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Ask Marney Column by Marney Makridakis I have spent years working in another field and now am focusing on art. I am rather eclectic and would like to know, other than dabbling in many media, how to find my passion and devote my energy to just 2 or 3 areas of art. I think what may be interfering is feeling the need to sell items of art and not listening to my needs. This is a question on which I have not been able to find any readings. Dear Reader: I SO hear you! I know from much experience how frustrating it can be when you have many different interests and feel lost when trying to hone them down into a focus. I do believe that it is important to focus on a defined project or group of projects at a particular time, in order to make things HAPPEN. I agree that looking at "what will sell" is an approach that directly contradicts the exciting process of discovery passion. I have seen that it is very effective to hone in on your passion first, and then do the work you need to do to configure it in a way that will be marketable. One of the best "shortcuts" that I know for finding your passion is to think about this....what can you not help but do? What seems completely natural to you, so much so that it doesn’t even feel like work? What eludes other people but seems obvious to you? The answers to these questions are a goldmine, when it comes to finding your passion. Our society reeks with the perception that work has to be hard. Why not turn that around, and explore a bit around the idea of devoting yourself to what seems easiest for you? The next step is to look closely at your audience and potential customers and figure out what their needs are. This can involve researching trends, surveying potential customers, interviewing other artists and folks in the industry, and testing out products. Finding that point of intersection between YOUR passion and the needs of your customers is the way that you turn your passion into a means of right livelihood. I strongly urge you to start with the passion end first, and THEN turn to the marketing end of the spectrum. Starting the other way around (that is, looking at what will sell and then trying to fit it into what you can do) is like fitting yourself into a mold that isn’t quite the right shape. Why not create your own mold, instead. The final thing that I will say is that your passion(s) may change. (Since you said you are an eclectic person, I assume they will!) Embrace this Renaissance-ness and don’t think for a minute that you cannot be successful, just because your nature leads you to reach out in many directions, instead of moving along a linear path. Along these lines, I invite you to read an article I wrote on this subject, called "Goalar Energy", which was originally written for Jennifer Louden’s ComfortQueen e-zine, and later was the inspiration behind my 30-day Goalar Energy e-course. I believe that even though it may be unconventional, it IS possible to thrive by moving from passion to passion, as long as we can fine-tune our focus to beam brightly on the point of the present. That is, we place all of our attention on each project while we are working on it, until it is time to move on to the next project. In this way, balancing several different passions becomes energizing, instead of draining or distracting. A participant in my Goalar Energy and YOU * U courses, puppetmaker Lani Gerity, recently shared with me that Nick Bantok (author of The Griffin and Sabine Triology and other Artellaesque illustrated novels) works on a U-shaped table in his studio. He literally moves from project to project in the course of a single studio session. In the collage of my own life and my work with Artella, I move from project to project several times a day, but it works becauseI am continually sharpening my focus on the point of the present. If the point of your present is a true passion of yours -- as opposed to simply working on "what will sell" -- and if you are strongly focused therein, I believe your ever-changing collage of life and art will be immensely rewarding. -Marney back to Index |