Happy New Year!
In the past I’ve used my New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day posts to look back and see what I achieved the previous year and list out plans for moving ahead. I’d make detailed lists and comment on each thing, but that’s not how I’m feeling right now. I can sum up 2013 and chart my ideal 2014 much more simply than that.
2013 marked the start of peeling away the layers of life and work that I’ve created for myself and shedding what was no longer useful. I dipped my toes and began to wade in to the artist pool during the last half of the year. I shared more about shedding my marketing identity to make room for the creative buried beneath in my final Creative Brief of 2013.
For 2014, my “resolution” is pretty straightforward.
BE THE ARTIST.
One of the things I’ve done as part of my “taking my art and creative role more seriously” movement is signing up for Lilla Rogers’s Make Art That Sells Assignment Bootcamp. It runs from February until July and I can’t wait for it to start.
Another thing that I’m excited about is being able to think about my blog and everything else that I put out into the internet world in a different way. When my business was marketing focused, I had to constantly think about producing work that was targeted to creatives who needed to learn how to market their work. In doing this, while I was definitely dabbling in the things that I truly loved to do, I was still putting my own creative pursuits on the back burner and ultimately trying to build a business that still wasn’t completely in line with where I wanted to go. During the last couple of months I began to question myself. “Why am I doing this again?”
Fear.
Fear is a powerful thing. Like I mentioned in The Creative Brief, marketing was my default. It’s been part of my resume for almost 15 years. Graphic design, mixed media collage, and photography are all skills that I taught myself over the past three years. “I can’t just lead with that!” I told myself. But finally I’ve started asking, “Why the hell not?”
And that, my friends, is where I am today. I am embracing my role as a creative. I’m an artist, designer, photographer, writer, and art director. As Rhett Miller would say, this is what I do (for a living). You’re welcome. I’m sure a lot of you have similar stories, realizations, and experiences. I’d love to hear about them, so leave a comment or let’s chat about it in “real time” on Facebook. xo