How to develop a strong work ethic and stay inspired as an artist

In this video, I'll share with you how crucial it is to develop a strong work ethic as an artist and how it can help you stay inspired and reach your artistic goals.

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Art Life Conversations, where we talk about all things art life. From the struggles and the wins along the way, to making art, learning, and art history, to talks on business, career, and selling art. No matter where you are on your art journey, here you'll find inspiration, encouragement, and motivation as Kelly shares the real life of a working artist. And now, your host, Kelly Folsom.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Well, hello, artists. I'm Kelly Folsom, and you are listening to the Art Life Conversations podcast. And today's topic is on work ethic. Having a strong work ethic as an artist. So I love this quote. As you know, I always have to share a quote. And this is out of this wonderful little book, It Always Seems Impossible Until It's Done by Catherine and Ross Petris. And this quote says, There's few things that get you over your own crap more than working hard. Adam Savage, a special effects designer. So isn't that the truth? Now, I have to tell you, I think one of the saving graces of mine artistically that has gotten gotten me over my own crap again and again and again is my work ethic. Thank you, mom and dad, for raising us, all of us kids, to have a very strong work ethic. Watching both of them work so hard and just tirelessly to make a better life for themselves and for us as kids will never be lost on me. It will never be forgotten. So hopefully I don't get uh choked up here. Um that always had a really big impact on me, and they always really stressed uh on us kids to work hard. We developing a strong work ethic. This is so important as an artist. And as I said, this has been my saving, saving grace as an artist, both in improving as an artist and also financially as an artist, right? So there's one thing about us as artists that sometimes we get hung up on is being inspired, right? We we think that we are going to feel like creating. We're we wait for this stroke of inspiration to hit us, right? And if we don't feel like creating, then the tendency is, and really most of the time, that's just fear and resistance, but that's another that's another podcast, right? Um, so most of the time that's where that is coming from is just fear and resistance. And we oftentimes we'll sit around waiting for an idea, right? Waiting for an idea to come to us. What are we gonna paint next? What are we going to sculpt next? What are we gonna draw next? What whatever your art is. Um, oftentimes artists will fall into this trap, and I've fallen into this trap myself, and that is waiting for those ideas or that inspiration or that motivation to just like hit us over the head before we actually start doing something. And I want to tell you what I have found to be the most effective in getting ideas, getting inspiration is actually starting something, right? Getting to work, getting to work. And I know that as artists, sometimes we don't want to refer to, even though it's called artwork, we don't want to have like that attitude of, you know, that kind of blue-collar, I guess, attitude of getting to work, right? Um, doing the work. But honestly, that is the thing that brings inspiration and that of course will bring you so much progress and improvement in your art, and also if on the art business side in your art business, showing up and doing the work day in, day out, consistently. Now, I do think that there is a fine line between being like a workaholic and not working smart. Um, you know, it took me a while to kind of figure that out. Like, okay, there's a fine line between, you know, being a workaholic and also sometimes just working out of fear, especially for me when I first started out as a full-time artist. I was so um uh uh unaware of how I was gonna make a living as an artist that sometimes I would just overwork, overwork, overwork out of scarcity, you know, mentality and fear and not knowing what to do, when maybe I really should have taken some more time to try to solve those problems smarter rather than just putting in physical labor. But um that's a again, that's a whole other podcast, right? But if you are sitting around just waiting for an idea to strike you, to hit you upside the head, you know, um, you're probably gonna be waiting a long time. And you are losing so much time that you could be putting in making the art. You know, art is a physical thing. It's something that, you know, is both our, you know, our head, our heart, and our hands all connected in this process, but it is a physical process. So you cannot sit around and formulate the entire idea in your mind first. You have to learn by doing. You have to, again, you have to take action, right? So as soon as you start taking action, I feel that's really when the learning and the inspiration really kicks into high gear, you know. So even if you don't know what to paint today or to draw today, or again, whatever your art is, just get in the studio and start making something. I guarantee you that it will be five, 10 minutes in and you will be having all these ideas, you know, um, popping up for you. And maybe you start one thing and then you have an idea for another thing, so you move to that, you know, that's totally fine. Um, but you need to develop a strong, strong work ethic in order to be an artist. Um, any artist that was ever successful, I mean, look at artists like Joaquin Sarroya, Michelangelo, you know, all of these artists had just insane work ethics, insane work ethics. They were they were, you know, workaholics. I mean, and this the stuff that they would put themselves through to make their art was was good suffering, was what I call good suffering. There's there's kind of this new idea, I think it's like a new modern idea about art how artists suffer. Oh, artists, we suffer so much, right? Um, but a lot of that suffering is often self-imposed suffering, and and I don't even think it's necessarily a good suffering. So I think a good suffering is like you put in a good day's work on your artwork, you put in the time, you put in the effort, and so at the end of the day, you can feel really, really good about how you showed up and what you did. And again, that's really where the fulfillment and the meaning can truly come from by making your art. So if you are a new artist, it is critical that you put in the time. That I call it brush mileage. You just have to put in the brush mileage, you just have to show up and do the work. And I would say you have to do 80% work, like manual physical labor of making the thing, right? And then 20% uh learning, analyzing, thinking about it, um, self-critiquing, getting feedback from a mentor or an instructor or other artist, taking a class, you know, things like that. So I feel like that Pareto principle, the 80-20 uh Pareto principle really applies here in the beginning, you are doing like 80% putting in the time. You know, so let's say, you know, that week you had 20 hours to commit to your uh to your art life, right? To your art uh journey, your art business, and you're a new artist. Um so I would say, you know, the majority of that time, well, we'll say 10 to make it simple on me for the math since I'm doing this on the fly. So that would mean eight hours that week out of the 10 needs to go to actual art making. And then two hours out of that 10 can go towards other things, like um, you know, again, studying, uh self-critiquing after you do the work. Um, and you need to do a lot of work in the beginning. You really have to just put in the time and do a lot of work. Um, and a lot of that work is not going to be very good, uh just so you know. Um but again, it really is a matter of time, and it's kind of like investing because in the beginning, you have to put in more consistent effort, more consistent investment, and then over time, the longer you do that, the more that that investment starts to compound and maximize over a longer period of time, right? So, like your first, you know, year as an artist is is just awful. I mean, it's just brutal because you have to put in so much time and effort. And a lot of those efforts are, you know, maybe not super success. They're not successful. A lot of them just frankly suck, right? Um, and really it can be like that for the first five years, I would say. Those first efforts are going to be uh, like I said, a struggle, uncomfortable, brutal, right? And um it can be incredibly painful. And so most people do, of course, give up, or they will just stretch it out. So, what what I've seen happen too is like, and what I experience myself as well is like, oh, forget this, you know, screw this. I'm no good at this, I'm not seeing the results that I want. Um, and so you know, I would go into like self-pity mode, throw a pity party for um a week or several days and and not paint, you know, or not draw and not study. And then the problem with that is now you just lost all that time. You know, you could have you could have done three more paintings in that time, or you know, put in, you know, 10 more hours that was going to get you closer to your goal. But instead, you know, you you wimped out that week, and that's okay. Sometimes it happens, right? Like sometimes sometimes we just can't withstand the pain of developing as an artist. Um, but you need to, you know, go back to your commitment, go back to um understanding, and and I want the reason why I'm doing this podcast is I want you to know that those failures are normal, you know, and you can't, especially in the beginning. I mean, even still to this day, I still have failed paintings, you know, 13 years later. So the other thing is as you gain more experience and more maturity and more wisdom, you start to realize, like, oh, that's just par for the course, you know, I'm just gonna have bad days in the studio. But and there's no way around that. You're gonna have to have those bad days, right? But you also get the good days too. But you you get you have to have both and you have to um experience both. It's just, you know, part of it. Um, but if you if we wimp out every time we have a bad day or a failure, and then our work ethic drops, right? Like we lose our commitment and we stop showing up, well, now you're just prolonging the amount of time it's gonna take you to get those good days in the studio. And I've even experienced now as a seasoned artist, like if I get away from my work ethic with my craft, with my art making, uh, for too long, then you're you're gonna have to expect that the next day that you, when you do get back to it, you're gonna have a rough day in the studio that day because you're just rusty, you're out of practice. I don't care how good you have become, you will be out of practice. And yes, it sucks, and um, there's just no way around it. That's just the way that it works. So, the better, the best thing to do is to develop a strong work ethic and commitment and stick to that. Okay, my friends, as always, my hope with this podcast is to help you on your art life journey. So, I would love to hear from you, back from you on this topic. Um, have you struggled with your work ethic? Have you fallen prey to waiting for that inspiration to strike? Um, and um if so, I encourage you to recommit and make a new plan when it comes to your art making and to your work habits and your work ethic. I promise you, if you do that and you stay with it and you keep showing up, you are going to see the results that you want to see in your art life journey. Okay, everyone, I'm wishing you all happy painting.