Shanna Kunz: 0:00

Never give up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up. There's going to be so many times that you think,"I can't do this anymore. Never give up. You just keep showing up at the easel, even when it's hard. Keep showing up at the easel.

Cindy Baron: 0:19

You just got to do it. You know, there's a there's a famous log. It's not my slogan, but you know, it's a Nike slogan. It says, "Just do it. You just got to do it.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:29

Welcome to the Faso Podcast, where we believe that fortune favors of oldbrush. 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. Welcome to a special edition of the Faso podcast. If you've listened for a while, you already know the drill. Near the end of almost every conversation, we ask our guests some version of the same question: What advice would you give to someone who wants to make this a full-time life? Over 100 episodes, we've collected 100 different answers, so today we're doing something different. No new guest, no new interview, just the best of that advice, all in one place, back to back. Consider this your one-stop pep talk from a room full of working painters. Let's get into it. Let's start at the very beginning. Before technique, before galleries, before any of that, there's the decision itself, the leap. Here's Philippe Gendial and Tanner Steed on what it actually takes to jump and why waiting rarely makes it easier.

Philippe Gandiol: 1:37

If you are an artist, you don't have a choice you gotta do. Number one, I mean, this is it. This is your life. You know, this is. You have to live your your dreams. You have to. Otherwise, you know, you're gonna miss out so

much. And so, my advice is: 1:59

use your fear as a fuel. Paint more than ever. Be very open with your partners or whatever. So you need the support of your family. It's very hard if you don't, because then the choice is I'm breaking up, or I'm not doing it. I'm gonna say something horrible, but I think if you're really an artist, you have to break up. You have to do it. I mean, and eventually they're gonna rally, but it might be difficult at first, and then you need to maybe keep a side job on the side that doesn't take you too much time, but like consulting or something, you know, if you're a gardener or I don't know, keep doing people's garden, fix something, and but in the same time paint because you know the main forest is painting. So instead of doing 70% that job and 30% painting. You do the opposite. 70% of the time, it's totally you building up your your work and your and your career because it is a career, and and then and then you do that on the side. Another thing too, don't wait. I mean, I became a fault. I mean, I really, when I was in my 30s working, I was thinking I need to be a fault. I really were thinking about it. I mean, it's okay. I know some artists, you know, in their 60, they retire and decide to paint. But the sooner you do it, the better off you are because it's very hard. It takes a long. I mean, for me, I'm a slow learner. You know, I understand quickly if you explain to me for a long time that kind of things. You know, so I would say, the minute the muse is calling, you have to respond, and you will find you will find a way to make it work. I don't know if that's very pragmatic, but that's what I did.

Laura Arango Baier: 4:36

Yeah,

Philippe Gandiol: 4:37

and it worked for me. And and think always think it's gonna I'm gonna make it. I am going to be successful because it is me, you know. I'm giving it all.

Tanner Steed: 4:56

Well, yeah. I already said you you just have to put. In the work, let's see. Well, I I think this may be controversial, but I think it's actually easy to make it as an artist. I think if you're willing to put in the work and you believe that it's possible, like truly believe, then it's going to be easy. You just put one foot in front of the other and talk with all of the people you you look up to reach out to them on Instagram, whatever. You're going to be able. It hard work shows, and if you're persistent, it pays off. And what's what. difficult is not making it and selling your art. That's that's a side thing. What is truly difficult is comparing yourselves to the masters in the museum. That is the goal. For that is my goal, and it's a wild, extraordinary goal to be respected not just by your peers, but to be respected by those masters in art history. And I'm going to work for the rest of my life, trying to achieve that, and you know, it's it may take 50 years before I paint something that's worth, you know, sitting next to a Rembrandt or Vermeer or whatever, whoever. But I'm just I'm gonna give it everything I've got, and and I hope you do too. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:06

Okay, so you've decided. Now what? Ask any artist who's actually built a career, and you'll hear the same unglamorous truth over and over. There's no shortcut around the work itself. Grace Daveto, Christine Code, and Chris Krapinski on putting in the mileage.

Grace DeVito: 7:23

Practice, do a lot of practice. The you know the whole 10,000 hour thing really is true. It's I I often have talked about with you know friends, fellow artists how difficult it is to be a really good artist, and it takes a long time. Kind of like you know being a doctor or surgeon. Now those things are super important, and but they're also really appreciated for the time that it takes. I don't think artists are given that same appreciation, you know, for the the work and time that's put in and how how dedicated you have to be, you know, to to get good, you know. And it's all. I mean, definitely, people have start out with different levels of ability and talent, but that'll only get you so far. You you really do have to put in the hours, and I would even say good hours. Like if you practice a bad habit, you're only ingraining it. So you know, you kind of have to learn to do good practice and and and all those things. But also, you know, put together a good portfolio. Be aware of what the market is is showing. You know, and what it has, and I mean, you don't want to copy. You want to set yourself apart, you know, have your individual voice, but but it has to be like be realistic about how your work looks compared to, you know, someone else's because they you're going to be competing for the same jobs, and it doesn't matter whether you've been doing it, you know, six months or six years. It you know people are just the work is going to speak for itself, so it has to be you know really good.

Christine Code: 9:43

Oh gosh. Well, this is going to come back to the consistency and hard work. You know, I realize some people have you know full time jobs and they don't have the time to put in. But even if you can just put in 20 minutes at the end of the day just to increase your skills and take a few. Workshops from from a few of your favorite artists. You know, find your weaknesses and then seek out the workshops that are going to help with those weaknesses. But don't workshop too much. You don't want to be a workshop tourist because it's just too much information coming at you, and then you don't have time to actually apply it, because that's that's where you really learn is in in applying the techniques and skills that you learn. I've taken a few workshops, and I find that some of the things I'm taught I could I can apply to my work, and then some of the things I have to discard because it just is just not me, and then eventually, you know, you take from here and take from there, and eventually it just amalgamates into your own style. So, yeah, I would say paint every day as often as possible, and put in the hard work, and good things will come. Be be consistent in all things, and be able to compare your. I hate saying that. I hate telling people to compare, but just to be able to know where your weaknesses are and improve upon them, and just keep improving. You have to have that drive to keep improving. I mean, there's never a point where I say, "Oh, there, I've done it. I've painted my masterpiece. I can retire now. I mean, that that just never happens. I will always, until the end, want to improve. I think about one in 10 paintings I am 100% happy with. Only one in 10, and those other nine, it's like, oh, I could, you know, I could use some work in this area or that area. So it's like my brain is always 10 steps ahead of where my ability to execute, and so you know, just keep going, keep being curious and trying to improve.

Chris Krupinski: 12:01

Take a few classes to teach you the basics to get you started. Do not become a workshop junkie because that's not going to get you better. You need to you need to find things. You need to learn the basics, and then you need to find things that you can apply to you, and then you put the time in. Again, we get back to that, and that is to me that's the key to everything. I don't. I often wonder what talent is. I, you know, that is such a gray area and such a gray word, if you ask me. Because is talent your ability to see is talent your your mind opening up to something? I mean, I can move my hand really straight. I can draw a straight line without a ruler. Is that talent or is that just my muscle? It's just so. I think talent is more a predisposition to like something or to have an interest in something. You know, to be able to focus on something, but I don't think, I don't think I was born with a brush in my hand being able to create a painting. I think that maybe I've always been predisposed to see things maybe a little bit differently. So I've always questioned what is talent, and I've never gotten a good response from anybody, so I think the most important thing is time. Above all, time.

Laura Arango Baier: 13:51

Here's where it gets tricky. Right around the time your hand finally starts to catch up with your eye, a new

danger shows up: 13:57

the pull to sound like everyone else. Thomas Schaller, Paul Batch, and Kim Casefier on tuning out the noise and finding your own voice.

Thomas Schaller: 14:07

I have an answer, but I want it to be clear and not sound patronizing or something. I always advise people who ask me, "Do you have any advice for me if I want to break into the world of fine art, or improve my art, or develop my own personal style, whatever your goals are, and I mean this with all sincerity, don't take too much advice. I mean, listen. Sure, people offer advice generally well-meaning, and they may have something useful to say, but do not be afraid to pick through it carefully and say, like you're shopping for a shirt at the store. This one fits, but it doesn't look good on me. This one, yeah, this is me. What I'm saying by all those words is, we have a voice, an artistic voice in the back of our heads that I think takes, for me at least, an enormous amount of practice and work to first find and then begin to listen to. But it knows what it's talking about. It knows what you want. It knows what feels right for you. It knows what doesn't feel right for you. Figuring out in this world what we don't want, what doesn't fit, I think is just as important as figuring out what does. So trust your interior voice. So people may give you wonderful, heartfelt advice, but don't be afraid to put it on the shelf or even ignore it if it doesn't seem like a good fit. I think we all know what we need to do to get our work in front of other people, and then ultimately prioritize if painting, if you want it to be a priority, make it a priority. Do it every day. Just carve out a space in your life that belongs to you, and say, "This is mine, and this is where I create art, and make it an essential part of your day, the same way as breathing, or or breakfast, or exercise, or whatever it may be. It's just prioritize it.

Paul Batch: 16:37

It's tough when you're learning, and I think I I see some people they get hung up too much about a style early on or how something's supposed to look and you're just supposed to learn how to paint. It takes long enough to learn how to paint. If you say your question again, you how do you find your own style or no

Laura Arango Baier: 16:57

your own voice? Yeah,

Paul Batch: 16:58

your own voice, right? So I. you've got to go and just paint the stuff that's important to you, and not worry about the cool thing you just saw on Instagram, and go and try to copy it. You know, you can just paint the corner of your room. It doesn't have to be something that's in vogue, or everybody's doing this. Let me try to do that, or whatever. You know, you can just go in the backyard and paint your fence. Like, not literally paint your fence like a karate kid, but like you know, you know, you don't have to go far to get inspiration, but you should get inspired by your life and the things around you.

Kim Casebeer: 17:43

I think there's so much advice we could give, but I think the overall one that I really need to say is that you have to be authentically yourself. Now, that is easier for me to say, perhaps, than somebody just starting out, and so I also tell people it is absolutely okay to to look at different what what other artists are doing, and to maybe there's something about what they do that you click that clicks with you, and you want to try that, and so you try on these different these different hats. You try on being a you know this type of landscape painter or a plein air landscape painter, and then after a while though after trying different things you have to figure out for yourself what who you are, and and I that's a very important aspect of being an artist. Eventually, you have to start feeling comfortable in your own skin and and and not trying to pretend to be another artist just because they sell well or or some other reason that you that you find. Yeah. So I I it might be that might seem like kind of an abstract type of bit of advice, but but but I think it's so important. I really think it's so important, and we are we are bombarded with all these images on social media and other at other places now, and so we see what everybody is doing. And I think now more than ever, it's so hard to get out of that mindset of looking at what everyone else is doing and reminding yourself of who you are.

Laura Arango Baier: 19:33

Now, for the part nobody covers in art school, money. A studio practice is a small business, whether you signed up for that or not, Erik Koppel, Emma Kalff, and Barbara Jaenicke on treating your art like the business it has to be if you want to keep making

Erik Koeppel: 19:48

it. One one thing that you just said in in your your last speech that just. Just struck me as a point that I that I think is probably universal, universally important to everyone. And this is just a business measure. Is you use the term I think like undercutting the gallery. I would also consider that practice as undercutting the value of your own work, and so something that has been absolutely crucial to

me: 20:28

keeping these open, honest relationships with these galleries, even while selling my work at a wide variety of venues and contexts, has been. I have been like crazy about price point stabilization by size, and that like, if if you can't do that, you're not going to have good relationships with galleries because like you just can't do it. Like you can't, you can't have it be like, oh, all I have to do is go find the artist on the internet where all artists can be found now, and I can get half price or even 75% or or whatever. So like I just don't do that. Like I consider my prices to be the prices of a work that size, and what commission I get from what dealer or or wherever that goes, is nobody else's business but mine and that dealer. And there's a vast variety that artists will find in the market, and like you just have to work it out with each person that you work with. But as far as the public-facing pricing of the work by size, it should be cut and dry across the board. And you'll find that if that's the case, you're you're gonna suddenly have less people that are trying to bug you about these. Like, oh, do you you know well do you value your own work at the price it's being sold at and so if the answer to that question is yes then like I don't see it as like you know oh this little painting is say five you know say it's 5000 for this gallery well that's I see that I don't see that as 2500 for me. Like I just you know if it's a 50% gallery, like I just see that as a $5,000 painting, and maybe it's at a 15% gallery, and maybe it's at a 50% gallery. I'm still going to see that as a$5,000 painting across the board, and I I think that is what artists should do because that way, you know, you're honest and like you can sleep at night and you don't have to worry about well, you know, somebody's going to go to the country and buy the painting for that or whatever. You know, it just makes it really cut and dry. This is the value. This is the market. You know, and you do that over a long period of time, then you have collectors that expect those prices to be universal, and like you build stability into your market for your work.

Emma Kalff: 23:14

Yeah, my advice would be to. I think if you spend an hour on your craft, like whatever art that you're making, spend an hour on the business side. So if you spend a day in the studio, spend the next day, you know, marketing and on your computer and like researching that sort of stuff, like that has really helped me to make a balance of it because I think it's really easy to get sucked into one side or the other, of like, oh, I have to market myself super hard, and then you're not painting or you're not, you know, in the studio, or it can go the other way too, where you're like, oh, I just like don't want to email today, and I'm just gonna. But it's really helped me to have that like sort of one-to-one balance, and I think over time, if you if you really stick to that, like it's almost like a mathematical certainty that you will get somewhere, and like you diversify your your avenues, and you just keep on chipping away at it. You'll get somewhere.

Barbara Jaenicke: 24:32

You know, all artists approach their careers a little bit differently. So you know, I don't think there's a one size fits all for that, but I think for anyone, you just the first thing you have to do is make sure you are constantly pushing your skills as high as you can. You know, I have had people ask me that when I know that their their skills aren't. They should be to be able to generate an income from it, but but then I've also known other people who have the skill but really don't put the effort into actually getting the business side of it going. So that could go either way, but you know I think, yeah. I mean, getting your skills as high as you can. If you're not an organized person, which artists often aren't, but it's one of those things that it's a skill you have to develop. You just have to become good at it. I know for me, what I lack is an innate sense of patience. That's a skill that I've had to learn to be patient at the easel, and I'm still not all the time. But I'm not a patient person in other areas of my life, so that is something that you may have to at least pretend you have a skill that you may not have. So, time management for anything again-it's that you know self-employment thing. Whatever it is that you do, if you're self-employed, you have to learn how to manage your time well, understand the business side of it, and constantly be very forward-thinking in terms of knowing, you know, what opportunities are ahead, what you need to prepare for, so you don't miss those opportunities. Whether it's entering a show or having opportunities to get your work published, you know, any of those, you want to constantly know the opportunities that are around the corner and plan for them, and always have plenty of opportunities down the road that may be, you know, income generating opportunities. You do, unfortunately, you do. If you want to make a living at it, you you have to consider those. You can't just be an artist for you know art's sake and not want to deal with with any of that. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to be smart about it if you do want to do this as a business and you know be a self employed person. So you have to you know balance that those you know increased skills that you'll continually push with what you have to do for the business side of it.

Laura Arango Baier: 27:31

If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to ask our guest 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 10th of September with our special guest Daniel Gerharts. You can find the sign-up link in the show notes. If there's one word that came up more than any other across 100 interviews, it wasn't talent and it wasn't even passion. It was discipline. Stephanie Marzella and Cindy Barron.

Stephanie Marzella: 28:18

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.

Cindy Baron: 29:02

You just got to do it. You know, there's a there's a famous slogan. It's not my slogan, but you know, it's a Nike slogan. It says, "Just do it. You just got to do it, but don't procrastinate. Because guess what? You might not be able to paint tomorrow. You know, so you got to do it today. So don't procrastinate. We made that word as artists try to try to eliminate eliminate that in your vocabulary. So you just gotta go. You just gotta do it, and don't procrastinate. And just know there's a space for you somewhere. There's a lot of artists out there. There's a space for you. You can find that space. You know, it's it's it it will happen if you work hard enough for it. I have a a great work ethic, and I have goals, I have my faith, and I have my family. So you know, I put everything in the proper order and just do it. Tomorrow is. Not promised. I didn't make that slogan, but tomorrow is not promised for anybody. You know, so do it today. So that's that's the best advice I can give you, and don't worry about failure. I'm still failing.

Laura Arango Baier: 30:14

None of this happens in a vacuum either. Almost every artist on the show at some point credits a mentor, a group, a community that kept them going when they wanted to quit. Ginny Butcher and Scott Tallman Powers on why you don't have to do this alone.

Ginny Butcher: 30:28

I would say find a mentor or a group who also is doing that. Just find some people who can help you along the way, where you can brainstorm together, network, just support, encourage each other, and yeah, find the help that you need to do it, and the support you need to do it, and do it as as you're able. I mean, it's so different depending on your age, and and where you are at in life. I mean, if I was starting out, and of course knew what I knew now, I would just do it. When I didn't, you know, because I didn't have any big expenses, I wasn't married, I didn't have kids, I had a dog, I, you know, my expenses were minimal. I was very mobile, and it's, yeah, do it, but find find some some people to come alongside you in it is I think big.

Scott Tallman Powers: 31:44

Get hooked up with a get hooked up with a group of people that that get together to paint portraits or paint landscapes together. I started this this group called Plain Air Painters of Chicago years and years ago, and they're still going on now. And they have a large group of people. They go out every Saturday and they paint outside, and just being around other artists and and sharing your ideas and and their advice, and I learned a lot from people that I painted with about how I could get into shows and get into galleries and finding out a lot more information than I could have ever gleaned on my own, and and then doing like like competitions, just getting it, getting your name out there, and because you never know when you might get discovered by a gallery, just because you had your work in a show, and and just constant constantly train, constantly practice all the time, and because it's always going to be your work is going to be the most important thing that you're going to be leading with, and you have to constantly get better. And and we're still doing it now, you know. Constantly training, constantly trying to get better, and and talk to somebody that has some good business sense with with building the business side of your of your career. Yeah, I I wish I would have done that earlier on, you know. I was just so fixated on the painting. I wasn't thinking as much as I should have been about building a foundation, like a business foundation, because that just wasn't the way my mind was working. I was obsessive, compulsive artist.

Laura Arango Baier: 33:38

And last, a word on the long game and how you treat yourself while you're playing it, because a career, unlike a painting, is never really finished. Liz Haywood Sullivan, Kyle Stuckey, and S. C. Mummert.

Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 33:51

Don't be too hard on yourself. Don't beat yourself up too much. We're very good at doing that, and so and that's it's it's easy to say, it's hard to do, but just realize that. Okay, so I'll tell you one thing. There's a wonderful fellow by the name of Dr. Eric Mizell. He writes about he's a creativity coach, and he used to write an article when there were was a magazine called Art Calendar Magazine. He wrote about the psychology of painting. This magazine was great. It had articles on finance, on legal issues, on it was all about the business side of art. And then back then, it was where you would find out where there were grants and where there were exhibition opportunities and things like that. It would come out monthly, and I always went to his article first, and. And he, one of his books is called the Van Gogh Blues. I picked that up. One day, I just couldn't get out of my own way. You know, I can dig a big hole and drag myself into it just as easily as anybody else. And I just was looking through the back of the book, and I found something. And I dug into the book, and he was talking about how, and you talk about cyclical, how cyclical the creativity of art is, and that things we've all heard of-black and white, yin yang, you know, nature, the seasons, the year-so apply it to art and apply it to our creative process. And you cannot maintain that outward flow of creativity all the time. That you need to have the quiet times to support the creative Times, however, we are we talk about a writer's block, an artist's block, a slump. These are all negative words. We shouldn't be looking at as that. This is the winter time, the fall and the winter. This is a time for us to be taking in, so we can put out. It changes your whole way of thinking about the cyclical nature of painting. So that's where I have been able to say to myself, "It's okay. I've got a couple cycles. One cycle is a three-month cycle. I couldn't figure it out. I mean, when I when I'm painting, when I first started painting, every three months, I you know I keep a log of all I inventory of my paintings, the ones that were good, and I would have a burst of paintings every three months, and then I would have paintings I'd still be painting, but they weren't worthy to go into my inventory. There were pieces I was destroying, I was working over that weren't finished, etc. So I have a three-month cycle of, and so it's like, for instance, knowing that I'm in one of my creative points right now after the holidays, January. I don't schedule anything. This is when, except this. This is when, but this is in the afternoon. Notice, so I I protect that. So January and February are really important times for me to paint. There's nothing going on outside. There's nothing pulling me out there. This is good time for me to be in my studio. No workshops. Uh-uh. Quiet time. And then I have a Daily cycle, morning. I'm on. I'm off the early afternoon. I come back on late afternoon, but that's when it's got getting ready for dinner, family, socialize, etc. So this is my time, and so I'm not trying to paint in the afternoon when I'm not going to be successful. That's time for me to take a nap, for me to take in, and when I start with my paintings, when my paintings start to stru, I start to struggle too much with them. Time to go go to a gallery. Time to ask a friend to meet me for lunch at the MFA in the city, time to pull one of my many many art magazines out or or art books, time for me to just scribble in my sketchbook, and instead of beating myself up, and I, if I can save Somebody from having to do that and from doing that to themselves by passing this on again, coming you know from Eric through me to you, it's because that that would be my parting statement is to be good for good to yourself, look for your cycles, look for and and and eliminate the negative the negative words when you're not being able to create as much. Take care of yourself then. Take in.

Kyle Stuckey: 39:35

You're going to have to put in a lot of time, and you're going to have to be resilient. You're not going to get through an art career without the real high highs and the real low lows, kind of we talked about before. But I think that's, I think that's really important for success. You can be winning. Reward after reward, and you're thinking, "Oh, I like I made. There is like he said, like there's no end to the journey, right? Like there is no top of the mountain in this career. There's just the journey, and you're gonna get like these beautiful views every once in a while, and then you're gonna trip and fall on the rocks. It is what it is. So, kind of just being like, I think be prepared for those, and being thick, thick skinned. I think that's like what also makes it challenging. Is like this art, like creating art is so like personal and so it's so vulnerable. I guess we're creating work that is kind of just like our feelings and expressions of the world that we live in, and at the same time, you have to be thick-skinned enough to take rejection, and and that balance can be a little bit challenging. So be resilient and be hopeful and and passionate in your work. I think is you have to do these two things. You got to be tough and and vulnerable at the same time.

Laura Arango Baier: 41:23

Yeah,

Kyle Stuckey: 41:24

that's from just a feeling sense. And work a lot, just paint a lot. You can go to as many workshops as you want, or read the best books. You could read Richard's book 100 times over, but if you're not trying with the paintbrush, it's not going to matter. So, so you just got to like dedicate time to the easel, whether that's a half hour day, whatever you got, you know, whatever you can do. But it has to be consistent. Consistency is, is I think, is key for any success. You know, if you don't, if you don't show up for the muse, the muse is going to stop showing up for you in a sense. So, get in behind the easel when you can, and do it as much as you can in whatever phase of life you're in, and then then the chances are you're gonna you're gonna be able to do it. Yeah, yeah, because it's not impossible by any means. It's just, it's just challenging.

SC Mummert: 42:24

I would say a constant pursuit of growth. You know, that's probably the that's probably the I don't know if it's the defining. Maybe it is, thing within my own life. You know that I have made a choice. I've made a decision to, like Michelangelo, I'm still learning. You know, I mean, so so if if someone has that in their heart to go ahead and to be a better artist tomorrow than they are today, if they really embrace that, and that's hard. It's hard to do. You know, it's rewarding, but it's hard to do. It's like go making sure you're going to the gym so you can take and end up where you want to go. But that if if it's that constant pursuit of being being better, a lot of the stuff that that decision to embrace, you know, infinite pains, you know, is is basically we'll just say an expression of genius. You know, if you're pursue, if you're if you're prepared to continually grow and grow and improve and improve, that will eventually, in some manner, lead you to that to manifesting a level of excellence that that is going to be hard for everybody to deny, you know. And it'll just show up. And then I was I actually had the privilege of meeting Clint Watson, I was had a three man show in San Antonio, and what a what a great guy! And it was funny because we went to lunch with him and some of the gang there in San Antonio, and he said something interesting. He said, "Our gallery, and he said, you know, we're all waiting around for the next undiscovered talent to walk through the door, or something like that, you know. And we all chuckled about that. But I'm I'm saying that because that applies to every gallery. I think every gallery, if you happen to use galleries, which you don't have to, but you need to understand they have overhead. That you know they've got rent, insurance, lighting. You know, make the list of all the when they spend the key on that thing every day as a businessman. Every every day when they open that thing up, they have expenses coming at them. Their own income needs to be justified. You know, where they can make sure that gallery is profitable, where they can they've got a home and mortgage and all this. So the point is, they need quality artists that are going to sell, you know, ideally for a bunch of money, for their sake too. And so they're looking for talent, and and every day, and and that's really kind of what Clint was saying that you know that they they need they need the talent. So when people are trying to get in a gallery, we'll just say they they have to know that if their work is we'll just say good enough. I don't know what that means. Every gallery is going to be different. How they view that, but the point is, if if the work is good enough, quote, the gallery will fall over themselves trying to get in a gallery because they need that quality work for their own good and for their sales and for their income and profitability. But if you have that mindset that you're going to, whether you're in a gallery or not in a gallery, that you're going to be better tomorrow than you are today, then I think there's a natural, you know, that there's a natural flow to that. That there's a day will show up when people are pursuing you more than you're pursuing them.

Laura Arango Baier: 46:09

We'll leave you with painter Robert Goldman on what this whole strange, difficult, genuinely beautiful career actually adds up to in the end. Thanks for spending this time with us. If any of these voices spoke to you today. Go find their full episodes. We've linked all of them in the show notes, and we'll see you next week.

Robert Goldman: 46:26

My friend Wayne Tebow used to say, "You, when it comes to that kind of a question, he he would say you may not be able to make a living, but you can make a life. And by that he meant just being absorbed in the whole art enterprise. You meet new people, you you meet new collectors, whatever. But you you you do have to, you know, have some some form of income if it's a side job, whatever it is, and because it's tough, you know, it really is. And you know, you-it's like they say about fame: you can be up one year and down the next. You know, you just never know.

Laura Arango Baier: 47:20

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 you.