Stop.

Whether you want to improve on a poor year or build on a great one, you need to review. As the saying goes - knowledge is power. Investing just half an hour of today on an artistic review of the last year can have a profound impact on your artistic achievements for 2009.

Now that has to be a worthwhile trade-off.

6 Step Artistic Review of 2008

Okay, so you could simply think about how the last year went for you and your art - and that will be a good start. But ask yourself these 6 specific questions to really gain some artistic clarity.

1. What part of my artistic practice did I enjoy most?
2. What did I find hard to do/maintain?
3. What/who were the barriers to doing more with my art?
4. Were those barriers real or did I play a part in making them?
5. What vital ingredients were missing that would have boosted my artistic success?
6. When was my most productive artistic period(s) of the year? What were the factors that made the difference?

There you go. Sit yourself down, either on your own or with a friend, and review your 2008. Then, when you turn your thoughts forward to 2009 you’ll have a foundation of knowledge and power to build your dreams for the New Year.

Now, as I haven’t actually conducted my own review just yet, guess what I’ll be doing with my next half hour. I’m not just saying that, by the way. I’ve already organised a joint review with myself, Lynda and my mum doing a round robin of our artistic years.

I wish a happy and successful New Year for you and your art.

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It’s so easy to shut down the artist in you at this time of year.

Then the majority of us jump on the crazy merry-go-round of shopping, visiting, eating, drinking and partying, and the general joyous giving and receiving that takes over our lives.

The whole festive period tends to become an artistic and creative black hole.

Now that’s what I call a missed opportunity.

Because if you take a step back and really start looking you will see our world and the people in it living in an altered state of being - a kind of collective madness where behaviour, taste, emotions and expectations are dramatically skewed.

If you are from a non-Christian background I’m sure you spotted this a long time back, as have many brought up amid it. So how can this strange time of year inform your art? And no - I’m not suggesting you simply add tinsel.

I have no idea how you personally might use this festive input, and let’s face it - the excesses of the Christmas period are at least as prominent as the joy and goodwill. Your inspiration might well be anything but joyous.

Here are a few ’subjects for observation’ that may fire your artistic imagination.

• Yourself, your family and friends
• What you love doing - your favourite bits
• The stuff you can’t stand: double standards, cynicism and insincerity, for instance
• The stresses and strains
• The commercialism
• The religious messages (whatever your take on them)
• The curious iconography (Christmas trees and Yule Logs both predate Christianity, for example)
• The excess and waste (which also predates Christianity)
• Other people’s perspectives and experiences of Christmas
• The genuine spirit of goodwill and joy

What you make of this strangest, most beguiling time of year is your choice. But don’t miss the chance to let the festive extravaganza shade your art and your inspiration.

***

For me this is simply the season of goodwill and joy with my family. I’d like to wish you all the joy and goodwill of the season.

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You owe it to yourself to make the most of your talent.

Yet so many talented artists - artists producing excellent art - never manage to successfully promote and sell their artwork. Fear, poor organisation and lack of knowledge about how to properly market artwork all play their part.

It really doesn’t have to be that way. If you are fed up and frustrated at not getting yourself or your art noticed and are ready to become a more successful artist then??? well, you can. Scary, huh?

A Template for Commercial Artistic Success

Alyson Stanfield’s book, I’d Rather Be In The Studio! The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-promotion is the book on the subject. Regular readers of this blog know I don’t go recommending stuff at the drop of the hat. But I reviewed this book some months back and I really do rate it. It’s an amazing template for your commercial artistic success.

Allison currently has a stunning promotion running that at the very least is worth taking a look at.

I’ll come clean and admit that I’ll gain if you buy via this blog - but I will never recommend a product I don’t believe in. I’m very happy to endorse this book.

So, Artists (and friends of artists): start the New Year right with a commitment to promoting your art better than ever–and grab 13 gifts for yourself.

Order a copy of Alyson Stanfield’s book I’d Rather Be in the Studio! The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion, by December 21 and you’ll get 13 bonus e-books, special reports, and audio programs. All for the price of a single book.

If you’re one of the lucky ones that has had the book on your shelf for awhile now, buy a copy for a friend and keep the bonuses for yourself!

But you have to order from ArtBizCoach.com by midnight ET, December 21.

Just go to the Big Book Sale.

You can see my original review here.

There’s also loads of free stuff at Alyson’s own site artbizcoach.com

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Well, in my previous post I asked whether I should rename this blog to help it gain a bigger readership. I had three excellent, helpful comments (thanks to Victoria, Jerry & Vix) plus others that came to me direct.

The answer was pretty unanimous - keep the name but optimize the site. And there was some great advice about how to do so.

It’s amazing how my thoughts have cleared since I wrote a few days back and I now feel ready to take the blog to its next stage. That will probably mean a new look to the site. I like the current style, but need more structural flexibility as the blog expands.

It will also mean slightly rewriting earlier posts so that creative is featured less and words like art and artistic are used more often. Having said that, I really like the phrase suggested by Vix, creative development instead of personal development, which a few people found a bit of a turn-off. I’ll have to investigate that a little more.

Reader Demographic
Just as a matter of interest the blog is currently receiving almost twice as many visitors from the U.S. compared to the U.K. ( where it’s written), with Canada and Australia coming in third and fourth. The blog has been read in 77 countries over the last month. It’s not called the world-wide web for nothing, is it.

A Welcome to Sheffield Writers.
I just received my copy of the Sheffield Writers’ newsletter The Inky, which has a short piece introducing The Creative Instinct. Welcome. Please explore the blog and tell your friends!

Writers from Sheffield and South Yorkshire can learn more about The Inky here: http://www.signpostsonline.org/index.htm

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Now don’t get me wrong, I love the name of this blog. The trouble is the search engines don’t. It’s not literal enough for them, and that word creative causes all sorts of online problems because of the I.T. company of the same name.

I’d be truly grateful if you would read this post and gift me your opinions in the comments section - even if you are echoing previous comments.

Finding the Right People

So here’s the challenge - this blog is all about offering personal development insights to a broad spectrum of artistic people - tools of mental attitude and practical effectiveness to help artists of all kinds enhance both artistic output and the quality of their work.

I have previously used the words creative and creativity because whether you are a writer, poet, painter, musician? well - they seemed like a good common denominator, a uniting factor that pulled together the often disparate artistic communities.

I realise now that these words aren’t doing the jobs I need them to.

1. They aren’t helping enough of the right people to find and grow the blog
2. They are not ‘product friendly’ in terms of adding the right commercial resources to the blog.

That second point is just as important as the first. I do need some income flow from the blog if I am to continue offering the free content I hope will always remain at its core.

The Key Word Challenge

If my target audience was more tightly defined I guess it would be easier - if I were talking just to visual artists, or just to writers, for instance.

But I really don’t want to narrow my audience if I can avoid it.

So the big challenge is to keep offering the personal development content and offer it in such a way that people from all artistic backgrounds feel included.

Are phrases like artistic community and artistic people as inclusive as creative community and creative people?

If I want to address the wider group of creative people I’ve talked about - what words and phrases work for you?

I’m assuming here that I am right to be inclusive in this way - that personal development techniques for, say, painters, are also relevant to poets, digital artists and conceptual artists. Am I right in that assumption?

I really do need your help and feedback about this - so please do take the time to have your say.

• Am I right in keeping my artistic audience as broad and inclusive as possible?
• If so, what are the umbrella words and phrases that work for you?

Please help me take The Creative Instinct to the next stage by responding to this post.

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