Making Your Creative Mark: Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals by Eric Maisel

Author:Eric Maisel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781608681631
Publisher: New World Library

Chapter 7

THE RELATIONSHIP KEY

Relationships in the arts are complicated. You may be very friendly with a fellow painter and also quite envious of her. You may actively dislike a gallery owner or a collector but decide that he is too valuable to cast aside, maybe because he is your only advocate or your only customer. You may respect your editor’s opinions but despise the rudeness with which she delivers them. There may be no such thing as a genuinely straightforward relationship anywhere in life, but relationships in the arts are that much more complicated and shadowy.

Let’s try to tease out fifteen sensible rules for marketplace relating:

1. You can’t succeed in the marketplace without the help of others. You can do whatever you like in your mind and you can do whatever you like in the studio, but if you want an audience, then you need help in the marketplace. Even if you engage in the equivalent of self-publishing, you still need audience members if you want to feel successful. So, the first rule is that you can create as if you were on an island, but as soon as you want to share your creative efforts with others, you are embroiled in the world of others. There is just no getting around that.

2. Your side of the relationship equation is up to you. You get to decide how you want to be in your relationships, even if you feel pressured to be someone else. You get to decide if you want to be honest and straightforward even if others aren’t, if you want to be polite and diplomatic even if others aren’t, if you want to be quiet and calm even if others are stirring the pot and making dramas. It may not prove easy to be the person you want to be at all times and in all situations, since the marketplace has a way of throwing us off our game, but you can nevertheless hold the intention of trying your darnedest to be the “you” you would most like to be.

3. Upgrade your personality. You can’t be the “you” you want to be in relationships if you’re an addict, if you’re running too scared, if your unhealthy narcissism has outstripped your healthy narcissism, if you approach life too defensively. We’ve been chatting throughout this book about the need to create a powerful, upgraded “you” that is equal to the challenges of a life in the arts. This is especially true as you begin to deal with the high-pressure dynamics of interviews, appearances, editorial meetings, and the other features of relating in the marketplace. Try not to make those already-tense interactions tenser by showing up as a weaker version of yourself.

4. You do not have to be real in all your professional dealings with others. You can make calculated decisions that in your marketplace relating you will act friendlier than you actually feel, put on a more optimistic, positive face than the one you wear at home, not let

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