Artist, Mother, Geek – insights from a creative mind
This week’s Illustration Friday is “pattern”. I started out with a completely different design… a true pattern of swirlies and florals, but then side tracked myself thinking of penguins and t-shirts. This is the end result of that mental excursion… The penguin pattern:
This is what happens when my mind tries to find a single focus and can’t decide on a color. Sorry, I intentionally left out the argile penguin.. too much of a hint on prim and proper for me today.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is
dressed in overalls and looks like work.
~Thomas Edison
Effort is something I was brought into this world to understand, grasp, hold on to dearly and love with every ounce of my being. At a very young age I heard, repeatedly, “You need to put in some effort”. I’m pretty sure, as a teen, my parents thought my appearance of a lack of effort would be an eternal problem. Little did they know, I was hiding my effort from public view intentionally. I mean, really, why show the world all you have to give at full force from the get go? Then the world will expect the same and more from then on out. I wanted to save it up, enjoy my youth and bust my hiney later.
Now that I’m older, my favorite days are those that are either extremely productive, with my accomplishing a huge pile on the task list. Or the days I get a chance to nap. I really love the days that my youngest doesn’t feel like being still long enough to sleep, yet her temperament could use a 3 hour nap… those are the days I have an actual excuse to lay down with her and pass out for a while. Dreamland, here I come – full effort toward fulfilling my resting obligations and responsibilities.
One of the keys to effort is interest. We can put forth a ton of effort towards an activity we have no interest nor desire to be involved in, and the result will always be less than our best. However, if we can find the interest, the passion and the motivation behind a project, the effort will be easy. It will still require work, but it will be work we enjoy.
I work constantly because I know there is success along the way. I’m not looking for the grand success at the end of the road as much as I’m seeking the small gold stars as I travel my path. I love what I do, and that makes all the difference in the world not only how much I can accomplish, but how much I appreciate those accomplishments. Sure, there are days I want to do nothing… so I make a deal with myself to work hard before and after, setting tasks to accommodate the break. I also get involved in a variety of things so if one direction gets tiresome, I can easily move to something else and still hit goals I’ve set.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand
and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Effort isn’t about sweating and breaking your back. Effort is about progress, baby steps or large leaps. Effort is about consistant, sincere involvement and actions based on goals. Effort is actively working at something… every day.
This week’s IF topic is Infinite which immediately begs to ask the question…
How many penguins is too many penguins?
There isn’t quite an infinite supply of penguins, JGoode penguins or otherwise, but we can dream!
Throughout our lives we will inevitably encounter changes that require some kind of response. We can ignore or avoid the change and continue on our way. We can fight the change, hoping to win. Or we can adjust to the change… positively or negatively.
One of my favorite artists says it perfectly…
If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit
We move, change jobs, get married, have children, send the kids off to college, lose a loved one, and come into direct contact with a number of curves and obstacles in between as life moves along the paths we choose. Learning to adapt and adjust is essential if we want to keep growing and progressing. The last few months have been filled with a variety of changes for me and my family. Some not as happy as others, but all requiring I do something other than simply let these things happen to me.
How do we make it through the adjustments and come out on top?
They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. ~Confucius
My preference, I’m a fighter. I want to beat the bad and come out on top with something I can be proud of or look forward to. Sometimes I can’t always come away having come up with a great solution, but the idea is to have an attitude that helps move me forward. A positive outlook is an amazing thing to have in one’s arsenal of coping skills.
Whatever you do, don’t just let the world throw itself at you. grab a net and get ready to catch what pieces you can and then try your best to do what you can with them. If something lands in your lap that you weren’t prepared for, ask for help or get creative… don’t waste the opportunity.
Not all change is good. Not all change is painless. What we do with the change, how we handle it and how we look ahead makes all the difference.
I haven’t been able to participate in the Illustration Friday weekly challenge in a while. Every topic seems to be drawing a complete blank in my mind (pun intended). But this week, I am happy to report, I have been inspired once again – yay for grinning ideas! This week’s Illustration Friday topic is Welcome and as soon as I read it, a picture came to mind. A big smiley with the word Welcome in the grin.
But as I started doodling out the idea I kept envisioning a hug, I guess I’m feeling a little extra lovey today or gooey and mooshy… couple be the tofu I had for dinner last night. Anyway, I had to stop and ask… what is welcome hugging?
And then it occurred to me…
HAPPINESS
YES!, why not sound a little extra corny and just say it out loud… let’s welcome happiness today. So here is my interpretation of Welcome for the day: Welcome to Happiness.
This also fits in nicely with the this week’s Tuesday Topic as well… “Enjoy the Day”. I’ve been trying to come up with commentary on the topic all week but instead I guess I’ve been getting side tracked enjoying my days. We can call it a case study if I need to sound like I’ve been productive.
I’ve been trying harder to stop and enjoy aspects of my day rather than worry about getting things done. Yes I still work on my to-do list, I’m just trying harder to smile throughout the process. I’m trying to enjoy the work and so results are even more rewarding – it really is a blessing that I’m able to do so much with my time while spending it with people I care about.
Sometimes it seems redundant how often I bring up this facet of life. I regularly bring up appreciating family and friends and all the happiness that comes along with living a happy healthy life. Yet, I really do need to remind myself constantly to step back, breath and remember what is really important. So many times I find myself rushing around trying to finish something, remember something, go somewhere, say something or start something else. This isn’t going to change, I am a “gotta do it” kind of person. But what I can change is the appreciation for the process and the people involved. I have to remind myself to see this and do something about it – regularly.
So for today, I’m going to continue working on enjoying the day and welcoming happiness… Happy Friday!
Brownies anyone?
Art, and life, is all about perceptions. The place we each live in is built from a foundation of how we perceive ourselves as well as the world around us. Our perception determines our perspective. What I perceive as wrong, could be fine with you due to your views, experiences and understanding of the situation or topic. I always want to make sure I stop to consider others when I view a topic that involves someone else. I’ve always taken this concept very seriously – probably more to my own disadvantage. I want to know their story, their reasoning, their experience that has caused them to respond or react as they do. Often times my guess at other’s perceptions causes me to make decisions I wouldn’t necessarily have made if no one else were involved.
In philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. ~ Wikipedia
I’m always trying to figure out what an other’s perception of a situation is, if my decision is going to directly affect the other person. Why? Because we don’t live in their shoes. We don’t fully understand nor can we ever truly relate to other’s circumstances. The reasons they choose to do something, ignore something, try something or stand for something… we can speculate, but we aren’t them.
Recently I’ve seen a number of conversations happen – each very two sided. This is a common way for a conversation to begin, however, in each situation each side figures they are absolutely right and how can the other be remotely correct. Even reading this now, they probably don’t realize I’m thinking of their conversation as an example. Just because we are absolute in our own view, doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone else. Just because we know something to be true for ourselves, doesn’t mean someone else has the same understanding. Does that make one right and one wrong? Does it mean one party is stupid while the other is brilliant?
Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. ~Albert Einstein
I think, coming from my artist frame of mine, everyone has their own view, their own picture they live within. Everyone has their own set of crayons and they are free to color as they like. We can share our pictures and maybe even combine them into a single project. When we start coloring on eachother’s pretty pictures, that’s when we need to come to an agreement. Until then, feel free to scribble in your own space all you want – this is what makes the world such a beautiful place to live!
Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision. ~Stevie Wonder
Yet another story goes out about someone using someone else’s art without permission. It’s a hard place to sit with this topic because no matter the answer or the plan of action, it’s just a frustrating, nerve wracking and often down right depressing situation to find one’s work used without the artist giving the thumbs up to do so.
I think the question isn’t just how do we protect our work – it’s also how to we manage and react when it’s used without our permission?
Being an artist with literally hundreds of pieces online, due to the way the Print on Demand industry works as far as promotion and sales of art, I’ve had to deal and work with the reality that every piece I sell is available to view online. We watermark our designs, only offer small viewable versions, etc. but people steal the work regardless. I’ve seen my designs on other items in etsy, ebay, others’ websites, online ads, an online video game… and even a few tattoos. Ever instance makes me stop and wonder why I sell online. It’s flattering to have someone else like our work enough to want to use it.. that’s part of what art is all about. However, from the artist perspective it’s also horribly frustrating at the same time. From our view is like taking our lunch… we don’t walk up and take your sandwich and claim it’s ours to eat.
You can do your best and do all the right steps to protect your work, but if someone wants to take it, they’ll find a way – lawful or not – and it doesn’t just happen with online work; it’s just easier to see it when it’s online (for them and you).There are a few things you can do to become more proactive so when you need to be reactive, you’re prepared.
Educate and inform others that your art isn’t free to use
The first step to not assume everyone knows using art is wrong. Sure, we can assume people know, but really not everyone realizes that just because they see something doesn’nt mean they have permission to use it. So education is important. Spread the word that art isn’t free. Take into consideration where your art is found and inform the user of how art work is used – politely. I usually by begin assuming the user doesn’t understand that art isn’t free, rather that run after them with a pitch fork. I’ve gained links and credit back to my work by having this friendlier approach. With so many free clipart sites and sharing going on, for some users, they really don’t understand there is a difference. In my opinion that doesn’t mean we hide our work, but rather we should be educating the public that they need to ask first.
Network and share so you grow a fan base of friends who want to also protect your work
For me, the best help has been to make my work known as much as possible so that when my art does appear somewhere I didn’t put it, I might have a better chance of hearing and doing something about it. I’ve made myself accessible through not only my email and website contact info, but various locations (facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc.)– so when someone sees my work somewhere “new”, I might receive info about it – and usually its a “hey Jen, cool that your design is…”. Just about every place I’ve found my work that it wasn’t supposed to be, someone else told me it was there. It’s then, of course, my job to have it removed and deal with the situation
Networking is an amazing resource for art awareness as far as finding your work where it shouldn’t be. Example… One person saw my penguin on an ad on facebook – facebook didn’t create the ad, a user submission created it. I never saw the ad because it was set up to view only in certain geographic locations. So, I sent a message via Twitter asking if anyone else had seen the ad – I did the same in facebook. A few others had replied. I then asked each person that saw the ad to take screen shots – it was only then, after I have visual documentation, that I sent a C&D to facebook and had the ad removed. A couple months later I had to do it all over again – but without my networking of contacts knowing my art, I never would have known.
Be willing to share and allow some use if it’s beneficial
Something else I have done, realizing people want to use my art for certain types of things – I used to see a lot of cut and paste type displays of my characters on myspace pages and friend things….. So instead of hiding everything I’ve created (because I can’t) – I created a website specifically for that type of use. Myjgd.com <– people are allowed to post these images for their friends and on their profile pages. A side note to this, that freebie site is my #1 traffic referrer to my shopping site, so those of you that might be thinking you can’t make money when you hand out art for free… Yes, you can – it’s ike the sample lady at the grocery store giving bitefuls of yummy donuts.
When it does happen, react quickly
Keep records of when and where you find your work used, take screen shots and document the use. I have a standard Cease and Desist (C&D) I send out that usually gets results within a few days. Protecting legally, I think, is the first step – what happens after that makes a difference in whether or not you can really keep hold of your art.
Help Eachother
Take time to get to know each other’s art and be proactive when you see something someone else did, some place it doesn’t seem to belong. We’ve got to work together to help protect our art.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking with Missy Ward for a bit. She invited me to be a guest on per podcast, Big Mouth Strikes Again, and I have to say, as nervous as I usually get, this was not only fun, it was very painfree. I always have a hard time talking about myself or what I do, but Missy made it an easy conversation, I only got stuck on a couple of questions.
We talked about how I got started in Design and how I’ve turned art into a career. We discussed how I got into affiliate marketing, places I blog, why I appear so darn happy, what makes me grumpy in business and what I wish I could do a little differently. We talked a bit about the JGoode doodles, how the penguin came to be and my own personal favorite creation (the smiley ice cream of course).
Finally, Missy asked some quick response questions, you know the gut reaction answer type questions… Many of my answers, listening back, seem pretty darn corny (aliens and cheesecake, really?), but it was a fun conversation to get into!
One question I wish I could answer all over again:
Missy: What superpower would you like to have?
Jen: (after stumbling in thought for a few minutes) “a super happy fairy wand” (or something just as riduculously silly). I was trying SO hard to come up with something uber cool and instead I spit out the most fooffy girlie poopoo answer there ever was. Really? Yeah, that’s me, just call me Jennie-tootoo.
If I could answer again, (although it’s still not a super cool power) I’d really like the Mary Poppins clean up song power. Just hum a little and the entire house is clean and as overly organized as I’ve envisioned. I really loath cleaning and in my dreams I see fabulously organized – everything – everywhere. My house on the other hand is not remotely close to what my mind’s eye sees. It’s a time thing – my motto is, “if you aren’t going to do it right, don’t do it” so anything and everything that could benefit by being put away in some orderly manner, usually gets stashed haphazardly because I’d rather it be super organized and “just so” but I don’t have the time just then… never ending cycle of disarray.
Anyhow, back to the interview…
I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to answer questions as they came. I’d always thought “how hard can it be to answer questions about yourself?”, but it really is. Not that I don’t have anything to say. I think it’s more about saying things in a way that others can understand, besides the little beings that live inside my own head. Tricky that is!
Biggest theme I came away with this conversation, besides me, is marketing for artists. It’s a tough task to be creative and not only know but succeed at promoting and selling that creativity. I’m still learning as I go, but I can happily look back today and see a great path I’ve traveled. I’m excited to see where this road continues to take me.
I really enjoyed the chance to share ideas and view points about what I do and the happiness it has created for me.
Listen to the interview with Missy Ward:
Read the show notes on Missy’s website – Thanks Missy!