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I have been going to my studio every day Monday through Friday for a couple of weeks now and it feels amazing! There is a shift in my view of myself, my attitude about my work and the value it may have in the world.

One of my fellow resident artists at Studio Channel Islands is the actor Daniel Stern (you may know him from the "Home Alone" movies) who is also a sculptor who creates bronze figures full of life, action and humor. He was kind enough to give a talk in his studio last night (on his wedding anniversary, no less!) and what he said resonated so much with me that I'd like to share it here.

He talked about the value of artists in our society, the stereotype of being considered lazy, no good for nothing else, certainly not good business people. He reminded us that artists are essentially storytellers and therefore the connection between people and generations in our culture, the very glue of our culture that holds everything together. He also pointed out that artists are probably the LEAST lazy people he knows, the hardest working actually, because we have to be completely self-motivated and innovative. Nobody tells us when we have to be at work or what project we should work on. We have to make ourselves get up, go to the studio, pick up that brush, pen, or guitar and get to work! WE are the ones that have to figure out first just exactly what that work IS. We have to come up with ideas, learn about the process and how to bring that idea to life, the technique behind the painting or sculpture. We have to learn about the craft and processes.

And then....here comes the hardest part of all...once our creation is born we have to launch it into the world! Not only do we have to learn to be vulnerable by putting our very personal creations out there for others to see and therefore be open to criticsim and rejection, but we also have to learn about marketing and promotion in order to get it out there in the first place. There are so many skill sets a professional artist has to have, very few other jobs compare. It can be a 24/7 job, be on your mind constantly.

That is why I have made a schedule for myself that, so far, I have been following pretty faithfully. My goal with this new studio and life is to have more of a balance between my work and family. Having a place to work away from my home has made it so much easier to do this. I get up at the same time each morning, answer emails and do a little bit of administrative stuff at home because I don't have wifi at the studio (and will try to keep it that way for as long as possible in order to not get distracted and focus on painting). I get to the studio by around ten and work until 4-5pm. I do stop and check emails and facebook on my iphone at times (a very hard habit to break!), but I try to keep it to a minimum. I have one day a week allocated for plein air painting (outdoors, on site) and one day for more admin stuff, whether in the office doing paperwork, entering shows, updating my website, writing blog posts, sending out proposals, etc. That day was yesterday, but there was so much to do that I am just now writing the weekly blog post (another goal: to post on a regular basis). I am way behind my newsletter, but it will have to wait a little longer. I am itching to finish a painting today and then I have a date with Rich!

Part of living a balanced life is to STOP WORKING before nightfall! It is very, very hard and I always feel like I did not get enough done and want to tweak that piece just a little more or work out some ideas for the next one. But...I value my personal relationships and must nurture them. If I was single it would be so easy to become a hermit in my studio, totally immersed in art. I may get frustrated at times having to stop working, but then I also appreciate that it forces me out of the studio and back into the "real world", to get outside (which I love), to exercise or go do something non art related or to just relax in the hammock even. Knowing that I will be back first thing in the morning helps me to let go of that pastel stick clutched in my tired hand.

Most Saturdays are taken up with art again, either by being present for the Open Studio events or attending exhibits. I am determined to leave Sunday open for family, but I have to admit, I could easily go back to work in the studio if there is a project on the easel that I love working on.

One more thing that Daniel mentioned was that our own attitude towards our work changes once we start paying rent for a place to work. So true! Now that I have to pay for the studio every month, I can't slack off, I have to come to work and GET STUFF DONE. When I worked at home, I would piddle around, get distracted and wasted way too much time not putting pastel on paper. I also believe that the way others view us changes when you're no longer working at home. I love inviting clients to my studio now, knowing that it's easier for them to see me as a professional.

Renting a studio outside of the home may not be possible for many of you, but whatever you can do to create a private space to do your work, to close it off and have it respected by you and those you live with as a place where a serious artist is creating, will help you take yourself and your work more seriously.

Daniel's speech had perfect timing for me. He emphasized the value of what we do and how we need to pass that belief on to the next generation. Let the aspiring young artists in your family know that they can indeed live a life in the arts, that it is a worthwhile contribution to society, but that they must prepare for the hard work it demands. They must learn the skills to make their creations, need to be knowledgable about the history of their particular art, be profficient as their own manager and agent, learn how to use a computer (something that will surely come more easily to them than me), write proposals and presentations and become comfortable talking about your work and handling rejection as well as accolades.

Art is a calling, a way of life but if we want to keep doing it as much as possible we have to treat it as a business. Now, let's hope that society in general and the average person in particular can also see the benefits of what we do and how much it can add to their daily life.

No, back to the easel!

With perfect timing, I moved into my new space at Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo, CA, this past week! It's huge, has a separate area for "gallery" space, working space and even a semi-private toilet (I just have to share it with one other artist once the adjoining space gets rented). Here are a few photos:

I'd like to backtrack to the timing of when this became available and fill you in on some background info that many of you don't know. Part of turning 50 this year and becoming a full time artist means more blogging and being more open and personal with those posts, which does NOT come easily to me. So, here is a bit of a coming-out for me: while I have mentioned having a "day job" before, many of my artist colleagues do not know that I was (uh, still am for a few more months) a flight attendant for American Airlines for 27 years, flying internationally (plus two more years of flying domestically with a smaller carrier before that). Part of the reason for keeping that quiet was the fact that I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist and let’s face it, flight attendants  are not always taken seriously! There is a certain stigma attached to the job, which I would like you to consider for a bit right now. Yes, there are some bad apples, some that fit the stereotype, but the public would be shocked if they knew just a little more about the person behind the beverage cart. Many, many of us, especially on international, have second jobs and careers that would blow your mind! Would you ever guess that we have doctors, lawyers, accountants, business owners, actors, pilots, teachers, real estate agents and LOTS of artists of all kinds among our ranks? Would the soldier going off to Iraq ever guess that the flight attendant serving him a coke is head of the National Guard in one state? Yep, true facts. The job does lend itself to pursuing other goals, having a complete other life "on the side" (and I'm not referring to the ones in the B movies), or at least it used to.  But over the last few years the airline industry has changed too much for me to continue working in it and be a painter at the same time. It was never a childhood dream of mine to become a "stewardess". As a matter of fact, it ranked 99 out of 100 as a suitable job for me on an aptitude test I took in high school. I fell into flying out of necessity after moving to the US from Germany and not being able to afford the tickets home to see my family. I started flying for the flight passes, period. Many blessings came along with the job and I truly am eternally grateful. Besides being able to provide for my family, have flexibility with my time in order to be home with my kids more than other working moms, I have also seen places I never would have seen otherwise. I've lost count how many times I've been to Paris or Hawaii, London feels like a second home to me, not to mention seeing family on layovers in Germany and Switzerland. I have made many life long friends, spent countless hours in world class museums, painted and sketched in locations I would not have visited otherwise. The job allowed me to enter art shows in Europe, hand deliver my paintings and attend openings. There were many times when I absolutely hated to go to work, especially when my kids were small, but I made it work for me and my artistic goals.

 I was never afraid of flying until I became a mother.  9/11 was tough beyond words and it is still hard to view any coverage of it. Those events changed our job forever. Many people don't think about the fact that it was the flight crews who were the true first responders, the very first victims of that day. Going back to work was not easy and many of us thought of quitting, including me. But I still needed the income, the insurance, the flying benefits, so I stayed, all the while working on my art on my days off. We took a huge paycut after that (about a third of our income!), but it turned out to be another blessing in disguise for me.  Because I now made much less for each trip I flew it became easier to substitute that income with a portrait commission. This allowed me to drop trips (one of the great benefits of the job) to someone else and stay home to work on a painting when I had an order.

There were many down sides to flying and they have steadily grown in the last couple of years. When American Airlines filed for bankruptcy last year, it was hard not to be scared about the future. But as Rich, my Significant Other, says, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. It was the catalyst to finally devote myself to what that aptitude test said I am most suited for: working  in a quiet environment, in solitude, in a creative field, the exact description of what I now get to do in my studio every day! Things had changed so much at my "day job" that they have become unbearable for me. The negatives that I could overlook all those years far outweigh any positives now.

The hard part was switching my mind set. In a post on facebook in a closed airline group I equated this process with being in an abusive relationship (speaking from past experience). At first, things are great and the change for the worse comes on so subtly that you can excuse it and tolerate it for years. You become used to certain conditions and accept them as normal. You are told you are lucky to have what you have, can't get anything better and you start believing it. The working conditions on the plane, the bad treatment and total disrespect that were no longer just coming from the odd passenger here and there but my own employer as well...it became a daily thing. I think this is true for a lot of us. We end up in a life that really is far removed from what we had planned or imagined, but we accept it as "our lot". It is hard to go back to our old dreams and think of them as possible, still. So maybe we got derailed, took a detour or two, but that doesn't mean we can't get back on the path we originally set out on. When I first saw the studios at the art center I never considered one for myself. My "poverty mind" (another insight from Rich) immediately kicked in: I can't afford that, that is for REAL artists, not me. But why not me? Why are certain things only for others? When AA offered an early out retirement package, I struggled with the decision whether to accept it or not. Can I really give up a job with benefits in this day and age? Am I nuts?? Also, as much as I have resisted and denied it over the years, the job of flying and constant travel does get in your blood. It's a lifestyle and a family. And one more thing that lurked in the back of my mind: I had been struggling for decades to make time for art, always working two jobs (or one job plus running the business of art). As frustrating as it was to keep getting yanked out of that creative zone every few days to go fly another trip, it also allowed me to have it as an excuse for why I have not made it further on that ladder. What would happen if I now have no more excuses? I have a great studio with more space than I have ever had, plus no more distractions from the day job (in a few more months, at least). No excuses. Now what would I make of that life long dream of being a working full-time artist? What if I still can't cut it? Nobody to blame but myself! Now THAT's a scary thought, and I can't believe I am sharing it here. I am doing so partly to be held accountable and to be completely honest in the hopes that it may ring true for someone else.

The call that there is studio space available came the night before the retirement deadline with AA. Another knock on the head by the Great One up above:) I had to really get out of my own way, get past the fear of the unknown and jump before seeing the net at the bottom. I have done so before and the net always appears. So after much, much planning, consideration, crunching of numbers and talking it over with Rich (getting his full support) I put in for the early out. It is not revocable. I will know by the end of October when my exit date is (sometime between December and September). I was afraid of regretting it the day after when I flew a trip to London. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all? But as soon as I walked onto the plane, I knew without a doubt that I had made the right decision. I felt out of place, even more so than in the past. Yes, I will miss my colleagues, miss the great cities that have become so familiar to me, but I can stay in touch with friends and travel to those places on my own! People are ready for change only when the current situation becomes worse than the fear of the unknown, and I am ready. Ready for a life of a daily routine of driving to the studio, immersing myself in a creative project, without being disconnected from it every few days. Ready to have my body on a regular schedule, too.  Ready to have time for loved ones, set dates and make plans way in advance without fear of a trip getting in the way. Ready to see what can happen if I can stick with an idea for a series of paintings and carry it to fruition without constant interruption, to be surrounded by other artists and their creative energy and ideas. Ready to work only one job and have some downtime, too.

There have been so many changes this year. If you had told me in January that I'd be living in Southern California, having a studio and no longer being a flight attendant....I would have called you crazy. It was so far out of the realm of possibilities and yet, here I am.  Once we are truly ready and take the first step, doors open and opportunities line up that we never foresaw.

So for me, 2013 means no more double life, no more secrets. I will share my struggles, internal and otherwise, as I embark on this new chapter in my journey and hope that maybe one or two of you get inspired to resurrect old dreams, or to keep persevering  with current ones and to see yourself with new eyes. If we can see ourselves as others see us (good and bad) it opens up whole new worlds to us. It quiets those voices that have been sabotaging us for years, voices that crept in on their own or were pushed in by others, on purpose or not, voices that told us to go in one direction when we were so wishing to go in another...I'm ready to drown out the limiting voices with the empowering ones and to make my own, original, true, voice speak the loudest. When I drive each morning through the valleys, hills and fields of my Southern California home and walk into my new studio every morning to enjoy a quiet day of painting I feel like I am finally in the right place. I am home.