Lara Bianca Pilcher: 0:00

You should never wait for somebody to stamp approval, because even creating your own stuff is going to create momentum in opportunities that you are waiting for. And so I say, pursue your own ideas and dreams while chasing the opportunities that only someone else, the gatekeeper, can open. Do them both at the same time, where other people just see the result, they see the painting, go, "Wow, what an incredible artist! You're like it took me audacity to believe that I had the skill to put this out there.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:27

Welcome to the Faso Podcast, where we believe that fortune favors of old 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. For today's episode, we sat down with Laura Bianca Pilcher, an Australian performing artist based in Atlanta with nearly 30 years of professional experience, and is also an author, TEDx speaker, and coach who specializes in helping artists. Her book*Audacious Artistry* grew out of her experience mentoring creatives and noticing that strong artistic skills alone don't prepare people for the pressures of a creative career. She encourages artists to claim their creative space and make their own opportunities rather than wait for permission, commissions, or validation, to handle comparison and rejection, she advises artists to focus on their own path, treat setbacks as a part of recurring creative rhythm, and keep returning to their practice. For artists pursuing a livelihood, she recommends protecting the creative process while also considering marketing and distribution, starting from an authentic idea and letting market knowledge inform, not dictate the work. Finally, she urges artists to build community, such as an artist circle, so they can talk through challenges rather than face them in isolation. Welcome, Laura, to the Faso Podcast. How are you today?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 1:57

I am fantastic. It's so good to talk with you across oceans from America to Europe somewhere,

Laura Arango Baier: 2:05

yeah, all the way to Sweden. Yeah, it's awesome to talk to you because you have quite an interesting background. I'm so happy you actually you know reach out to us because I'm so happy to put you on on my map since you literally what you do is help artists try to find themselves, and I find that that's something that our audience would definitely benefit from. Besides the fact that, of course, you are an artist yourself, you know, a performing artist, which is also quite unusual for the podcast, since a lot of us are visual artists on here. But I'm so excited to have you. So thank you.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 2:37

Thank you for having me.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:38

Of course, yeah. But before we dive into your wonderful advice for artists, do you mind telling us a bit about who you are and what you do?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 2:47

Yes. Well, Laura Bianca Pilcha. I'm Australian, but I live in Atlanta, Georgia. So I am miles away, which very much has been the story of my life as an international artist. You go where the work is, and I am almost 30 years as a performing artist professionally, and in March of this year became a writer, so a different expression of my artistry. I got traditionally published, which is very hard to do, and the book's called Audacious Artistry. And I'm also a TEDx speaker and an ICFPCC, which is a life coach, and I specialize with artists. So multifaceted, but I spend my days either creating art or helping others to live a creative life.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:32

Beautiful, beautiful, and that's also again why I'm excited about having you because you have so much experience, and I think being an artist is hard enough already. Just having, yeah, just the basic standard of like, okay, be a really good artist, and then what? You know, there's there's so much to that besides making really good work or making work that actually speaks to you. It's just it's a really difficult career.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 3:57

It's so difficult. I have to agree with you. I think we all love it. That's what keeps us in it. But it is hard. It

Laura Arango Baier: 4:04

is hard. But we all, I think we, the challenge is kind of what we find to be the fun part, which is a little bit of a double-edged sword, of course, because it can beat us up. But it's so satisfying when it works out as well. Yeah,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 4:21

totally, totally. Yes,

Laura Arango Baier: 4:24

but yeah, and I wanted to ask you too because you yourself, you know, being a performing artist, do you mind telling us a bit about when you started your artistic path?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 4:32

Yeah, I actually grew up in the north of Australia in this little town called Port Hedland. It sounds like the beginning of a Disney movie. Cue song. I want to be where the people are at. And but what was so beautiful is that creativity was just part of my life. And I'm so blessed that I grew up before AI, before the internet took over. It was around, but it wasn't like everybody's life before cell phones and. Mobile phones and before all of the stuff that got everyone to stay inside. So we had a yard, and I could I had animals lore, and I could create, and I was allowed to create. My mother actually celebrated creativity, and I remember making up concerts, performing arts concert, singing, dancing, acting, and charging the neighbors 50 cents to come and watch me. And the crazy thing is, is that they did, which blows my mind to this day. But that creativity and that freedom and that expression has stayed with me through all of my life. And for those listening who you know didn't get to grow up having that celebrated, and chose it anywhere. You know the value of how beautiful it is to be able to live a creative life and to be able to, I would say, highly value creative expression in many different formats, whether it's through writing or singing, dancing, acting, or for the many listeners who are visual artists.

Laura Arango Baier: 6:04

Beautiful. Yeah, yeah. I've had artists on both camps where they've had wonderful amounts of support, and other artists who never found that support, and then later down the line, finally said, "I can't take it anymore. I need to paint, or I need to, you know, go out and do some watercolor or do some sculpture. I think it's something that you kind of just are are born with to an extent, and then it comes out eventually, hopefully.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 6:31

Yeah, you're absolutely born with it, and it's wonderful when it's celebrated because it is our first language, really, and it's so beautiful, isn't it, to get to do it. But so many don't. You're so right. For cultural reasons, or geographic reasons, or financial reasons, they weren't necessarily. But I grew up somewhere where there were no opportunities at all. I didn't grow up in London. I moved there later. There was no opportunity, and I think that's one of the best things for creativity because you're forced to create, and I was able to do that without seeing the way we are now, the constant sort of level of everybody around me. So it could just come from within, and I think that's so beautiful.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:10

Yeah, yeah, and it's important that it comes from within and not from some outside pressure, because then that that will definitely destroy you if you allow it. If you let it, yes, yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah. But I also wanted to ask you. You know, when did you start working with other artists? When did you think, like, okay, maybe like there's something that I'm seeing that I can help others with? When did you decide to help?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 7:36

It was very innate and normal for me. I was so blessed. By 17, I had moved to Sydney to do my first degree, creative arts degree, and I majored in dance, and that was fantastic. And it enabled me already at that point. They had student representatives, so I was able to become the rep for the students. But I would say even earlier than that, I was working at McDonald's of all places in my teens in high school, and I became a crew trainer. So this sort of leadership thread goes right through my life, and since I've lived and worked in Australia, United Kingdom, in London for nearly eight years, and then now I'm in the United States, and so I've had this global experience as both a performer, but also mentoring, teaching, educating, coaching other creatives in London. I used to run gatherings in Covent Garden in a little cafe, where my husband and I would invite artists, and we would just gather and encourage each other, and eat together, and do life together, which was really wonderful. But I found myself post pandemic in California as a associate professor of acting at a Californian arts conservatory, and I was training third years and beyond first, second, third for the industry, and I could see a pattern that they were fantastic at their craft. They knew that what they were doing, and we're talking. There was film writers. There was all different screenwriters, different genres of art, and I could see the pattern that the real world experience that I had had across different nations, from grassroots to leading global stages, had some similar themes that they didn't know because they hadn't been out there doing it, and that's really the beginning of when I wrote Audacious Artistry because the framework for that was a creative brief. Because you know, as a visual artist, if somebody's commissioning you to do something, they're going to say, "I want this kind of art," and sometimes these kind of colors they might say muted colors or whatever they say, and those limitations, which I love, I love limitations in art. I think art thrives with them, but will be put on you. And but you get that creative brief, or in my profession, you get like a casting breakdown or whatever. And when you get that, it's very normal for your art. But how many times has an artist been given one? For their character and what's going to sustain their art over many many years, so that's what the book Audacious Artistry became was the creative brief for the character of an artist, and so it goes back to of course McDonald's and has continued has continued all around the world ever since until it became a book.

Laura Arango Baier: 10:22

Beautiful, yeah, yeah, and it makes perfect sense that it it is a framework that seems to happen in all the arts to some extent, or you know, obviously, kind of moves a little bit, but it's pretty much the same because a creative process requires such a particular foundation to be able to function and to continue, because I know that a lot of people they just say like, oh, you know, just be disciplined and like do this, and but but there's more than just the discipline, right? I mean, it can be disciplined, but then you still might be missing a piece of of the puzzle, right? I think in in Eastern philosophy, there's this really interesting perspective of like, if you have the right viewpoint, right? If you're looking in the correct direction and you walk towards it, you're great. But if you're looking in the wrong direction and you're walking straight that way, you're gonna have a lot more work to do to go back the other way. You know,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 11:19

that's so true. It's such a good, I guess, metaphor, visual metaphor of of it. An artist life is so challenging, so you really need a certain type of personality to sustain that career. I think that's why so many people lose their creativity and artistry is they they don't really have that framework of how to continue.

Laura Arango Baier: 11:38

Yes, yeah, I totally agree because it always feels like, and I'm sure you know many of our listeners, including myself too, have gone through the whole like, oh, it's gonna, I'm starting now, I'm doing it now, and then it kind of like peters out after a little bit, and then suddenly you're burnt out and you're exhausted, and and then you're wondering, oh, what what keeps going wrong, you know?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 11:58

That's so real, and we can end up feeling like oh I hate being an artist and we don't we hate everything around what we get to do because it takes and pulls from us and our creativity but the creative expression itself is what we've always loved it's just a part of who we are but it's hard to get to that isn't it when you're surrounded with these pressures that pull you away

Laura Arango Baier: 12:19

oh yeah yeah especially with the internet and social media and and everything, I think it's we're in a very it's both a blessing and a curse. Obviously, because social media and you know you can you can get found and seen, and there's less gatekeepers, which we will touch on a bit later. But at the same time, it's there's so much pressure. Even if you're just sitting around, it's like, oh my gosh, I should be doing something, recording myself or doing this thing, and it's it's so much. It's

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 12:48

constant, constant FOMO. And I posted a Threads post the other day that went viral because I said, can we talk about? I actually put it on Instagram this morning as well. But can we talk about how much money it costs to be an artist before you even start being able to make money from your art and just to sustain being an artist, all the visual artists got on there and told me how much stuff they have to buy before they can even make money from their art. So it's just pressure, pressure, pressure. Yes,

Laura Arango Baier: 13:17

yeah, I'm I'm in that stage. It feels like, oh, I think I have everything now. Wait, I totally forgot. I also

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 13:24

need like a giant

Laura Arango Baier: 13:25

bag of chalk, or I need this other thing. And you really don't realize how much you need until you know you're starting over. Like I'm, you know, moved to a new country, so of course I had to start over, get an easel, get all the stuff, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I kind of wish I had just paid for an extra suitcase so I could carry more of the stuff that I already had back home. But yeah, I actually also wanted to ask you since we were mentioning, you know, how so many of us artists kind of feel lost and then we find our path and we get lost again. Was there a moment for you when when you felt that your own artistry was lost. What was happening done for you?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 14:03

Yeah. Oh, I call it the dark night of the soul. Except it's not a night. It goes on for many months. And I say that because so many artists can be nodding right now. Yes. In yes, those dark seasons of the soul. But it came out of. I was in London, and I was able to spread my artistic wings so wide. It's like before that they'd been in a little glass box, and I was able to actually fully expand. And I could go and do a dance class at Pineapple Dance Studio. Still there, been there forever. At any time of the day, in any level, I could go to the actors' center and take an acting class. I could go to the leading singers. One of my singing coaches was also Coldplay's singing coach. I could access that level of excellence night and day in London. And if you don't live in a place like that, you go, oh, there's one class at 6o'clock on Wednesday night, and if I can't make it to. You know, but I had that, and I was leading, as I said earlier, in Covent Garden. These artists that were all there chasing their dreams, from visual artists to writers to actors, whatever. And it was just such a beautiful season of creative immersion and expansion. And I was always, I always had my fingers in some kind of artistic pie of some kind, whether I was choreographing something or training, or I did my masters in musical theater creative practice there. I mean, in one of the world's leading conservatories, it was just phenomenal. So Q, Dark Night of the Soul. I have two children, not Dark Night of the Soul, wonderful, but 14 months apart, and I'm in my London apartment, and I can't access any of that anymore because I have children, and they need day and night care. London is extremely expensive, like living in New York or LA, some of these artistic hubs. And so my husband gets a job in Melbourne, Australia, and we decide it's a good idea to move back to Australia. And when I got to Melbourne, I was in the quiet tree-lined suburbs. Beautiful place, beautiful lifestyle, but it was so quiet. And I'd been almost eight years in the inner city, living in the West End. Actually, that was my dream, and I literally remember standing there in the quiet in Australia, feeling grief beyond what I ever expected, just such loss, and I for years grieved, thinking I just really miss London. Why did I do this? Did I make a mistake? Why did I move? But I realized in hindsight what I was missing was that level of creative activity, that level of creative immersion, who I was able to become in that place, I would. I had the best experiences there, and then suddenly I'm like in nappies, knee high in nappies and diapers, in a place with far less opportunity and a culture around me that wasn't necessarily. There's pockets of it, but not the same in terms of celebrating art and appreciation, it is a great city for art. But we're talking village compared to London. It's a tiny village, but it just it wrecked me. It was one of the hardest seasons of my creative life, and I say that because I'm sure everyone listening's had their own season or variation of that.

Laura Arango Baier: 17:20

Oh yeah, yeah, I totally relate. You know, having gone to different art schools and graduated from them, it's always like I kept hearing like, oh, you know, take advantage of you know the time that you're in these schools because it's going to be your most you know connected time and your most inspiring time, and take advantage of having the life model, and you know, now that I'm outside of those spaces, on the one hand, I'm happy I'm out of those spaces because I learned lots, and I felt like it was time to go. Unlike you, where it was like you felt like you got, you know, you had no choice. But it is a really wonderful time to think back on because, oh my gosh, you get access to all these incredible mentors. You get access to all these other artists who inspire you, and that can be great. And it can be wonderful if you know you're facing the right direction. Like I said earlier, because it starts pointing you in the in in a bit of more of like a a direction that you think, oh, this is this is what's socially accepted by this group. I'll just face in this direction and walk that way, not realizing maybe that's maybe that's not what what you should be doing. I think that's also a bit of the hard part about being in those spaces. But if you have control over that, it's a wonderful time.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 18:39

Yeah, really wonderful. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 18:41

yeah, yeah. So I wanted to ask you more about your book, because in your book, the audacious artistry, the creative brief that you mention, it starts with the objective, which is an artist who claims their creative space and acts without waiting for permission or validation. Why did you frame identity as a brief, and why is not waiting for validation the starting point?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 19:08

Yeah, this is so important because what happens, and because I've worked in, like I said, grew up with no opportunities in Port Hedland, went to London where there was numerous opportunities. So I'm I wrote this book around the fact that what stays the same, and that is that I have a love for creative expression, and what happened to me in London is I started to get into that competitive Olympic kind of level I call it for arts, not literal Olympics, but of competition, and I've seen what that level of saturation and competition did to me and to so many. I had over 200 artists at one point meeting with me in Covent Garden, and similar themes of what happens when you start waiting to be chosen, or start waiting for your art to get that to get commissioned, or to get put in the gallery. And we start to sometimes stop expressing our own creativity because we're waiting for someone to give us the job or whatever, and so we can lose things in different seasons of our life. And and in these pauses between jobs or between commissions or between, you're still becoming somebody. Something's still happening to you, and you don't want to lose the reason you got into it in the first place. And then all of that not getting work can start to make us doubt ourselves, doubt that we have anything to say, doubt that the silence speaks, whether you like it or not. And that is is actually the I'll get into that later, but what why I did the TED talk on the hidden cost of waiting to be chosen. But I'll come back to that. But it starts with the objective that you need to claim your space and take back that power, whether you have been commissioned or whatever it is in the season you're in. And a great example of this is my friend Lucinda, who lives in Perth, Western Australia? It is not an artistic hub. It is not London. It's not LA. She created her own dance company, applied for funding, got funding. Not not easy to do. So I list that like it's easy. Then she collaborated with visual artists. She took dance out of the theaters into a winery, which is stunning, yes, stunning, pairs each choreographic piece with a visual art piece, a taste of wine in a winery, and a psalm that people can read, and creates this incredible immersive experience in a culture that doesn't normally get anything like that. Which to me is the most beautiful evening, which I would want to be at, experiencing the visual art, the dance, the the wine, the the reading of Psalm, like just stunning. And she did all of that without somebody giving her that opportunity. And that's what this book is about. It's like, look what's in you. And she's an incredible person, incredible artist, very highly skilled. But you should never wait for somebody to stamp approval, because even creating your own stuff is going to create momentum in opportunities that you are waiting for. And so I say pursue your own ideas and dreams while chasing the opportunities that only someone else, the gatekeeper, can open. Do them both at the same time, and a lot of people find that really hard because we're told create your own work, create your own work. It's actually kind of hard. Again, that's why audacious artistry has that framework of like, what are the steps that I need to be doing in order to show up like that? Because it's audacious, it's audacity to and and boldness to be able to show up in life like that. It takes so much courage. Like we were just talking about off mic, how nervous I was doing a TEDx, how terrifying it was, the audacity it took to believe I had something to say, where other people just see the result, they see the painting, go, "Wow, what an incredible artist!" You're like, it took me audacity to believe that I had the skill to put this out there, not knowing where it's going to end up. So yeah, you've got to convict, come from that place of conviction rather than waiting for validation.

Laura Arango Baier: 23:11

Absolutely, yeah. I think one of my favorite things to ask myself is why not? You know,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 23:18

so why not? Why not? Yeah, why not?

Laura Arango Baier: 23:20

It's like why not? Who cares? I mean, the worst thing that can happen is I fail, and then oh no! Like I learned. Like that's awful, and it can feel awful.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 23:29

It does. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 23:30

But I think if you have, if you learn to not have too high expectations, and you know, just do the best you can with what you know, and

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 23:38

yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 23:39

it'll be fine. Like there are worse things that can happen.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 23:43

So true. There are worse things that can happen than trying and failing.

Laura Arango Baier: 23:49

Exactly. Yeah, and and I think you know you mentioned a lot of really wonderful things in the book. That I think one of my favorite phrases that you had was compare and despair, which I think is also one of those things that really pulls artists from creating. Which is that there are so many incredible artists online that are so easily, you know, you can access their work really easily, and you can compare and despair, like your book says, and just really just be like, oh man, how dare I? Or oh, I was gonna paint that, and someone else already kind of did a similar motif, and now I'm worried that people are gonna think I'm ripping them off, or, or I could never do it as well as they did. You know, I think that's also one of those hurdles that's really hard to overcome for some people.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 24:39

Yeah, it's really true, and there's an old expression that you would probably be familiar with: that to do good art, you've got to see good art, and that all art is made up of some idea we saw somewhere or some inspiration that we saw somewhere. So there, there is that beauty of being able to see all of that more easily, which is incredible. But I like to think of it this way because we're coming up to the Christmas season, and when you do that big celebration, or in the in the US Thanksgiving, but of course being an Australian, I never grew up doing that. But you have these things where people bring a dish to Thanksgiving or to Christmas, and you know you might sometimes do a sign up thing where you have to pick what you're going to bring, so we don't all bring the same thing. But the point is, there's more food than you could possibly eat. You don't need that much food, and everybody still brings a dish because the job is to contribute. That's your creative brief. Contribute to the table because everybody brings, and then we all get a little taste of everything, and that's how I see art: is that you can be overwhelmed with the saturation of how many dishes there are, but your job is not to sit in the overwhelm. It's to contribute and bring a dish and put it on the table, and contribute to the global conversation, and say, "Yeah, you know what? There's a lot on here, but my job's to bring my dish, and let that go. The rest of it go because we don't want to get stuck in this comparison. Like I grew up in the dance studio. Not only am I in a leered, hardened tights in that environment where you're seeing every bump and curve of your body, and every not bump and curve of the girl or the or whoever next to you, but there's a mirror just to amplify it all around the room from every angle, and you're seeing how high someone else's leg goes, and and the technique and all of that, and you can see these environments of competition, which now transfer to the online space, and you can just go compare despair. And I'm not going to contribute to that Christmas table and meal because it's just too painful, but that's not your job. Your job is to be inspired by that around you and bring your dish. And if you don't, you're not contributing. And that's the space that I think we need to sit in, and the the mindset we need to sit in as creatives of all kinds, no matter what your artistic expression.

Laura Arango Baier: 26:59

Beautiful, yeah, yeah, and that actually leads really well to my next question, which is about how you know it feels like everyone is posting art now, and incredible people are posting art. What does it mean to be seen as an artist, and how can we overcome that feeling? That oh, how like how can I have something to say when it feels like Instagram is super saturated with other painters or all the platforms are just covered in it? How do you like what's one thing that would help an artist really overcome that?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 27:34

Yeah, I think when we look at what we need to bring to overcome, first of all, a lot of us are not even paying any attention to what's going on in our head when we start the scrolling, and so I've become very hyper aware that I can be having a fantastic day and just thinking, "Gee, my career is going so well." Jump online and see someone who's like my not my arch enemy because we don't even know them, but it feels like you've just been stabbed by an arch enemy in the back because suddenly they've got a better publisher, or they've sold more books, or they've got some art piece into some gallery that you could only dream of, or whatever it is, or they're a millionaire from their art, and you're like, "What? My life sucks! I'm a terrible artist. Like, I must, I must be terrible. So there's just this hidden cost to seeing this stuff. But I am so hyper aware of my mind now. When I get online and I go, ah, I was fine before that. So clearly, I'm being triggered. And it's not a difficult shift to learn to do it. It's just awareness to go, okay, I'm triggered. What is it about their life, and it's often not their life at all. It's that it's highlighting something you're aching for, and that you're longing for, and that you're wanting. And when you can actually go, okay, I want that, and what can I do about it? Which is why I do so much work in the coaching space. Then you start to take back control. So for me, it's like put on blinkers, get in your lane in the car on the freeway or the highway. I'm not sure what they're called in each country, and drive as fast as you can, like the wind. Don't look left or right. I mean, this is not a road safety metaphor. Don't don't listen to that in that context. But in the context of ah, and just drive in your lane like the wind, and you will make amazing things with your life if you just stop looking at the lanes next to you. Let be inspired. Sure, that's a nice car. That guy is going really fast. I don't care if he's in front of me, and I don't care what he's doing. I am going to pursue my life in my lane because that's all I've got, and I get one life and one shot at it. So drive.

Laura Arango Baier: 29:41

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 guests 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 third of December with our special guest Ruth Fitten. You can find a sign-up link in the show notes. Yeah, that's beautiful. Also, because there's no one else who's going to be in your lane, right? It's your lane. In this metaphor,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 30:26

it's my lane, and no one's in it. Exactly.

Laura Arango Baier: 30:32

So it's okay to to ride like the wind metaphorically. Please, I say follow follow driving directions wherever you are, if you're listening while driving, but yeah, it's it makes perfect sense, and I I think one of the things that has helped me at least has also just been like, okay, put a time limit on you know any apps that have that you know effect, or like only focus on apps that are inspiring. So, like for example, Google Arts and Culture. I think is one of my favorites because you can just look at paintings, and it's also nice because most of the people are not alive any longer. So it's like ah no threat. But also they're so amazing, and it's like how did they do this? And I think that that's another way of you know trying to like go around that feeling of oh how could I ever which is really tough and actually reminds me of how earlier I mentioned that in your book you talk about not just the real gatekeepers but also like the the mental ones like the figurative ones that we place upon ourselves, which I think is another aspect of your book that I enjoyed because it's like, of course, it's it's all in your head, you know.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 31:49

Yeah, 80% of our quality of life, I would say, like our whole quality of life is in our heads when you think about it, and this comes from the work of someone who I listened to a lot when I was training to be a coach, and I'm trained as an ICFPCC coach, which basically means it's a high qualification with over 100 supervised hours. So it's not like a a little weekend course. It was intense and many many hours where if I ask a wrong question, I would fail my exam. But there was this person called Byron Katie who has a physical disability, and she would amaze people with the way we think and how it destroys it destroys a whole point of view of our quality of life because of the way we're seeing something, and would challenge people around that through her coaching techniques. I thought it was amazing to watch, and that's where I realized, wow, our whole quality of life as an artist is in our head, and you know this person is blind, so there's yes, and then you probably heard of painters that paint with their mouth because they can't paint with. There's there's so many amazing stories in this space for different visual artists and the way that they're showing up because they choose to not let their thoughts and their mind destroy what they can do with their life, and I think that's incredibly beautiful because there's such a cost to the way we think, and I don't think we realize as artists how much it is affecting our ability to show up in what we do. Hence, again, the framework for the brief, the creative brief. Like you need to be so resilient, and resilience was a very popular word a few years ago. Just basically, is like you think of those reeds near water that can bend right down, but they don't snap; they flick back up. It's this flexibility to go. Okay, you know what? Today was hard, but tomorrow is a new day. Or that opportunity didn't happen, but I'm gonna try again. I'm gonna dust myself up, pick myself up, and just try again and keep going. Just keep swimming, as Dory says. Just keep going. Keep creating. Keep making.

Laura Arango Baier: 34:02

Yeah, yeah, and I think sometimes it can be hard to be resilient because I've been I've been there too, where it just feels like things just go from bad to worse, and then it's like it'll be better, and then it just gets a little worse, or like you just overcame that one hurdle, and then suddenly the next one comes, and it just feels kind of this whole

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 34:23

seasons. Yeah. Oh yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 34:25

yeah. I relate to that so hard. Yeah. But I think I I think what's important too is understanding that like we do have a bit of like an all or nothing perspective sometimes about this. Yeah. You know about like oh, if I'm not painting all the time, then I'm not an artist. Or if I'm not, you know, getting all these opportunities, then I'm not an artist. And I think, you know, it's like someone who graduated, you know, became like a surgeon. It's not like they stopped being a surgeon because they're not doing surgery every day, you know.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 34:58

Yeah, it's who you are. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that all or nothing thing is really interesting. What you said because I feel that when we think in black and white, and we often do as artists, which is weird considering how creative our minds are. But there's this ability to go. It's a rhythm. Being an artist is a rhythm, and it's a return. And I did a podcast episode. I have healthy, wealthy, wives artist podcasts, and I do coaching episodes. And I remember talking about it's not it's a return. So it's a like if you have in a season of having children and you've got little ones, rather than thinking in the black and white, I am, I'm not. It's a I am in a rhythm like a musical number, and I get to return to who I am constantly. I didn't get to do it for a month, or I got off the band wagon with my training. But I return, I return, I return. It's a rhythm. It's a song. My life is a song, and I think that's really beautiful. Where you keep coming back to the chorus, you keep coming back to who you are, and so I don't tend to think in the black and white anymore because I think in the rhythm and the return kind of, and I think that's much more true to the creative nature. It's this, it's not ladders, it's spirals. It's like it's we feel like it's up and down, but it's spiraling up, spiraling down, curving left, curving right, like it's all over the place, and when you see that's just the artistic life, that barrenness and those seasons of emptiness feel less painful because you're like, I'm just gonna return again tomorrow or in a week or whatever. Take a break. It's okay.

Laura Arango Baier: 36:35

Yeah, yeah, and especially if you know you've been smart, and you have maybe like a day job that helps alleviate the pressure of oh, if I don't create, you know, I'm I'm screwed for the month, and I'll get evicted. I think that's

Unknown: 36:50

one

Laura Arango Baier: 36:50

of those things as an artist that you know is really important is also sustaining yourself monetarily and not worrying about the economic side, so that then you can, you know, spiral. Yeah. However, you need to.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 37:05

Yeah, and it's true. Like I've had things I'll post that are inspiring on Threads, and of course, like so many visual artists, it's their livelihood, and they feel like I don't. I have to just keep going, and so there's that resilience of the fact that it is their living, and for me, this is my living, and so there's this thing where it's like I don't really have a choice. I have to return and I have to show up, like any job, or I don't get paid, and that's hard work. But of course, the mindset can still be one of rather than you know falling apart at the seams when things you can get up the next day. That resilience we expect to be born with it. It's it comes through the hard times, it comes through the the lessons, and I want to enjoy being an artist. I don't want it to be this horrible, tormenting experience. Every job has challenges. Every job has bosses that are not liked, or colleagues that are annoying, or whatever. So those challenges are part and parcel, of course, but there's ways to handle them. Like I said, with a better mindset, and there's always something to learn. We're never fully there. We always have somewhere that we can grow and learn and enjoy being an artist more.

Laura Arango Baier: 38:17

Yeah, yeah, that reminds me of the quote that you know, the especially for artists, the journey is the destination.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 38:25

Yes,

Laura Arango Baier: 38:25

and it's a little bit hard to accept because you know it's it is an endless journey, and it feels like it just keeps going, and the mountains get higher, and those goalposts keep moving, and you just keep going anyway, and it feels a little bit crazy, but yeah, yeah, that resilience. You know, it's also very much part of our nature as as a species as well to be resilient and to keep going.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 38:52

Yeah, we have to. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 38:54

exactly. And now I want to ask you about the hidden cost of waiting to be chosen. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 39:04

Yeah, so that's the title of the TEDx talk that I just gave, october 3, and it's in editing right now. So if people want to hear that, and in fact, it's so important that they do hear it. It's it was crafted with such detail, like surgeon like detail that talk because I really really felt the weight of how important this message for creatives everywhere and human beings in fact everywhere. So to find out when it comes out because I'm also finding out when it's going to be released on the TEDx YouTube channel. Will you can follow at Laura Bianca Pilcha, which is my Instagram. And if you're a USA, I don't even know if that's a word. You don't put a U in Laura; it's just L A R A. Laura Bianca Pilcha, because I will post when it comes out. Because I really feel that every artist, ever, anywhere, whatever their genre, needs to hear that, because. That hidden cost of waiting to be chosen is is was the kind of core, I guess I'd say thesis around what I was studying, and your creative identity under the pressure of someone else's yes was my subtitle, and it's what happens when you don't get the yeses. What happens when you're in the waiting between jobs? What happens when you are waiting to be chosen? Because who you are becoming while you wait is a very important question for artists. Because you, the silence is speaking. Just this week in my newsletter, I wrote about how I booked a feature film recently, a Christmas movie, and how I do so many self tapes and auditions and castings, and I submit them because that's my job. And then there's silence and no feedback, so I, I don't know. It just goes into the void. I call it the big. I did my part, and then there's silence. That silence speaks. Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe blah blah blah blah blah. And you just fill in insert blank. Maybe. And so I wrote about this in my newsletter to say that what was incredible is that I get to the set of a film that I did book for this one. They said we loved your self tape, your audition tape. The role that you went for was already cast. There was another role. It was tiny. It was a few lines, but they wrote more of the part for me. All of that I would never normally know. I would never normally find out. So in that place where you're creating a narrative that oh my art wasn't commissioned or it wasn't put on that gallery wall, or nobody bought from me, therefore blank insert. I'm not good enough. You don't know half the time what's really going on out there, and it's really we've got to be careful that the silence and waiting doesn't create a narrative that's not true. So I just so happened to find out that they loved it, that they wrote more, and if I hadn't been told that, then I wouldn't even know that. Even on set, I was so grateful they told me. I wrote about it in the newsletter, and then of course all these artists start emailing back, telling me, "Oh my goodness, Laura, that is exactly what I needed to hear," because the silence is speaking, whether you like it or not. So that talk is going to be incredibly, incredibly timely for so many. Who are you becoming while you wait? The hidden cost of waiting to be chosen, and it should be out soon. But again, follow at Laura B and Capilcha, and you won't miss it because I am going to post about it probably the day it comes out, which is news to me because it's in editing, so yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 42:42

yeah. And then once it is out, I'll include it in our show notes links as well. Yeah. So hopefully, our future listeners will also be able to just go in there and find the link. Find

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 42:53

it on the tube. Yes. Yes. The YouTube, not the London tube. Yes. Well, yes. One of the tubes. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 43:03

Oh man. Yeah, and and that's an excellent question. And actually, you know, I wrote down here also like it feels like you're just throwing things into the void sometimes as an artist, and you're just throwing stuff out and and hoping it sticks. Or you know, it's like the the person who does YouTube and like they make 100 videos and waiting to see which one sticks. But I think it is also, you know, in part it's like yeah, you throw stuff into void, but you also grow, right? Like you said, like you grow as you know between those things that you throw. Where it's like, huh? What could I have done better? What could I have like improved on? And then, you know, it's so much about trying to remember that you're creating because it's fine to create for the the sake of creating,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 43:53

yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 43:54

and not because it's like, oh, I'm I'm trying to do this for this, in my opinion, a lesser reason than something that's really intrinsic, which is I'm trying to share my voice. I'm trying to share what I care about, and I don't care if someone listens. I don't care if someone's, you know, maybe hates it or whatever. Even though that kind of hurts sometimes. But yeah, it does. It does kind of feel like you're just throwing stuff into the void.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 44:20

It absolutely feels like that. I'd say 95% of what I do feels like that, and I've learnt that I have to enjoy that rather than fight against it because that is the life is that you're creating and putting it out there. And 5% of the time, it feels like something. Actually, I book the job or I get the publishing contract or whatever, but there's so much pitching and putting out that is just met with silence. The majority, I would even say, yeah, 95% of what I am pitching and putting out there gets silence. And wouldn't it be lovely to not have to go through that? But I don't know many artists that don't. It might be the 5% people that are working that. At any given time, that are like, oh, I'm not going through that right now. Well, good for you, but I'd say most of us are going through some level of the void.

Unknown: 45:09

Oh yeah,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 45:10

that's hard. That void is what's speaking, hence TEDx talk. Well,

Laura Arango Baier: 45:16

I'm excited to hear what what the void says and what to do as you throw stuff into the void. So I'm really looking forward to that. And then actually the the other coin, literally the coin, which is money. The other side of the coin, which is how can an artist feel like you know their creativity is worthy of money, right? How does it? How how can artists think a little bit better about their work without feeling like money would corrupt it?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 45:48

Yeah, it's it's a great question because I do feel that money's this big thing that we look at as why do I have to blah blah blah because money. But I think of this kind of clearly. This is where a little bit of black and white thinking is actually useful. I think of the room, the two rooms as an artist. We have the room where I create. You can think literally or you can think figuratively, but the room where I create the art and then the room where I market and the business of art, and that's the room next door. They are not the same room, and quite often we mistake them as the same room, and that's where I think we hit a lot of trouble, because we need to preserve our best creative energy for the making room, and then of course so much of your day is going to be in the marketing, business, and money making room if you are choosing to do this for a career. But the way I think about this now too is that when I was writing Audacious Artistry, it was my first book, my first, and I was dead set that I am not going to self-publish. I am going to get this traditionally published, and being a performing artist helped me with this, believe it or not. Even though it's a completely different art form, but what I was used to was standing in rooms with girls with leotards and all kinds of figures and mirrors and the comparison and I was trained for the battle of the competitive saturated industry of having to show up in front and be chosen by those panels. You book the job or whatever. So if you're a visual artist, think about being in that room. Except it's not the dance; it's your piece of art, and you might be outside wondering if they're going to choose your piece of art. So you've got this similar thing, but that's the competitive nature. And I was trained for that. So when it comes to money, I go through this massive amount of pitching and pushing. And I know one person who wrote a book, sent it to one publisher, got rejected 10 years later, the book's still on his laptop. Where I'm going, okay, for 45 days straight, I'm getting a rejection email because I've sent that many pictures out to get my book out there. And then I eventually get offered a traditional publishing deal, but I've gone through a lot of hoops, and there's a big story there. But now, on this book that I'm writing now, my second book, I'm working backwards. I'm looking at distribution first. I'm looking at the market. I'm looking at what's selling. I've got my creative idea, and nothing's going to corrupt it. But I know this process, and I know that I want to make money from my book. I don't want to just write and then make nothing and not sell copy. So I have to think about money. However, my idea is so good that I'm not going to let anything corrupt it. I'm looking at distribution. I'm working backwards from the market, and I'm letting that inform my creative process, rather than the other way round, where I'm being blind to it and ignoring the market. But my creative ideas are not corrupted, and I think that creative people work well when you say, "Here's three colors you can paint with. Here's some rules. Here's some here's on the creative brief. I want A, B, C, but I don't want that. We often think creativity is just boundaryless and limitless, but it's not. If you put some constraints around your creativity, sometimes the problem-solving nature is create something far more profound and beautiful. So, when it comes to money, being aware of your market without letting it corrupt your idea is not a bad thing. When you work backwards from distribution for visual artists, of course, where does this sell? Where does this end up? For a filmmaker, it's like, how am I going to actually? What channel is this going to be on? And how do I know that criteria right from the beginning of the creative process. It's not a it's not a terrible thing, and it's not the money money is going to corrupt my idea. It's actually going to help me create better for the market that I serve. And of course, not everybody listens. Some people might be a hobby artist. Well, that's different. We're talking about a career where you need to make a livelihood, so um the the second book is written from a more researched point of view, even though the first one still got traditionally published. Not to know what you're doing, but figure it out as you go is is my best advice.

Laura Arango Baier: 50:01

Yeah, yeah, and I, I that's really interesting because that's you know one of those things that I think is very hard for an artist, which is especially an artist who's starting out and maybe has almost no experience,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 50:15

yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 50:15

getting to know themselves, which I think is really important as an artist having that time to really get to know what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, what you love to paint, and what hopefully lines up with the market as well, because there are some artists out there who maybe they decided, oh well, the cowboy market is really hot right now, so I'm going to paint cowboys, which it is. I mean, a lot of people really love cowboy paintings and Americana, you know, folk style paintings.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 50:48

Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 50:49

And some people, like me, don't want to paint cowboys and will not, you know, choose to paint cowboys because it just feels wrong. Not

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 50:56

made. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 50:57

Exactly. Yeah. And and and I think what you mentioned just brings up like that sort of question of like, how can I still paint something that I enjoy, that I love, that I think is still authentic to me without feeling like I'm like I'm only painting for the market. I feel like it's it's so important to balance that, you know,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 51:19

because you need to start with your idea. Your creativity always comes first. So, in the case of my second book, my idea has always been there, and I've immersed myself in the thought of that. I've written a creative kind of page of messy notes, the way we do of what I want it to do, and then from that idea, which I've completed, kind of a framework for, but in a very relaxed, you know, brainstorming way. I've then looked at distribution. So it started with who I am and what I want to say. What do you actually want to say, and who are you? Then go backwards from distribution back to your idea. So it informs it. But what happens is you don't go distribution. Then oh, everybody's buying cowboys because you never started with an idea. So you're just going to be lost in the noise of that's not even what I love. So you start with what you love and work backwards, and then you might have to tweak a little bit here and there. But the idea shouldn't be corrupted because there's. I do think there's a market for every. Like someone's going to love the landscapes. So you've got to know someone's going to love the cowboy. That's not me either. But it's like somebody's going to love the abstract art. Somebody's going to love the literal. Somebody. It's always it's always like that. And so you start with who you are, and then and then go from there. Don't do it the other way around. And that's quite simple.

Laura Arango Baier: 52:40

Yes. Yeah, and and that of course is yeah, it makes perfect sense because it's pretty much like the oh I'm an inexperienced artist who just graduated, which I've been there, totally been there, and that's also why things didn't really work out with my first gallery, and it was because I was just painting whatever the gallery wanted, and it still wasn't selling.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 53:00

Yes,

Laura Arango Baier: 53:01

because it wasn't really what I wanted.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 53:04

Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 53:05

and I think to some extent it shows in the work whether it's really loved or not. I mean, I know some people are really good at just painting well enough that it doesn't matter, but I think for the majority of us that love kind of shows through the work as well.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 53:20

It does, and we enjoy it, and it energizes us, and that's where we get in that flow state, which is actually literally a research state of like time disappearing. I was like this when I was writing audacious artistry. I'd go into the vortex of creative expression day after day and lose hours in this place of creating, and it's such a beautiful, energizing place to be in that focused joy, and you don't want to be creating out of that as much as possible. I mean, there's moments where it's not like that, of course, because it's still work for those of us who call this a career, career creatives. But that flow state really matters because that's the passion, and that's the gifting, and that's who you are. You need to know what you have. You're trying to say whether that's through your easel and through your paints or through your stuff. You need to know what who am I, and that can be hard. And you know what? To find it sometimes, it's messy because you're going to make mistakes and go, "I was trying to be something I'm not." But whatever your art form, you have to find that authentic expression, because we all know that that's ultimately being able to have the clarity of what I'm trying to say. And I talk a lot about this in the TEDx. If you don't have clarity around that, then what are you what are you doing? It's like what are you doing? Yeah, yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 54:36

Clarity is so important because then what are you? Yeah, what are you trying to tell people? I think the there's something worse than failing, and that's confusing people. Yeah,

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 54:48

and yourself. We do. I think we lose ourselves sometimes to find ourselves later, particularly in the early years. I think that that's kind of normal and a bit of a painful right. Of passage with being an artist, unfortunately.

Unknown: 55:03

Oh

Laura Arango Baier: 55:04

yeah, yeah. And then I wanted to ask you also because you being a performing artist and having been in front of you know tons of people on a stage, which is the total opposite of what it's like to be a painter. Yeah, painters are in unless you know you're you're a painter who's out doing plein air with a group of people. But even then, everyone's focused on their painting. It's not that often that a painter paints in paints in public and is you know allowing people to oggle and look and comment. What is something that solitary painters can learn from performers who put themselves in front of a live audience.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 55:46

So so much. Like I said, I was trained for this saturation competitive battle through being a performing artist. That I saw it with my own eyes. I saw those mirrors. I saw those other people. So if you remove the dancer and put your painting in that audition room with 100 other paintings, and then there's a panel of people choosing. You can imagine, like that's the part that the visual artist doesn't see a lot, like that they feel, but they don't necessarily see it where I was living in. And so you end up for me with this mindset as a performer of it's competitive, and when this audition's over, I'm probably not going to book it, which is common. It's like 5% of performers are working at any given time. Then you know I get up and I go again. You know that when you're writing and you're pitching to literary agents and then ultimately publishers, that there's 1000s of applicants, 1000s, and you know that two pitches isn't enough. You're going to need to write 65. You're going to need to take a rejection a day. You're going to need to be that resilient. So those in the visual arts that don't necessarily see that because they're at home alone, so much of the creativity can be alone. It's like having that mindset of being trained for that level of competition. If you are trying to make a living from from your work, of course, we're not talking about those who are hobbyists that just enjoy it. That's a totally different conversation and a wonderful, valid one. It's just not what we're talking about right now. But to be an artist, like what it takes in the long haul, is the. And a client asked me this when we were. I was coaching someone, and she said, "Laura, like at the end of the session, what is it about you that has enabled you to keep showing up where others have lost their creativity and gone into something else?" And I said, after taking quite a beat, because I didn't know at first, I'm willing to walk through difficulty over and over again, and I just expect that, and so I'm trained for that battle. And I think that comes from being a performer and having worked from those grassroots stages in third world countries, sometimes right up to the high beautiful stages of our world. I've learnt that that's what it takes. That you need to be able to get up and do it again. And I think visual artists can learn from performers because we see that that competition a lot of the time, and we expect that competition. And so we're resilient for it. That's not without feeling the emotion of it, but and we know that we need to go again, and that there's going to be long periods of silence. But the the ability to go through difficulty time and time and time again, and get up and keep going, is very very important. And that's why, again, like at the end of each chapter of Audacious Artistry, I put questions that come from my experience as a coach, and the hope was that people would get into artist circles with other creatives because so much of what you do is alone, and get a friend. One friend's enough, and actually go through those questions and talk about it with somebody else. There's a free group study at my website larabiankapilcha.com, where they can download how to actually run an artist circle, a group, and go through those questions. Because I mean, how wonderful if your next year was built on actually talking about things that you don't normally get to talk about, rather than just suffering in silence like so many of us are doing. Yeah, get an artist circle. That's what what I would want to say because it's too. You're isolated too much of the time, and that silence is speaking. And we need to stop the silence speaking lies that are holding you back from who you really are. And you can do that best through community and conversation with others,

Laura Arango Baier: 59:42

beautiful. I totally agree. There's nothing more valuable for an artist than a proper community of friends. Yeah, you have to seek it

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 59:51

out. Sometimes it doesn't fall in your lap. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 59:55

and and I mean, there's only so much you can do talking to yourself in the mirror in your studio. Because you know you suddenly become a vacuum, and it can be a very unkind vacuum if you allow it. So it is good to have a voice of reason, hopefully that you can trust outside of your head, who will you know be less pessimistic.

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 1:00:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:00:21

Yeah, awesome. Well, is there anything else that you would like to promote? Whether it's you know, of course, your future book, which I'm excited about now, and any other wonderful things?

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 1:00:31

Yes, for those on video, because if you're that's the book cover there. I think it's it's back to front where I'm seeing it, but it's audacious artistry, reclaim your creative identity and thrive in a saturated world, and it's my hope, like I said, that you would get into an artist circle and be audacious enough to actually grab a friend or two and go through the questions at the end of each chapter in that that group study and make your future different. And I think that's the best thing that I can leave with artists is stop trying to do it alone. It's very difficult. It doesn't. You're not going to be creating necessarily together. That's not what the study is about. But you're going to be talking about the things that, like I said, the whole quality of life is in your head. If you can start to unpack some of that stuff with others through the writing of a coach, because that's what I'm using in those questions, you're going to start to find some great discoveries that are going to unlock your creative future in a way that maybe you haven't accessed yet. So I think that's a beautiful thing to to do for each and every listener, and that you just got to keep creating, just keep showing up, be audacious.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:37

Yes. Ask yourself why not. Why

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 1:01:40

not? Love it so much? Why not me? Why not?

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:44

Well, thank you so much, Laura, for the very inspiring chat. Um, I have tons of notes now of ideas and and wonderful thoughts, and I'm like, huh, yeah, I should do this or should do that. So I I hope that was the same for our listeners, no doubt. But

Lara Bianca Pilcher: 1:01:58

you know,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:59

thank you so much. Thank you so much. Of course.