming in the gallery. All the time, you know, and I had some friends represented there. So, you know, it's it's good to get yourself out there. It's not easy to move when you're in your 50s. You know, I I left friendships at you know 30 year friendships in Rhode Island and art connections. All of our friends were artists, and um, to go start over somewhere new to take a risk like that, but it often pays off. But you have to get yourself out there and like let people know who you are and that you moved there and that you exist and that you know it's because I think a lot of artists are you know it's weird we're extroverts and we're introverts, you know. Like, I am really like a homebody. You know, I like to be. I like to be in my house, and I really admire the. So many of my colleagues like travel like on a monthly basis. Like I honestly, I am very fortunate that I can make my living painting in my studio. You know, like I like to go on trips and stuff. I hate to leave my dogs. I hate, and they're costly to leave. But like the amount of different things artists are doing to make a living, you know, teaching teaching workshops, traveling. Then we're traveling for inspiration and ideas and. and it's it's it's such a huge it's like social media traveling teaching workshops demonstrations entering competitions I'm not I'm really not a competition enterer but all the different things it's like it's a lot of hats

Laura Arango Baier: 26:38

Stephanie named it plainly discipline gets you through the slumps, the comparison spiral, the dry spells. But what does discipline actually look like day to day when no one is telling you how long to work or how much to produce? Emma Kalf grapples with exactly that.

Emma Kalff: 26:56

I think it's like staying disciplined. in the studio and like artists are notorious for like we only want to work when we're super inspired and then when we're not it's like oh I don't want to do this like and I'm I'm certainly no exception to that so I definitely have times where I'm just like really burned out. I don't want to go in the studio. I don't want to paint. I don't have any exciting ideas going on. And having the the discipline and like making yourself show up is really hard. And sort of in the same vein, it's been really hard to like all these little incalculable things, right? Like, how long is my workday supposed to be? How quantitatively, how many paintings am I supposed to produce in a month or a year, how many are supposed to go to a gallery? How many am I supposed to like hang on to for myself? How many should be, you know? It's like when you when you work for someone else, all of those things are sort of taken out of the equation, and it's a it is an easier life in a lot of respects because you work a set amount of hours, and then you know exactly what you're going to be paid and when you're going to be paid. And to navigate the art world on your own is hard because you can put in 10 hours of work on a painting and not be paid for that 10 hours for 10 years, right? Like a painting can sell 10 years later, or it can sell next week, and so navigating that alone can be it can be really tough. And also, like I think we live in this well, America where I am is like very it's it's super workaholic culture, and then it's like you know you have to balance like okay how much do I want to do and how much of a break do I want to give myself and like yeah so I think the hardest part has been answering all of those like little questions about how is this supposed to go? How do I structure my workday? And how do I keep myself like disciplinary? I continue to do it, and I don't burn myself out, but I still produce a set amount of work. Like that's all been pretty difficult.

Laura Arango Baier: 29:38

Emma names attention perfectly: discipline without burnout. Jennifer Balkin brings it home with something that sounds almost counterintuitive. The answer isn't grinding harder; it's loving the process enough that the discipline stops feeling like a sacrifice.

Jennifer Balkan: 29:53

It can definitely be hard in the sense that maybe the progress. Quote whatever progress in quotes that a student hopes to make might be a little might happen a little more slowly, and that's okay. I you know I've I think like that's really we've got got your whole life and we're you know I'm I'm still, I still consider myself a student of all of this. So it's it it there's there there are never any shortcuts, no matter what. Like no matter no matter what particular kind of of of instructional program you pursue, or maybe or not at all, and you are just on your own, trying you know learning and figuring it out. It's time. It is time and patience and discipline and hours and like hours and hours of bad drawings, bad paintings, and you keep on going. And so, so in that sense, like there's, it's just literally doing it as much as possible, and that is the way to getting better, like improving, you know. Regardless, there is not. There's, I mean, I I would say if if like I did not attend the programs that exist now didn't when I was when I was a a much younger person, and um and I you know, I'm like, oh man, you know, like, ah, if only, if only, I would have gone to said school and done such and such, and it would have been quicker. Like, so, so I do, okay, I do believe that there is a more efficient road to improvement and to great to great improvement for sure for sure, but even with that, it's still it's still the hours of of studying and sketching and you know keeping a sketchbook and drawing whenever you can and all that stuff. So in that sense, you know, it's just like it's just you gotta love this stuff. You gotta love quote practicing because we're always practicing, and so it's like if you don't love the process, then it's it's not worth your time because it's too it's too darn hard to like sustain yourself financially for you not to love the process and just love the practice of doing it, do it because you cannot not do it. It's really hard. It's really frustrating. There are ways easier ways to make some sustainable living, decent money. Like I'm not even talking about like oodles of money here. I'm talking about like a decent, a decent income. There are such easier ways to do it. So you just have to really want it, and and and be ready. You know, we're talking about income sources and such. You know, like really, really be ready to embrace various income streams, and that is perhaps you know there's something that you've worked at that's not art related that you can you know you've become successful at and you can hold a job part time that doesn't take too much of your mental and physical energy that you know and that during your other hours you're too tired or too spent to be able to make art, so there's that. Or art related, you know. But but it's I think it's really important to be very realistic about the fact that you're going to have to make some money between your paint, you know, between your ups and downs of your painting sales, but while you're maybe working on a body of work for exhibition, there's a chunk of time that you're doing that that you're not necessarily like churning paintings out to sell right away. So there are those spans of time, and so that you need to make some money between that. So so anyway, I just I think it's a very very important aspect of of you know thinking about what life will be like to try to make a living as an artist, and that you know it's. Time, it's time and discipline, and you know, getting back to the whole process thing, like you have to just love the act of doing it, and just you really have to love it. You have you have to love the discipline of it, and be willing to put those hours in, and try not to compare yourself to others. You know, which is really, really, really hard these days, you know. We all follow a gazillion artists and enjoy that, and see art, you know, scrolling on our feeds and such. And um, and it's very easy to kind of get caught up in that, and and be driven, you know, by that and by like, oh, okay, I make this piece and share and see what the response is and all all that stuff and um and that can really suck the suck the life out of you as I have personally experienced and you know being willing to kind of take full on breaks and and sort of work without distraction like really try to remove all the chatter, the noise, so that you can put yourself to work, and also be ready to for to be able to be self-disciplined and self-motivated. You need that. So those are my little bits of advice, but it's but it's all pretty beautiful. I mean, that sounded very, very like harsh and like, but I think it's important to you know to really be realistic. Like you know, it's yeah, it's it's it's hard work and also wonderful and beautiful.

Laura Arango Baier: 36:40

Do it because you cannot not do it. I keep coming back to that line because it reframes everything. Discipline isn't the opposite of joy; it's how joy survives contact with real life, with dry spells, with bills, with the bad painting days, and the comparing yourself to everyone online. Every artist in this episode has lived that, and every one of them kept going anyway. If this episode resonated with you, share it with an artist who needs to hear it today. And if you're in the middle of a hard stretch right now, get back to the easel. That's where you're meant to be. Thank you to everyone out there for listening to the podcast. Your continued support means a lot to us. If you've enjoyed the episode, please leave a review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. This helps us reach others who might also benefit from the excellent advice that our guests provide. Thank

Unknown: 37:30

you.