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Get your artistic goals ready for today's guest: Liz Haywood-Sullivan, a realist painter with a deep love of pastels, teaching others, and being an advocate for the arts. Liz shares her with us her background transitioning from a design career to becoming a renowned pastel artist. She also discusses the challenges of balancing her art practice with running art organizations, and the importance of setting realistic goals to maintain productivity. Liz gives us her very best tips on how to set goals for the new year as an artist as well as the importance of reviewing your past year to help you prioritize better. She tells us about creating a north star to aim for and charting your course with short term and long term goals. Liz also emphasizes the cyclical nature of creativity and the need for self-care, as well as the value of teaching to supplement her art income. She reflects on the lasting impact of art and the personal fulfillment of the creative process. Liz provides advice for aspiring artists to be kind to themselves and work within their natural rhythms. So get ready with some pen and paper to take some notes and start planning your goals for the year ahead!
Liz's FASO site:
https://www.lizhaywoodsullivan.com/
Liz's Newsletters on Setting Artistic Goals for the New Year:
https://www.lizhaywoodsullivan.com/nl/?nid=308234&type=html
https://www.lizhaywoodsullivan.com/nl/?nid=277501&type=html
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Transcript:
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 0:00
What you do is, when you start talking about goal setting, a lifetime, goal shooting for the stars, where could, where? Where, where could you take this and what is your, what is your dream? Doors are going to open all the time, and your North Star is going to help you decide which door to walk through.
Laura Arango Baier: 0:29
Welcome to the bold brush show where we believe that fortune favors a bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips, specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others for in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. Get your artistic goals ready for today's guest, Liz Haywood Sullivan, a realist painter with a deep love of pastels, teaching others and being an advocate for the arts. Liz shares with us her background transitioning from a design career to becoming a renowned pastel artist. She also discusses the challenges of balancing her art practice with running arts organizations, and the importance of setting realistic goals to maintain productivity. Liz gives us her very best tips on how to set goals for the new year as an artist, as well as the importance of reviewing your past year to help you prioritize better. She tells us about creating a North Star to aim for and charting your course with short term and long term goals. Liz also emphasizes the cyclical nature of creativity and the need for self care as well as the value of teaching to supplement her income. She reflects on the lasting impact of art and the personal fulfillment of the creative process. Liz provides advice for aspiring artists to be kind to themselves and work within their natural rhythms. So get ready with some pen and paper to take some notes and start planning your goals for the year ahead. You welcome Liz to the BoldBrush show. How are you today?
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 2:07
I am fine. Thank you. Thank you very much, Laura, you're welcome. Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier: 2:11
I'm so excited to have you. I am so looking forward to this episode, because you have beautiful work. I have never seen so many beautiful pieces of pastel work that blows my mind, back and back to back to back, because it is so rare to find a pastel artist these days, it is I feel like it's such a niche within the niche thing, especially in the realism community. So I think it's wonderful and exciting to talk to a pastel painter such as you, who also has a passion for something that I think our viewers are going to want to grab a pen and paper for in this episode, which is helping artists get their goals ready for the year, which is something that you like to do around this time period. And I'm also, I have my pen and paper right here, so I'm also ready to jot down some notes for program goal setting. And, yeah, but before we dive into all the delicious things about New Year's goals, I want to ask you to tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 3:11
Okay, um, I am a pastel artist. I was a designer by trade for 20 years, and after in 2000 No, sorry, 1996 my husband and I had had a design business, a graphic design business, serving the high tech industry for Oh, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 13 years, and He went into the internet world. And I said, that's it for me. I'm not good with computer languages, and I always wanted to return to my fine art roots. I took a workshop out in Taos, New Mexico, and my husband was taking a photo workshop, and I needed to find something else at this school, there was a pastel class. I didn't really know much about pastels, and I fell in love with the medium. And in my design career, I had been kind of a jack of all trades, and I felt like a master of none. So I just said, pastel landscape. That's it. I'm not going to go anywhere else. I'm just going to take it as far as I could take it really, really get involved deeply in it. And when I got tired of it, when I ran out of material, I could look at other other mediums, or other genres, things like that, figuring it would be like this. It has been nothing other than this, it just keeps expanding and expanding just within the medium and within that narrow range of landscape. And so I'm happy there. I don't have to look at anything else, and I'm just enjoying, you know, it's like you start doing a painting and you just. Say, oh gosh. You know, it could go off into this direction, but I feel like it's taking me here. So take it there, come back and start a second one and go this way. I mean, what the heck. Anyway, so did that. I'm also very interested in, you know, coming from a business side of running a design business, I've always been interested in the business of art. Remember, when I was in college at Rochester Institute of Technology, I had a degree in environmental studies, not environmental studies, environmental design, industrial, interior and exhibit design. Anyhow, the one thing I felt we lacked was any clue as to how to take that design degree and make a career out of it, just the business aspects. I remember my first opportunity to do an illustrations. A friend had a fledgling design office and said, Hey, I need you to do an illustration for me. What? What will you charge? I remember going back to one of my professors and asking him, you know, well, what's an what's an hourly rate? What do you charge? What's a college degree worth? And he had no clue. I charged $100 for it, and I got taken to the wash because they wanted iteration after iteration. I didn't know what I was doing, and I was just so frustrated. So I have been kind of on a mission ever since then. I've been very intrigued with it. So I have found myself becoming getting very involved with teaching, sharing the information that I've gotten through the years from various different people. But I've also gotten involved in helping to run art organizations. So I basically spent the last 10 years of my career running two different art organizations as a volunteer, as a president, one the International Association of pastel societies for five years, where I was the I managed three international conventions with attendance of about 600 artists from around the world, and which is like throwing a wedding once every two years for 600 people and then, and then, also running About 12 online and in person international exhibitions during that time. When that ended, I thought that was it, and then my local Art Association needed some help post COVID, so I'm actually finishing up four years there, and that was a very different situation, because where I apps was basically the convention and online occasional exhibition situation at North River Art Society I'm handling, we've got several buildings, and we're dealing with weekly classes and, you Know, monthly budgets. I've got a great board of directors and tremendous Executive Director, so we've been having, actually, a lot of fun pulling this back together. So I am find all sorts of reasons to avoid my studio.
Laura Arango Baier: 8:37
What I was gonna say, Yeah, sounds like a lot of the logistics side of, you know, working with these organizations, it seems like so much work to be doing, you know. And actually, the immediate thought, and you brought it up, is, when do you get to draw? When do you get to paint? You know, not as much, you know. It's
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 8:59
well, you know. And it kind of comes back to some of your the whole goal setting. Thing is that, you know you can only do so much. And so I last year maybe five really good paintings, to be very honest with you, lots of lots of studies, things like plain air work fine. But as far as finished kind of studio pieces, things that I could put into exhibition, you know, send off to a gallery, yeah, five, that's it. But at the same time, I have to take a look at things I'm helping to run an arts organization. And then the other thing was, is, a year ago, I love my FASO newsletter. I'm sorry I'm going to give you guys a plug. It's the best thing that I have done is to start a newsletter. But. I have problem with myself. It's it's just saying, me, me, me, oh, look at me. Look at what I've done. Look at the awards I've won. I'm not real good with that. Some people are very good about promoting themselves, and that's just not one of my strengths. So I figured when I started the newsletter that I would give people articles. I would, you know, I write for different art magazines. I can write for myself, and I can, I can take some of my teaching online and show people how to do things. And that way, I kind of lure you in. You know, come, come listen to what I have to say. Let me show you something. It's free. You don't have to pay for this demo, but, or this step by step that I do, but, and then at the end, I'll hit you with, Hey, I got this award, and I sold this piece, and these are my workshops coming up. And this is the Me, me, me stuff. And it has really worked out very well for me. I have had it probably for about five years now, and I'm usually somewhere around a 75% open rate, and have very, you know, a very small proportion of people have actually left. So I've got a mailing list around 2500 people, which is, which is, but, and then I'm not really doing social media. I just, I like the aspect of the newsletter where I can just send it out. And I'm not doing it to get likes, and I don't have the time sink where I have to feel like I have to respond to people that have said like or sent me a kind comment, I I'll get a handful of comments from people, and that's that's all I need. And what happened last year, I sent out my new year's newsletter, and I got three people commenting, one from Dubai, one from Australia, and one from oh gosh, where was it? Great Britain, I think. And the three of them were like, wow, we would love to take a workshop with you, but, you know, it's too far away. It's too expensive. I can't get to it. You know, do you have anything online? And I really didn't like the pivot to online teaching during COVID. It's I just don't like the technology. I don't like the interface. I like to see things in person. I like to interact with people in person, read their body language. It's just so much easier in a person. You know, one on one, demo is fine, but actually teaching online was I just drew a hard line there and but and I had not taken my instruction online, other than the occasional step by step demo in my newsletters. And so when these people wrote to me, I said, Wow. Said to myself, you know, I've always looked for a way to kind of get repeat business on my teaching or on my artwork. I mean, you do a painting, you sell it. That's it. It's gone. If it comes back to the gallery to be sold again, you never see another penny. So it's just a one and done thing, whereas if I could put my teaching online, I could get that repeat business from the same lesson having been taught. So I decided to do that last year, and so that, and I knew by doing that, it was going to cut into my easel time. So that's that was the decision last year. It's like, you can do you can do two things really well. You can't do three. So last year, I'm managing an art organization, and I'm taking my teaching online, so the actual work in the studio, not so much last year. So that again, kind of, I'll talk a little bit more about goal setting in a minute, but you have to be realistic. And so at this point, I've got over 50 videos online that's in the bank, and now I can move forward from that. So that was a it was a decision to make as to a direction in my career. And so instead of, I'm a planner. So instead of just, oh, let's wake up, let's do this today. Let's see what falls in place I like to do, keep the mornings free for my painting, for creative stuff, and in the afternoon, I just say every day, do one thing for the business of your art. Just one thing. Could be a phone call. It could be a. Updating your resume. You might have just gotten a recent award. Make sure you put that award into your resume. You will forget them after a while, and it's important for you to keep, just keep the documentation going. So do something with your bookkeeping, whatever. So,
Laura Arango Baier: 15:21
wow, yeah, yeah, you bring up such excellent points there with, you know, making sure that, first of all, from, you know, the perspective of New Year's resolutions, right? Making sure that if you're going to do something, do it well. Do it really well. And I like that you really pared it down to the two priorities you had for that year. And it worked out great, right? Which it goes to show that oftentimes, you know, artists like me, I can be speaking for myself here, but I think a lot of people might also have a similar perspective, kind of like what you said, we're like, Oh, let's see what's going to fall in my lap today. Or I'm going to overload myself with a bunch of tasks, or I'm going to overload myself with a bunch of new year's resolutions, and then you just get so overwhelmed, and then you just do nothing, or you do some of the things, but maybe not as well, right? And as as nicely as they could have been done, which is something that I also want to, you know, break free from this. You just want to also shift my own focus to, you know, maybe, like you said, maybe just studio work and something else. And then if other things might come along, it's a lot easier to maneuver a smaller set of priorities than it is to have maybe 345, priorities, because you never know what opportunities might pop up, which you know there are so many events that happen throughout the year. And I can imagine you know this as well, because you've helped make those international conventions and all of these awesome things that happen within certain painting societies, where they'll have exhibitions, and maybe they'll they'll have, you know, openings, or they'll add they'll ask people to, you know, apply for them. So those are things to keep in mind for goals that I believe you also mentioned in one of your blog posts, keeping in mind, you know, the calendar of the year, of what's going to happen and what you want to aim for, which I think is very exciting and very wonderful to think about. But yeah, I hope that this year you're actually aiming to do some more studio work, though, because I absolutely love, love, love your color work, your textures, in your in your pastel paintings, they are just so delicious to look at. And I love that you have this wonderful balance between the softness and the texture in all of your work. I love looking at the clouds specifically they are. So I'm going to say delicious again, because that's how it feels. Like I want to touch it and just like, Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 17:58
Well, this this year, um, I actually stepped down from the presidency at North River in February. And so it's I wanted to show you a little bit about what my this. This is what my New Year's looks like. So I wind up having a review of the past year. And then down here is this really small discussion of the next year that was 2022 into 2023 so 2023, into 2024 looks the same. It's you'll be very it'll make you smile. So it's like, and I can go back year after year after year after year. And so it's like, goals for 2023, paint more. It's always there, of course, exercise in there, and all that sort of good stuff. And, you know, all sorts of other things. It's and the the next year, it says the same thing. Paint more. So I haven't, I've reviewed last year. Okay, this is where I want to put this year. I haven't had the time. This was enough for me, for in one setting, to sit down and do that. And a lot of what that is all about is perspective, is to just, we're just on this, this, this pathway, and you just feel like, I've gotta, I gotta do this. I gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta, gotta gotta. And if you kind of just slow down and take a beat, put it on paper and see what you've actually have achieved. You can kind of take a deep breath and say, Hey, not so bad. You know, I actually did something last year. Oh god, I forgot I did that. I forgot I did that. So it's just a way to kind of keep track of what you have done and then cleanse your palate. You know, I I threw all these pieces up here for the talk today, but I actually it's all taken down. These are works from last year and sometimes the year before, where I've been, this is the wall where I put pieces up, where I'm working on them, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. And so at this point, it's actually white wall. There's nothing there ready for new work to come in. Down here is my pile of paintings, right there that are not working. I'm going to wash them down. I can reuse the panels, just like an oil painter. Can scrape off an old painting. I can take because I put my paintings on, I put them on panels so I can move them around. They're just not on just paper, and so I can take it, I can it's on a sanded surface. I can wash it off with brush it down, wash it off with alcohol, and do another painting. I've sold paintings for 1000s of dollars that have been painted once or twice or three times on the same piece. So it's one way that I can save money and be able to afford this. Yeah, rather expensive thing. But anyhow, as far as goal setting, it's a good time of year. You know what I look at and when I teach my business of art class and I talk about goals, you kind of have to know what you want from your art. You know, where do I want to go with this? I mean, so Okay, you've, you've taken it from Hobby level, you know, you first started delving into it, or you just, you're now starting to say, Hey, I'd like to start thinking about showing my work. I'd like to start thinking about approaching galleries or somehow selling my artwork. I mean, my first, my first goal was to make enough money to pay for my artwork, to my pay for my painting, so that I'm not taking revenue out of other streams in our household to pay for my painting. And so that was my first solid goal. And then you get a little further into it, and you you have to start really asking yourself, ah, where you want, where you want it to go. I remember when we've had, I've had several businesses with my husband, my on my own, and you think that the hardest thing is going to be getting the clients is to set your shingle out, say, I'm open for business. Can you get the clients? The hardest thing is is, are you still in business a year later? Have you figured out how to manage your money? Have you figured out how to manage your workflow? Have you have are you getting enough sleep? Are you paying yourself all these things and the market forces want you to get bigger and bigger and bigger and some at some point I'd like to talk a little bit more about editing, because editing is part of this whole thing, editing your life, but anyway, Coming back to losing life, too many different directions I want to talk about anyhow, when you do start to become successful with your painting, so all of a sudden there's an opportunity, an opportunity to do a show here, or to hang your work here. Somebody wants you to do a commission, and that's when you really have to start asking yourself, what do you want from this? Because So, for instance, somebody decides that, you know, I love doing art fairs. I absolutely love the whole process of making work. I love getting out there, you know, on a summer's day, and putting up my tent and selling to people and going to beautiful places and interesting places, and meeting interesting people and talking about art and talking with the other artists, that's what I really want to do. Someday. I want to be able to paint through the winter time, the off season, and then during the season, I want to travel different places around the country and sell my artwork. Okay, then you are going to be looking at doing multiples of your work. You're going to be looking at doing G clays. You're going to be looking at doing smaller pieces that are portable and people can take out. You're going to be looking at less expensive frames, not gold leaf frames. You're going to be looking at. It's going to take and direct you this way or this way, so that when the door over here opens to put work into a gallery that requires gold leaf frames, you're going to say that's taking me out of where I want to go. That's going to be and that's going to be a lot of expense. Is this where I want to go? And you have to learn to say no. Now, if you want to go the gallery route and you want you have an ultimate goal, a lifetime goal of, hey, I would love to hang in the metropolitan I would love a museum curator to be wanting my paintings in their shows. Then you're not going to be looking at doing multiples. So when that can't that, that company, that poster company, contacts you and says, Hey, your work is gorgeous. We want, you know, to put you in Target or Pottery Barn, or wherever it is. We, you know, we'll pay you this much, you know, we but we want to do multiple G clays, or we have, you know, a corporate artwork program with a bunch of hospitals in the United States, and we're going to pay you this much money, but we're going to be doing multiples. Somebody in that hospital is not going to want to walk by just paid a lot of money for an original of yours only to see a reproduction of it hanging on the wall. So that's something you're not going to do. So what you do is, when you start talking about goal setting, several goals, a lifetime, goal shooting for the stars, where could, where? Where, where could you take this? And what is your what is your dream? You know, then you've got a, say, a five year goal, somewhere between five and 10 year goal. And so that's going to help chart your course to where you want to go. And then you've got a one year goal. What do you what can you accomplish in the next year? So you would be able to look at, you know, for instance, a one year goal, sometimes, for me has been, I want to get into some shows. Well, if I want to get into shows, a couple of high end, higher end shows that are pushing me. Okay, you know, in the beginning it was, I want to get into a media show, pastel show. Once I started to get into the pastel shows and getting awards there. Then I said, I want to get into all media shows and see how my work holds up there, you know, and then higher level and higher level shows and but if you're going to do shows, you only have a certain amount of money. Shows require shipping containers. Oftentimes you're shipping to New York. Oh gosh, those, those handling fees, you know, the packing and repacking used to be 75 now it's $125 just for somebody to pack and unpack your painting. Be aware of the fees you've got to frame it with pastel. You may have breakage of the glass or damage to any frame and so, but you want to send your best work. You want to send work that's going to stand out. So you're going to have to have that aside for this, that may mean you can't afford to go to that workshop that you wanted to take, or tuition or that vacation to take, so you can kind of map out a Year, and don't buy it off too much, you know, financially and also goal wise. And you only, you know your goals better than anybody what it is that you really want to be accomplishing so that one year, goal doesn't move when you write that down in your sketchbook or wherever you have it that's there. I mean, I come back to these, you know, when I'm flipping through my sketchbook to get to something a page, I'll come across this on the way, and I'll see the goals written down there. That's the nice thing about having a sketchbook, because you don't lose them, and you. It keeps you on track. It'll kick you in the butt if you find yourself, you know, dealing with the downtime, if you're you know, just struggling, come back to your goals and say, Hey, have I addressed this? Okay, get on it. Get on it. Stop. You've had paint more in that goal setting. You know, for the last 20 years, what are you doing about it? Just get off your butt, get in the studio and paint and but anyway, so the first your goal doesn't change. The lifetime goals, your north star change. That should not waver too much, and the goals in the middle all over the place, because you have no clue really what's going to be going on in your life. But it helps to create a construct. And so kind of leads me also back to this idea of editing. I just remember when our daughter was in high school and she was putting together she wanted to go to college for photography, and I just seeing her deal with, what do I put in? I've got all these pictures, and hard it is to learn to edit how an editing means saying no to things editing is not mean saying yes. Editing is editing out, and especially in this world of FOMO, fear of missing out, fear of and and you see all this stuff, especially online, of what this person's doing and that person is doing, and you want to do it all. That's what I did, you know. And I'm okay, I'm older than you, so I've got this some some wisdom here, but that's what I did in 1996 when I'd been a jack of all trades and a Master of None, is I edited out all this other stuff, and I said, I'm going to try to do one thing really well. What sets you apart from everybody else? Because everybody else is doing the same thing. They're trying to do everything.
Laura Arango Baier: 32:33
Bravo. Oh gosh, I'm gonna be Wow. This is, this is so necessary, because I you make such excellent points here with, you know, having that North Star, right? Really, having that lifetime go goal that you aim for, and making sure that all of your smaller goals should at least feed into that lifetime goal, right? Like you said, you're, you're like a ship Navigator, and I love that you, you, you know, you you make these references to, you know, charting a course, and also, you know, like you're leading this ship to where it's supposed to end up, wherever, whatever harbor it may be, doors
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 33:12
are going to open all the time, and your North Star is going to help you decide which door to walk through. You can't all. You can't walk through them, through them all. And if you do, you do yourself a disfavor, because you scatter and you cannot. You just are going like this. It's chaotic. So you have to learn how to say no, and you have to and you have to be willing to commit to something. Now I say your north star doesn't change. My north star has recently shifted, and it's thrown me for a bit of a loop. But a lot of it is the fact that a lot of what I wanted, I've actually been able to achieve. And so now I'm looking at the next North Star, wow. And that's, I'm not sure what it is, it's, it's connected to this. There's a direct line. But is it here, or is it here, or is it, you know, here or here? I don't, I don't know. And I'm just kind of just letting it. I'm not trying to worry about it too much, because I know it has to do with my painting. And I think thinking that what it is is it really is. Now I have to really edit out. No more volunteering for our organizations, which takes me away from this. My teaching, I'll still always do, but I've taken a lot of it online, so I'm able to knock back some of my travel schedule a little bit. I still love the travel. I'll still do all that, but, but I don't have to do as many. Many in person workshops. I think my new North Star is to really pay attention to my art and to kind of go back to when I was 16 and I didn't want to go to art school, because I knew at that point in my life that if I did, I would lose my art for myself. If I went into it for a career and I was going to be making money with it, that I'm far too easily influenced by what people think and say, and so that I would be doing work to please other people and not to please myself. And I am kind of coming full circle now and wanting to forget about what is going to sell in a gallery, what is going to get into a show. But, and it's really easy to say the words, it's not as easy to actually do the work, but to approach my easel and my painting and say, Where does it want to go, and to find the joy in it again, which is where we all started,
Laura Arango Baier: 36:14
exactly, exactly. And it's very interesting that you're also going through that, because I feel like maybe a lot of artists also go through that once they, you know, they, they maybe finish school. And I, you know, in my own experience, once I finished with art school, I know that I felt just like that, that I couldn't really remember why even went to art school in the first place, right? Yeah. And there comes this point where you have to approach the canvas again, or the easel and and just allow yourself to really just do it and, and interestingly enough, like you said, it, it, it, that act in itself can be challenging. It can be time consuming. It can be hard because you are re approaching something that you thought you knew, and you have to kind of see it in a new perspective and give yourself that time to really be vulnerable with it again.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 37:14
Well, plus you have all these instructors, all these do's and don'ts, all these influences, all the Instagram images, all the what your peers are doing, what people that you admire their artwork doing. And I don't know about you, but I've got, okay, there's Liz Haywood, Sullivan paints like so and so. You know, I, I can be so easily influenced. And so how do you it's like, the more you expose yourself to other art, how do you find yourself in all that
Laura Arango Baier: 37:55
off you got to pare it down and interesting enough you and you made. You made you made a point there that reminded me that sometimes you know you also have to unlearn, right? Like you said, you have all these instructors, you have all of these influences. You have to edit, right, which is, what? What are you going to say no to, in terms of, Do I really like this, you know, person's work, or is it just because I find it beautiful, but it doesn't really feel authentic to me, like if I try to do it, how do I feel about you know, if my work looked like that? Because oftentimes we get so we fall in love with someone's work, but it isn't always work that we ourselves would do, right? It's something that you can appreciate, but it isn't necessarily like, Oh, I love it, but I don't know if I could if, if that really speaks to me in the way where I would want to paint like that, because, you know, it becomes the gray area of, do I love it, but just love it, or is it something that I want to aim for and that kind of work it, oh, it's a lot of self work that goes into that. It's a lot of permit mode, sort of cutting everything out, just allowing yourself to meditate on it for a while, and letting yourself experiment and make mistakes and cool. That's a very interesting goal to have. It's a very important one and a heavy one, but it's a, it's a one,
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 39:25
yeah, and it's, you know, for me, it's, it's also a matter of managing my energy level. I am I, you know, there are times when I wish I had my mother's energy instead of my father's energy. But, you know, he was a good Napper, and so am I, and my mom is not, and but I've learned how to use them. You know, I the nap in the middle of the afternoon is better than the two cups of coffee in the chocolate bar. And it revitalizes me and keeps me going. But I have my energy is morning for my studio work and for my creativity. And after, you know, I just I, for me, a lot of my painting has to do with motivating myself and finding a way to get to the easel, finding something, and that's that's where the you know, it's like from wrestling with something. I don't leave a problem on my easel. If I'm wrestling with a problem, I if I leave a problem on my easel, then chances are I will not come back to the piece and or the piece if it's not working and I haven't solved that challenge, then it's going to go into the pile and but if I'm have a lot of hope for a piece And it presents, every painting goes through adolescent stages. You know, where they start fighting you back and back with you, and if I can solve a problem, stop is when the glimmer of hope starts to show again. That pulls me back, because I'm just not as motivated as I would like to be. And, you know, I'm look at other artists, and I look at people can be painting at 10 o'clock at night, one o'clock in the morning, and they're just obsessed with it. And I've just come to have to come to terms with myself, that I'm just not that type of artist, and so it's okay, it's okay, it's, it's, again, it's, it's part of getting to know yourself, learning yourself, working with your strengths, working and being aware of your and I wouldn't Say your weaknesses, I would just say working with your strengths. And how do you support those that can be part of your goal setting too? You know, saying, Alright, I work better in the morning, so then I goal setting. I am not making any appointments in the morning. I'm going to try it. I'm not even going to look at my email when I get up in the morning. I am going to go straight to the studio. I'm going to work. And if it's an hour, or two hours, or four hours, whatever it is, I'm going to work in the studio, then I'll deal with that stuff.
Laura Arango Baier: 42:35
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Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 44:17
yes, I just find it easier to to this is just how I do,
Laura Arango Baier: 44:22
yeah, and honestly, it's the most intuitive way of doing it, because there's a lot of self analysis that you're mentioning here that is really important, you know, understanding your personal energy levels. And if you are seeing other artists that you admire, and they happen to be a different type of person from you, and they can, like you said, obsessively, work on a painting all night long, and you simply can't do that. Or simply, you know, your body is just aligned with a different, chronological, you know, method that it needs to go through. Then you just gotta work with what you've got. Like you said, you can't, there's, there's no point in five. Being against your own nature in that sense, and just working with it, going with the flow, which is, actually it seems to be a theme in my life currently, is, you know, going with the flow of nature, allowing things to take their course. Because oftentimes they'll resolve themselves on their own. And, you know, working with it, right? So if like, like how you said, if you know you work better in the mornings, work in the mornings. If you know you work better in the evenings, and plan your day out so you work better in the evenings and you can focus more. And those are really important things to take into account. And then also, you know, if you are an outdoor painter, if you know that you're going to be painting outdoors, and you know your best energy levels for the day, you go out at that time of the day, and you make sure that, you know, it's all opened up for that. And actually, I wanted to ask you, because I'm very curious about this, since you mentioned, you know, you have, like, this really high target that you want to aim for, right, that lifetime goal, or, like you mentioned earlier, maybe working with having work in a museum, or working exclusively with galleries or anything. How do you How have you personally been able to, you know, set, I guess, goals that are actually achievable that can also lead you to that higher goal? Like, is there such thing as shooting too high, or is it just that the goals aren't aligned well enough for that.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 46:24
I don't think there's I. I'm a big believer in expectations, whether it's the expectations you have for yourself or, for instance, for your children. I think that they are, they're useful. Yes, there, of course, there are unrealistic expectations. And, you know the thing that and, and that's why these are kind of step by step, by step by step. It's like you're not going to get into a museum show if you can't get your work accepted into a local art show. Okay, so self critique is a huge part of being an artist. You have to be able to self critique your work and be realistic about your capabilities, what you're doing, where you're going with it, and devil may care if you believe in what you're doing. You know other people may not, but you feel very strongly about it, then do it. But just be aware of the fact that if you're looking for acceptance in an group, in an area that is never going to be accepting of what you do, then find another goal, perhaps. But you know, the you really do need, I mean, and that's part of the goal setting, is you need to be realistic about it, and that's why you have the lifetime goal, the one year goal, the in between goals, so that they it is a step by step process. You know, use, use things like getting into an exhibition. I mean, we were solitary creatures. We're working alone in our studios, and sometimes the self critiquing, it's it is a fraught business. Sometimes it's easier than others, and we can kind of feed on ourselves if we're not careful. So that's why having something out there, like getting accepted into an exhibition, getting accepted into a show, getting accepted by a gallery, getting getting feedback from a critique group, look for other places to help guide you and to make sure that you are on the path you want to be on. Um, they're just, you know, I look at, you know, any award that I've gotten as all it, it's not, oh, wow, look at me. I just got this big award. It's an affirmation. It's just an affirmation, I'm on the right path. You know, and so you set those ahead of you to help you along the way. It's helped me,
Laura Arango Baier: 49:35
yeah, I can imagine. And that actually brings me into another question that I have, which is, you know, how have you like when you look back at your year in review, what have you noticed about goals you were able to meet, or even goals that you weren't even on there, that you were able to accomplish? Do you add them as well to help you see that maybe you were able to accomplish more? Or have you. Found that sometimes some of your goals end up falling by the wayside. Like, how do you handle those two things? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's sometimes things will fall by the wayside, and you just have to, you have to let them go. It's, it's there. And as you put the years on in a career, you start also start to find things that were really important to you one point in time, they're not as important anymore,
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 50:31
you know, and so, and that's, that's some of what's going on with me right now. It's like, I've always loved showing my work. I still love showing my work, but, you know, it's it I'm I'm needing more stuff out there to to try to, to achieve at this point. And it's, you know, when you do the same thing year after year after year, do the same shows year after year after year. It's, it's, you know, you're looking for meaning in your life, and so that's where I, you know, you know, in my own particular practice, well, maybe I've been spending too much time trying to paint things that will sell, and things that you've said this before, things that'll sell, things that'll get into, you know, get people's approval. What about my own approval? You know? So it's it always it winds up coming back to that interior, you know, conversation you have with yourself. And yeah, you're more towards the beginning of your career. I'm more towards the other end. I'm still dealing with the same stuff, and it doesn't make me want to crawl under the covers and pull the blanket over my head and say I can't get up. I still want to get up in the morning. I love my studio. This is my sanctuary, my sketchbooks. I These things are so important to me. They're always covered with stickers, bumper stickers, and things that I've collected all over the place. They because my sketchbooks Don't fail me. My paintings regularly fail me. And the reason is, this is a non judgment zone. Whatever I put in here is for me. If I want to let you see it, sure I can open it up and I can say, hey, let me show you. Let me show you something I've done. You know, I can do that sort of thing, but those are mine, and I'm certainly not going to let you walk off with it and start looking at it, because I journal in it. So these are, these are an absolute snapshot of my life and but there's no judgment in there. I'm not saying, Oh, this is a terrible sketch, or even if a thumbnail isn't working, I'm not crossing it out or critiquing it. I'm just doing the next one that'll be better. It's a teaching thing, whereas I'm when the painting goes up on the easel, is it going to be good? Is it going to be accepted? Is it going to be, you know, worthy of a frame? Is it going to be able to get into the show that I want to send it to? It's, it's, um, why I don't I prefer, and I hope to never do another commission. I really am not comfortable with them. I didn't like them when I was a designer and I was doing corporate illustrations and things like that. You know, my sketches were great. The minute I started to do a final, it was like the client's hand just came right down, clamped down over my wrist, and I tighten up. And I've never been so I know myself that way, yeah. And so it's all about a process, still a process of discovery. It
Laura Arango Baier: 54:10
is, yeah, and it's very interesting because, you know, it kind of just hearing from you, you know, you've had a long career already, and that you're still going through the same sort of loop of, you know, self doubt, what's authentic to me? How do I fulfill myself? Fulfill also my my job, you know, necessities like, you know, paying bills or paying for whatever, getting new materials. So you have this, this sort of loop, and it repeats itself. It's very interesting because it there's a theory that I like, which is that, you know, life is like a spiral staircase, and you're going to repeat the same things. You're going to be moving up. You really are, oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm going to be repeating a lot of the same themes again and again and again, almost like these. So you have to view from different directions to understand properly. So one way, it's a little disheartening to hear that things don't necessarily, yeah,
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 55:09
but it's, but it, but it's the change you do grow. It is an upper spy. It is an upward spiral, because it's so much easier to say, No, yeah, it's so much easier to edit out the BS. It is so much easier to just and to actually be able to look back and say, Oh yeah, Ben here. Done that. No, no, no, no, no. It's, it's still exciting. It's still, I wouldn't want to do anything else this I am so I, you know, I may be whatever age I am. I mean, I'm 68 I may be 68 but I'm still, I feel like, Nah, maybe I've just hit my 40s. You know, I have that, interest and that love of what I do, I would I am the most fortunate person in the world that I have the ability to do my painting, and it makes a living for me. And I don't retirement mean, ah, if you want to call it retirement. I retired when I was 40, when I stopped working in the corporate world and I became a fine artist, I have no intention of ever stopping what I'm doing until they put me in the ground. I love what I do. And you know, you know, we have a passion, and how Fortunate are we that we do have that and we do good work, you know, what do we and that's, that's the thing about art. I tell this to my students all the time. I said, Yeah, we do important work, you know? What do we know about cultures that have come and gone the art lasts culture, you know, it's not the the baseball hero, it's, it's, you know, it's the sculptures and the mosaics and the jewelry and The literature and the arts are very, very important, and so it's, it's like this painting right here. That's the North River, which is just down the street from me. I'm about 30 miles south of Boston on the coast, this same Marsh Martin Johnson, he painted 130 years ago, the exact same Marsh, and there are pictures of it. He's got a series of paintings, and one of them shows people harvesting the salt hay. And so the when you go see a marsh, and you see those channels that are carved into the marsh. Remember the first time i What's that all about? Oh, it's drainage so you don't get mosquitoes. What those were is they had long, narrow boats that they would go in. They'd cut these channels so these long, narrow boats could get in there, so they could harvest down the marsh hay to feed their animals to for their buildings. So that was 130 years ago. This was a recent painting. So 130 years from now, what is that going to look like? Because I know this marsh is not going to be here, not like it is. And this looks very similar to when Martin Johnson he painted it with the channels. But in the 25 years that I've lived here, I've seen the high tides that occasionally would be so high that would cover this and make it look like a lake. Those were occasional high tides, king tides. They happen almost every day, if, if not every week, if every every week, if not every day, because the water level has risen in Massachusetts Bay and the small islands that are out here that have trees on them, the trees around the perimeter, the islands are all dying because their feet are in salt water all the time. And so even something like a pretty painting, you know, a landscape painting, this is marking time. This is marking time. This is a statement about our what our world looks like in our environment, and artists are we observe, we capture, we and even if it's an abstract, it's an interior landscape that we're dealing with, but we're celebrating the best. Rest of mankind, this interior struggle that we have with ourselves. It's very important work.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:00:10
It is. It's very deep work. Yeah, yeah. And it brings to mind a quote, actually, something that I was thinking about yesterday, that I heard, which is, you can either choose peace or you can choose freedom. And it took me a while to sit with that because, yeah, I didn't want to believe it, right? I like to think that the freedom of being an artist, the freedom, you know, to be, I guess, a little bit selfish, right? Because we are, it is kind of a selfish pursuit It is, yeah, to just go and the very selfish, yeah. And it was a little bit hard for me to wrap my head around the truth of, you know, peace versus freedom. And there is a bit of a peaceful monotony when you do have the regular day job and you do have these goals that are already set out in front of you. And you kind of have an end goal of, maybe you retire at the age of 65 or 63 and then then what, you know, there's like, a bit of this, yeah, and then what? And oftentimes, I will have guests who retired and then became artists, and they never look back and they wonder why they didn't do it sooner, so that's something to think about. But
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:01:23
no, it's because our culture doesn't support a living in the arts, exactly, and
Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:28
they definitely make it. I mean, now it's probably a lot easier than it may have been in the past, things to the internet and things to that connection online before, it was only the gallery model that was really the only thing mouth or you just have to be really, really wealthy to be able to have time to paint and not worry about your bills, which is still the case in some parts as well. But yeah, definitely today, that landscape has changed a lot where it I think I would, I would always choose freedom over peace. And I don't know if that's really crazy, you've definitely chosen freedom over peace as well.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:02:07
It's, no, it's, it's a, I'm trying to think there was a lyric and a song. Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll think of it at another point in time. But there's a very similar thing. It's, but it's, you know, to get up in the morning and to have something you want to wrestle with, you know, to to have a challenge in front of you. It's, what a blessing, yeah, you know, especially if you get to a point of retirement, and you know, a lot of my students are, are people that are retired. I mean, face it, they they have the time, and they have the the income to be able to support pursuing time in the arts. And that's and it is. We just they're just not as many opportunities for for young people to actually be able to make a living wage in the arts. You just take a look at how they're cutting art programs, how, how they denigrate art. You know, in the high schools, boy football, lot of money for the kids who want to play football, but not so much so for the kids who want to, you know, want to go to visit an art museum, or bring in an artist to speak, or something like that, or just materials for them to work with. So it's that's never going to change. I don't ever see that changing. You know, it's kind of always been that way, so, but that's, that's why I work with the community arts organization that brings art to people. That's, that's, that's how I mitigate that kind of selfish aspect of it. It's too selfish for me to just spend all my time in front of my easel. It just, I have to balance that. I have to, you know, if I, if my talent hadn't been in art, I would have been probably a medical person, a doctor or something like that, because I come from a family of people who gave back and lot of volunteer work. My mom was a nurse, and so I got that strong sense that I need to share and help people out and so but teaching does that for me, and I will never stop my teaching. I learn as much from my students as they do from me. And it's, it's very, very satisfying and keeps me balanced, you know, as an. Artist,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:01
yeah, yeah. And also the work, and this is it's really interesting how that the the work that you do anyway, your selfish work, is also adding to someone else's life. It's enriching someone's life as well, because they'll see the work and they'll see something of themselves in it, or some memory of themselves they may have forgotten, and they'll place it again thanks to your paintings, right? So there, there's this interesting aspect of through that self work, you might also be giving back in a way. Obviously, it's, it's much more enjoyable to be able to socialize and to see people's faces light up, and to teach them and and help them find themselves as well, but also well. You creating art. You're doing that as well.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:05:47
That's really passive, though, because that feedback very rarely gets back to you in order to sustain you. You know it's unless, unless your work gets out into print, media or online. You know, how many people hear back from collectors? You know, especially if their artwork sold by a gallery. You know, somebody shows up to somebody's party and their paint, your painting is there. You never, you know, Oh, I'm so inspired by it. You never hear that. You never hear that. You never get that feedback. So it's yeah, so that's why I, you know, I, I will, and I think that that's, I don't know I, I could go off into a lot of different things there. But, yeah, yeah.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:42
I mean, there are some people who, because of social media, some collectors have reached out directly to them. So there's also that that's changing a little bit in the landscape of the art world, because there are collectors who they are, one they are the biggest fans, so it's inevitable that they're probably going to want to meet the artists. But then, of course, there are the collectors who just really love the work. And there's, there's a big difference there, but yeah, just even you know, knowing that you can help people directly, right, teaching them, helping them, especially with this episode, and helping us artists over here try to figure out what the heck we're going to do this year to make sure that we reach our goals and that we feel fulfilled. Because I think that's the biggest goal of anything, is to feel fulfilled every day, like you said, waking up every morning, excited to go to the studio or excited to meet that challenge face to face and overcome it, right? There's that human desire to overcome with every painting or any creative act that I think is at the core of, I guess, any artist who desires that freedom, right? It's a It's really beautiful, and it's commendable that you also want to spread that, you know, help others. And then, of course, if anyone wants to go check out your blog or your well, your past newsletters, they're all on your website. Of course, they're all on my website. Yeah, you also have amazing, amazing information in there. I was reading some of them last week and last night again, because it's, you know, you're a valuable member of this niche of realist painting, because you are giving back to people like me and our listeners who can view your experience, listen to your experience, and apply it. Apply the little these little bread crumbs that you're leaving behind of the path that you've taken, which is really wonderful as well. They're
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:08:44
just, I'm just passing them on, because I've had wonderful people that have inspired me and have taught me and mentored me along the way, and still do. And you know, I could be teaching, and I can be talking about this and this and this, and it's the first time somebody's heard it, and they think I've created and it's like this has been around forever, and it's just, you know, it's, we're just passing the information along, and so we're just letting it keep flowing. You know, we're just part of a just part of the wheel and part of the conduit for this knowledge. So it's, it's a privilege to be
Laura Arango Baier: 1:09:24
a part of it all. Yes, yeah, part of a very long lineage of you know, there's nothing you understand, but we're going to say it again and again until someone needs to hear it in a different way. Help them along. Yeah, yeah. Do you have any final advice for someone who wants to become a full time artist,
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:09:46
don't be too hard on yourself. Don't beat yourself up too much. We're very good at doing that and so, and that's I. Uh, it's, it's easy to say, it's hard to do, but just realize that. Okay, so I'll tell you one thing. There's a wonderful fellow by the name of Dr Eric Meisel. He writes about, he's a creative creativity coach, and he used to write an article when there were was a magazine called Art calendar magazine. He wrote about the psychology of painting. This magazine was great. It had articles on finance, on legal issues, on it was all about the business side of art. And then back then it was where you would find out where there were grants and where there were exhibition opportunities and things like that. It would come out monthly, and I always went to his article first, and he one of his books is called the Van Gogh blues. I picked that up one day, I just couldn't get out of my own way. You know, I can dig a big hole and drag myself into it just as easily as anybody else. And I just was looking through the back of the book, and I found something, and I dug into the book, and he was talking about how, then you talk about cyclical, how cyclical the creativity of art is, and that things we've all heard of, black and white, Yin Yang, you know, nature, the seasons, the year. So apply it to art, and apply it to our creative process, and you cannot maintain that outward flow of creativity all the time that you need to have the quiet times to support the creative times. However we are, we talk about a writer's block, an artist block, a slump. These are all negative words. We shouldn't be looking at it as that. This is the winter time, the fall in the winter. This is a time for us to be taking in so we can put out. It changes your whole way of thinking about the cyclical nature of painting. So that's where I have been able to say to myself, it's okay. I've got a couple cycles. One cycle is a three month cycle. I couldn't figure it out. I mean, when I would when I'm painting, when I first started painting, every three months. I, you know, I keep a log of all i inventory of my paintings, the ones that were good, and I would have a burst of paintings every three months, and then I would have paintings. I'd still be painting, but they weren't worthy to go into my inventory. There are pieces I was destroying, I was working over, weren't finished, etc. So I have a three month cycle of and so it's like, for instance, knowing that I'm in one of my creative points right now, after the holidays, January, I don't schedule anything. This is when, except this. This is when, but this is in the afternoon. Notice. Um, so I I protect that. So January and February are really important times for me to paint. There's nothing going on outside. There's nothing pulling me out there. This is good time for me to be in my studio. No workshops, quiet time. And then I have a daily cycle. Morning I'm on, I'm off the early afternoon, I come back on late afternoon, but that's when it's got, getting ready for dinner, family, socialize, etc. So this is my time, and so I'm not trying to paint in the afternoon, when I'm not going to be successful, that's time for me to take a nap, for me to take in and when I start with my paintings, when my paintings start to straw, I start to struggle too much with them. Time to go go to a gallery, time to ask a friend to meet me for lunch at the MFA in the city. Time to pull one of my many, many art magazines out or or art books. Time for me to just scribble in my sketchbook, and instead of beating myself up, and I if I can save somebody from having to do that and from doing that. Themselves by passing this on again, coming, you know, from Eric through me to you, it's because that that would be my parting statement is to be good for good to yourself. Look for your cycles, look for and, and, and eliminate the negative, the negative words when you're not being able to create as much, take care of yourself. Then take it
Laura Arango Baier: 1:15:30
wow, wow, wow, wow. So beautifully said. Thank you to you, and thank you to Eric, because you know what you have inadvertently brought up an excellent, excellent point, which is that we have been living, especially with technology, in such a linear way, right? Not cyclical, linear, where we're always just barreling towards the future. There's no return to self reflection. There's always just Forward, forward motion, and there's a sense of instant gratification that the market, unfortunately has forced us to try to meet, as if we were machines, which we are not. And I love that you bring back this idea of the cyclical nature of life, that it is a wheel, and once you break it, you'll struggle, you'll beat yourself up, you'll feel this fulfilled. You'll get that slump. And because society has taught us that those slumps are non productive, and therefore they're not positive, we end up, you know, in that cycle of beating ourselves up and then forcing ourselves to create, and then what we create isn't fulfilling because we have forced it rather than allowing to fill, which is so important. And sometimes I think also, you know, in my experience, I find that my cycle might be longer than yours in terms of that filling up time, especially when you've experienced, you know, maybe some artists have experienced a lot of schooling where they're burnt out, and that is a long period of having to fill that cup again, of allowing, you know, reading books, like you mentioned, I love that you mentioned that, because I find that a lot of inspiration can come so easily from books or from, you know, looking at other paintings, going to the museum, talking to other people, going to other people's exhibitions. It's, yeah, those are excellent, excellent things to keep in mind for anyone who might currently be going through a bit of a slump, and yet they're feeling pressured by the new year to start setting goals. And there's, like, this discord, this misalignment of I want these goals, but my energy is over here, so you got to work with that cycle. Yeah, wow. And
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:17:46
good luck to AI to try to replicate the soul of an artist. Oh, they won't. They won't. They won't. Another topic of conversation, but it's, it's like, yeah, it's, it's I'm not threatened. You shouldn't be threatened. It's, I'm the same the marketplace. That's a different thing. It's, but it's,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:18:10
yeah, yeah. And actually we do is important. It is yes. And there's no way to replace it with machines either, because human nature is just so I want to say chaotic. You know, it's not like we can, we can try to predict to a certain extent, but it's not logical. Yeah, it's not logical because we're not logical creatures. Yeah, um, but yeah. And actually, I did want to ask one last thing, which is, you know, when you set those goals, right? And you may have some some marketing goals. What is one marketing or sales goal that you set that you've maybe applied one thing like maybe, for example, it's, oh, this year I want to work with this gallery and make X amount of money. Or which goal do you find has helped you make more sales, or make, you know, reach a better, I guess, a higher goal in marketing for yourself, of sales?
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:19:13
Wow, yeah, I'm, I am not as I I've worked generally with one major gallery at at a time, and I've been with my gallery now since 2007 and so I'm I don't have the relationship I have with them. It's not, you know, you have to sell so many pieces a year, or anything like that. So my, my actual gallery sales have not necessarily been a driver for me. And part of the reason is that art sales are so i. Are intermittent and cannot be counted upon. So when I started to become working as a as a fine artist, and looking to make a living at it, that's why I turned to teaching, initially, because I could schedule my workshops, and I could count on that income. I can't count on sales income. You know, they come and go. It's some and even even, you know, if you're preparing for a show, you have a tremendous output of of funds, you know, if you're having to buy frames. And you know, framing pastels is not cheap, so I have relied more upon my teaching to be my income driver. And then, in the beginning, my workshops weren't selling very well. I'd had, you know, I'd have a percentage of them canceled. So that's when I decided to write a book, back when you could write a book and get it published. And so that's when I worked with North light. And the minute I had my book, and it took a year to produce it, to write it, and so that was a goal for the year. You're not going to be doing all these other things because you're writing a book. Okay? The minute I had that book, it just gave me the credibility that and the visibility that my workshops have always filled from that point forward, and so that was a that was a deliberate move on my part to do that, and then choosing to become president of IOPs was also put me in a very visible situation where I would have an audience of people who knew who I was, and at this point, I'm still advertised in the pastel Journal magazine to keep my name out there to you know. And this is all okay, but this is all really driving my teaching. I have not applied the same methodology to building a collector base. So that's something that I would see myself moving more into at this point. But it's changed so much because the whole gallery situation has changed, and I don't have, just like anybody else, I don't have the answer to that. I don't I don't have the answer to, you know, selling art online. And it would be great if I didn't have to frame things, and I didn't have to ship things with museum glass, you know. So there are models out there, there, there are opportunities out there that I'm I'm investigating, but so that's slightly different answer than what you were expecting. But
Laura Arango Baier: 1:23:07
no, that was, that was actually a very perfect answer, because you spoke obviously from your experience, and I think from your experience, what you set forth to do was a very sure path, right, which is, like you said, you know, you can't always count on sales, because sales, I needed
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:23:24
to rely upon a certain amount of income. I absolutely, you know exactly.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:23:29
And you knew teaching would be the way to do that, writing this book would be the way to do that at the time. And it worked out. And I think that counts for so, so much, because maybe someone out there might be overly relying on these sales, and they might feel that insecurity, because there is an insecurity that comes with sales, right? Maybe one month you don't sell it all. Maybe two, three months you don't sell it all, because, especially during certain seasons, during certain economic time periods, sales might not happen. But what can happen for sure, is learning and teaching. There's always going to be someone who wants to learn. And if someone out there who's listening is open and receptive to wanting to teach, that's a sure way to make some some money, especially if they have work, if they have, you know, social media, which is something else that's going on today, to reach those you know, possible students, then it's worth a shot. Yeah, if
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:24:22
you if you never taught, you know, find some place that'll let you give it a try. I mean, honestly, until you try teaching, you don't know whether you're going to be able to do it. You don't know whether you're going to like it, and you don't know whether you're going to be good at it. There are artists who can paint that shouldn't be teaching. There are teachers who are awesome, teachers who are not the best painters. There's a whole different continuum of it. But unless you give it a try, start out by doing a demonstration for an Art Association or. For, you know, for a group of high school students or or whatever, and just see if you can you talk and paint at the same time. I remember when I started to do teaching, I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing. How am I supposed to demonstrate and put into words what I'm doing so that in actually in coherent sentences, so that somebody is going to understand what I'm saying, you know, I'm as surprised as anybody that I'm actually able to do it, because that was just not who I was, you know, and just not who I considered myself to be, is be able to do public speaking and all that and and it's allowed me to travel. It's like my God, my teaching has taken me to to China, to Australia, to New Zealand. Why? All through the US Europe, and I get paid to do it. Oh, my God. So it's, as you say, there are people who want to learn. People want to learn. I'd still love to be a student. I'm I'm toying around with the idea of looking for a workshop to take, because I miss doing it. I really do. I miss being a student, and occasionally I took one a couple years ago at North River, with a with a with a well known portrait artist. And it was so it was really very interesting, because I was really struggling. I was trying to do oil with portraits and and I did what all my students do. I was like, I finally got so frustrated after the second day. I was like, Can I can I show you pictures of what I know how to do? I really am an artist. Very humbling, very humbling. It's, you know, we all do the same thing. It's like, but push yourself. What are you going to do? It's, I, you know, one of those mantras is like, do something every day that scares you. It's, you know, keep it going. Keep it going. Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:27:12
yeah. And you never know that how good you actually be at it until you try right. Like, to give a really funny recent example for myself. I went to a driving range, you know, where you hit the driver, you golf balls. I had never done it before, and by the end of it, I was actually pretty good at it. I got a really good hang of it. And I was, I remember when I first grabbed, you know, the driver I was my heart was racing. I was terrified. And then by the end of it, I was like, Oh no, it's done. Can we come back? You know, it's, it's, you never know until you try, how much you're going to enjoy something and and, you know, one of the things that you mentioned there, it really reminds me of the importance of mindset, right? We have this mindset of a lot of people, have a mindset of being stagnant, right, where you're either good at something or you're not, and that ignores the fact that you have to learn. Like learning is a lifelong pursuit. There's there's no reason why you can't do something unless you're physically unable to do something, but there's a reason why you can't learn to at least improve little by little. And I think that's also one of the beautiful things about being an artist, which is we're always learning every painting, oh yeah, experience, yeah. Aren't
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:28:31
we the lucky ones we are. We get
Laura Arango Baier: 1:28:33
to learn every day, and it hurts and it sucks and but then you overcome, and then you want more. It's a little bit, yeah, yeah, it's a little bit funny. And speaking of teaching, I know that you said that you might, you know, change your goals for this year, but do you happen to have any upcoming workshops or also maybe exhibitions, or any events that you're having this year that you would like to
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:29:01
promote. Best way to see my workshops is to go to my website, which is Liz Haywood, sullivan.com and I have my my workshops there, and also sign up for my newsletter, because that's that's where I have my most recent work. And then if you're interested in my instruction, my online instruction, go to epiphany fine art. And again, that's also on my website, and that has my online teaching. There are, I have an introduction which leads you for free through my studio, so you get to see all my pastels and my easel and and how I'm set up here and but it also, um, I also have some free videos in there so you can see what I'm doing and get a sense of my teaching and. Yeah, they've got very reasonable pricing on the instruction there. So that would be where to go. No exhibitions at the moment, but I got to get to the easel and get some painting done. Exactly. Yes, you are
Laura Arango Baier: 1:30:13
the means of production. Yeah. And then I will also be including all of your links in the show notes. So anyone who at this very moment, is just too excited to go Google it. It is in the show notes. Okay? And then you also have your business of art course, right? Do you? Are you? Is that also in your you
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:30:32
know, I just interject that sometimes I'll teach it. I don't have, I don't have that scheduled anytime this year. I mean, if you take a workshop from me, you you're just not going to avoid it, because I interject stuff about, you know, you know, different aspects of managing your art career into my workshop. So we, you know, that's just part of who I am, so you're going to get it regardless.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:30:59
Yeah, yeah. Well, awesome. Thank you so much. Liz, this conversation, I think, has been, oh my gosh, just mind blowing for me, especially because it's so perfectly timed with the new year. So thank you so much for all of your wisdom.
Liz Haywood-Sullivan: 1:31:15
Well, thank you for reaching out to me, Laura, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. Yeah, and
Laura Arango Baier: 1:31:19
with you. Okay, do.
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