Susan introduces the panel discussion.
We return from break with a panel discussion on the issues related to the perception of success in the global marketplace. Our speakers are:
Moderator: Sarah Turner, maker, educator, curator and an administrator at Cranbrook
Panelists:
Brigitte Martin, http://crafthaus.ning.com/profile/brigittemartin
Sienna Patti, http://www.siennagallery.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sienna-patti/4/513/784
Lola Brooks, http://lolabrooks.com/ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lola-Brooks/51001732273
Sarah Turner: “Thank you Susan! It’s so much nicer to have someone else introduce me!” “The subject of this morning’s panel is success in the jewelry field. I think that celebrating 60 years of being a large and active guild is certainly success” “Between the four of us we represent studio work, one of a kind work, curatorial work, advocacy for the field and other roles that don’t fit into a singular word!” ”As the panel conversation progresses, I hope that we can move to the audience” “I hope you’ll be thinking of questions you’d like to ask”
Sarah displays some images of her projects
“I have found that I am most gratified when working on behalf of other people” “This is part of why I turned to teaching” “Please don’t take my interest in other people as selflessness, I would not be able to do the work if it was not gratifying to me and moved me forward” “I admit I care about my paycheck and my health benefits and my paid vacation days and I know it is burgeios to care about these things, but I do.” “Success to me is, in many ways, a horrible term” “The things that I value are not always the things that are rewarded” “Success is an abstract concept without context” “I try to remember that I need to be fueled by what I do” “I’m trying, but I still think I do a lot of things out of a feeling of responsibility” “I think healthy egos are important, but I also think they can get in the way” “Sometimes I’ve had to make due. I’ve had to fit creative work in the margins of other work that I do” “When I talk about my work in education, one of my least favorite questions is ‘yeah yeah, but what about your own work?’. Everything I do is my own work”
“Finding reliable and inspiring collaborators is essential. I could not do the things I do without the help of others”
“I am well aware that moving towards goals is not glamorous”
“Sometimes boring work is a godsend. It makes me feel like I’m making progress”
“For me success also includes audience. I mean thinking partners, collaborators, people with skills that I do not have”
“When I say audience I also mean field. A field with permeable boundaries” “That’s partly why I work in education” “Higher education is not the only platform, there are guilds and fablabs and craftshows and maker faires, and shops and museums”
“Success for me has meant working hard and lightening up”
she displays more images of her work and teaching environment
“So thank you very much!” “I’d like to introduce you next to Lola Brooks”
Sarah introduces Lola by providing more of her background
Lola Brooks: “I wanted to say thank you for having me here”
“So I’m supposed to talk to you about success, and more specifically my own”
“Something in which, in general, I haven’t at least consciously given much thought to. “
“I’ve always thought of success as some distant destination that someone might eventually arrive at” “I have always been far more interested in the splendor of the journey itself”
“Or then again, it could look like this, the car of my dreams. My 1960 Chevy Impala before it got sandwiched between two SUVs”
“Or it could be this, one of the pieces that landed me the Sienna emerging artist award, launching my career forward”
“But let’s not kid ourselves, sometimes it’s as simple as putting on the right outfit”she shows a picture of herself in a leopard jumpsuit
“Or maybe it looks like this, designing the jewelry for a runway designer’s show at NY Fashion Week”
“Or maybe it’s that other people find beauty in flaws”
“Perhaps it’s finding a broken victorian belt buckle and turning it into something new”
“Maybe it’s when the press declares that you are the Next Big Bling”
“Or being able to afford having an assistant, who can help you facet hundreds of pieces of steel to make one piece”
“Or the moment whena student’s mind and hands finally collide, manifested in the perfect piece of jewelry”
“Or being the centerfold for some really good jewelry porn in American Craft magazine”
“Or spending 15 hours a day, 7 days a week to build a piece, to have someone buy it in the first 4 hours of the gallery opening”
“Perhaps success looks like collecting vintage wallet sets and then organizing them accordingly”
“Or never having to open up a can of potted meat product to call it a meal”
“Perhaps it is like finding a perfect replacement vehicle and then bargaining the price down to exactly what you wanted to pay”
“Or not going blind tying the 247th spring into a brooch of vintage ivory roses”
“Or the realization that a black diamond is visually indistinguishable from a rhinestone”
Sarah Turner returns
Sarah: I’m going to introduce you next to Brigitte Martin from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Sarah talks about Brigitte’s background and her love for collaboration and Crafthaus
Brigitte: “So just a little bit about me, and I’m going to be really brief. I am from Germany, which you can probably tell by my accent. I come from Cologne, which is very close to France.” “I moved to the United States in 1994” “In 2008, I created Crafthaus, which is an online social network for artists” “Everybody who works in craft is welcome”
“Right now this is a big production, 2000 members, online exhibitions, Busy!” “But it wasn’t like that when I started it” “The reason I actually started it is that I felt isolated. So you’re in your basement, listenting to the radio, and it’s pitiful!”
“I thought, yeah, I can do that! Why not!” on starting up Crafthaus
“But over the course of a year, the situation totally changed. This started out as something I was doing for myself. I wanted to find people who are like me, I wanted to find ‘my guys’. After a year I had like 2000 people on my website”
“This changed from something I was doing for myself, to something I am doing for a lot of different people!”
“I thought I would very much like to touch on the topic of success.” “When you ask people, artists, ‘what is success to you?’, you get a different answer from every person” “The list of goals and definitions is very long and diverse”
“I think there’s one goal that a lot of people in the art world, and that is to be financially successful and to actually be able to make a living from their work. I wanted to take a closer look at that particular definition of success”
“I’m here today to tell you about my own personal definition of success.” “it is not actually my goal: my actual goal has nothing to do with money.” “No before you all go ‘oh she’s totally crazy’, bear with me for a minute.”
“I just want to clearly state what a goal for success actually is, because I think there’s a big problem people have with understanding: I think there’s a difference between a goal and a wish. I heard that people in America like a little sports analogy, so here it is!” she shows a picture of a soccer goal vs a magic lamp
“Wishes: Be happier, have a better job, have more money, have less worries, loose a few pounds, be as successful as so-and-so”
“A goal means ‘to have specific strategies and MEASURABLE objectives. I know this sounds really boring, but I really really think that having measurable objectives will help you in your artistic career”
“A brief example of setting yourself a goal for success would be: “by 12/31 I will have photographed all of my artwork” “Another reason goal setting really works well is that it helps keep you focused and away from distractions”
“One that’s really really important to me and that not a lot of artists are comfortable of is that you need to think of your work as if you were really running a business. Confront reality. Get very serious about time management, book keeping, photography, marketing (print & online), gallery relationships, the quality of your artwork”
“I think it’s quite clear how these are very practical goals that will help you as artists, but I think there’s something else you should be serious about.” “Many artists want to be financially successful, but not a lot of us make it happen. And I wondered why that is.” “I think if you fail to achieve your financial goal of being independent, I think it’s mainly because in your heart-of-hearts that achieving financial viability is not your goal” “In my mind, money is just the by-product, or the result of the action that you take” “I personally think that for anyone to be truly successful, you must first develop passion and motivation. The question is, who are you, and what do you want? You need to have a clear motivation, a sense of purpose, something that drives you, something that is so interesting to you that you MUST do this!” “You must have the passion and the motivation to make it your mission and your purpose”
“for instance, your motivation could be that you want to become an expert in a certain technique. And that is your mission. Write it down, keep it in front of you, and stay passionate about it!” “If you’re not passionate, if you’re not committed and determined, you will get distracted and at the first instance of a problem you will veer off. And that will be a shame”
“find something to say that’s really you, for goodness sake. Don’t imitate other people’s stuff. It’s really counterproductive, as it’s not part of your vision and mission” “Also, try to create your own story, stick with it, own it and be known for that thing that you do. It take determination, persistence and more, but I guarantee you it will pay off”
“I don’t know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody” – Bill Cosby
“If you look for validation from the outside, you’re failing to look at what’s really important in your own life”
“My motivation and definition of success:
· Provide my members with a good experience and useful information
· Provide value and resources for the craft world
· Provide community to my members”
Susan returns to the stage to introduce Sienna Patti of Sienna Gallery
Sienna:
“I know now from Brigitte that I shouldn’t start out with a sports analogy. I guess Americans do that…”
Her first slide is of a sports analogy
“Having never been really good at answering questions, I’m going to talk about some thoughts I’ve had around this area recently”
“The world series championship ring is very specific about the elements of this achievement. As you can see it clearly says ‘the biggest comeback in history’. After being losers for over 90s years, they took the win” “The lesson of course is to have faith, work hard, and you may succeed”
“Growing up one of my family’s closest friends was Eric Carle. I created drawings that I left on his doorstep. It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood his true impact on the world”
“One day I went over to visit and he told me to wait downstairs, that we should go out. He got in my car and we were off. He just had to get out of the studio. He said he was depressed and needed to get out. His new book wasn’t going well and he was stressed out.“
“I was totally horrified. It felt so personal to me. He was a grown up and I was still young enough to believe that this sort of thing just went away when you got older”
“And this to me is the essence of success: Getting up and getting on, moving onwards and upwards.”
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will. – Vince Lombardi”
“Be ambitious! There is hope in this!”
“The joy in the Red Sox win was in the journey”
“what are we afraid of! I want to see more artists waking up hungry every day, and that every day that vision is bigger than the day before”
“I am specifically speaking to the artists: Be hungrier and more ambitious”
“Don’t compare your achievements to the artist around you, but to the work you made the day before”
“Isn’t success always sweeter when coupled with insurmountable odds?”
