Author: DebbieleeMiszaniec

Canadian visual artist.

Reading: Extreme You – Part 3: Play Your Specialist Game

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In Part 1 I covered personal drive, and in Part 2 I covered my thoughts (and worries) about standing out. Today we will look at Sarah Robb O’Hagans perspective on playing your specialist game.

So, I do take a little issue with this. She talks quite a bit about knowing yourself and what you bring to the table better than anyone else, and sticking to that.

BUT

From my experience as a visual artist and a creative entrepreneur, sometimes you have to be flexible, open to new ideas, confident in your ability to learn and adapt quickly, and embrace being a generalist in order to find your path to making your living.

Amoung the many things I do or have done to retain my independence and keep my studio going: Art installations, picture framing, book keeping, art career consulting, show and event organizing, commissions, murals, web design, advertising and marketing, fundraising, art lessons to kids, seniors, adults and the disabled, workshops, arts writing (for news, journals and promotional materials), competitive and performance painting events, socially engaged art projects and public performance art, private painting parties, children’s art parties and art lessons in schools. Also, I have created and sold fine art greeting cards, participated in art fairs, commercial and artist run gallery systems, and explored different media from textile, painting and pottery to video! There is more, but after 20 years some experiences start to get a little foggy.

Where I agree with O’Hagan is in assessing these experiences after the fact and weeding out the ones that really don’t work for you, or fit with your specialist game. Even if that particular venture looks profitable, you have every right to assess whether it aligns with your strengths and temperament and let it go if you don’t see a future in it for you. Others may not understand or agree with your decision, but if you can make out a reasonable pro and con list for yourself, stick with your decision and shift your focus to the things that have greater potential for you.

Reading: Extreme You – Part 2: Get Out Of Line

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In my last post I shared my take a way from Sarah Robb O’Hagan’s book on developing drive. You can read it here.

My next take away is on stepping out of line.

As part of my current 100 Rejections Project, I am sending out a lot of proposals, resumes and calls for submissions. If it were not for the aim of this project, to get over the paralyzing fear of rejection and do it as fast as possible by applying for everything I think I am capable of in the arts, I would not say that this is the best or most efficient method for me to find interesting new projects. Why? Because essentially what I am doing by responding to calls is standing in line, with everyone else who is also qualified and interested in this area. In that context, I am safe, ordinary, and definitely un-interesting.

My best opportunities have come when I stepped out of line. When I did not fill out an application, write a resume or get references. When I saw an opportunity, had an idea, and unsolicited, asked to talk to someone about it.

The problem with stepping out of line, is that it really is risky. In the arts  (a field known for individualism and boundary pushing), it can be a real challenge to step out of line without crossing the line. Consequences of crossing the line in such a social industry can mean no one will deal with you. Yet sometimes those lines can be murky, invisible, or even shift location.

If you must stand in line, there is a way to stand out. You know what the interviewer wants. I know you do. But if it isn’t you, don’t pretend it is! Stay true to yourself. Be honest with them. You may not get that part, but if you impress that person with the strength of your own gifts, they may have a better offer for you later. I have been to interviews where this was the case, and special positions or projects have been created just for me. If you do get the part, you know and they know what they will be getting.

However, knowing that my best opportunities come from stepping out of line, I can use that to quell my fears about the possibility of getting caught out of line. What could be the consequences? What is the likelihood of that? How can I recover if that happens? Is the benefit worth the risk?

A final bit of solace, in the words of Oscar Wilde:

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

 

Reading: Part 1: Extreme You – Step Up. Stand Out. Kick Ass. Repeat.

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Well 20 minutes of deleting spam and I can finally settle down to writing this blog post. Part 1 of a 4 part series inspired by Sarah Robb O’Hagan’s lively contribution to the swift kick in the butt genre of self-help literature.

Before I begin, I will let you know that this is not my main read of the summer, even if a four part series would suggest that. In my studies on the subject of money for my currency paintings I have read some great books including:

  • The Undercover Economist Strikes Back – Tim Harford
  • Money: The Unauthorized Biography – Felix Martin
  • Financial Fir$t Aid for Canadian Investors – Mike Graham
  • Money Rules – Gail Vaz-Oxlade
  • Smart Women Love Money – Alice Finn
  • Rich Dad series (4) –  Robert T. Kiyosaki

I haven’t formulated my thoughts on these ideas yet. I am just looking at the range of thinking at this point, but sooner or later I will revisit those of most interest. Art will emerge, and possibly some reviews as well.

So why, with all of this to choose from, am I doing a four part series on Sarah Robb O’Hagan’s book?

Well, because even though there is nothing particularly ground breaking in her book, some times we all need a good kick in the pants. We need a reminder of what our passions are, why we got into our particular game, and some encouragement to find new avenues to explore that game.

Each Post will cover my take aways from her book, or what I found spoke to me (you may find something else speaks to you), rather than being an official review:

  1. Ignite Your Magic Drive
  2. Get Out of Line
  3. Play Your Specialist Game
  4. Break Yourself To Make Yourself

So without further ado:

PART 1: Ignite Your Magic Drive

 

Of all the advice from this chapter, such as starting with a doable challenge and building your momentum up to reach the big goal, choosing your own challenges and doing what you love… for me the most inspiring piece of advice about developing drive had to do with the topic of support.

Support, of course, is the support you have from your family, friends, community and larger society in the accomplishment of your goals.

This is a topic that strikes home for me as a visual artist, because as an artist, who studied fine art at the post secondary level, and who continues to pursue a fine art career, I deal with a lot of “D” words from most of the people in my non-art world. Disbelief, Dubiousness, even Derision. Jokes about art majors serving french fries float freely about our culture, and the official statistics on incomes in the industry are not encouraging. At some family gatherings people avoid talking work with me, make snide comments about people who work vs. those who don’t (because they don’t understand the nature of my work it is easier for them to assume I don’t work I guess), or offer ‘helpful’ suggestions about employment (despite having no knowledge about my situation in the first place). Their assumptions and criticisms pain me and piss me off by turns.

Rather than becoming demoralized and giving in to a world view I believe is wrong (or wrong for me), O’Hagan advises using that pain and that anger as the flame to ‘ignite my magic drive’, pushing through obstacles to reach my goals.

So thank-you Sarah, I may even post the next ‘joke’ in my studio as a reminder of what is at stake as I continue to shake the trees for new and interesting opportunities and set new goals for myself.

 

Coming to VASA! Mystical Magical Fantasy.

Upcoming Show:

I am happy to announce that I will have three artworks in an upcoming group show, Mystical Magical Fantasy, at the Visual Arts Studio Association in St. Albert Alberta.

The show runs Tuesday October 3rd to Saturday October 28th 2017. Opening reception Thursday October 5th, 6-9pm. Visit the VASA website for address and other details as they become available.

Artist Statement:

The Fun Money Series of paintings are part of an exploration of the cultural significance of money and the ways that we learn in childhood to think about money through fantasy, play, and story.

I incorporate coin shaped foil candy wrappers into the paintings to create fantasy worlds in which the main actors, represented by plastic figurines, interact with the coins in different ways.

Much like the foil wrappers themselves, the innocent, shiny prettiness of the paintings belie messages that are being delivered to the individuals consuming them. The wrappers are interesting devices that teach children about money, being attractive containers representing the potential for pleasurable experiences contained within.

Life Line
12 x 12 A/C
Castle in the Sky
12 x 12 A/C

Fun Money: Castle in the Sky and Fun Money: Life Line represent the ways in which money can function, or be seen to function, in adult life, through enabling one to realize their fantasies, or to stay afloat while reaching for goals and building dreams.

Video Games, also, often use a coin based reward system to provide benefits to players which will help them complete their game successfully. The way coins are collected, as a reward for various actions, teach children that the getting of money is a matter of faith in the system as well as skill, persistence and effort. As they put their characters through obstacle courses that challenge their dexterity and problem solving skills in repeated attempts to capture all the coins, they learn that these are the ways they will be asked to function in a competitive adult world.

Leap of Faith
12 x 12 A/C

While Fun Money (Video Games): There’s Got To Be A Way (not pictured, not in the show, but click here to see more of the Fun Money series) explores the character’s faith in their ability to make seemingly impossible aerial acrobatics to collect all of the coins, Fun Money (Video Games): Leap of Faith looks at that moment where the character can see opportunity, but not the outcome of the leap to take advantage of the opportunity. Is the landing safe? We don’t know. The child playing the game learns faith in the system (that it can be done or it wouldn’t have been placed in such a way), but that faith may not necessarily be well placed in the real world.

Final week to see I AM CANADIAN !

Hi All! It is the final week to see I am Canadian at the Edge Gallery in Calgary’s historic Inglewood neighbourhood. Make sure you check out all the fantastic work on display, and remember, it IS for sale! Gallery hours are 10 – 5:30 Tuesday through Friday and 10 – 5:00 on Saturdays.


Below I am posting my artist statement with images of the pieces in the show:

Finding a Dance Partner
16 x 20 O/C
Salvation
16 x 20 O/C
The New Homeland
16 x 20 O/C
A Level Playing Field
16 x 20 O/C
Spirit Wrestlers
16 x 20 O/C
Land of Fairytale Abundance
16 x 20 O/C
A Matter of Life & Death
16 x 20 O/C

The Canada West series are paintings revisiting early 20th century Canadian immigration posters that were intended to encourage immigration to the Canadian West. Each painting interprets the source image through juxtaposition, modification, or both. Through examining the cultural artefacts of Canada’s attitudes to, and experiences with, immigration from the early part of the last century, I encourage a long range view on the impact of contemporary immigration concerns on Canada’s future culture.

The New Homeland places the figure of the original poster in front of a floating field of the flags of some of the major immigrant groups of that time to western Canada, including (in no particular order) France, Romania, Belgium, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the Ukraine, Russia and Scandinavia.

Salvation comments on the perception, versus the reality, of immigration to Canada by groups escaping poverty, oppression and famine, who then faced the challenge of homesteading unbroken land.

Finding a Dance Partner is interested in the controversy of ‘Surplus Women” in Britain. A gender imbalance if favour of females led to concerns that women unable to marry would fall into poverty. At the same time, a majority of males immigrating to Canada had officials looking for women to immigrate as domestics, hopefully to start families, thus ‘civilizing’ the west.

A Level Playing Field is based on a poster circulated in the United States of America, at about the time the board game Monopoly was invented.

The Spirit Wrestlers engages the history of the Russian religious exiles, the Doukhobors, and their (at the time) radical beliefs of communal living, pacifism and vegetarianism, in Canada.

A Matter of Life and Death challenges the racial stereotype of the white settler through altering the image to speak about immigration by Americans escaping discriminatory laws and race based violence in the United States of America.

Land of Fairytale Abundance is interested in the reasons for and cultural impact of Ukrainian immigration to Canada.

 

Process: Tom & Laura’s Wedding Portrait Painting

I thought it might be fun for you to see the stages of creating this modern fairytale portrait painting. I scheduled about a month, at two days per week, to work on this 16″ x 32″ acrylic painting on canvas. To learn more about commissioning a painting, click here. So without further ado:

Stage 1: Drawing using graphite and then Pitt artist pen.

Stage 2: Grisaille in Chromium Oxide Green.

Stage 3: Colour wash. Quinacridone Red, Pthalo Green and Green Gold.

Stage 4: Establish background buildings and sky.

Stage 5: Working on everything but negative space objects.

Stage 6 & 7: Work on the car.

Stage 8: Paint the figures and adjust the background to create proper recession and focus. DONE!

To see more of my portraits click here.

To learn more about commissioning a painting, click here.

Reading: PANTONE The 20th Century in Color

I picked up this book at my local library on the advice of a friend, and it is just a fantastic read, a must have reference for anyone interested in creating art evoking certain historical periods, or anyone interested in predicting future trends in colour preferences.

Essentially, Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker take the reader on a grand tour of 20th century western history exploring the influence of politics, social changes, science, art, design and fashion on colour preferences from decade to decade.

From the utilitarian and action oriented colours of war time decades, the soft neutrals of recessions and upbeat pastels of post war returns to stability and optimism, PANTONE seeks to not just show the what and how of colour preference, but also the why, in as much as they are able in the lushly illustrated overviews of the key movements within each decade.

Although I am not sure I would purchase the book outright, I will definitely keep it on my list for future reference. Usually if I check something out more than 3 times in a year I will consider buying it, because apparently I need to have it.

Here is a link to the PANTONE website: https://www.pantone.com/pantone-20th-century-color

Fear of Rejection – Lessons from Jia Jiang

I watched this (and highly recommend you do as well),

shortly after the new year, but it took me half a year to act on it. I realized that I was hanging too much of my dreams of future happiness on each application, proposal and submission I was sending out in to the world, and then disproportionally thrown off course by very rejection letter I got. So much so that I was finding every reason not to respond to this call or that, knowing how much time I would spend crafting each and how floored I would be if it was turned down.

Jiang’s talk convinced me I should be taking a more light hearted approach to the process, and I decided to make it my mission to collect 100 rejections per year. Rather than base my perception of success on how many of my submissions are approved, I will consider it a successful year if I have collected 100 rejections in that year.

What if one is approved, or more then one? Well, I suppose I will have to send out submissions until I have 100 rejections. Since I have had a slow start to this year, I now need to send out at least 4 per week for the rest of the year to reach my goal of 100 for a successful year.

What is your strategy for dealing with rejection?