{"id":8017,"date":"2011-06-13T07:05:35","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T15:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/?p=8017"},"modified":"2011-06-13T07:09:32","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T15:09:32","slug":"jealous-alone-or-maybe-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/13\/jealous-alone-or-maybe-not\/","title":{"rendered":"jealous & alone… or maybe not"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a slight, ok, a major<\/em> departure from my normal posts, but I really wanted your help with this:<\/p>\n

I have been thinking about loneliness a lot lately, mainly due to a close friend who is having a really hard time with being an artist. I wanted to write something because I know, I just know<\/em>, that she’s not alone! Her self-proclaimed problem is that she equates her success as an artist, with her personal self-worth… if she sells, she’s a rock star… if she doesn’t, she’s a huge failure on a catastrophic level. Sound familiar? The emotional roller coaster of trying to be a full time artist is breaking her heart, and it’s breaking my heart to watch her. My advice was for her to take the summer off from trying to sell anything. ANYTHING. I think she should spend the next few months just creating, simply because it brings her joy… because I’m sure<\/em> that’s why she started making art in the first place. Experiment, make mistakes {if that’s even possible}<\/em>, try new techniques, get really messy! Why not – it’s summer time, you can wash yourself off with the garden hose.<\/p>\n

When your dream is to be a full time artist, it’s very easy to get caught up in creating work that you think will be a “big seller”. I recently sold two pieces in my Etsy shop, both of which had bears in them. I immediately thought “Ok, I should make more work with bears… people love bears!!!” Yep, that’s when I get squirrely… which is also the exact<\/em> moment I stop having fun. My friend is not having fun. At all. In fact, she is very sad, and that’s not why any of us became artists, right? We are artists because, since childhood, we have loved making things. ANYTHING. If someone wants to buy your work, that’s fantastic, but if it doesn’t bring you joy, then seriously, what<\/em> is the point.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I told my friend that I was going to write this. I said, “Just you wait! A zillion people are going to comment and say they feel exactly the same way… and the ones that don’t, are going to have some great advice. So, go to it you guys! Tell her… she’s not alone, right?<\/p>\n

{Image by Tiina Heiska<\/a><\/em>}<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a slight, ok, a major departure from my normal posts, but I really wanted your help with this: I have been thinking about loneliness a lot lately, mainly due to a close friend who is having a really hard time with being an artist. I wanted to write something because I know, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8017"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8036,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017\/revisions\/8036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejealouscurator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}