There are so many movies that reflect the art spirit– usually stories about individuals who believe in something so completely they have no choice but to follow that muse.In "The Worlds Fastest Indian" we see the story of New Zealander Burt Munro (Anthony Hopkins), who spent years re-vamping a 1920 Indian motorcycle -- with the goal of setting a land-speed record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.I reference this film because the art of the start is really about diving in there, giving it a go, then not stopping. Like Munro in this sweet spirited film, you keep moving forward no matter what with increasingly greater speed and success.

 Your Blog is part of your Social Media kit. If it is not by now, then get started. Facebook and Twitter and any of the other social media platforms are there to support your platform which includes your blog and website.If you are still feeling a little unsure about how to start your blog with a bang go HEREto learn more.  

 I plan to start showcasing more artists who really have their social media together. Your High Tech promotion is vital for a thriving art business. Social media platforms are always changing, hence everyone who relies on Facebook for instance may have a rude awakening when they have put all there energies into promoting themselves there and it goes belly up.

Prioritize your online presence with a website that authentically represents your vision.

Your website is your home. Entice people to stop in, and help them get so comfortable they do not want to leave.Mammoth & Companyhas designed their website intelligently. It looks stellar and has all the e-commerce and social media principles working together seamlessly. Check it out. They are using Shopify as the design platform.

Art by the amazing Anthony Russo

The new science of spending points to a surprising conclusion: How we use our money may matter as much or more than how much of it we've got. This article by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton shows that the art of spending can be a sort of transcendence. More Here.

There’s something to notice about successful people: they act quickly, even if they may fail. [This piece is excerpted from Fail Fast, Fail Often: How Losing Can Help You Win by Ryan Babineaux, PhD., and John Krumboltz, PhD., with the permission of Tarcher/Penguin. Copyright 2013 Ryan Babineaux, PhD., and John Krumboltz, PhD]In the book, Art and Fear, the artists Ted Orland and David Waylon share a story about a ceramics teacher who tried an experiment with his class.The teacher divided the students into two groups. Those sitting on the left side of the studio were to be graded solely on the quantity of their work, while those on the right, solely on the quality. The instructor informed the students in the quantity group that a simple rule would be applied to evaluate their grades: those who produced fifty pounds of pots would get an A, those who produced forty pounds a B, and so on.For the quality group, the instructor told the students that he would assign a course grade based on the single best piece produced over the duration of the course. So if a student created a first-rate pot on day one of the course and did nothing else for the term, he would still get an A.When the end of the quarter arrived and it came to grading time, the instructor made an interesting discovery: the students who created the best work, as judged by technical and artistic sophistication, were the quantity group. While they were busy producing pot after pot, they were experimenting, becoming more adept at working with the clay, and learning from the mistakes on each progressive piece.In contrast, the students in the quality group carefully planned out each pot and tried to produce refined, flawless work, and so they only worked on a few pieces over the length of the course. Because of their limited practice, they showed little improvement.More...

Blessings and prosperity to everyone this coming year.

Peace always.

This post is about the courage it takes to create a career your way. Artist and writer Debbie Millman presented a commencement speech on the virtues of following your path (also in her new book, Looking Both Ways). This is her art...

Continue to read more and also listen to Debbie HERE ...

Graphic Design Company as Artist As Brand Master

Known throughout the world as a type foundry, House Industries has made a considerable impact on the world of design. House Industries fonts scream from billboards, tens of thousands of greeting cards, consumer product logos and add elements of style to a wide range of mainstream media.They also create products from clocks to clothing.What ultimately shines in the House Industries oeuvre is what always conquers mediocrity: a genuine love for their subject matter. Go House!

"12 QUOTES"

To honour the entrepreneurial spirit in us all, Shopify put together a list of great quotes from a number of accomplished business owners that will make you want to stop thinking, stop talking, and start doing.

"Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you."-Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO

"If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it."-Elon Musk, Tesla Motors & SpaceX Founder

"I try not to make any decisions that I'm not excited about."-Jack Nickell, Threadless founder and CEO

"Embrace what you don't know, especially in the beginning, because what you don't know can become your greatest asset."-Sara Blakely, SPANX Founder

"Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work?"-Richard Branson, Virgin Group Founder

"Find your one thing and do that one thing better than anyone else."-Jason Goldberg, Fab Founder

Six more quotes at Shopify.

Connecting your vision to a cause that is larger than yourself can energize your fan base with people who are interested in the same.WhenWhale Tails Tortilla Chip company decided to use art for their environmentally conscious product and packaging they wanted to align with someone who was as passionate about the ocean as they were. Connecting the iconic marine artist,Wyland to their organic product was a match made in heaven.

Wyland ©

When your art is aligned with a strong purpose a vibration is set in motion that will connect with others who are in tune with it. I have seen this principle happen over and over again in my thirty year art career. It is a profound testament to the potential power of your vision.

Just presented another AAB Workshop for the third year in a row at  Kendall College of Art and Design. This school has one of the strongest entrepreneurial art programs in the country. Jon McDonald, and Nancy Hart are preparing and empowering their students to make decisions about their art businesses before they graduate and it shows.Participants of past workshops have returned to share with the new students what they are doing with their entrepreneurial knowledge. It is a fascinating mix of art events, personal projects, and freelancing. Most of these students (some have graduated) are working toward their goals of artistic freedom and financial independence.Madyson Blair for instance has not even graduated but already is selling her self published book, The Weather Inside.It is encouraging for me to see after only three years what is possible when students are infused with the potential to create a living their way. I love it when they get it! Go Kendall!

Artists with a store front?Yes, artists can embrace the brick and mortar store as well as a digital shop. Check out Three Fish Studios who do it all in one space, with classes too. This is an option for a group of artists who want to make a splash in their local community as well as online.Annie Galvin and Eric Rewitzer, painters and printmakers, husband and wife, create original and affordable art in their home/studio/store near San Francisco. Go here to see how they do it.

 This is a great post by Gregory Ciotti and Help Scout.Building an ecommerce site that customers love largely comes down to two things: sweating (and testing) the small stuff, and understanding human psychology.How do people view, browse, and use your site? While testing will be the final judgement for what works on your site, conversion studies can be a great place to begin when designing your site. Check out this awesome post on some of the fine points of making more sales from your site- here.

I feel that Sir Ken Robinson is a kindred spirit in the context of empowering human potential and creating new educational models. He is an internationally recognized leader in education, innovation, creativity and human resources. There are many informative and inspiring videos of his talks on education reform and the creative life. This is one of my favorites.His latest book is entitled The Element. As Robinson states: “The element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels.”He could teach my Artist As Brand Workshops! If you have been a part of the educational system this is a must see.

The well known street artist, Bansky set up a booth in central park and sold pieces of art for $60.00 each. People did not know it was the famous artist's work, but some bought the art anyway, and now own art investments worth thousands of dollars. Ultimately this was great promotion for Bansky (which he a master of), and it made a fun comment on the art world, but more importantly he also made $420 in one day, with a stripped down booth and an elderly man who sat out front doing absolutely nothing.What I love most about this piece of theater is that it affirms what artists in SOHO, NYC have told me before– you can make a living selling your art on the street. The artists I spoke with made between $250-$500 a day with a booth on the street. That is pretty good money folks. Add it up. If you make an average $400 a day and sell five days a week that is $2000, or $8000 a month. Not bad.Thank you, Bansky for reminding all artists that street art can make for a very profitable business.Go here for more-Three older AAB posts about selling art on the street- Taking it to the streets. Artist As Brand Grassroots. Artist As Brand Grassroots Part 2. 

Art by Edel Rodriguez

Knowing your rights as an artist is important to your survival. Tattoo artists are increasingly claiming that they own the copyright to the images they create. And when those images, attached to living people, appear on the silver screen — or a computer monitor — the artists want to get paid.This Los Angeles Times article gets into it here.Check out more Edel Rodriguez art here.

I have talked about the benefits of licensing your art for a while now. If you have a style that can translate into products beyond what you produce for yourself then other companies can essentially rent your images.Here is one take on licensing by Ashley Goldberg.She is an eclectic artist whose pattern designs have found a market .Check out her story on Etsy here.

I have not jumped on the Pinterest band wagon yet, but will soon. You cannot ignore the power of this social media giant. Roxana Illuminated Perfume does it right. She shares her esthetic through Pinterest garnering many like minded followers which drives traffic to her websites. Look at her boards here.Here is a great post on Designing an MBA, called "HOW I GREW MY PINTEREST FOLLOWING FROM 1000 TO 4000+ IN 3 MONTHS"- Here.Also check out the Pinterest web analytics and see what people are pinning from your websitehere

Launching any project can take a lot of time and effort, and that is not including the promotion. There are many factors that go into advertising the premier of a product that may have taken a year or more to birth. Business strategist Tara Gentile has some great advice about preparing for a launch and the psychology of your patrons.She says, "Many of my clients come calling because they’ve had the scare of a launch that didn’t preform to their expectations. It’s not because their plans were bad. Nor was it that the product design was subpar. It might not even be that the messaging or positioning was off.Often, it’s because the wham-bam-thank-ya-ma’am style launch that everyone from that super successful life coach to the latest iPhone wonder app developers make look highly effective is actually the wrong choice for most new products or programs.That blitzkrieg-style launch is actually the final iteration of careful planning, testing, and incremental sales cycles.Why is this important?Sure, planning and testing is always a good idea. But really, the reason the initial stages of introducing a new product, program, or service to the public is that there are 3 kinds of good customers and you need to sell to each differently.Moreover, you must sell to each in their own way in the right order. More...

I have mentioned Kickstarter before but it is nice to see it can be consistent for artists and even their fans. It appears a fan of Amanda Palmer (Palmer's last Kickstarter garnered over $1,000,000.00) has decided to create a tarot deck around her and has pulled in as of this post $45,000. There is still two weeks left in this campaign. That is a nice chunk of change to start any project. Here.If you are complaining that you do not have enough cash to start anything then crowd funding is one way to infuse your business with capital without going to the banking industry or using credit cards. Even if the first attempt does not live up to its expectations you have started the momentum and can do another one with more knowledge about what to do better next time. So rev up those crowd funding engines and let the world know you have something worth investing in.By the way, if you have not seen the TED talk Palmer gave a little while ago, it is a MUST SEE. Here.