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Do you pick a word for the year ahead – a word that captures what you feel you most need to give to yourself, focus on, or set your intentions around? I do, and for 2020 I chose the word Balance. Being an artist today seems to be about so much more than just making art. There are so many other things a working artists must attend to, which can take up a lot of our creative energy. Moving constantly between many roles is the new normal – artist, curator, promoter, writer, photographer, social media expert, fundraiser, shipper, administrator. Don’t get me wrong. I recognize and appreciate the inherent value of the broader, accessible audience through social media and online platforms. And that also comes with its time demands and neediness. Sometimes I find myself just wanting to make art. After all, without the art, there isn’t anything to build a business around. My art needs me and I need it. I have to – and want to – regularly spend time with it, nurture it and open up an internal space for it. The needs of making my art often run right up against the needs of promoting and supporting my art, which inherently takes away from the quality time I get to spend with myself cultivating an inner space from which to create. I find myself feeling like I need to fight for that space – becoming protective and obsessed. This, along with the need to move between the paradoxical mindsets that these various roles require, can leave me juggling a lot and seeking some balance in it all. Recently, I’ve been thinking about my artist identity and these various, accompanying roles…
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