12 12 Gallery

Curiouser And Curiouser

By Robert Genn, The Painter's Keys

River Scene by Sir Winston Churchill

This morning I was on the phone with a painter I'd Googled. He Googled me as we spoke. We looked at each other's stuff. Then we mutually Googled the same works of the Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla. We moved on to Francisco Domingo Marques, a teacher to whom Sorolla gave a lot of credit. This led to the less well-known Bernando Ferrandiz and Munoz Degrain, fellow Valencians who were also influences on Sorolla's early work. They were great painters we had not previously heard of.

We live in the fastest curve of democratic learning yet to occur. Search engines have the potential to revolutionize traditional systems of education. It is a wave of free thinking and awareness of alternates, a bonanza for the independently curious. Like the "Mind Mapping" concept developed by Tony Buzan, ideas and images flow naturally from one to another and form into an ever-expanding web.

In his remarkable little book, Painting as a Pastime, Winston Churchill  said, "I have always had a curious nature; I enjoy learning, but I dislike being taught." Winston understood one of the basics of learning--self-direction--the way of the autodidact. He would have been proud to announce the triumph of independent curiosity.

The giant online Wikipedia is currently about ten times larger than the tree-based Britannica. And it's not the largest. That honour goes to the Hudong, founded in 2005 by Dr. Pan Haidong, with over 4 million articles and 2 million registered contributors.

Since its inception in 1967, the American magazine Psychology Today makes a pile of magazines about 20 feet high. You can mouse every one of its mind-benders. If you happen to be thinking about creativity, for example, try Googling any of the following: "What do creative people look like?" "Stimulating imagination through constraints." "Painting and praying." "Being nice to yourself increases creativity." "Get creative, lose weight." "Hobbies--the personal path to creativity." "Are conservatives less creative than liberals?" "Can fundamentalists be creative?" And so it goes. On and on. This is the time of the curious. And it all comes through a tiny line or out of thin air to find us in our homes, offices and studios. "Curiouser and curiouser," cried Alice.

Studio Spring Clean!

I did a little Spring Cleaning over the course of last week I seem to gravitate to wanting to clean out stuff that's been sitting around to long and throw open the windows and doors for fresh air naturally.

So when Alison Stanfield’s newsletter came in this morning, it was synchronicity! These smart, easy-to-do suggestions for cleaning up the studio this spring could apply to your sewing room, home, office or anywhere you follow your dreams and create the life you want.

Alison suggests:

"1. Clean out your studio. Throw out dried-up paints and other unusable materials that take up space; catalogue and organize your artwork; dust the shelves; and mop the floors. Give yourself a deadline to organize any material you have been collecting that has piled up without a specific home.

2. Clean out your "ideas." Most artists collect ideas, which are actually tangible things like magazine articles or newspaper clippings. You think you may get to them one day, but somehow they keep winding up at the bottom of piles. Getting rid of them will provide mental and physical space for fresher ideas. For the paperless ideas that keep haunting you, journal about them so that they're not lost or forgotten.

3. Clean out your schedule. Get rid of items you don't have to do in order to make room for what you really want in your life.

4. Clean off your desk. Make your office a place where you want to do business, where you want to spend the 50% of your time that you should be devoting to marketing yourself and your work. Create systems so that your workspace never gets out of control again.

5. Clean out your paper files. We all have files that have become unruly and ones we know deep down that we no longer have to keep. Get rid of the stuff. 

6. Clean out your files in your computer as well. Consolidate and make computer folders with headings similar to your hard-copy folders so that they are easy to find.

7. Clean out your opportunities. There are so many things waiting to take up your time and energy. You can't do it all. You can't say Yes to everything. Let go of the commitments that aren't serving you and trust that someone more suitable is waiting to take responsibility for them. "

While I haven't accomplished all of these tasks yet, I feel lighter and less bogged down, more in touch with the natural rhythm of things. I like the energy shift in my house, in my studio/office and in  etting neglected projects and chores done and off the tattered and dog-eared To-Do list.

To sign up for Alison Stanfield's weekly Art Marketing Action newletter or read her blog, ArtBiz Blog, visit Artbiz Coach.

Habits For Success

by Robert Genn

Not long ago the popular business coach John Di Lemme  broadcast a simple idea that applies to anyone wishing to succeed. It goes like this:

"I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managed--you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great men, and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a man. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin--it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you. Who am I? I am a habit!"

Favourable habits reap favourable results. It seems that simple habits contribute more to success than luck, happenstance, or even a favouring economy. Further, recent studies on the nature of genius indicate that self-generated habits are mighty muscles indeed. While all of us who wish to master specific skills need to tailor our habits accordingly, here are a few for starters:

Squeeze out paint in the morning before your coffee is cold.

Program creative work balanced with rest, exercise and study.

Train yourself to be regular, punctual and workmanlike.

Shoot down your lazy tendencies before they shoot you.

Do whatever it takes to honour your personal perception of quality. This may mean slowing down, speeding up, multitasking, single-tracking, going back to basics, being risky, being cautious, dreaming, concentrating, winging it or even reading the instructions. Apparently, one of the most common bad habits these days is not reading the instructions. This can apply to artists. We need to regularly refresh the habit of truly looking, truly seeing and truly understanding. No big deal. It's just a habit.

Source: The Painters Keys by Robert Genn