Connecting to the Magic

At our marketing mojo workshop last week we had a lively conversation about the inner workings and magnetism involved in selling art. Since then I have been considering this subject in more depth. For awhile now I have switched my thinking about marketing from “selling something to somebody”, to a new understanding that marketing is about communicating the value of what you do so that others will see it clearly enough to be able to benefit from what you are offering. So I thought I would try modeling this for you to see what this might look like. I am going to attempt to communicate to you what I see my value is as a painter and as a teacher.

The art I create is a kind of color poetry. It is full of mood, the beauty inherent in the colors themselves, and is a transmitter of a language of feeling. Original art of all kinds can raise the aesthetic of your environment to a higher level, a higher vibration, and this art in particular also creates an entry into an inner world, a connection to magic, a sense of wonder, timelessness, eternity, deep space and inner space, deep sea and deep feeling. This art is about the emotions. It’s not to be understood with the mind. It’s about feelings and developing a connection to a feeling language that is not based on words. It is also a very feminine field of life in these paintings, intuitive, visionary, soft or wild, it is about the energies of your deepest nature. It is a way of translating this unseen world of your feelings into a visible form expressed in the flow of color on the canvas.

So when you have one of these paintings in your home it can be a reminder of this world for you, it can cause an emotional response, it can be a part of your own vision quest, an entry into your own inner world and a connection to an intuitive language that we are so in need of developing more of right now. These paintings reveal mysteries. As the painter, I am a conduit for archetypal images of all kinds, especially because I am not imposing form of any kind in these abstract works. So when form comes through it is all the more wondrous, as if messages are being received from beyond our known sphere…

I could go on and on in this exercise of defining value, from different angles, now that I have removed the uncomfortable self-consciousness of having it to be only about me. It’s about me, but it’s also about being an instrument for the energies of life and our developing consciousness of what it is to be living here, now. That’s not exactly a refined artist’s statement, but it’s a pretty good start.

Now I will tell you about my value as a teacher. I see my value as a teacher mostly in what I don’t teach you. I’m kind of like an un-teacher. At our Thursday abstract laboratory class I basically invite you into a space where others are painting. I give you a two-minute lesson to start you off and that’s it. Keeping this simple creates an easy opening into your own playful experimentation. And then I keep you interested long enough for your own creative impulse and your own powerful and unique expression to unfold and develop. I may come in and gently guide you this way or that. Encourage or comment, but really what’s important is that you paint. You paint and you paint and you paint. And everything you need will come to you.

I also understand the fear of painting, the fear of facing yourself in the form of the canvas. Because that’s how I started, with utter self-disgust and critical judgement of what I was revealing of myself, and how horrible it was. Such misery. I have great compassion for those beginning stages of breaking through your creative blocks. Because I know from experience that it doesn’t take long to get through them, with a little encouragement and gentle persuasion. That’s what my teacher did for me, and that’s what I am passing onto you. That’s what I am un-teaching you. I am not teaching you how to paint. I am just creating a space that you can hang out in long enough so that you find your own way. And I believe that is an extraordinary gift, a rarity.

So I am beginning to see how really grounding myself in the value of what I am offering to others will strengthen and energize all of my marketing efforts, the expansion of my business and the constant development of my skills and knowledge both as a painter and as a teacher. And I am also beginning to see how important it is for us all to know our value and to be able to communicate it unwaveringly. To stand for who we are and not diminish our gifts and talents, and our unique offerings to the rest of the world.

We are living in a very unusual time. There is dramatic change all around us and a feeling of losing our bearings. What I have come to feel about this these past few weeks is that this is the time when we need more painting, not less. This is not the time to give up on the magic. It is time to throw ourselves even more into our creativity, and ride the wave of unprecedented transformative energy. I’m about to go into the studio for my day of painting, to immerse myself in a world of color, of feeling, centering in my inner self, connecting to that magic…and I can’t wait to see what appears on the canvas.

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