Creating Art For Yourself Vs The Algorithm - Artist Podcast

0:00Our centric podcast with Ruffy and Clea. Hola, you amazing artist. It's Ruffy and Clea. And today we are going to talk about creating for yourself versus the algorithm. I mean, I don't even know the algorithm, so I wouldn't even know what to make for it. To be honest with you, I feel like it's always changing. It's mind about what it wants. It's not an ideal client, so I'ma just do me. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much what this podcast is going to be about. We could, we could just end it there because you just pretty much laid it all out. The, the algorithm, so I wanted to talk about this because I got an email from someone who had asked a question about what they needed to do for the algorithm. It's funny because we'll get these like questions from people that assume that we like have beat the algorithm. That we cracked the code. And like, it's always, I feel bad because I have to respond and be like, listen,

1:03there, we haven't cracked the code A and B, there really is no code to crack. If you're going to be sharing stuff, I wouldn't concern myself with the algorithm, you know, like you're especially as an artist or posting anywhere online or anything like that. Like, don't worry about the algorithm. Yeah. Because that's, I think that that's one of those things that people sell courses on. It's like, do you want to be an artist and sell $100,000? Here, I have the algorithm on how to do that. I trapped it in an envelope and I'll deliver it to you via Google Drive for $1,000. Christy said, I just saw a trend video today. Cleared your metal spirals are trendy. Ooh, interesting. That is interesting. I would say, okay, aside from my, I never met the algorithm rant that I opened with.

2:05I would say, if you are trying to crack the code of the algorithm or you at least want to be adjacent friendly with it, be about what you're about consistently. Yeah. Like, what are you about? Be that, be that regularly. So, so let's, let's go a little further into that. Like, what do you mean by be consistent and be regular about it? Be a, well, the first most important piece of that puzzle is be about what you are about. Because I think so many people jump, um, jump from thing to thing trying to chase the algorithm. Right. Or jump from trend to trend or jump from a modus to modus or topic to topic to try to appease the algorithm when in reality, if you just be about what you are about, meaning whatever it is that you are genuinely interested in talking about or creating about be that and be on that trajectory.

3:09Now, that doesn't mean there's not room for variance or exploration in what you're doing, but it's like a conversation that we had earlier with one of the rogue family. It's like, be about what you are about, allow for experimentation and play, but know who you are and create from that place rather than trying to gauge who your collectors might be or what the algorithm might want. That's, that's really good. Christy says here, you got to let the trends come to you. Right. And I absolutely agree. In fact, I think I wrote about that in one of the books either the survival guide or the marketing book where it was like, you know, some of the advice that I'd seen out there about the algorithm or about getting famous, right? Because everything is about getting famous, getting getting more views, getting more likes, all that stuff. And it was just chase trends. And what was really discouraging or disappointing to me was that one of the books that I bought

4:11when I was doing my own research when I first started talked about creating what was trendy in your area, right? And they posed themselves as, you know, like an artist who did markets and things like that and they had become super successful and all that stuff. And although that is something that a lot of artists do, it's like they'll create things that are trendy in their area. My biggest thing in those books was don't, you know, be a trendsetter. Don't be somebody who's constantly following trends. Because if not, then you are chasing after what's popular, right? And then you're constantly changing. And instead of it being this thing where you are, you know, you have a diversified portfolio because you're a creative who is very eclectic, then you may end up with a garage sale portfolio. Exactly, exactly.

5:13And, you know, to some extent, I think we've all been there, done that. My one, like, creative hack for, because this question has come up. Okay, well, what if what I'm doing is so weird that no one's ever going to find me unless I get on to something that's hitting on the algorithm, the gateway drug? Right. And I'm like, okay, so let's say that there is a trend that peaks your interest. Then I think a fair question to ask yourself is, what's the me version of that trend? What can I do that's within my wheelhouse that satisfies that? Right. Right. So like, I'm not going to make something that's way, way, way outside of my wheelhouse that I'm not even interested in just to follow a trend. But if a trend comes into my sphere of awareness that is within my nerd dumb of what I'm already doing, then I might ask myself, what's the clea version of that? I like that. And see what comes from that, and that would be about as trend adjacent,

6:17as I'm willing to get. Well, I like that too, because then what you're doing is you're creating something that is all you, and in creating something that is all you, then you, you put it out there, and the people that are rude relate to you are the people that would gravitate to it. Right. It's like the spirals, which I think it's cool to hear that, like, the metal spirals are trendy. I didn't invent the spiral. Humans invented the spiral a long time ago, but I do the clea version of my spirals, and the people that like them like them. Yeah. So, and that's cool to me. And I like crystals, and so, you know, things that I can do with crystals that might be trend adjacent, cool, and sometimes not. But that's the experimentation, and that's as simple as I might see something I like, and without even being aware of it, I might be thinking to myself, what's the clea version of this thing that I like, or want to experiment with, or play with?

7:21Michael said, there's no such thing as algorithm search enhancement, likewise, website SEO is a dead end unless you are a huge corporation with vast resources. Yeah. I mean, so, yes, yes and no, Michael. So, like, the whole SEO thing to me is always a big scam. Like, somebody wants to, like, sell you on SEOs. And honestly, there's a lot of money in selling SEO packages to big corporations. There's nothing in the pack. So, I'm not going to blame anybody for trying to make money off of big corporations. But at the end of the day, when it's not an algorithm, what it's looking for is, what is it that people are searching? So, for example, on my website, we, on our website, we have a lot of blogs, right? So, every single one of those blogs, the title is what becomes searchable.

8:24And if you have, in order for it not to be clickbait, the first paragraph has to sort of line up with the title, and then that becomes searchable. And the first image, the properties in the image, you want to change that to something that is relative, you know, the same as the title and the first paragraph, so that it lines up. That's where the search engine is looking for things that are relevant to questions that might be asked online. And there goes back to relevant to the search criteria and consistent across metadata, title, paragraph body. That's it. It's not anything that's super difficult. You change the metadata on your image and you make sure that it matches your title. And that's it, you know, like, you know, a lot of people, when they upload images to their website, for example, will upload image 5, 6, you know, like the, instead of having actual, like, title and things like that. But like, everything you put online, everything that you put on the

9:30website is searchable. So, that's one of the reasons, you know, with our website and having have done it for as long as we have. And we have thousands of pictures out there. And I don't even know how many blogs I've written. Basically, what ends up happening is that all of those things become searchable because it's not image 5, 6, 3, 2, 1. It is roughly art or the name of my artwork with, you know, roughly Perez. I do think about this. And I'll just do this little side tangent. And then we can read some comments. I did because when I was first posting my stuff online, I was like, titling the title, the title of my work, like, lightning in the foothills for a tree of life pendant necklace. Now that's a more recent one. And I realized, like, no one's going to search that. No one's going to go looking for a pendant called lightning in the foothills. But they are going to go looking for tree of life necklace. So you make sure your titles are, how would you search for this item if you yourself were looking for it? Like, Rafi, I did a little

10:35experiment with Rafi's tree paintings. His tree men, particularly, did a Google search for tree man. And I couldn't find him. So my question was going to be, does it say tree man somewhere? You have to type in nature of being in order to find Rafi's tree people. And that's a problem if you don't know that nobody's looking for nature of being. Now here's the other and that's the other side to it. It's like, it's important. It's, it's important, right? If you want to be searched for. So something that I could do is add tree man painting to the title and tree man painting. I don't, because I like my titles to be aesthetically pleasing, which then hurts me in the searchability. But what you can find is my artwork if you search for Rafi Perez, because each one does say by Rafi Perez. Agreed. Yeah. So that's really been my, my, my push

11:39is to really just get my name out there and build it that way and build it that way. I try to walk the line like, I'll put my search, a searchable title at the beginning and I'll put my artistic title at the end. Yeah. So it's both. Yeah. And you do great. I mean, Cle does, I, to be honest with you, if you're going to follow anybody's advice on this particular subject, follow Cle's advice, not mine, because I constantly can find Cle's jewelry on Google. And I do get Google search traffic. Yeah. Pop pop up. And Cle does get automatic Google traffic from, you know, and it's free. It's, it doesn't even cost us anything by being on the merchant place on Google going to the website. That happens automatically as Google is scraping the website. Mine, however, you have to be very specifically looking for my work. And unfortunately, there's another artist out there named Rafi Perez. So like, my work gets jumbled up with his, but people do find you. They do. You deploy the other

12:44avenues. Yeah. Christy said, ha ha me. I had to come up with a theme for my stuff that pulled it all together. Welcome to the enchanted garden. That's perfect. I love it. I love it. Esther said, you know what? I've been surprised at the type of people who like my stuff and buy it. It's fantastic. There's nothing like me. Now, this is neat that you said that. Yeah. We were just having a conversation earlier today about how you'd be surprised at the vast array of people that will connect with your work and what I've noticed personally. And it's not always right away obvious is there will be one common thread, one thing in common that makes somebody connect with your work. And maybe you and them don't even know it yet. And they could be wildly different from you in every other way. And then the community of collectors or internet fam or fam that form around you could be vastly different from each other. But they each have some sort of connecting thread

13:46that makes them resonate with your work. And then it's likely that they'll connect with each other in some way, even while being wildly different. Yeah. I think that is that's the cool thing about art. And I love that. I love that, Esther. I always love finding what is what is the thing that attracted this person to something that I created? Christy said, yeah, I think people are trying to get back to nature and tradition. I think people are just seeing what we've already been creating. And that's a great point to me. And I'm going to go back to be about what you are about and put it out there consistently while allowing room for play because cycles happen, things come and go and come back around like the spiral. And the reason I like the spiral is because it's an expansion of things coming full circle, which they never do because each time the circle comes around, it's expanded, it's spiraled out. So the spiral, the spiral represents an ever expanding circle of time flowing

14:50and having experiences and all that wonderful stuff. And so you will ride the wave sometimes just by being who you are. And then other times when you're not riding the wave, you can be innovating and playing and seeing what's the me version of blah, blah, blah. I love it. And I think if you do that consistently and you're sharing it consistently in whatever way you share, which should be authentic to you as well, you're going to find your people. Yeah, yeah, I think and I think that that's that pretty much narrows it down because when you think about the algorithm itself, right? And it's so funny because it's like the algorithm and like all the algorithms are different. And basically what they do is they are designed to keep the viewer on for longer. That's that's pretty much what they're designed for is if the viewer like if you're on YouTube and you're watching videos on our process, then it's going to pull up another video on our process that's been viewed

15:53by other people so that you can watch it. And the more videos you watch, the more ads you watch, the more revenue YouTube makes, that that's how it works. Same thing happens on Google, same thing happens on Facebook, all the social media. So like there are times where like my post just disappear like nobody sees them. And that is simply because it just, you know, doesn't work into whatever people are searching for. And in my mind, it's like I've never looked at it as I got to make sure that everybody sees everything that I do. I always just, I want to share what I'm going to share. And I'm going to put it out there and then eventually, you know, because I've had that happen too, like something that gets completely ignored. You know, a year later, somebody, you know, all of a sudden, like people are looking at it. Here's the neat thing too. And I'm going to actually make an argument right now for a benefit of AI. AI, I've been using Google

16:57Gemini. That's been my, my AI tool. AI has been able to find highly niche, weird things for me. They get really specific because it's good at scouring the internet for very particular sets of criteria. So we're in a time where you can ask Gemini or your AI of choice to find you highly niche, weird things that you, that would have been unavailable. It would have been, you would have had to search through a hundred pages to find it before. But you type in these weird parameters that you're looking for. And bam, it can find it for you. So I actually think the niche and weird is becoming more discoverable now thanks to AI. So that, to me, is a huge benefit. Michael said, within reason, I do think it is sensible to have proper blog titling and image data just as in library sciences, metadata practices. Yeah. And metadata practices are certainly important.

17:59I over generalize my point. But I did under, we did understand the point that you were making. Just certainly there are things you can do. Are they the be-all-end-all? Michael said, I'm retitling all my online artworks as Madonna's Lost Sex Tape, which is hilarious. And also, would that not be a really funny in-person show? I feel like that should be like a gallery show. That should be the title of the gallery show. And the title of all the works. Yeah. And there's your artist statement of Madonna's Lost Sex tapes. One, Madonna's Lost Sex tapes too. Yeah. Yeah. And I would love to see the artist statement about that as well. Hey, Ginger. Oh, by the way, for everybody listening to this at home, we have our amazing rogue artist family here from our Patreon. And so if you hear us reading a question, a comment, a concern, or anything like that that sounds ultimately brilliant, chances are we are reading it

19:03from them because they are also. They're way cooler than us. Yeah. Let's see. Michael said, the judge said, I am not allowed to follow Klee anymore. Sarah said, I created a woman tree a few years back, a distorted self-portrait of me being turned into a tree based on the Greek goddess Daphne. Oh, that sounds amazing. That sounds very cool. I could think of a lot of names for that and people who would be interested in seeing that. Raven said, you have to trust it will reach who it's meant to when it's meant to. Exactly, Raven. That's that ultimately you just like summed it up. Summed it all up because that is ultimately the thing. It's like you, do we spend so much time thinking that we are supposed to find people and the truth is you figure out ways to put yourself and your art out there and let those people find you. You know what I mean? Like and they will,

20:05they will. It might not happen right away. It might take take a while for certain people to find you but that's that's the whole thing like our job as artists as creatives is to create the stuff and then if you want to like make a career of this because you don't have to put it out there but if you want to put it out there, put it out there, figure out different ways to put it out there where it gets out in front of people or has the potential to get out in front of people and then don't wait for people to notice you, keep creating more and then put more out there, keep creating more and put more out there and eventually those people will find you. Yeah, yeah. That's the meat and potatoes of it. That's the that's the thing because if not you're driving yourself crazy trying to game and game the algorithm or figure out the strategy or like what is it that I need to do? You know, and there's and you know that there are so many people

21:07making money off of people that are desperately trying to get noticed because there are a crap ton of get more views on your Instagram, get more blah blah blah. There are all these things that you could pay all this money to figure out the secret and crack the code and honestly those quote-unquote get rich quick schemes would it be out there if people weren't desperately trying to do it thinking that there is some kind of secret sauce to be able to do that and the truth is there is not you just keep putting your stuff out there. I mean I think Mr. Beast actually like explains it the best when it comes to like putting stuff out there that is searchable online especially on YouTube and essentially it's like great great good good stuff you know for him it's like great good content that people want to watch and you know and and that's basically it

22:12create you know if you take pictures of your art make sure they're not shitty pictures of your art. Yeah and now I want to dissect that create good content that people want to watch and and the question that's going to come back is well how do I know what people want to watch because that's very generalized and very good point create good content that you would want to watch that you would want to watch and your people will find you yeah even if they only have that one thing in comments and I think that that's that's important to denote it's like good content that you want to watch that you want to see exist because that's how the artwork works too right so and that's a thing we make this we make this separation between I create art and then I do all this other stuff you know the social media stuff or whatever or promoting or marketing and the thing is grab that marketing pull it into your art pull it into the art form and make it part of that right so you want to create authentic art you want to be true to yourself you want to have fun creating your art

23:16you want to feel good about it do the same thing when you're when you're doing anything else that has to do with marketing if you're going to create a video have fun with the video create something that you want to watch create something that you want to create don't create something if you're simply creating it because you think it's going to get you more views don't post something simply because you think it's going to get you more views post something because you're excited to share it share something because you're excited to see it out into the in the world and Esther says it's a long long game it is it really is it is a forever game if you're an artist and you plan on doing this art thing until your last breath and you're going to be doing this a while you're going to be doing this for the long haul so one of the things that really screws us up I think is this idea that oh well I got to crack this code now I've got to figure this out now and and that's not the truth you you just you figure it out one thing at a time Michael was trying to share my SEO

24:19and you guys for any of you the photo name the title of one of my pieces if you want to see how I do that particular thing you're welcome to visit my jewelry pages on our website look at how I title the work look at what the first paragraph says look at my tags look at my metadata on my photos you can actually see the metadata on my photos when you click on the zoomed in view and I try to walk the line between artsy descriptive and google search informative with every one of them on I'm not saying that I'm the best at it but she's better than me I found what works for me and and I've seen I've seen people who do it better but I'm I'm doing it to the level where I'm comfortable and and it seems to be working um Chris he says rage bait rage yeah um yeah yes put it out where in social media or on my website um and I know I know what you're going to say

25:20put it out there you put it out everywhere that you can within reason right yeah so so you don't you don't want to you really um to answer your question this has to be a mindset it's a mindset of I will put it out there everywhere that I can within reason without any kind of expectation I'm just putting it out there because it deserves to be out there um because if you put it out there on social media or on your website and it comes with a hidden expectation then it's going to be disappointing if it doesn't um go anywhere yeah you know or you know it like I like the phrase that a lot of people will use is it's just not working it's there's nothing it's it's not about it working it's about sharing it out there now uh one of the things that I do to streamline that process is that when I share things on the website like if I share a blog or I share a social

26:23note or I share anything on my website it's uh because I use WordPress with jetpack it's designed to automatically go out on social media so I'm able to share it on my website and social media at the same time and think the cause most for that because uh it used to take rafi a lot longer to post on our site and then share it to all the individual platforms just like this podcast uh we run this podcast through a program called podbean we pay for it but it means that once this podcast goes live it goes everywhere that podcasts are broadcast without us having to manually do that yeah I don't have to manually do it and that's the biggest thing is if you are going to share your information out there if you're going to share something out there find ways to make it easy on yourself to share it as widely yeah because some of the other advice that I've heard out there and the thing is I don't want to poo poo on anybody's advice because there are a lot of people out there giving advice on how to share your stuff and you know they're genuinely trying

27:28to help people out and that's how they do it my my biggest issue is that like I've I've heard a scene and read a lot of advice on how somebody will spend an hour a day doing their social media promotion and I'm like I don't have an hour to be posting on social media or like looking at like I don't want to spend an hour yeah I just I don't I don't I have a studio to get into I have a business to run like and but at the same time I want the benefits of being able to share what we do so it's finding ways to like really really make it a meaningful for you where it's not just um you're promoting something right so for example a lot of our social media post I have something either a that I want to share uh which is a photograph or I have a a a bit of a video something that I want to say or it automatically shares my blogs right because I have something to say

28:31so like there's a there's a purpose beyond quote unquote marketing for why it is that I share things and that's really my driving force behind it because it can't be it can't simply be marketing like I just it's got to it's got to have more umph to it it has to have more there has to be more reason why you're doing it versus I just want to I just want people to notice me which is what what most people look at marketing as it's got to be something where it's like yeah I really want to just share this out there and you share it out there and then you're done with it then you go and work on something else to share out there you know what I mean you don't sit and like stare at your social media and wait for all refresh it and wait for all the likes to come in you just you share it out there that's it you're done boom you move on to the next one my job is done here as we like to say yeah and I think uh yeah Christie said I would so rather be creating than posting I think we

29:35all would so yeah even if your website doesn't have the feature where it's gonna blast your post everywhere automatically um there are things that you can utilize and a lot of them are free um at least under a certain level like IFTTT is free up to a certain point up to two to to share things so yeah you could actually set it because it has two so IFTTT is if this then that and basically you could set it up where you do an RSS feed for your blog and every time you share your blog you could actually have it share on Facebook uh Twitter like all those all the all the social I don't even know what what they are but they're all the things that those kids are on um yeah and canva even has some post scheduling features now where you can create the post oh yeah canva and then canva will send it out on mass Raven says it is clear the way you guys approach marketing is more about

30:37connection than about selling your wares yeah I mean to be honest with you Raven that's kind of how that's we approach everything that way I think based on because we weren't I mean we weren't doing crap on social media like not YouTube or anything a lot of people are like so you guys you guys started on on YouTube is like no way YouTube wasn't after like an afterthought we started boots on the ground doing festivals and shows every weekend multiple every every weekend yeah multiple weekends and um to be honest with you it got to the point where I started to realize that going out and doing one of these shows and you go you go early you're setting up your booth you're setting up your walls your art please setting up her jewelry it takes a while you're you're outside it's hot or whatever the weather is and if I was there to sell honestly I would I would end up having a

31:42miserable experience because you know you're there for several hours maybe it's really slow at first or maybe it's just a slow day or nobody's like noticing your booth and then what would happen is I would start getting discouraged I would start getting desperate I've been like what what why am I even here you know like all that stuff and I we started we started talking about it realizing like if we're here to sell it's going to be a miserable experience because that is absolutely completely based on what other people do and I have zero control over that like emotionally that's discouraging like I would not be able to last if I was going out to shows simply to sell my stuff because it would it would be a roller coaster ride and let me tell you starting out in Florida where most of the time it's hotter than people would like it to be and being out at shows where people are walking by your booth with this look like on their face like

32:44I'm looking but it's kind of hot and you're looking back at them like oh no it's so hot and me selling jewelry which ain't nobody gonna try on any jewelry when they're doubt like covered in sweat right but maybe we're gonna have a pleasant conversation a few of us and maybe they're gonna take my business card and maybe they're gonna remember that they liked their interaction with me and maybe they're gonna look up my website or maybe they're gonna throw my card in the garbage the next day because they already forgot who I was but either way you got to find a reason to be there and the reason you know for us the reason was like all right cool this is an opportunity to go and meet somebody yeah and we started to come up with our own little catch phrases like it only takes one one pleasant experience to make all this worth it and those kind of things and and the moment that we started to really really approach it from that angle where it was like we're not here to sell anything we're just here to meet people

33:47then it became much more comfortable to interact with people and our area our persona our booth became low pressure it was a safe haven it was a safe haven so people would come in and they wouldn't feel any pressure from us because we weren't there to sell to them and so I think within that then there was room for building a comfortable relationship and so when we started online you know started really doing things online and approaching online I think we just kind of took that with us into the online land of like it needs to be low pressure like you know nobody likes getting sold to I I hate going places and like people are just trying to sell me on something versus like just having a conversation with me and letting me decide whether or not I want or need the thing it would be the equivalent of asking someone to move in with you after you just met them

34:50yeah because that is essentially what you are doing it's it's dating you're dating would you like to take a piece of my soul back to your house and reside with it henceforth for some people that's a big decision so a lot of people do like to get to know you and I think that honestly at the end of the day that's the name of the game actually is human interaction human relationships like the Florida thing unless you're selling lemonade or sun hats yeah then they want to move in with you right away it's true but then the actual thing we're really after at the end of the day is like human connection and the arts kind of the gateway introductory I mean that's the thing you create you create something that is going to spark conversation you basically you you you go out there and you've basically expressed yourself in some way shape or form with what you've created so you you've taken the first step to have that conversation and then somebody who walks by and something

35:51about the work connects with them now now there's that room for having that conversation you know and sometimes they do want to take it home right then and there sometimes they do sometimes they you know it's like first date I'm coming home yeah AJ Bean said I'm trying to get back to the mindset like when I was a child where I just wanted to show everyone the cool stuff I made and then move on to the next project a second later that's really good that is really good that's really good because that's that's essentially it so a lot of artists a lot of artists will say that they're terrible at marketing right they're like I'm I just don't like I have the creative brain I have no marketing you know I don't like the business creative the business marketing side of it and it's like we are all amazing at marketing ourselves we are all amazing at marketing other people especially so you go to a restaurant and you're like this is delicious right this is delicious

36:52the best thing let's say that it's tacos right you go to the restaurant I think I just wrote a blog about this you go to a restaurant you eat some tacos you're like these are the best tacos that I've ever had you're walking down the street somebody's like I'm about to have lunch and you're like immediately you think of those great tacos and you're then also you're like oh man you want to go eat some Mexican food they have some amazing tacos at this place and then you talk about how juicy they were and how delicious they were and how the lime was just perfect with the spices and everything and that and you're talking about it and I'm sure a lot of you listening to this you're like I can really go for a taco right now yeah that's how good you are at marketing when you are excited about something the secret is if you're going to be showing your art allow yourself to be excited about the art that you're showing because then you become really good at marketing so the same thing like AJ is saying there you get really excited about the

37:53thing you just created and then that causes you to automatically want to share it online you know the thing about it is that a lot of people don't want to get rejected they don't want somebody like you know to say something you have to get out of that mindset where it's not about what their responses or whether or not they're even paying attention it's just I just want to share this I just want to share I want people to see this you know and then you put it out there and exactly then you move on to the next thing that you're creating yeah it's like when our kids at school finish a thing some of them are nervous and apprehensive and some of them can't wait to tell us then they can hardly catch their breath all about what they just made yeah and then they show us and then they're done then they're like could I get a piece of paper and whatever because they want to move on to the next thing and you're like bye and you're like okay I got I got this this drawing give it to me yeah from one of the kids and it says if you're listening to this it says thank you

38:59for teaching art right this is beautiful this is adorable it's on my wall now and the moment they gave me this I was like oh my god and of course I want to like talk about it and stuff like that and they're like yeah and then then immediately like a minute later they're like could I get another piece of paper and like do some more drawings like that was it they were done they were done they were all ahead to say about that like Forest Gump um Kristi said last year I went to the Renaissance Fair in Tahoe a lot of vendors had pretty umbrellas because they are fun but then it rained and it became a service they provided they sold a ton that was cool you never know I love it when when it's gonna be your turn it's to be in the spotlight like an umbrella and need for umbrellas what if your stuff isn't as great yet so that's my question so as great as you want it to be or as great like other people won't like it like go and go and respond respond to

40:01that yeah Kristi said that it's subjective you'll never know what people will think until you start putting it out there yeah better you get my work when I started showing it was not as great as it is now and my work now is not as great as it will be 10 years for now but it found its people and I was proud of what I was doing I will admit this I had a lot of insecurity to work through in the beginning that what I was doing was not that great and looking back now I could have saved myself some trouble in realizing that what I was doing was awesome for who I was and what I was doing then and what I'm doing now is exactly right for who I am and where I am right now I'll be honest a lot of the work that I created when I first started putting myself out there was okay and really great and a lot of the work that I create now is okay and really great like the thing is there are some pieces that I look at from when I first started and there is a sense of freedom

41:05there that I have to work now to get to right because the more you know the more you want to lock yourself into a box so I have to spend a lot of a lot more time now breaking free of that box of the things that I am good at right because it's easy to just stick to the things that you're good at and so like I diversify and the the thing is that like pen box you're saying like I feel like I'm not a good artist yet the thing is you're an artist that the good or bad part is subjective you know what I mean like that's a jet that that is some people don't matter where you're at in your career are going to think that your art is really good some people are going to think that it sucks when I first started people thought that my my art was really good and some people thought that it sucked now 15 years later some people think that my art is really good some people think

42:10that my art sucks some people think I'm a good artist some people think I'm a bad artist right what do I think of myself I think I'm an artist I mean I did you know good or bad doesn't really mean jack crap to me it just doesn't mean anything it's I create what I create and sometimes the work it feels like really I'm point like I've I've tapped into this magical thing and then sometimes it's just good enough and but it's so beautiful so you know that's that's where that's where my mind kind of goes with that I think it's like what Clea was saying it's just working on your own insecurity when it comes to what you create but also at the end of the day you're you're the best judge for yourself and whether or not you want to put it out there yeah and I mean it's up to you to gauge right like if you're waiting around for your work to feel perfect you're gonna wait forever you're gonna wait forever and it's true what you said and we've talked about this before

43:10when you're a novice a lot of us I think have experienced this you tend to be a lot more creative and innovative and risk taking and I was recently looking back at my earlier work in my portfolio and I was like drilling through pieces of wood and mounting stones inside of them and like doing crazy stuff that I don't do now and I didn't even remember doing because I was taking risks and I was like where's that magic now like I need to bring some of that back um but uh Christy said I think people actually like to see you grow and learn yeah or at least I do and Raven said agreed I don't think my stuff is anything special but some people do and I still enjoy making it a lot of a lot of people that collected my work and your jewelry in the very beginning that's one of the the the comments that we hear from them is like how much they've enjoyed watching us grow yeah over the years and that's that's a thing you're not the art itself is is just it's it's beautiful and it's a part of you but it's a part of you on this ever

44:15going journey of growth as an artist you know so it's not that the because I can look back at some of my pieces and I can be like oh that's not good art it's not it's not that it's not good art this is the art that I was creating during that era this is the art that I'm creating now because I could sit there and say well some of my older pieces were better than my pieces not there's no better or or or anything there's just you growing your craft and being in different seasons as you grow in your experience and then sometimes you grow in your experience and you get really good at something and you you kind of put yourself in a little box and that's the season that you're in and then you realize you're in a box and then you break out of that box and start experimenting and playing around more and that's a different season that you're in yeah um Christy said a while back I bought a print from a new artist because it resonated with me I look at it all the time and it makes me happy I love that I love that that's a great perspective

45:21from everyone thank you Christy said also I could have bought a print from a master but it wouldn't be as personal yeah and it it it it is about how it makes you feel now I understand because I've lived the feeling of like I'm embarrassed like I'm embarrassed to show my work because I'm just learning and like I know that it's gonna be better but also one of the ways to get better a lot faster even though it's the scary way is to publicly show your work and sometimes you're gonna hear criticism or you're gonna hear feedback and we're just talking about this earlier today too comedians have to fail publicly in order to fine tune their set yeah Rafi was uh going over this on a call they had earlier yeah they have to get on stage as they're tweaking their set and tell their jokes and figure out whether the joke is landing or not or not in front of a group of people that are going to heckle them because they need that because

46:23they need that feedback to know if it's working and I feel like arts a little bit like that too now you can be satisfied with your work and and that can be it and you may not need external feedback but when you're trying to grow and expand and become more of what you're doing feedback is helpful sometimes and and taking on commissions and things is helpful sometimes to be able to grow and fine tune your skill sets even though it can feel like scary and and I would say I would say one of the one of the important things to keep in mind if you start doing this is that you know negative be negative feedback is not always constructive right and sometimes most times it is not gonna deserve your attention and so putting myself out there as an artist to be honest with you was one of the biggest challenges of my life when I first started

47:29putting myself out there because I was deeply insecure about my work and through the process of doing it and having conversations and over the years and realizing that I could have I would have a work of art in the booth and somebody would come in and tell me like what is that like that doesn't like that doesn't look as good as your your other stuff and I'd be like okay and then 10 minutes later somebody else would come in and be like that's the best piece here so it's like it's just there's no it really doesn't matter what the feedback is most of the time even when somebody's trying to be constructive you choose whether or not you think it's constructive and something you could learn from but at the end of the day art is subjective so it doesn't what really ultimately matters is how you feel and if you're having a hard time wrapping your mind around your

48:32art or you want to you know whether or not it's good or not just stop looking at it in terms of good or bad because they just don't exist. Esther sums this up really really well here. Esther said publicly showing your own stuff shows your own stuff to you in a way that will help you objectively evaluate. Oh beautifully put Esther that is chef chef's kiss. Wow that's perfect really well said I couldn't summarize it better I don't need to add anything to that. No sit with that beautifully put. Pammy box said yikes commissions it sounds so scary commissions can feel like woof but and I when I first started taking commissions I was fully transparent with people and so much is like I've never done that before what you're asking me to do but if you're willing to go on the ride with me we'll see what happens yeah and most of the time they were willing to and I some of

49:32my best work that pushed me was people who liked what they saw me doing and then they were like let's go for this and then I created something that surprised myself and the client and I have grown leaps and bounds from doing commissions. But they you know you take your first commission and there's a lot of insecurity. But I think it's important just for yourself to be completely honest with whoever it is that's taking the commission and be like you know what this could be really really great or it could turn into a hot mess you know or there there might be some process I might have to work through some insecurities while I'm working on this you know it's just that willingness because I don't have an issue with commissions now because I you know layout the guidelines I basically vet the person that is trying to commission me on whether or not this is going to be a good experience for me and it starts with like do you like the art that I

50:32create because that's what you're going to get you know that's what's going to be happening I'm not going to create something that you saw in some store you know like I'm going to create Raffiart that's what I'm creating so but but you get there slowly you know like it's not like oh I'm going to start taking commissions and whatever like no I'm still scared of commissions yeah I like them yeah I like them Raven said I actually love commissions it means someone already saw my work liked it enough to ask me to make them something based off of it and gives me parameter yeah that's a great way to look at it Raven Sarah said I love most of my art always amazed me that it's so wonderful like someone other than me created it I truly believe that I am a channel like radio receiving energy signals from the other side of the universe I love that because that's pretty much when you are into flow that's what it is there there's a lot of pieces that I look at I'm like holy crap there are pieces that I have on our wall that haven't sold for who knows how long right

51:34which ultimately does not matter because art does not go bad right but there are pieces that I look at and I'm like I don't even know how to do that like I don't know how to do that what I did but apparently I did that that's how I feel about all of our songs for the most part I don't know where they came from but I really like a lot of them as her said I love commissions because it puts fences on what I'm to do which brings out the creativity yeah I like that because it's the it's the reason I like challenging myself will challenge ourselves into studio instead of buying new materials or new paint will be like all right we got to use just the old stuff that's here and that sets parameters where it's like all right we got to figure out new things and I think that that's where innovation comes from is having to think with those fences there where it's like for sure and you know what actually I'm realizing now if you want the commission experience without the pressure of having

52:40a commission open calls with specific themes are a good challenge like the collab like our collab on patreon yeah we set out monthly parameters create within these parameters and then you get to create based on those parameters our last one was pretty in pink yeah and then you get to choose whether you show it to us or not but if you choose to share it you get included in our group show at the end of the month and I have surprised myself with my creations for collab lab also yeah but it's a no pressure environment because you can decide whether you're doing it and you get to and you get to face those insecurities right because you might create something and be like oh I can't I can't share that you know and so like right there you get to see like okay am I is this a hurdle that I'm willing to push through or will I push through for the next one yeah knowing full well that like you are you know that that we adore you and would love to see your art uh Pam be back said a little oh my okay I'll see if I get in the collab lab it's it's a fun

53:46thing um I would say try it out see how you feel about it and also a lot of galleries put out open calls for artists in that same way like we're doing birds this month or we're doing blue this month and if you want to get started it would just us collab lab is safe it's safe um it's very very safe yeah so yeah that I would say that's an easy way to dip your toe in and see how you feel working inside of parameters this is that I joined too late for the pretty in pink that's fine we've got the playing the blues is is going saw the pink one everyone is so good yeah everyone's work was very impressive it was it was really amazing and for any of you guys listening to this if you want to take a look at the the rogue fam's artwork uh if you go to our website in the four artists section you'll see the collab lab gallery uh go in there look at the pretty in pink show because their artwork is amazing and clean I also submitted pieces that's something that we're

54:48excited about being able to be in a show with our rogue artist family yeah how cool is that so I think we are at a good ending place here agreed I'm working on my playing the blues piece right now said Raven just river awesome um yeah do you have anything that you want to add to the I feel like we got off subject but we did not because ultimately at the end of the day the that that passion that you have that pushing through those comfort zones that putting yourself out there I mean putting yourself out there for me personally was a huge comfort zone that I've had to incrementally get through you know a lot of people meet me now and they're like oh you you've always been an extrovert and I'm like nope I'm not nor am I nor have I ever been like this is just no but little by little through the art through expressing myself with my art and realizing if

55:52I want to express myself to the world then I have to put it out there um I've gotten more and more comfortable with that so although you know like the colab lab might be scary for some of you guys even though we tell you that it's a safe place it's still it's pushing through a comfort zone yeah and and if you end up not wanting to share something you know you don't beat yourself up you just make it a point say okay well maybe next time I will next time I will yeah and you just push through those things little by little next the name of the game some notes on today here but um I would say we covered a lot of stuff yeah on this topic and then some and I liked I liked the direction that it went uh with these podcasts just like with art creations you set out in one direction and you leave yourself open for the magic of spontaneity yeah where where it goes and it always goes to a really great place with the rogue fam I mean I feel like that's one of the reasons

56:57that our podcasts are popular now I can be wrong I have no idea if our podcasts are popular or not me neither but I like them yeah so do I so yeah I think that that's a good place to to end it so thank you to the rogues for being here you guys are amazing you always make these conversations so much fun and for everybody at home listening thank you for listening uh you guys are also amazing and we totally adore you and hey if you like this and you want to subscribe um I don't know what platform what podcast platform you're on if you got a like follow whatever it is that you need to do go ahead and do that and other than that it's time to say goodbye you want to say goodbye good day uh the os