Debra Keirce was our latest guest on The FASO Show program. As a paid subscriber, we are happy to provide not only the video replay but the full transcript of the insightful session with Debra below. Please keep in mind the transcripts are generated by AI so there may be some typos.
Creatively,
Clint Watson
FASOFounder & Creativity Fanatic
PS - This email may be too long for some email programs. We suggest you watch/read it on the web by clicking the button below. Here are some Helpful Links & Resources from the webinar. We’re also sharing Debra Keirce’s special FASO affiliate link, join FASO today for just $99 for your first year of membership, click here.
Want to join us for the next LIVE webinar and meet our upcoming featured artist? Visit: https://register.faso.com/live-guest
Transcript:
Olya Konell 00:00
Welcome everybody to the Faso show. This is a video editorial series that we have running on our newsletter, which is hosted on Substack, The FASO Way. This is open to all artists, so if you enjoyed today’s session, share it with your friends, so they can join next time as well. Today, we have a very special guest, and I also have Angela Augusta with me. Our very special guest is Deborah Keirce. She is one of our contributing writers on the FASO Show. You’ve probably read a bunch of her articles; they’re very popular, even though she says she doesn’t feel like they are, but they really are. She’s an amazing writer, artist, speaker, just, you know, somebody who’s lived the artist life for a very long time, and we wanted to bring her on to do a talk, and I’m going to let her introduce her talk here in just a moment, but one last point I’d like to make before I hand the reins over. Is that this series is also brought to you by FASO.com. FASO is a website service for artists, so you can create your own website from start to finish, and it’s very plug and play for the artist that wants to spend a little bit more time painting and less time updating, so everything is designed for the artist. If you’d like to learn more, we’re going to share some links. If you’d like to start a free trial, just to look around without a credit card, you can just go in there and do that. And then if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask us or reach out. So without further ado, I’m going to go ahead and bring on Deborah. For everybody, say hello, and go ahead and tell us a little bit about you, and jump right in.
Debra Keirce 01:47
Thank you so much. Well, first, I’m just so honored to be here, and I was saying earlier, part of the FASO team, from day one, I’ve just loved the people that work at FASO. So I’m so honored to be here today to talk, and like, no pressure, right? Oh, yeah. You know, you just called me amazing, and now I have to live up to that, or not. Today’s topic is thoughts that are rarely said out loud. So, as she’s saying all those great things about me, I’m thinking of all the artists I know who are greater than I am on the on the continuum here of our art journey. So we are all somewhere on this journey, and I’m hoping that today the things that I say will resonate with wherever you are. So, without any further ado, this is going to be a frank discussion. I’m going to ruffle some feathers, I’m going to make some people bristle, probably about some things, but realizes coming from a place that’s my experience, my sharing, so whatever you’ve got to say, please don’t be shy, just hit us up with it. So, a segue into this, I have a biochemical engineering degree, so in 1983 the last century before they discovered the rest of the periodic table, I got a bachelor in science in engineering from the University of Michigan, chemical engineering bio option is what they called it. So here I am. No art degree. What do they call me? They call me a self-taught artist. I did not teach myself anything. I learned from people, lots and lots of people, right? So, and I’m learning from these, you guys, right now learning from these guys. So, while I’ve studied a lot, and I just finished the Ani Art curriculum, in fact, I’ve got some of my paintings back here that were my finals and practices during that curriculum, done by Anthony Whychulis, four year curriculum, I highly recommend it. Any art academies, I have no university art degree, so who am I to talk to you guys about art, right? And yet I feel like I’m very well educated, like I’m classically trained, like I’m not self-taught. For over 16 years, I’ve been doing this art thing professionally. Right, first 10 years of my career I didn’t really make any money at all. In fact, I worked as a crossing guard and as a dog walker, just to make sure that the money I was spending on supplies, I, you know, wasn’t taken from our family coffers. And then I made money, but oh my gosh, I don’t see a way to make as much money as I was making as a design engineer at Eli Lilly and Company. So, you know, no six figures are happening here. So, what am I going to do? They’re not happening soon anyway. And then I got to where I was making a decent amount of money, but now, gasp, I feel like I’m in a place where I want to do optimization of the things that are fun for me, that I really enjoy, and I don’t really want to optimize the money part anymore, you know? I mean, I feel like I can see ways that I could be very much more profitable than I am, and I’m not pursuing them. So each of these three different parts of my art career, I feel like I’ve not expected them to come about the way that they did, and probably you’re in one, or you’ve experienced one or more of them as well, and these are the things I think we never talk about, is there’s lots of different ways to do an art career, lots of things to prioritize, so my emphasis right now is having fun and having new experiences like this, so that’s where I’m at. Any, I don’t know, do you want me to stop at any like breaking points and say any questions? Anybody got any? I offend anyone at this point.
Olya Konell 05:37
No, I actually, I, I love, I love the message, and I want to let the audience know we will be having a whole Q and A session covering any and all of your questions, whether it be covering the talk or anything else. I forgot to mention that. So, as you think of your questions, drop them in the chat or put them in the Q and A box, because I’m gonna, we’re gonna feed them, we’re gonna pull them up, we’re all gonna discuss them, we’re all going to have a conversation about them together. So, do not hesitate to drop them in the chat, but go ahead, Deborah. Floor is all
Debra Keirce 06:08
okay. All right, then. Well, let me then start with the biggest thing that I’ve learned, but never shared, and this is like the things we don’t say in public, taking advice from people like me, or like anyone that you interact with, and you pay money to, in order to learn about marketing and sales, and how you should do your art stuff and your art career anymore. I research them, and personally, if they’re not happy people, I run away from them. If they’re teaching me how to sell more stuff, but they don’t have a solid sales record for selling that same stuff themselves, like if I’m there, they’re only, you know, if they’ve never sold art, but they’re telling me how to sell art, I run away. If they’re pontificating on marketing expertise and I don’t see any evidence that their own marketing has worked well for them, I run away. But here’s the thing that I wanted to share, is you can’t ever in this art world. I don’t think share who you run away from, like it’s.. I’ve learned, and it’s hard for someone who’s unfiltered, like me. Like, I had to go through and make sure that there are no swear words or trash talking in what I do every time I write something, right? So, for me, for someone like me who’s unfiltered, it’s hard to do this or understand why this is important sometimes, but you gotta be careful because we’re working in a very emotionally charged, passionate group of people. This art community is awesome, but they’re also very sensitive, and so, and they, when I say they include me, right? So be careful, because it’s going to bite you in the butt if you say who you run away for, and this includes, like, if someone comes to you with, you know, like a brush manufacturer, for instance, this happened to me, and they ask you for your opinion, and you, you think they want an honest opinion on how to improve their product, they don’t, like, just coach it and say, you know, oh, you know, I’m so hard on my brushes, and I always wear down the tips and everything, and instead of saying yours wore down just as fast as all the others, you know, say more tactful if you can, or, you know, like critiques, I always tell people I can’t tell you whether your art is good or bad, because I’m not in your head, I don’t know where you were going with this. What I can tell you is, if you put it on my easel, these are the things I would do to it. So, coach what you say and what you do, but be careful in the art world never to never to be in that position where you say something bad and it’s going to come back and bite you, because sometimes they’ll come back and I’ll hear stories about things that I said or did that, if I mean, I have no recall if I did, but I’m like, where’d that come from? You know, sometimes you’ll get it even when you’re not even asking for it, but be careful, all right. So now I’m going to be talking about all the bad stuff, right? So four biggest things that I always talk about, and some things I don’t say about them, that’s what I have next on my list here, and it’s all about the triangle. We all have limited resources. We have this triangle of cost, time, and quality, or cost, time, and skill management in the art world, is how I think of it. How are we going to make it so that this is in balance? Because if you optimize one point of that triangle just by the nature of that balance you’re going to have to sacrifice something in one or both of the other points, so I talk a lot about how do we do that and how do we evaluate things like time usage, like for me I have to keep my time allocated to work practices at a very sustainable level, and I have to balance my commitments, otherwise I’m going to wind up in a burnout situation, which I’ve never had, like these people who say they lost their creative spark. I wake up every day going, I get to come down here and do this, so I want to keep that going, and in order to do that, there have been times in my life when I don’t pursue my art and. And I personally could not raise my three kids, work a 60 hour week running project teams as a design engineer at Eli Lilly and Company, and grow my art skills all at the same time, but there are people who come to me in mentoring situations, or however they find me, and they’ll ask me, you know, why is the universe not allowing me to do it? I can’t make money, I can’t, you know, embark on my art career, and you know, maintain my relationships with family and friends. And my answer is, I couldn’t do it all at once either. And so there are whole years where all I did was just basically hobbyist art, where I was doing a commission here, there, you know, average probably over the years, one or two a month, and I mean, in the beginning, from the time I was 16 years old, I’ve been doing this. In the beginning, they were $25 commissions, so this wasn’t like a money making, even back then, venture for me. But you know, I always did something in the art world, and I honestly, this is where I start to ruffle feathers. I honestly do not have sympathy for people who complain that they can’t all do it all at once, because I don’t think that life offered me this luxury either, and I didn’t pursue my art career in earnest until 2010 when I was financially stable. My kids were all teenagers, and I could devote myself 24/7 to developing my art skills, and I chose 2010 because that’s when I got representation, so I started full time with everything, and just at that point, excuse me, said that I was going to be a full-time artist, but I sacrificed coming to the party early in 1979 when I graduated high school. I had all kinds of things going on, I even had a scholarship to an art school, blah blah blah, I was all set to go into the art world, then, and I made a change, a decision, and I feel like it was a sacrifice to go and do the engineering thing and make money first before I went into the art stuff, and I feel like it oftentimes gets downplayed that people that made decisions like this, like I know a lot of artists who are engineers or architects or whatever, and came to the party late, and you know it’s not looked upon as much of a sacrifice as people who were in poverty first and then scraped their way into the art world, but I don’t dismiss people who come to things later in life or to the art world later in life, because I feel like it was in fact sometimes I feel like I worked harder because I had to create first a very successful engineering degree or career, and then, you know, get into the art world and make that happen too. So, when people come to me complaining that they’ve been in the art business for two whole years and they’ve taken, you know, five different workshops from all different people that are all amazing, and they’re working so hard, and they’ve, you know, don’t have enough money to live on. I can’t relate to that, and I feel like it’s a hard business, and it quickly weeds those people out. So that’s something that I don’t say, but I feel very strongly oftentimes in so many situations where I get told things like, well, you’ve got a husband, so this wasn’t so hard for you, or, you know you’re older, so you’re wiser, so you know you know what you’re like. No, everybody, I think is somewhere on the journey, and we’ve all had our own struggles, and we’ve all had to work hard, and we need to just like realize that for everybody. So now, did half the people leave?
Angela Agosto 13:16
No.
Debra Keirce 13:17
Okay, then we’ll move on to number two, focusing on maximizing enjoyment, and for me this is so important for sustainability, because in order for me to be able to do this day after day after day after day, and I’m like crazy, um, OCD, sort of probably, even though it’s never been diagnosed, committed to this, I, I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, I don’t know what day it is, most of the time doing my art thing, because I love it, and it’s what I’m passionate about. But in order for that to happen, I feel like I need to focus on, you know, greater fulfillment and decide what activities I want to do that bring me happiness anymore. I mean, some income streams are more consistent and more lucrative than others, but I’m maximizing the happiness in them. And what do I mean by that. Well, from my observation, the most certain and lucrative ways to make money as an artist are going to be your teaching and commissions, and for me, teaching, you know, you make more money with online workshops, you just do, and I praise the people who that works for, I personally don’t enjoy them. I don’t like having, do, and I’ve, I’ve tested, piloted this several times, but I don’t like people watching what I’m doing here on the screen. For one thing, I use my hands a lot, don’t I? But I don’t like them watching what I’m doing, and then I, in all honesty, can’t see, maybe it’s my old eyeballs or whatever, but I can’t see very well what they’re doing, and so I can’t customize, you know, what my advice, or what I want, would like them to try to do on their canvas, you know, from where I am on the other side of the screen, so I much prefer the in-person workshops where I can do that. But the most profitable way to do in-person workshops, and I did this for gosh, several years, I don’t know how many, five, six years, or something like that, where I had people coming into my home, and so I had weekly mentees, people that I would mentor here, I had my own workshops here, and then I hosted workshops for other artists here, many of whom are sponsored by FASO, it was wonderful. I got to know these people very well, got to know the students and everything, and people came in, and it was great until it wasn’t. I got to a place where I started calling them home invasions instead of workshops, and I’m like, let’s get ready for the next home invasion, and I’m thinking that can’t be good, and what it is when people come four or five, six times to your home. It’s wonderful, because you know, you get more and more friendly, but then when you go downstairs and your husband’s like, “Where’s the half and half? or you’re realizing that your art supplies are disappearing faster than usual, that kind of thing. It’s like, you want to, you want to be friendly, but for me, it kind of, it tests your boundaries, you know. And then Covid hit, and when Covid hit, I was like, we’re such a litigious society. I didn’t want the liability anymore, so I just stopped doing it. So now I teach at museums around the country several times each year, and it’s much less profitable. I’m paying for my own flights and stuff, and rental cars and things, and they take a cut. But I thoroughly enjoy those experiences, and I love going to new cities, and it’s fun to see my students year after year citing the things they’ve done that, you know, in between our sessions that have improved. So, for me, that works, even though I’m not maximizing the profit part of it. And another one is commissions. I’ve done commissions, like I said, you know, ever since I was a teenager, and I’ve explored along the way all different ways to optimize that part of the business, and I found that the most successful commission-based art careers are focused on one subject, and I did this for a while. I did, for a while, I did pet portraits, and for a while, I did portraits, for a while, I did post-humans, you know, working with funeral homes, portraits of loved ones, for a while, I did, you know, the wedding portraits, new houses with realtors, etc. and the thing is, is I didn’t - I wasn’t happy committing to just one subject and one style, and so for me, I didn’t want to do that. So now I do a few word of mouth source commissions, like eight to 12 each year. Usually, I never post them unless people ask me to, and I’m happy with that. I’m trying to build that up a little bit, so I’m doing a few things to, you know, make that a bigger part of my business, because it does make me so happy, because why I feel like I’m connecting with people on a more intimate level. There’s one that I just finished with a person who lost a loved one who passed, and so I’m actually part of their grieving process, or my painting is, and another person who was having a celebration, and I get to my painting is now part of that celebration, and so these are the ways that I kind of get my dopamine hips, hits is when my art goes out there and writes its own stories, and so nothing to do with maximizing profit in either of these, even though I know what I would need to do in order to make that happen, so that’s my number two, number three, embracing your legacy, and this is something that you know, maybe I’m not the only one, but I, until like five years ago, I didn’t even care about a legacy, I didn’t even think about a legacy, I didn’t even know I needed one or had one, or whatever, and I couldn’t have planned it, but if I died right in this moment, like just keeled over, you guys, I’ll be calling 911 and you know where I live, so nobody would come, and you listen to me die. What are they going to talk about? Well, they’re going to talk about the US, and you can ask AI if you don’t believe me, they’re going to talk about the US Coast Guard art program. I have 17 works right now in the government collection, and I’m the winner of the best in show George Gray Award for 2022 So, my body would be here, and they’d see the big plaque over there saying so, so that that would be my legacy. Also, the Boston Langham Hotel, they have eight of my 40 inch portraits in their fine dining room that they wanted them done in John Singleton Copley style compositions of Federal Reserve Bank presidents who worked in the building before it was a hotel, and so I’ve done narrative pieces on each of portraits on each of them, and then also I’ve got three original miniature paintings in their bar area. Both of these are in my wheelhouse. I’m so excited about them because the dining staff, they’ll talk to when people ask, you know, what’s with what’s with this dude, you know, that I’m meeting next to here, and they’ll, they’ll, they know the stories, and so my art is being talked about in this five-star luxury hotel, like, who knew, and both of these were not planned, they were surprise opportunities that the door opened and I walked through it, and it happened, but I feel like with the legacy now I’m thinking I lucked out because I got a good 1am. I okay with it? Like, I have to go back and think, okay, what am I going to do to not mess it up now in the future, right? Which is totally possible, but right now I’m focused on a Trump lawyer series of oil paint. And charcoal drawings, and I’m working to create only what I consider art award-worthy art pieces, and I mean, you might look at them and not think they’re worth any award, or whatever, but it doesn’t matter, it’s in my brain, they’re award-worthy, they’re the best that I can produce, and you know, for me, they’re themes of nostalgia and happy memories, like I no longer care if I’m perceived as corny or old-fashioned, like if I am, I am, that’s who I am, and I don’t feel the need to be trendy, like I’m not painting the banana with duct tape, I never did one of those, but you know, and I don’t want to be remembered, I really want to avoid the rabbit hole of being remembered for any of my political affiliations or opinions or anything that like that, especially living so close to DC, don’t want anything to do with that. So, for me, I want people to remember me, and to think, you know, all my interactions with Deborah. I walked away feeling so enriched, like that would make me happy. If they say, you know, she was a really skilled artist, and her work makes me smile when I see it. I won’t go back and haunt those people, I want my tombstone. If anyone makes a tombstone for me, I want it to read, ‘You’re welcome. Right, so this is this is what I’m going for. And it’s funny to me, because at the start of my career, I wasn’t even thinking about legacy, but now I am. So, but I got.. again, I’m not going to.. that’s not something I’m going to talk about in public, although I just did number four was I, you know, establishing non-negotiable practices. So, for me, these are the essential routines that you do, no matter where you are in your art journey. So, they’re like the overarching things, and mine are going to be different than yours, but for me it’s the skill development, you know, like I said, I just finished one curriculum, and I, you know, if I ever am in a place where I don’t feel like the next painting that I’m doing is going to be better than the one that just came off my easel, then just take my brushes away, because that’s what I like to do, so skill development, and then networking, including volunteerism, group organization, peer engagement, both online and in person, like there’s so many ways you can network, and I find I’m always thinking about it. And just a quick little side story, my husband is a comic nerd, comic book nerd, him and his friends, so he went with a friend a couple weeks ago, and they went down to Texas, flew Texas, and then they drove all the way up through all the states, all the way up to Maine, and then back down to Virginia, where we are. And when he got home, we got married in 84 however many years that is, you figured out. But I know this guy pretty well. So when we got home, I’m looking at him like, whoo, this is like, I want a pony kind of a moment, you know, so I just sort of casually mentioned, I’m like, oh, you have such stamina, you did all that driving, that must have been her off, yeah, you know, it’s too bad I don’t have that kind of stamina, because I’d really like to go to the American Artist Professional League opening, the Vision show up at the Carriage Barn Factory in Connecticut, but it’s six hours away, and four hours is my limit, and so, of course, he’s like, so he actually drove me up there the six hours, and then I went and did the opening, and he and networked with everybody, and you know, got to meet all these people who I think are amazing, who I’ve been interacting with online for years, and now I got to meet them in person, and got to see the show, and just had a great time, and he slept in the car, and then he didn’t even want to get a hotel. We just, he drove me right back, you know, here six hours that same day. So I’m like, yes, and now not everybody has a partner that can do that for them. I get it, but like any opportunity you see, if you can get that pony, go ahead, and you know, it could happen, because that, to me, that’s what networking is about, is just, you know, things that you like, yeah, that, that could happen, you know, in some out of the box kind of a way, and that’s the way I’ve been approaching it. Here’s the thing, though, that nobody talks about, like, recognize that you’re going to, if you do your, these non-negotiable things, whatever they are for you, you and you consistently do them. You’re going to develop marketable skills at some point, because you just are. You can’t not, I don’t think. And then acknowledge that at some point you’re going to be very skilled, but you will not be a superstar. And you might see the writing on the wall where you are never going to be a superstar, and some of us, I feel like I’m often I feel like I’m in that place right where I still have to do these non-negotiables, because you got to do them in order to be playing the game, and yet you know you can’t waste energy, and this is the crossroads people come to, I think you can’t waste energy on envy, like you’re you have to value personal growth over competition, and so I see it all the time where people get to that place and they get so frustrated because they’re working so hard and they’re so skilled and they’re doing everything right, you know? It must be someone else’s fault because they’re not getting this stardom or whatever they want and going viral. Yeah, and you know that’s where the reality, like, just of the universe, you know, comes at you, and I wind up finding that, and this is again, I’m gonna bristle some more of you people, like, you know, get ready for your feathers to be ruffled again. I have no respect for people who come to me, you know, with envy, rather I want to surround myself with people who are collaborators, so if you’re watching this and you’re one of my friends watching this, then obviously we probably talked about this before. You know, you’re a collaborative type of a person and not someone who is looking to compete with me. I also don’t want to be around people who envy what I achieve, because I am looking at all these people who have done so much more than I have, and I’m not, you know, begrudging them or being envious of them, or trying to figure out why did they get it and I didn’t get it, because that serves no purpose. So, I don’t want to be around people that play the victim, meaning their reasons that they don’t have what they want are due to external circumstances. I want to be around people that are in that situation, talking about what they can do to change things a little bit, and to move their needles forward, and you know the world doesn’t deliver accolades proportional to skills or to effort. So, when we come with complaints and we don’t come with solutions, I don’t feel like we’re adding anything positive at all to it. So, for me, I don’t care, and this is the bristling part, and I mean this out of a place of sincerity, but I don’t care how old you are, like I’m old, I’m going to be on Medicare next year, you know, I don’t care how handicapped you are, we all have handicaps and things that we’re dealing with, you know, you haven’t seen my medical records, that would make you probably cringe, you, you don’t know how you know how many people have been in situations where they were not financially stable. I didn’t grow up rich, so you have to be creative and find a solution. If you have a thought, my belief is that you can move with that thought, you can move your art career if you want to forward a nanometer, and then the next day or the next hour you move it forward another nanometer, another nanometer, and soon you get a millimeter. You might not get the yardstick, but you get the millimeter, you know. So that’s kind of where I am on all of that. And some people I think come from really crappy circumstances and still do really well. Artists that I know that have had this happen, Michael Jackson kinds of, you know, people, and you wonder if maybe they’re not doing so great because they’ve had to overcome those circumstances, and they’ve looked at them as, you know, challenges instead of, you know, something that’s going to bring them down. It’s like, how do I get through this? So, I feel like none of us have excuses. We all have incredible access to more knowledge, better supplies, more resources, and you know, more tools than Rembrandt or Leonardo da Vinci ever had, and we have longer life expectancies. So, life takes no prisoners, but all of us are living in luxury compared to those Golden Age masters that we all admire, or at least I do. That’s kind of how I’m thinking on that. So, there, take that, and then I have three checkups that I perform regularly that I think maybe you want to think about doing too. The first one, tenacity and confidence in your artistic path. Do you have it? Like, it’s so important, I think, to have persistence through challenges. Last person standing wins. Do you guys watch like Alone and Naked and Afraid and Survivor, those kinds of shows? I love that The Last Man Standing is going to be the one that’s most persistent, is going to be the winner. Oftentimes we get long and impressive resumes, most of us do, and eventually nobody cares, like even people ask me for them, when you apply for things, they’ll oftentimes come back to me and ask me a question. I’m like, it’s right in bold, right in the first paragraph of my resume, but okay, here’s the answer again. So I don’t even think when they ask for them, they look at them anymore, but I think you should look at your resume regularly, like you should notice all your accomplishments if you’re one of the last men standing people, and you’re tenacious, and you’re a serious artist. I did the math one time, and I think you’re one in like a whole football stadium full of people, one in maybe 100,000 artists who do this, what we do. And I think that if you’re tenacious, you absolutely should take pride in your persistence and in your accomplishments, and just because external validations are not obvious doesn’t mean they’re absent. So we all get heard more than we know. Like, I don’t know, probably anybody that’s on the chat right now, you know, you’re in places and you’re being judged for good or for bad by people out there that you’ve never even met. The majority of our followers are lurkers, and the way that the social algorithms work, a lot of times I’ll be commenting and liking and following on people for years, and then realize, oh, I’m not even an official follower, because they just give you what it is that they think you like, and you know they’re usually right. Yeah, so thinking about all that, give yourself a little pat on the back and check out, you know, all the good things that you’ve done lately. Be grateful. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna take a quick break here. Okay. The second check that I regularly do is a soul check, and what do I mean by that? I mean aligning my artistic plan with my core values, and I’m starting to articulate this one more and more lately. I think that whatever brings pride and growth into your life, it comes from this alignment, and what do I mean by that? Well, if your plan aligns with your deepest self, you can see what audience you’re attracting by doing it, and you have to work at attracting a core audience. I think through authenticity, and I know that the FASO marketing talks a lot about this too, but it’s like the build it and they’ll come. The people who love what you do, they’re going to follow, find you. So people follow you for lots of different reasons, but let’s just say you have a fancy, and I’ve had this happen to me, probably a few of you have as well, or you’ve had like more amazing things happen, but you get into a place like a fancy magazine feature, or some kind of a, you win a best in show, or you’re someplace up on a pedestal, and your followers, there’ll be a peak, and then they’ll promptly fall away, fall, fall away from you, and the ones who don’t relate to you, or they outgrow you, or they relate more to that magazine than they do to you, or you know, in some cases they only wanted something from you, and then they got it, or they didn’t get it, so then they’ll, their engagement will dwindle, and this is what we mean when we talk about how the number of followers means little. It’s all about the quality of your followers, and the same goes for sales and price points. So, wherever your price points are, you get dismissed by those who don’t value your art and artists at different price points from where you are. So, like, if you’re out there putting out the most beautiful $50 painted rocks in the world, you’re not going to be featured someplace that values someone who’s doing $100,000 western, you know, whatever, 10 foot paintings, right? So, in truth, they’re the marketers, they’re going for the buck, so they’re going for whatever they think that their people are interested in, and most of us, or a lot of us, like the person who does the $50 rocks, they do the best $50 rocks there are. I was in London, and I saw this guy painting little one inch bubblegum scenes on the London Bridge turns out he’s world famous. He’s been all kinds of talk shows.
Angela Agosto 32:47
Wow,
Debra Keirce 32:48
who knew, right? He’s the best bubblegum painter ever. So, most of us are successful, and we have longer resumes than the artists that are featured, and depending on who you, how you define your success and who you’re marketing to, you could be more successful than them too. So, you can’t align your goals with whoever it is that you’re seeing that’s being raised up in this marketing space that you want to be in, or it just doesn’t work. And I think that’s pretty important. Feel like I’m going to start to lose my voice here. If you’re putting yourself in front of your potential audience, they’re going to assemble however you do that, and you can do it through social media, through teaching, through attending learning events. You can do it through giving and attending art attacks, art talks, art attacks, is what I said, that you can do it through art exhibitions that you’re part of, or have organized, or even ones that you know nothing about, or you can do it through volunteering at art events and societies, and once you do these things and network what you do, then your people will assemble. Now, here’s the thing, you guys, is I hate, I abhor, I despise, like I just do not like doing two of the things that I just listed, and then I listed six of them, two of them I tolerate doing, and two of them I actually do look forward to getting up and doing every day, and those are the things that are fun for me, but the truth of it is I’m going to go to my grave, never letting you know which are which, because we have to do all of them, so even though I talk about, oh, I’m only going to do the things that make me happy. Oh, yeah, well, you know, there’s some things you got to do that don’t make you so happy too, because, and it served no purpose to complain, as I said. So, we’re not going to do that, but if you do those things, eventually you’re going to connect with people, and it may be a small group or it may be a large group, it may lead to opportunities, or it may not. Galleries may offer you representation, or crickets. It may grow your followers and subscribers, or it may not. You may increase your sales, or it may not. So, another truth, on most days I wake up, and I’m not at all happy with the results. It’s like when you want to lose 10 pounds in the. And you’re eating all the whole foods, and, and the scale is not budging, and you’re like, what the heck, right? But you can’t dwell on those failures, you have to look at them as growth opportunities, and so that brings me to my third check, which is the nuances and the tweaks, like, what do you need to do in order to achieve more specific goals, and you know, how are we going to grow our art career, given that this, these are our circumstances. So that’s everything that I had to say. And in conclusion, I mean, this is how I’ve crafted my enjoyable and sustainable experience. And I will never, ever, ever willingly retire. Now, if anyone wants to test this, you can give me a billion dollars. I will definitely buy a jet and have that at my, you know, beck and call, and I’ll have a 24/7 driver who can take me to Connecticut whenever I want, you know, have some other bells and whistles, but I’m going to be getting up and doing my art career just like I do now, I believe. But this doesn’t mean that it’s all rainbows and unicorns, right? My life has its ups and downs and stuff. I got a crown that just fell out that I have to go to the dentist and get the temporary crown thing put back in. I mean, we’re all dealing with stuff, but all of what I’ve shared today is just that. It’s not advice. I don’t have a marketing degree, I don’t have an art degree, I don’t have a sales degree. I, it’s not a formula for success, it’s just sharing my observations and experiences. Take what you think works for you, ignore the rest, and know that you’re every bit as capable and as resourced as the artist that’s sitting next to you. In my belief, don’t try to achieve anyone else’s goals, like set your own goals and your own, you know, things you want to get done, and work toward them. And I want to say, good luck, and thanks for being on this insanely difficult but fulfilling journey with me. Find more at Debk art.com and check out the monthly FASO articles I write for FASO and Substack. Hope this finds you and helps you to live your best art life too. And also, can you guys share this link, and comment, and like, and let us all know your experiences, because we’re mine. Maybe some of them missed the mark. You truly might say something that someone needs to hear, and it’s like just what they want to want to know about today. So go forth and inspire. How did I do that?
Angela Agosto 37:16
Yeah, you did amazing. That was amazing advice, and I feel like everybody can walk away with something today. From
Olya Konell 37:22
I personally have to say, I felt like you spoke to me in something, because I’ve been beating myself up about, you know, at one point I was all I did was art, but then I got burnt out, and then I like that part of your talk, like that spoke to me in such a way, and I still consider myself an artist, like there’s my corner right here, nobody can see it, but I have two windows, like perfect lighting, and I can rotate my lights, and I still doodle, but I haven’t shared anything, and I’m going through this season because I’m helping my husband with stuff, because he has a business that actually pays the bills, so it’s kind of like I felt that you were speaking to me, and not just took this pressure that I was putting on myself for stuff. I’m like, oh, okay, this is this is just that, like, because you can’t, you really can’t do all the things.
Debra Keirce 38:12
Oftentimes, I think, like, the things we hear and see, and not make us feel like we should, or like we have to, or we should, we’re supposed to. Yeah,
Olya Konell 38:20
are we like you were talking about you, we look at other people’s idea of success, and we think that that’s what success means, and we’ve never stopped to ask ourselves, and actually I’m reminded, so in we have this activity in our marketing calendar that I think everybody could do once, it’s like a your true self audit, you spend a whole month asking yourself different questions, because there’s.. I’ve done some of that through my life. I grew up being raised by parents who instilled certain values and ideas, and most of them were wonderful, but some of them were cultural, some of them were not positive, you know, some of.. you know, you’re you, you learn a lot from how people handle things, how they handle stress, etc. You learn what success is to them, so you think that’s what you have to do to be admired by your parents. You know all of that, and there’s comes a time, I think, in every person’s life, not just an artist, where we have to sit down and shed that and actually ask ourselves, is this true or is this just an opinion?
Angela Agosto 39:24
Yeah,
Olya Konell 39:25
you know, and we have to go through that audit because sometimes we’re aiming for things that we realize that we don’t actually even want, you know,
Debra Keirce 39:34
and for some people that opens the floodgates. It’s like, oh, when you stop and think and you come to your conclusions, it’s like, wow, I’ve been preventing myself, like I’ve been getting in my own way all these years, and didn’t do
Speaker 1 39:46
right,
Angela Agosto 39:46
and I like what you said earlier, because it’s like, is this true for me? Does this, what worked for my family, my friend, or my, you know, who, my mentor, whoever you’re, you know, comparing yourself to, does that work for me? I think that is a really good. And kind of like a check to do, like you said, Deborah, you should do like a soul check, because I think I mean we’ve talked about this before in other webinars, that if you’re painting, or even if you’re, you know, a writing, or you know, musician, or whatever you may be, whatever creative, if you’re doing what really sits well with you, with your soul. It’s going to come out in your work. You’re going to want to go do the stuff that may seem a little hard, like going to workshops and doing all this, where it seems work. You’re going to want to do that, because you’re going to want to improve and get out what you’re actually, what’s in your head, what you, what’s in your soul that you want to paint. And I think that’s going to find an audience, because people are going to connect with that, there’s somebody out, is going to connect with your work.
Olya Konell 40:43
Yeah, Tim here says, Thank you. I love your focus on enjoying your art career more than making it big, in quotes. Very reinforcing for me, it is a very satisfying retirement activity, not my path to fame. And in law, I can’t read today, and fortune, you know, signed Tim. No, I agree, because at the end of the day, whether we are super famous, and I’ve been on this topic a lot, because I’ve lost people in my life within a short period of time, friends, family, it’s like this is a talk that you don’t really, it’s not something you always think about until you have to think about, but we’re all going to die, and whether you’re super famous, you’re going to die, or you’re, or you’re not super famous, you’re going to die, and so your, your, your thoughts on legacy, and like, you know, how are we going to be remembered by the community? How are we going to be remembered by our family and friends, and what truly matters at the end, because, like, what a sad life it is to live, that you are aiming for something that truly brought you no joy along the way. You know, you do have to balance. You know, life isn’t perfect. We have to do things we don’t love. We have to pay bills. We have to wash the toilet, squid clean the toilet. Like, there’s things we have to do. You know, sometimes I hate.. you know, I have to wash my hair. I’m like, I hate washing.. you know, just whatever it is about life that you just is like a chore. I have chickens, I love them, but I have to clean the chicken coop once in a while. One
Debra Keirce 42:08
of my dear, dearest friends, I wasn’t going to bring her up, but she would love that I am. She’s probably watching me. Her name is Lori Silvagi, and she just passed away from stomach cancer, and she lives in, lived in the Knoxville area. She just passed away last Monday, and so, but I had some conversations with her beforehand, and she literally taught me how to.. I don’t think I can do it necessarily, but how to die gracefully. In that one of the last things she said to me was, you know, my one biggest regret, besides, you know, her husband and family having to go through the grieving process, and all said, my one biggest regret, Deb, is that you know we just got to a place where we are doing so well and so happy in our art, and we have the skills to do what we want to do, and now I don’t get to make any more, you know, I don’t get to put any more out there, and I, yeah, and I teared up too, and but I’ve thought about it so many times since that conversation, and I’m like, you know, that is like, doesn’t everybody want to go out with that regret? You know,
Olya Konell 43:14
I wish I could have made, yeah, yeah, you know, and there’s a lot of
Angela Agosto 43:18
people,
Olya Konell 43:19
yeah, there’s a quote that’s like the richest as artists we should feel. I reflect on this sometimes, like the fact that we picked up the brush to begin with, the pack or the pencil or the clay, or whatever it is that we’re working in, the fact that we even did it. Think of all the people that have that, that had that creative, you know, part of them that they never did anything with, and that dies with them when they die, and then there’s like this quote where the cemetery is the richest place in the whole universe, because it’s all the ideas that were, you know, inventions that were never built, stories that were never written, songs that were never saw, you know, all of the things that we have in us, and like the artist that picks up the brush, whether it be for a long period of their life or a short period of their life, or sporadically, like it doesn’t matter, like you didn’t take that to the grave, like what a beautiful thing, you know,
Angela Agosto 44:12
right? And it’s like you took that first step, so you are better today than you were yesterday when you hadn’t even started, and then tomorrow, if you keep going, then you’re even better than the day before, and just with that, like people who are just starting out, they’re like, oh, you know, I’m, I’m older, I, you know, there’s quite a few artists who say I started later, that’s okay, I mean, I’m kind of doing the same thing now, because I did take a break and I did other stuff, you know, to raise kids and all that, but I knew it as a kid, and I didn’t, like, we, you mentioned something, you touched on it a little bit earlier, Deborah, where, like, you know, my family, you did too, as well. It was like, no, don’t do art, that is not going to pay the bills. And so I gave it up, and then I would just kind of do it as a little hobby, you know, kind of when I needed to decompress. So then I realized, okay, that’s my decompress, that that’s where my happy place, and I’m still kind of doing that. And now I’m in the art world, so I get to, I do love little. At art and doing all that, and then you know, I take the time, I get inspired every day by seeing the art. We’re like, oh, you know, maybe I need to go this weekend, and
Olya Konell 45:07
yeah,
Angela Agosto 45:07
do that. So I think just start somewhere, even if it’s a hobby at first, and then you make it a career, or if it just stays a hobby, that’s okay, you’re still doing something you love.
Olya Konell 45:18
Yeah, I, and then Chris says successful when when preparedness meets opportunities. Being successful in any field means a job well done in a timely manner. Patience, execution, and I’m reading - I’m not reading well today. Methodical work are essential, but also it is necessary to take personal joy in what you do. Yeah, very so
Debra Keirce 45:41
right, and the patience part of it, I think, is what our culture, current culture, is really taking away, because I don’t think my kids grew up with as much patience as we had to have. I don’t think I had as much patience as my grandmother having used ring or washing machine, you know, like we just don’t.
Angela Agosto 45:58
Yeah,
Debra Keirce 45:59
be even different, even more different. Where we’re going to, I think, be even less patient, you know?
Angela Agosto 46:04
Yeah, the more stuff is at our fingertips. I want to.. I hate to say it, but the lazier we get, because we feel like we don’t have to actually.. oh, I’ll just see it here. And then you kind of get consumed, and it’s like you didn’t even do it, because you were too busy watching. I know one of our writers.. I can’t remember if it was.. oh, if it was Eugene. I’m trying to think of one of our writers. He wrote about this gentleman that he used to see in an elevator, and he worked there. And then, you know, he’d always greet him, always say hello, and it was like a daily thing. And then he said one day he didn’t, and he was in a corner on his phone, and he said, oh, you know, hi. And then he’s like, oh, sorry, you know, my kids just got me on on YouTube, or I think it was TikTok or something. He goes, and I’m learning how to do this because I really want to do, and it was a creative.. I can’t remember what it was at the moment, but and so he saw him at that for months and months and months, like he said he never did it because he every time I’d see him, he was on his phone watching and watching. He goes, and I realized I don’t think he’s ever going to do it, you know? Like, I tried talking to him, and he wasn’t the same cheerful person, just always on his phone. I was like, wow, that, and that made me realize, you know, what, that’s true. Sometimes I’ll go on Pinterest or somewhere, and I, I keep doing, I keep doing, and then I’m like, oh, you know, it’s been two months, and I haven’t actually put it to practice yet. Let me take a break.
Debra Keirce 47:16
Even artwork, like, if you put more than six seconds on a video, you know, the algorithms say, well, probably won’t get very many views, you know, and you would think that art would be something that you’d want to, like, spend your time looking at, but apparently the ones where it flashes quickly make people more engaged, so
Olya Konell 47:36
yeah, and you know, I think it’s, I think it’s just, it’s called the attention economy is the marketing term used, so that is what businesses are paying for. They’re paying for ad spots, they’re paying for somebody to mention their company name on a, on a video, because it’s, you know, that’s to get to get someone’s attention is the most valuable thing, because they say within the first three seconds that’s your opportunity, that’s how short our attention spans. Yes, when it comes to social media, I do think it’s different in different environments, obviously. So, if you go someplace in person, you’re walking, you’re more likely to slow down at a fair, at an event, and I actually wanted to comment on that specifically to the to all the different things that you do, where you listed learning events through giving and attending art talks, through our exhibitions, like volunteering events, societies, going places for everybody listening, and anybody listening to the recording, the value of actually going to support others and attend and view the amount of exposure that gives you, like, you know, it’s such, you’re giving because you’re contributing your time, you’re showing up, you’re supporting whatever it is, but at the same time, the I think we sometimes forget that marketing is the simple act of meeting other humans and telling them that we are an artist, that’s it. For artists, that is simply it. Like for other businesses, it’s going to be different because they’re selling products and services, right? For artists, it’s the art is just important as the artist, so whether it’s social media, you know, and you can, you know, we have artists that come on, and some swear by Instagram, and some hate Instagram, and some like this, and some only do sell at shows, and the thing that I always like to remind people of is, like, we are all unique individuals with different skills, so if you’re really good at something, put more energy into that, do a little bit of everything else, but that becomes your thing, you know. And you still go to do this and that, and it’s there’s not like one. It’s that’s at the end of the day, it’s just, did you go out and meet people in person or online? Did you shake some hands? Did you interact somehow? That’s the real. Yellow, it is, and
Debra Keirce 50:01
that’s like that guy I was talking about. His name’s Ben Wilson, the London Bridge artist guy. Yeah, you know, he’s out there in person, and he’s not interacting with anybody, but he’s there physically. I think that played into his becoming popular, his going viral.
Angela Agosto 50:16
Yeah, I’m sure. I know we had a few artists. There was two that come to mind. Warren Chang said he went to a friend’s art reception, like an opening, and that’s how he was discovered, you know. He, I think, by a gallery, and then he said he found somebody who became a collector later as well, just by going to that one event that wasn’t even for him, but it’s, you know, kind of interacting, sort of talking to people, and then we also had Steve Atkins, who said that he volunteered to do a poster for the rodeo that they have in Prescott, Arizona, and since it’s been a few years now that he actually designs the poster for the big event, they sell his prints there, he gets to actually keep it in commission, I think, and sell the painting itself, so it’s kind of become a commission, but it’s, it’s for him now every year, so he gets a lot of exposure because he gets to sit there and meet people with his paintings and do like a little demo or something, and then I know, like, for Shanna, she said that, or Shayna, she said that for her DMing, interacting on social media, so we just had two that I mentioned in person going to events, and then we had somebody who does it online, I mean, I’m sure she does in person as well, but she said for her that’s where she communicates with people, and I know I’ve got two other people who said that Facebook, whenever they go on Facebook and post something and just kind of talk a little bit about it, their painting always sells. So I feel like, you know, there’s two options. If you don’t have access, maybe you live in a small town, you don’t have art fairs, or you know, art events, then do the online thing more. If you get a chance, like Deborah, you had said, you know, you found six to take you, maybe you, you have some friends online in the art world, and they’re going to travel somewhere, and maybe you just need to get to where they’re at, and then you all travel together, like that can be something else you can do to kind of do the in person.
Debra Keirce 52:00
The number one artist on TikTok, Devon Rodriguez. He’s the guy who does all the portraits of people in the subway in New York, and all that. Yeah, he actually.. he actually.. it’s a funny story, but I was with another friend of mine, Juan Ramirez, and we were at the portrait gallery in DC, and we were looking at an exhibition, and he was down there, Davon was looking at a port at something that a friend had done, which was a sculpture of Devon on that was on the wall in the portrait gallery, and so it was kind of cool. The guard let him go behind the thing and take a picture, but afterwards I invited them back to my house, and so it was Devon and Mon, who Mon Habib, Devon Rodriguez, and Juan, so I had Mon Juan and Devon in my, and they, and so Devon and Juan were painting and drawing Man, and we were talking about things, and I had no idea who Devon was, because he wasn’t famous back then, he was living in Brooklyn and talking about how he’d like to get out of the hood, and you know, stuff, you know, the going on in his life, and again came really rough circumstances and stuff, and and so we were having this conversation about things, and then it was like the next year, one year, two years later, I’m seeing him on TikTok, I’m like, what the heck, so I’m DMing him, going, what happened? I guess all your dreams came true, you know. He’s like, yeah, that was so cool, but he was, I mean, literally it happened that fast, where it went viral, and it was just, he was all lined up, because he was talking about how he didn’t have the money to go to RISD, which was his dream, and I’m looking at what he’s drawing, going, I don’t think you need RISD, you know, and and so it was, it was that quickly that opportunity, but it was years and years, I don’t know how many, that he had been doing the stuff on the subway, and, like you said, it was in person, and he’s interacting with people, and I don’t know exactly how he got the TikTok talk gig, how that all happened for him, but it’s like when you line yourself up in those places where you’re around people, you’re just setting yourself up for those eventual successes, and
Angela Agosto 54:07
you
Debra Keirce 54:08
still have to be patient. I mean, he went through a lot in order to get to where he is now, but it’s really cool to see this, you know, Rags to Rich’s story actually happen. And then he bought his grandmother a house, and they’re living in, you know,
Angela Agosto 54:19
part of New
Debra Keirce 54:20
York now, and all it’s like, wow,
Olya Konell 54:22
that’s amazing. So I followed him from the, that probably that first year, like I, because I do have a TikTok, it’s more for, you know, I’ll just go look at stuff, and I remember him popping up, and I remember his first, like, video going, like, I actually followed him from the beginning, and I just thought it was so cool, but I had no idea that you know you met him a year prior, and what an amazing story like that would be, that that would be an amazing, yeah, that is an amazing story, and it’s a reminder to all of us that we all have that that story of the beat of the bee of the before and. What you were talking about, like peaking sometimes as artists, we some artists might peak early in life, some might peak later. There is no formula, there is no perfect shoe for success. And then I had a thought, and I wanted to share this with everybody. One of the things you talked about was, like, it, you know, being envious is not productive, or being, you know, all of those frustrations, being frustrated about this, your circumstances, because you have, you, you know, you, you have a hard life, or you can’t do this, or you have that. There’s an interesting, you know, all of that. I would lump into the category of stress, stressful things, right? You know that we go through in life, whether it be challenges or whatever. There’s there’s a fascinating article, like on a brain, you know, like brain research studies. Stress is only harmful to you if you believe it is. So they studied this, they had, they did the groups of people, they.. this is a.. this is a measured fact that that stress is only harmful if you believe it is. If you believe that it makes you stronger. So, they had three groups of people: people that believe that stress makes them stronger, or stressful situations, or hard challenges in life. People that had literally practically no stress in their life lived a very stress-free life, and people that believe that stress was bad for their health or bad for whatever, the people that believe that stress made them stronger lived longer than those that had no stress at all, that reported no stress at all, and those that obviously believed that it was bad for them. It obviously, they had the shortest lifespans, etc. So that tells you how powerful our brain is when it comes to what happens physiologically to our bodies. It is the same for everything else that we do in life. So, if challenge, if you believe challenges will make you stronger and will help you succeed, there’s a part of your brain called the Reticular Activating System, and that is literally your built-in subconscious algorithm that connects your conscious mind with your subconscious mind, and it sits kind of right at the base of your brainstem, and so what it does is, if that’s what you believe, your subconscious interpretations, what you notice, all of that, you know, it doesn’t have a reasoning mechanism. It literally takes input data, like, I, you know, I, I’m always late, you will always be late, I, you know, so you know that thing about never speaking negatively about yourself, you know, all the woo, so there’s actually a scientific wired way that our brain works, so if you believe that you know all these challenges I’m going through, these financial struggles, like they will, I will break through someday, I’m going to find an opportunity that reticular activating system will notice the opportunity, kind of like hearing your name called out in a loud room full of lots of voices, that’s literally what it does, you know, and so it’s just fascinating to me, like that, you know, sometimes we are our at worst enemy because we put up those barriers that prevent ourselves, you know, from getting to that place,
Debra Keirce 58:20
and what you’re saying, oh yeah, I think the value in this is once you know this, you can’t, on you can’t not see that, so like, have you ever been in those situations, I have, where you join a sketch group or you join a critique group or something, and you, and you can see the people that are just dragging everybody down into those negative rabbit holes, and you get out of them, the people that get out of them, you can, you can watch, and you see those are the ones who are successful, or at least happy in their art careers, and then the people in those rabbit holes, you know, they continue to be there for years, or the group disbands, so yeah, I’ve seen what you, what you’re exactly what you’re talking about, like play out, and I think that once you’re aware of it, you, it’s very obvious when you, from the minute you walk into a group, you kind of get that vibe, and you know, right?
Olya Konell 59:08
You just know exactly, and you’re not, and I heard this somewhere, like, if you’re in, if you’re in a group or in a place or something, you’re not a tree, just
Angela Agosto 59:20
move, yeah, that’s that’s true, and I know for myself, and even like I’ve been trying to instill that in my kids,
Olya Konell 59:25
yeah,
Angela Agosto 59:26
when the stuff, or you know, like a deadline or stress, I’m actually at my best, like my creative, whether it’s cooking or drawing, or you know, a project I have to do, I’m sharper, and it comes out even better because I had that little stress, it kind of becomes like a little bit of a good adrenaline for me, yeah, motivates me to do it, and sometimes when I’m stuck, I’m like, maybe I need somebody to stress me out, because I’m not going, and I know we had one artist, she was telling me that she had a, she kind of felt like she had gotten blocked, but it’s because she gets so stressful when she would commit. Something, and then time was ticking, and maybe she had committed to certain paintings for an exhibition, and then she would get stuck, because she would kind of let that become sort of like a bad mind game for herself, and she’s like, “I’m blocking, so she’s like, “I’m never doing those again. Like, okay, I think you’ll know your limits. Yeah.
Debra Keirce 1:00:17
Do you watch those? What I was talking about, the Naked and afraid and alone shows. Do you ever watch any of those?
Olya Konell 1:00:22
Yes, I have.
Angela Agosto 1:00:23
I’ve never
Debra Keirce 1:00:24
seen.
Olya Konell 1:00:24
I have. I don’t ever tune in for a whole season, because, but I will watch like all randomly. I want to watch this episode, not watch
Debra Keirce 1:00:34
it. I’m fascinated in those about how the mind, your mindset can overcome things that, like, I couldn’t even fathom experiencing the bug bites, and you know, the heat, all that stuff, the thorns, all the stuff they have to do. How you can just put your brain in a place. And here’s the thing, is I feel like, as artists, we have this superpower we don’t talk about very much, and probably only it sounds like you’re very aware of this brain stuff, but there’s the theta brain, the waves that happen, and when you go into your zone of painting or drawing, or whatever you’re doing to create, you are in that theta zone, and I know for myself that this is why I have to cut myself off at four hours of driving, is I go into these theta zone places much more easily now that I’ve been arting for so long, and so when I’m driving along, if I’m thinking about an art project or whatever, I’ll forget I’m the one behind the wheel, and I’ll be like, you know, somebody stopped the car. Oh, wait, I’m driving, you know, I mean, dangerous if I’m not focused, so I got to pay attention to that. But yeah, I feel like that’s one of our superpowers as artists, is to go into that place where we can have that mindset that we need to overcome those things.
Olya Konell 1:01:44
Yeah, absolutely. And for me, music is a huge thing. I’ll turn something on, and that kind of sets the.. because, yes, time just.. it’s almost like you’re in a time warp, and time ceases to exist, and you’re like, yeah, I. Angela, something you mentioned, and I wanted to throw this out. So, I heard this quote - it, I don’t remember from who, and I wish I could give credit, but it said that creativity is basically problem solving, or somebody said it, or something. But I heard it somewhere, I really liked it, because at the end of the day, like, everything, it’s like your creativity is probably, how am I going to capture this? You’re probably, you know, how am I? You know, you’re how am I going to say this? How am I going to portray this? Or if creativity in the workspace is something as simple as, like, I only have one hour and I need to get this done, so how can I go from A to Z the fastest? You know, oh, I’ll just do this, I’ll just do that. You’re done, because I am the same way. I will intend, I’ll actually give myself a faux deadlines, you know, and I’ll have an alarm going off, like I have one hour left, or whatever. I will intentionally do that for myself, because that literally lights a little bit of that creative fire, and I’m like, oh wait, if I layer this, if I even in painting, I’m like, okay, I have to get this commission done, if I do it this way. If I under paint in acrylic and over paint in oil, I’ll have a thinner oil layer. I can still use, you know what I mean, like, but I can get it to dry fast enough to ship by this date, or whatever.
Angela Agosto 1:03:14
Yeah, yeah.
Olya Konell 1:03:18
Oren says self-doubt, it’s is a huge motivator to do your best work.
Angela Agosto 1:03:22
Yes,
Olya Konell 1:03:23
yeah.
Debra Keirce 1:03:24
Orin’s amazing. It’s Orin Laloy, I bet he’s a friend of mine, and he’s an amazing artist. He’s he’s someone who you probably want to have on a webinar someday.
Olya Konell 1:03:34
Oh, we’ll have to check
Angela Agosto 1:03:35
him out,
Olya Konell 1:03:36
Oren
Debra Keirce 1:03:38
Laloya, L O L O I. Sounds like a song, doesn’t it? When you,
Olya Konell 1:03:43
yes, and Vivi was asking, what was the name of the art program you said you went to,
Debra Keirce 1:03:48
Any Art Academies, and it’s you can do it remotely, which is how I did it, because I’m not local to any of the schools, but it’s really quite amazing. It’s Ani was the curriculum was written by Anthony Whychulis, who I can.. I’m proud to call a friend, but he’s probably one of the, if not the best trompe l’oeil artists in the country today, and he teamed up with a couple of other people who created these five, I think they have five now, schools in different places, his in New Jersey, or excuse me, in Pennsylvania, and then I’m going to get them wrong, so you can just go to the website and look, but they’re like Thailand and Sri Lanka and different places, right, and they’re what they are is people that want to be students at the Aynte Art Academies can apply to do so, and if you get accepted, and I think it’s like 15 or 20 in each location, then you are accepted. There’s no tuition, there’s no supply. You don’t pay for supplies. Everything is provided for you. And what they are is these places that are in these different countries, they’re in third world type situations, but right next to a very exclusive. Of resort, you know, the kind that you pay 1000s of dollars a week to get like all of your needs met and have a wonderful time, and so they’ve created an economy between the resorts and the schools, so that people will have, they’ll have an art show, and people will have sales, and I mean, there, you know, if a painting is purchased at one of the prices, like we would have in the United States, which they’re, you can look at them, they’re totally worth it, that can, like, buy someone a house over there, you know, so it’s a really neat humanitarian and philanthropic, and, but you know, wonderful industry that they have going on
Speaker 2 1:05:37
here,
Debra Keirce 1:05:37
but they also have the language of drawing and the language of painting, both of which are available in DVDs, which is how I did them, and, and you print, you get a bunch of stuff printed out in a big binder, and then you can go ahead and you can follow the curriculum. What I did was, because I’m friends with a lot of the people in the curriculum, I went and I talked to the instructors and different people, and you can connect with people, and you can either do it in a paid way, or you can do it, you know, in just a off-the-cuff way, or whatever, get their opinion on whether your assignments, you know, whether you’ve passed or whatever, but also now with AI, you can go on to AI, and you can say, hey, does this piece that I just completed, here’s my, my an image of it does this meet the exercise, the criteria for the exercises for the language of drawing on the academy’s program, or whatever, and compare, and basically use AI to give you, because they’ve got this thing called Smarter Marks, Smarter, and then M A R X that Anthony runs, it’s a website with all kinds of information, including the criteria and everything that is required to do these assignments for the Ani Art Academies, and so the AI will access that and be able to, you know, like basically be an online grader, not as good as being there in person, not as good as going, paying someone to be an instructor, and, and you know, follow you on every assignment, but anyway, that’s more probably than this person wanted to know. But
Olya Konell 1:07:06
no, this
Angela Agosto 1:07:07
I think it’s good. I actually posted the name, I got it from your, from your site, and I did post earlier your resume, so they could see what you were talking about.
Olya Konell 1:07:14
Yeah,
Debra Keirce 1:07:14
okay. Thank you.
Olya Konell 1:07:15
There’s, you know, and and there’s lots of different.. I think it’s amazing that there’s lots of different options for people, depending on where they are geographically on the globe, or where they are in life, and you know, time, and sometimes on online is easier. Like, I’ve.. I’m also, I guess, a self-taught artist, you know, and I know that I need to.. I do need to.. I’m in that place where I do.. I’m ready for some feedback, and I want to learn from some people in person, and I want to do that, but it is, you know, I, it’s, it’s amazing how much you can learn on online, the amount of hours I would watch for free on YouTube, like I found artists whose art I admired, and they put out videos, and I would just sit there and watch them paint, and then pause, and, like, okay, you know, and it’s amazing how much you can learn by observation, especially.
Debra Keirce 1:08:06
And I have not done it, but doesn’t FASO have that option where you can create tutorials or whatever on YouTube, and then put them on your website and sell them?
Angela Agosto 1:08:16
Yes, yes, you sure can. We do have, you know, where you can post your videos and sell them. Some of some artists give them for free on there, and then they link to where, oh, here’s the portions,
Speaker 1 1:08:25
you know,
Angela Agosto 1:08:26
ones, yeah, and
Debra Keirce 1:08:26
I don’t, I mean, I want to tell you guys how to do your business, but you know what would be cool is if you had a tab on the website where you could like access all the artists that have their videos available, you know, then maybe we
Angela Agosto 1:08:38
actually do, we do have a section, it’s in the control panel, which we’re updating now, going to be called the dashboard, but under videos you can see all the free ones that anybody’s posted to share for free, and then we used to obviously sell some courses as well, so for those who bought some in the past, you can also see purchase videos, and then, of course, your own that you’re going to have on your site, but yeah, we do have it. It’s a little buried. It is going to be a little bit. It’s going to actually be on the top bar, only there’s going to be like three or four on the new UI that’s coming, the new interface that’s coming soon. And it’s going to also, I know we had complaints, people like, it’s so small and it’s, it’s black and you can’t really see it. We took all that into consideration. So feedback, we are. It’s always welcome. So, yes, Deborah, thank you. And it is going to be now more highlighted, since you, you know, obviously you didn’t know it was there, and there’s people who don’t know it’s there either.
Olya Konell 1:09:29
Yeah, for artists that you were talking about lucrative ways of making money, you know, for example, teaching is one of those, and there’s different ways of teaching. There’s online, there’s in person for the artist that maybe goes into, okay, I want to teach, but I just want to record a video and make it affordable, so people can get it, and that way there’s a slow trickle. Something that I have seen for anyone listening, if you want to kind of see it done really well, Matthew White is a watercolor painter, and he has a very. Big YouTube channel, and so he’ll put out. He’s very generous, and he puts out videos for free, but if you want to, like, in all of his videos, you can get a free something if you sign up for his newsletter, and that’s where he has all of the full on courses. Like, he’s developed these video courses, people, like, there’s my, you know, people can get critiques, they can, you know, so if you have the, if, if, if you are up for that, like it’s a certain type of brain that likes to organize information that way, and can put it all together. If you’re an artist that you’re like, huh, my brain likes that, I want to do that, go look at his, look at how he does it, maybe go sign up, see what you get, you know, and you can mimic, you know, and do your own thing for your own art. If you’re into that teaching space, and it’s did
Angela Agosto 1:10:51
a whole session with us too,
Angela Agosto 1:10:53
for
Speaker 1 1:10:53
those
Olya Konell 1:10:54
about it.
Angela Agosto 1:10:54
Yeah, for FASO members, you can go to the marketing center video library, and you can see, because it was a whole session we did on that right, where he explained how he monetized YouTube by just first offering for free, and I remember it was really small, the number, and then within like a year he
Olya Konell 1:11:10
took off,
Angela Agosto 1:11:11
yeah, a
Olya Konell 1:11:11
consistency, and it was that’s what he said, so your, your mention of consistency, I think we underestimate the power of doing small things over a long period of time. Sometimes
Debra Keirce 1:11:23
we do, we do,
Olya Konell 1:11:25
yeah. And that patience, and oh gosh, what is it? It’s like think about the little water drip always fall, and it can carve a rock, you know, a single water. So we, and the same thing for weight loss, like, oh, I want it yesterday, you know, or I want it done tomorrow, like anything, whether it be a health goal, or
Speaker 1 1:11:46
yeah,
Olya Konell 1:11:46
you know,
Angela Agosto 1:11:47
hey, yeah,
Olya Konell 1:11:48
yeah, but I really appreciate, I really appreciate the direct messages, and I think that it needs to be said, and I felt like sometimes, you know, there’s spaces in rooms where we wouldn’t go, and, like you said, blurt that out, because that’s not the audience didn’t come for that, but in this space, in this room, for this episode, this is why people are coming, because they want to hear those things, and I think that we need, we need those rooms, we need those spaces, because we can’t be coddled too much, you know. Otherwise, it’s going to set us up for failure.
Debra Keirce 1:12:30
And my hope, truly, is that people, you know, go forth and inspire, like I said, in that, you know, they’ll hear these things, and then maybe have discussions in other groups, or wherever they’re interacting with artists, and you know, maybe not be so shy to just go, “Hey, you know, what do you think about this or that? Because I can talk about these things in person, but when you write them things down, like I’m very careful in those FASO Way articles, I try to be careful, because whatever you say can be interpreted depending on the intonation in so many different ways, so you don’t ever want to offend anybody, but you know there’s there’s value in having these frank discussions, because we’re all going through it and we’re all feeling it.
Olya Konell 1:13:09
Yeah, and you’re right, be there’s no, no amount of emojis that you
Angela Agosto 1:13:14
can put
Olya Konell 1:13:15
behind certain sentences to make sure they land right, because they, those things are meant to be said with the voice and tone and facial expressions, and I think that’s what makes it hard. Some, sometimes, is like when you can’t see the other people’s faces, you’re like, am I going too far? Am I, you know, yeah.
Debra Keirce 1:13:34
And, and if you’re not good at reading the room, you could be like, I talked a lot about people who play the victim, and it’s not. I don’t, I think it’s culturally encouraged. I don’t think it’s necessarily their fault, but I feel like those people don’t even know what they’re doing, and everybody around them, you can just see people’s like body language cringing or whatever when they’re talking, and you feel for them, and yet you can’t reach out and say to them, stop, this is what you’re doing, and so maybe if they heard something like this, you know, or a conversation that’s third party that doesn’t involve them, that wait a minute, maybe would click and go do that
Angela Agosto 1:14:08
for sure. I know how many times I’ve told somebody something, especially my kids, and then a few years later it’s like, oh, this teacher, this professor told me this, and then sometimes I get the, I know you told me that, I’m like, I don’t even care, as long as you finally got it. I don’t, don’t need credit, I don’t need to. I said, I’m just happy you finally heard it. And usually I feel like coming from an outside source, you’re probably going to listen than somebody close to you. Tell me, and I think it’s great that you put the notes together and shared it with everybody, because seeing that, and then you know, reading that, and then actually seeing you talk about each one, and addressing, I think, really gave us a lot of context on what your message was for each, so
Olya Konell 1:14:48
yeah,
Debra Keirce 1:14:49
text is important in these frank discussions. I’m
Olya Konell 1:14:53
really excited for this to actually go out, so if anybody you know is watching the recording, thank. You for joining us, please. If you’re watching the recording, getting, you know, share your experiences. If you have things that maybe you don’t say out loud, but you can, you know, feel comfortable putting it into a comment, feel free to go ahead and drop them in the comments as well. We love the discussions we get on some of these, you know, articles or posts or emails that go out, we get a lot of good thoughts and interactions and feedback.
Debra Keirce 1:15:27
We make a rule: no judgment, like whatever goes in the comments stays in the comments. This
Olya Konell 1:15:31
is, this is a
Debra Keirce 1:15:33
people feel safe. Yeah,
Olya Konell 1:15:35
this is this is a safe zone. Absolutely. So, and we’re just going to assume that there’s like a bunch of positive emojis behind, like we’re going to assume that everything is coming from a place of genuine pure heart. Yeah, so
Debra Keirce 1:15:53
I don’t think Angela could be anything but pure hearted if she..
Angela Agosto 1:15:56
I always tell people I’m going to never assume that you’re going to.. you’re being mean, so if you want to be direct, I said, “You better just tell me, because I’m just gonna assume that you, that you’re coming from a good place.
Olya Konell 1:16:07
Yeah, I like, I like living life that way as well. But I.. oh, one last question from.. we’ll grab it, Toby. Our non-confungal. oh,
Angela Agosto 1:16:21
probably NFTs,
Olya Konell 1:16:22
yeah, NF, NFTs worth investing in as an artist, or are they a fad? So, what are your thoughts? I know what my thoughts are, but Deborah, what do you think?
Debra Keirce 1:16:32
I have no thoughts. I am literally so focused on what I’m doing right now. I don’t even do prints, I don’t do videos, I don’t do prints, I don’t do anything but original fine art that I’m selling to people in different venues, so to me the NFT is it’s not tangible, and I want to back to my engineering days, I went into chemical engineering because I mean I know gasses, you can’t see them, but most things is flowing, water flowing through pipes, and you can touch them, it’s tangible, I didn’t even like electricity because it scared me, because it was something you couldn’t see, so I feel like in the engineering world, NFTs are like electrical engineers, I don’t, you don’t want to get too close to them, they can shock you, you know, so I think that it can be good, and certainly all of us need our power, right, but on the other hand, I don’t know enough to, I know enough just to be dangerous, so I think it’s like any other, the people, the artists who I know, who have, and I won’t say their names, because I don’t know that they want to be publicly called out like that as people that are experts in it, but the ones that have gotten into it, and I’ve just, I’m just an observer, they’ve spent a lot of time learning the whole thing, and I mean it’s like anything else, they’ve had to devote, I mean, they pulled away from creating original art and were only doing AI-generated art and creating NFTs, and that was how they got their level of success in that area, and I just wasn’t willing to do that, so I didn’t,
Olya Konell 1:17:55
yeah, yeah, I think that’s a very, I love your analogy that if you aren’t careful, you can get electrocuted, because yes, you can. If you’re not careful, you can get scammed really, really, really bad. And you have to learn a lot, just like you would to become an electrical engineer. Like, you have to understand how everything works to be able to play that game, and it takes a lot of time. You don’t, you don’t just get a certificate, like certificate, like of completion, like you actually have to go to school to work to be an electrician, like you, you, there’s, it’s, it’s even as a trade, it’s not one that you can just get your foot in the door and, like, you know, and work your way up into, like, this is it, this is one of those things, so that’s what I would say is, if you have the time, and you have your brain can wrap around the ideas of, and you have the will, you know, determination and willpower, and you’re gonna, you’re gonna invest into it. It might work for you, like you, she was saying, but
Angela Agosto 1:18:56
it’s a lot of research.
Olya Konell 1:18:57
If you’re looking for an easy way to make money, that is not it.
Angela Agosto 1:19:00
It is not. There’s always things changing with the currencies, and that we had somebody on for, and she said that she spent a lot of time, like I mean a good year doing research. And then we just had somebody ask about that, like, it, what do I do if I’m getting, you know, asked for NFTs? I think Clint commented, and he said, if you don’t do it, you’re not familiar, and then just say sorry. No, I don’t do this. Don’t you know? Here are my paintings. Here’s my actual, you know, actual work that you could purchase, but don’t even try to get for somebody new with promises, because most of the time is you’re going to get scammed, or you’re even if you’re, if it’s real, maybe you’re not going to get the full money or the full worth of it, because you didn’t know much about
Olya Konell 1:19:42
it. Yeah,
Debra Keirce 1:19:43
I’ve been told time and again that those people who send all those emails saying, I love your art, is it available in NFTs? They’ve told me time and again people who I consider experts that nobody in the NFT world is going to email an artist and say, can I have an NFT of your work? So,
Olya Konell 1:19:59
yes. They are only going to go to places where they’re already being sold, and Toby, to answer your question, selling them, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Selling NFTs is not an easy, simple thing to do. There’s a lot you have to learn to get started, to do it right, to actually be able to sell them. So, if you’re willing to jump into it and learn, and you know, if you don’t do the learning, you will probably end up getting the short, well, you will get the short end of the stick, possibly get scammed, you know, and you’re going to spend, you know, you’re, you’re not going to get the reward that you’re looking for, as far as making money, so
Angela Agosto 1:20:38
if
Olya Konell 1:20:38
you’re going to sell them, is it worth investing only if you want to invest time, money, and you know, I think time is the biggest one, and mental bandwidth, because it’s, it’s not something that you just go on, upload a picture, and there you go, you know,
Angela Agosto 1:20:58
yeah, and I was gonna,
Olya Konell 1:21:00
yeah,
Angela Agosto 1:21:00
say that, even though we had the person on there, and we pretty much, the whole conversation between her and Clint was about NFTs, and she had another, another artist who was doing it as well. It was a few years ago, so probably the information is a little outdated with, because I know that they’ve changed stuff with Bitcoin and all that other
Olya Konell 1:21:17
stuff. For a while there, I was hearing stuff about it. I was seeing it on X, you know, or formerly known as Twitter, whatever. But, like, I.. but now I don’t see anything
Angela Agosto 1:21:28
about them
Olya Konell 1:21:29
at all. So I think of it like as Pokémon cards, you know, they’re things come and go. Maybe I don’t know.
Debra Keirce 1:21:37
My son-in-law collects Pokémon cards. They’re still pretty big, pretty expensive,
Olya Konell 1:21:41
tangible.
Debra Keirce 1:21:44
Yeah, they’re tangible, but, but the are there even NFT galleries? I’ve never seen one. Are there like online places you can go to see NFT art?
Olya Konell 1:21:52
Yeah, there’s sites
Angela Agosto 1:21:54
that haven’t heard of any recently.
Olya Konell 1:21:56
Well, the sites that people use to sell their NFTs through that turn them into a non-fungible token, kind of a thing, like I.. I don’t.. I don’t know which ones are the most popular ones at this moment, but for a while, when it first started out, it was like the hot thing, but you don’t even hear about it anymore, and I follow people in finances, you know, you know, etc. so
Debra Keirce 1:22:22
there was
Angela Agosto 1:22:23
some pop-up ones that were coming here into town, but it’s been a few, because we were always getting notified. It’s been a few years since we, since we’ve even heard about it. So, I don’t know if that’s that big anymore, but yeah, they were like those digital traveling galleries.
Olya Konell 1:22:34
Yeah, and as far as if it’s a viable option, kind of what this whole, this whole talk started out from it’s like it’s a, there’s lots of ways that artists can make money. It’s a viable option if it’s something that you do and it’s something that you are willing to do, and that’s, you know, it’s there in the art space. I mean, there’s lots of different things that could be viable, like it’s a hard question to answer, because only you can answer that for yourself, but the best thing to do is to go learn about what it is, because no one can tell you, no one can answer that, because you do have to have a certain level of technical skill, you do have to, you know, as far as like being able to do things on a computer, we’ve had people ask that don’t even know how to use social media, and now they’re going to be challenging themselves to push more buttons. I’m just being direct here. I’m like, is this? Are you sure you, you know, if you really want to tackle this and you’re struggling using a computer, start with using the computer first, or your smartphone, and then work your way up to getting involved in more complicated tech stuff, does that make sense? But some people, they naturally gravitate towards that, they’re really good with all of the tech stuff, they’re like, yeah, this isn’t my thing, I, you know, and they’ll jump into it. So, is it viable? Only you can answer that question. No, the
Debra Keirce 1:23:56
websites that people would go if they wanted to learn about this. Do you know? Oh, yeah.
Olya Konell 1:24:02
Yeah, there. You know, I would probably just go. My, I’ve graduated from YouTube University, so in Google. So, if I have a question, I go in and I just type the question into YouTube, and then somebody smarter than me has guaranteed made some videos about it, and then I picked the ones that have had the most views that are within the last 12 months, and that’s usually what I..
Debra Keirce 1:24:26
that’s how our son learned how to do car repairs, and now he changes my brakes. I love it.
Olya Konell 1:24:32
Yeah,
Angela Agosto 1:24:33
yep, that’s what my husband does, our IRAC now. We save 1000s there, but you know what? I just looked at that artist just to see if they’re still doing it, and I see she doesn’t have anything on it on her site anymore, and she even took down the videos that she shared before, so
Olya Konell 1:24:46
yeah,
Angela Agosto 1:24:47
and she had taken a lot of time and studied it, and you know, was really big into it, and I did just,
Olya Konell 1:24:53
yeah, yeah, so yeah, if anybody emails you about it, ignore if it’s something that you. Personally, I want to get into, you know, learn about it first before you decide if it’s viable. So cool
Debra Keirce 1:25:06
that we have all these new options to explore, though.
Olya Konell 1:25:08
That is very cool. Exactly. Yeah, I think that’s amazing. The opportunities have never been better. The competition has never been better, but tenacity, consistency, last one standing always wins, and, and I remember my husband told me that before I started. He was like, you know, are you going to be a doer or a donor? The donors are going to, you know, it was from, it was from a movie, it was no pain, or I don’t remember what movie it was, but it was some comedy, and he’s like, a year for a year, he kept asking me, you can be a doer or a donor, because I kept having excuses for different things, and then finally, like, it led up to me quitting my nine to five and diving full into what I was, you know, going to do. So it’s like, yeah, it’s..
Angela Agosto 1:25:58
I have a quote that I always tell my kids, since they were younger. It’s Walt Disney. I’m a big Walt Disney fan from Lompess when he used to do his cartoon and sketches. He’s keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps us leading down new paths. And I tell my girls, I said, you always just have to keep learning, keep just moving forward, you know. And it’s okay to look back if you’re going to learn from it. Otherwise, just, you know, forward
Angela Agosto 1:26:21
is the way to go
Olya Konell 1:26:22
forward. I love that.
Debra Keirce 1:26:24
Look, how positive you all are. I love this conversation, like nobody’s brought up anything. That was what I was nervous about, is you know, the negative stuff can sometimes overwhelm the conversations, and not in this case. So, that’s
Olya Konell 1:26:34
no, no, I, yeah, no, nope, yeah. I’m on a health journey, by the way, so that’s only positive for me. That’s,
Angela Agosto 1:26:44
I’ve always been an optimist, and I kind of still, still, still am like that.
Olya Konell 1:26:49
Yeah, there, yeah, it’s there’s a brain psychologist. I watched a podcast, and he says he always asks himself before he goes to bed not what he’s grateful for, but one thing that went well, and that could be as simple as my coffee was really good this morning, it could be something you know, or it could be lots of things that that that went well, and it’s interesting because if we do that consistently over time, we wire our brains, and the reason why I’m so, I’m no expert in brain things, I’m just curious, like Angela, you know, curiosity and curiosity, like you just Google answers to things, and you like, oh, that’s a fun fact,
Angela Agosto 1:27:31
yeah. When I’m watching stuff, I’m like, what does this mean? How did they do that? I’ll go and Google it.
Debra Keirce 1:27:38
Curiosity can be good, I agree, but it also killed the cat, and I’m very cat-like at
Angela Agosto 1:27:43
times that was in my head. I’m like, don’t say that one, but yeah, I love this. This one, you know, just because I think it.. I have a Walt Disney quote book, and he said failure is what always made him move forward, and that’s why he became.. he said, if I would have stopped with when he lost Oswald, you know, with he lost the copyrights to his own character. He said, then I never would have had any of this, like movies, and, and at the time, just Disneyland and stuff. It was because he fell and got back up, and he said, that’s if I’m not failing, then I’m not doing,
Olya Konell 1:28:15
you’re not moving forward. I love that. You’re not growing. Yeah, and
Debra Keirce 1:28:19
I feel like it’s so important to share all this stuff, which is why I love these webinars and these forums and everything. It, my kids were laughing at me. A tragic thing that happened, we’re noticing on YouTube yesterday they had this thing where a woman pulled into a parking space and got out of her car in New York, and she fell into a man hole was open and died, and so they were looking at it on the camera coverage, or whatever, and apparently a large truck had gone over that manhole, and it dislodged the manhole 12 minutes before she parked her car, and then just got out. It was probably dark, I don’t know, and you know, just stepped into the hole, and I’m like, this is me, I would step into the hole and be gone, like this is this is exactly this mr. Magoo stuff. This is what I do in life, right? And so my kids, my, you know, my kids were like, well, now you know, look before you step when you get out of your car, and you better believe it every time now. I, because they shared that, I’m like, thank you, thank you. Now I will be looking for the help
Angela Agosto 1:29:22
manhole, because you share that. Now I’m going to, because if anything’s gonna go wrong, it always happens to me. Oh my gosh, I didn’t know they’re like you. How did you not know that you’ve been accident-prone your whole life? I’m like, what. So yeah, I’m like extra careful now, but and now I’m gonna watch where I stop.
Olya Konell 1:29:40
Yeah,
Debra Keirce 1:29:41
that legit just happened in New York City yesterday,
Olya Konell 1:29:45
you know. And going back to the reticular activating system, I’m going to counter that with this last thing. So, why I went down this is, I used to be, what’s what’s what’s that Murphy’s Law, like if it could happen, it will, it will happen, or whatever. Where I used to say that about myself all the time, and I was the most accident-prone person my entire.. it started with me just being clumsy, being told I was accident prone. I took that in, and that became a part of my personality and identity, and I was.. I was just that. And what’s crazy is, I don’t remember where, but I decided to test a theory, and I started saying I’m a ninja. I will catch things before they fall. I will, you know, and I started like, like, no, I’m going to, because I did catch something once, like it fell, and I caught it before it hit the ground, and I didn’t even think about it. I’m like, no, no, no, I’m going to be a ninja from now on. The irony that I, I, I became a freakin ninja, and now my husband, like, he’s like, ‘Do you do that with a knife? I’m like, ‘No, I step back if I drop a knife, I don’t try to catch it. Yeah, but you know, all being accident prone, and this and that, it.. I stopped being that. So, there’s something to that. There is something powerful,
Debra Keirce 1:31:03
Angela. We are ninjas,
Angela Agosto 1:31:06
yeah. Yes, and they didn’t tell me that until I was older. I wasn’t just till a few years ago that my family, my husband was like, “What? I didn’t know that. So yeah, I’m now.. I do make it a point to improve things, and I’m more careful. So
Olya Konell 1:31:19
yeah, it really is, because the subconscious part of our brain acts before we’ve had a time to process, like it, like we’re just stepping out of the way, or if there’s a manhole, you’ll just kind of jump over, and you know, you’ll anyways, we’ve gone down some tangents, you guys. Thank you so much for holding on, I just, Gail says, “Thank you. This was very enlightening. Great discussion today from Karen. Thank you all so much. And Oren says, “A great friend of mine, who is a pianist, told me a secret to success was that eventually everyone else quit, and he didn’t. I love that. Yeah, thank you so much. I’ve learned a lot, says Monica. I have to go, so I’ll share any, any feedback anyone wants to share with Deborah. Go ahead and just throw it in the chat, right? Right now, I’ll give you guys just a few more seconds as we wave our goodbyes. Feel free to reply to your webinar emails and let me know if you have any thoughts, and I’ll pass them on, and feel free to engage with the article when it goes out, and Deborah, thank you so much. Yeah,
Angela Agosto 1:32:23
thank you, Deborah. And our next session will be with Tiffany Tyler, and then also for our FASA member webinars, it’ll be june 4, just for our,
Olya Konell 1:32:33
yeah,
Angela Agosto 1:32:33
that’s for just for Fossil members,
Olya Konell 1:32:35
yeah. Thank you, thank you, and I hope you have a wonderful, creative rest of your day.
Angela Agosto 1:32:40
Thank you, Deborah. Bye, bye.
Speaker 1 1:32:41
Thank
Debra Keirce 1:32:42
you, guys.
Olya Konell 1:32:43
Oh, where’s my end button? Oh, sorry. The
Angela Agosto 1:32:46
little red person walking out the door, it says leave
Olya Konell 1:32:49
end and okay,
Angela Agosto 1:32:50
red door again, right?
Olya Konell 1:32:52
Bye.
