Studio Goal 2022: CREATE

Happy New Year! 2022 is here and with its arrival, we are excited about the new opportunities that are yet to come. As a collage lover, one of the practices that I like to do is a Vision Board, a board that serves to inspire me and remind me of my goals throughout the year. Since last year I began to separate my Vision Board of personal goals (exercise, eat healthily, and all those recurring goals) from my Vision Board of work.

Having a Vision Board for each area has helped me to simplify. But in the case of art, I think it is even more complex. It is not enough to set goals or objectives for our artistic career, for it to be functional and above all to be able to set the goals that will lead us to achieve this objective, we must distinguish between your artistic practice and your art business. Sergio Gómez from The Art Next Level, a fantastic community of help, learning, and growth of artists, explains how although both parts make up your career, as each one is very different, the idea is to cover both but each one separately. Therefore my vision boards for work are in fact 2, one for my study practice and another for my business. But today I want to focus on study practice because I think it is one of those areas that one idealizes and I hope that sharing my goals can inspire or help them achieve theirs.

Study practice is to CREATE. What many times we do not think is that it is not that easy. When I moved to Tenerife, I was finally able to create the studio of my dreams, at home, with natural light and plenty of space to create. But although I had all the illusions in the world and I was fulfilling a dream, I found myself paralyzed, I had many ideas, but it was difficult for me to focus on one, I found excuses to start doing other things, perhaps related to art as a business, but there was something that prevented me from creating. That’s when I sought help and got to The Art Next Level and was able to find out what mental blocks I had and what was going on. The reality is that I was AFRAID. Fear paralyzes, I had doubts in myself, in what I could achieve, in a series of self-imposed expectations that made creating with all that in my mind, impossible.

Thanks to the tools I got online, and the incredible support of that community, I started creating. And I discovered that study practice is VERY MENTAL. It is not only the ideas that you want to publicize and translate. It is accepting that BEING an artist is working on yourself to overcome all excuses, fears, and everything that paralyzes you. We are not always in the ideal frame of mind but showing up, and working on those emotions, accepting them, and moving on is what makes you win: A resilience mindset.

So my goal for my art studio this year is to CREATE with consistency. Make time to create, work my emotions to achieve it. Accept that not everything I do is good, but that all practice helps me improve. Showing up to create. Being open and spending time to grow, learn more techniques, sell, make contacts, everything that the “art business” entails will also be there, but it will be of no use if I am not consistent in creating, in doing. Creating also implies trusting my instincts, believing in myself, silencing my fears, and fighting for what makes me happy, which is inspiring others with my art. Remember your ¨why¨ that is the engine to achieve your goal. So this year I started by doing it, creating. Not doubting or thinking about what would happen if … as Picasso said “If the muses arrive, let them catch you working.”