I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
Whatever goal you have in life, there’s a podcaster or YouTuber out there ready to tell you exactly how to accomplish it. Problem is, whatever they tell you is just one way of approaching that goal. You don’t have to follow their advice. There is no golden path, just many ways of living your purpose becoming.1
When an expert tells you what you must do
A couple nights ago I couldn’t sleep. The Wellbutrin I’m taking causes insomnia in a large percentage of people who take it, and of course I’m one of the sufferers. I have never slept well in my life. Today I’m going to take the medicine at night rather than morning. The doctor who prescribed it suggested taking it in the morning, as does much online advice, but actual patient experience suggests taking it at night.
Sometimes when I can’t sleep I’ll listen to an audiobook or podcast. I’m sure sleep experts would say, “that’s not good sleep hygiene!” but listen, my problem is not poor sleep hygiene. It’s a norepinephrine and dopamine party in my brain.
Two nights ago I was checking the latest podcast epidoes from the various shows I follow, and I found one from art business coach Alyson Stanfield, When You Want to Sell More Original Art. She offered two tactics:
Lead with originals in every email and social post. That’s not a problem for me as I only sell originals, not products made of images of my paintings.
Get your originals in front of people in person. This one made me gulp. I don’t want to go to art festivals. I found that juried multi-artist shows didn’t show my work well, since I could only have a couple pieces in them and they were exhibited with the art of many other artists. That wasn’t a recipe for helping collectors engage with my artistic point of view.
Stanfield provides additional color on that second tactic in Book Your Next Exhibition — Now!:
Yeah, I know you’d rather be in the studio.
Yeah, I know it’s super cheap and easy to show your art online.
Yeah, I know it’s a slog to find a good exhibition space.And, yeah, I know that if you’re physically and geographically able to show your art in public and you’re not doing so, you’re just making excuses. Not only that, you’re also:
- Missing out on sales and networking opportunities.
- Taking the easy way out.
- Working your way to a less-than-stellar art career.
Exhibiting your art in live venues should be one of your primary goals. Book a show now!
She doesn’t mean you must get it into a prestigious gallery. She suggests that you can create an exhibit of your art in a variety of places:
- Open Studio – when you open up your studio to the public for them to see your finished work and work in progress.
- Hair salon, bank lobby, library, coffee shop.
- Art festival
- etc
But I Don’t Wanna
Online experts do best when they act like they have all the secrets you need, that their way is the only way, and that if you follow them (and, better, sign up for their next premium course or retreat) you can find success.
Stanfield’s advice is grounded in experience as a museum curator and a long-time artist coach. I’m not at all saying her advice is incorrect or misguided. I’m just saying: maybe that doesn’t work for me, right now.
People do, in fact, buy original art online without ever seeing it in person. That’s why platforms like Saatchi Art and Singulart exist.
I don’t have to follow her advice. I can double down on a digital strategy that feels authentic to me, one which ties together my writing and art in a way that attracts potential collectors. I’ve found when I publish a Substack post, I get a spike of views of my paintings page. That can be the start of creating a relationship with a potential collector.
The mechanics of hope
I’ve been writing about hope for a couple weeks since I came across Byung-Chul Han’s 2025 The Spirit of Hope. Hopefulness can spur action as it imagines a world that is different than the one that exists, one that might be brought into being.
And so it’s time for more action.
Despite how uncomfortable it makes me, I must keep pressing forward with getting my Saatchi (and maybe Singulart) storefront set up. Here are next steps:
- Decide on the initial set of paintings I’m going to include, as well as the ordering I will upload the images and specify metadata (art is shown newest to oldest; I want the strongest pieces to show up first).
- Photograph any paintings that have not already been photographed. Also:
- Title and write descriptions for each painting, leaning into titles and descriptions that tie back to my writings and philosophical ideas.
While Stanfield and other art business experts might say that I need to show my art in person, my act of hopefulness is to meticulously prepare my digital gallery and then use my writing to connect people with my work. This is a different kind of showing up in the art world, and it will be uniquely mine.
- I use becoming instead of purpose because purpose suggests that you have one overall life objective you should be pursuing, one that exists before you bring it into being, and it’s just waiting for you to discover it. Instead, I think that there are many becomings you might experience and it’s up to you to choose the one that aligns with your emerging and aspirational values along with your opportunities and situation (what existentialists call facticity) ↩︎