Artwork by Joel Nakamura. http://www.joelnakamura.com/

Sometimes creating something new is just downright scary. Many people avoid doing things that haven’t been done before. The only problem is that if you are a “creative,” like me, then this is ultimately not really an option. Creatives, plain and simple, make stuff.

I often feel a tinge of nervousness before I start upon something new. I actually feel this ALWAYS right before I start painting. The fear always comes in the form of 3 questions. I don’t know why or who is asking these – I presume they are the art gremlins aimed at eroding my self-confidence. To keep them in their place and shut them up I answer them.

Art Gremlin Question #1

What if everybody doesn’t like this new work?

Answer:  OK Fine! First of all I have never, never had total rejection with something I have made. There will be some who dislike what you make and others that do not.

This is just a normal, garden variety fact of life. You are not somehow special and exempt from this fact. No one is. Not you or me or Oprah or even Picasso. Fortunately there are millions of people in the world. Embrace and savor those who enjoy what you make and disregard those who don’t.

Art Gremlin Question #2

What if what I am making is not as good as what I made before?

Answer: Do it anyway. There is only one thing worse than trying something and having it flop. Staying comfortable for too long and not creating anything at all is far worse. At first it feels comfortable, but in time it becomes monotonous, and then unbearingly stifling. In time, if the urge to create is ignored, from my experience, the soul retreats. And this is a form of dying to be avoided at all costs. Creation, even with risk, is the safer choice compared to boredom.

Art Gremlin Question #3

Am I qualified to do make my art?

Yes! Duh. Creativity is not something ordained on a select few. Creativity is a part of the operating system of being a human being. We all have it. It is important to remember that our art is derived from our experiences of being alive. Regardless of how old you are, who you are, the life experience from which your art is derived is every bit as interesting and meaningful as any one’s experiences. You are already pre-approved to make art because you are alive.

Does this happen to you too? What questions and more importantly, what answers do you tell your gremlins?

With confidence, Nicholas

Photograph: Armosa Studios.

I just returned from the World Domination Summit held in Portland, Oregon. This is a summit that explores how to create an unconventional life in a conventional world. Its key three core values are community, service and adventure. Many of the participants are entrepreneurs, bloggers and generally people who strike me as relatively sparkly. I use this term to describe those people who you occasionally meet who just seem to have a bit more life, a sparkle in their countenance, and a generous disposition. They are willing to imagine and entertain new ideas and possibilities for themselves as well as inspiring and serving others in the process.

I go because I truly become inspired being around these kinds of people. Making art takes a huge amount of faith and in many ways a kind of unbridled optimism to counteract much of the limiting beliefs our society generates around being and surviving as an artist today. Even though this is not a conference centered on the creation of art, many of its themes completely relate.

One of the big takeaways from the conference for me was this idea about how essential it is to truly create what matters first and foremost for oneself. This is absolutely true for artists as well as business entrepreneurs.

If your passion can be determined and pursued there seems to be an almost divine intervention that steps in to help. Jumping first and then the net will arrive, stepping boldly forward based on your intuition, what feels right, regardless of whether or not you have a plan in place can more often than not deliver you to a place that is much more in alignment and closer to what you truly desire. You might not get it on the first try but it is in the repetition of attempts that allow one to hone their focus and build momentum towards any goal or desired outcome.

Just listening to amazing speakers such as Jadah Sellner and Michael Hyatt who again and again echoed this theme of “taking imperfect action” I LOVE this phrase because in it is the word “action” but along with it is this idea that it most probably will be “imperfect”. They come together. Imperfect Action. It underscores the fact that more than likely your action will be less than perfect. However this notion of at least taking some kind of action even if imperfect is in the end how amazing companies, books, art and really anything at all that you can imagine are created.

Taking action when you are unsure is downright scary. When I think back to most of the incredible occurrences in my life they all came to me when I was in a place of little or no confidence. It turns out that being vulnerable and trying anyway is the precursor to getting or at least getting closer to what you truly desire.

Walking out of the beautiful Schnitzer Theatre on the last day of WDS I overheard someone summarize this idea quite beautifully: “Nothing amazing ever happens within your comfort zone.” I tend to agree.

What imperfect action have you taken lately?

Accomplishing what we want is very challenging. Whether it is a book project, a series of paintings, a new website or any new creative challenge in our life, often the things that seem worth doing are multi-stePPed, unfamiliar and complicated.

However one of the primary reasons people don’t achieve what they want comes from the fact that they have forgotten one of the most beneficial, predictable strategies that can be applied to working towards any goal. It is relatively simple and fairly obvious. It is, however, often overlooked.

The most challenging point of embarking upon any task that seems daunting is actually just beginning. Going from an idea to the actual hard work of making something happen is a threshold that often is never crossed. This is because of the tendency to over think. Trying to figure out all the possibilities, all the myriad of ways to possibly go, to think yourself to the result can often be tiring, so impossibly difficult that it exhausts us before we can even begin.

Planning things that haven’t happened yet is like trying to think through all the steps of an expressionistic painting before we have even begun. Not only is this virtually impossible but it also gives us nothing back in terms of feeling or momentum because we haven’t created anything tangible to experience. Over thinking rarely helps to get us where we want to go.

Instead we need to readjust our approach from merely thinking into doing. Actually taking one very, very small step towards whatever it is we are after. It doesn’t even have to be the right step, just one that “feels” possibly like the right one. And then, perhaps the next day or soon after, take another step. And then another. Besides all being small, they should all feel like they are helping you move, even remotely, towards whatever it is you desire. This small step approach, especially in the beginning, accomplishes several key things.

Firstly it provides you with a small but growing sense that you are creating, even in a small way what you desire. It might be small but it now it exists. Being in a place of actually creating something tangible provides us with an empowering, inspired foothold that will in time become more and more solid.

Once we are in the mode of creation and we can see it, the tiredness of the huge unknown, the daunting reality of all we do not know, is lessened by a new positive rush of creativity. It matters not that the time we are creating, actually doing, is very short, but only that we shift, even briefly into a creative mode.

Because it is only in this state that our perspective can be shifted away from one of overwhelm of determining some vague endpoint in the future to one where are just happily, fully engaged in the present. If we are truly creating something, then inspiration can enter the room and suddenly our process, our long challenging path towards all we desire can become sustaining.

It will becomes easier, more comfortable, even enjoyable to stay longer in the process of accomplishing rather than reverting to obsessively thinking of the accomplishment itself. And this is key because working longer, because it doesn’t feel like work, is how goals are finally achieved. The endpoint, the final result does come, but only because of a creative, inspired and sustainable process.

Working creatively, with inspiration and intuition on your side, finding your way as you go, is in the end a pretty wonderful state to arrive at regardless of the outcome. It just simply feels marvelous to be in a process that steadily and happily moves you towards whatever you may desire.

What ways of working has helped you reach your goals?

I just returned from the annual ArtLife Mentorship retreat which was held at the Gabilan Ranch in San Juan Bautista, Ca. There were about 20 artists there. We spent the time painting, discussing art practices, eating great food and even managed to squeeze in some dancing.

On the second day, I discovered some drawer cabinets tucked away upstairs in the art studio. Raquel, my friend whose family owns the ranch, explained this was her great Aunt’s collection of natural objects. Her name was Helen Tripp, born in 1891 in Salinas. Raquel grew up watching her Aunt pursue her passion of collecting natural objects, making scrapbooks, and gardening. It wasn’t until I slid one of the many thin drawers open that I realized the magnitude of this woman’s fascination and devotion to the natural world.

Each drawer, and there were dozens, was divided up into hundreds of tiny handmade boxes, each lined with a felt covering sewn in. In each box there were several or sometimes just one, variety of seashell, chosen for it’s particular coloration and beautiful form. Next to this box was another, impossibly different than the first, but equally mesmerizing.

Some drawers held rocks, but the ones I opened held seashells. I imagined how this all began. Her great aunt deciding, possibly in her early childhood, to explore the world before her by collecting these amazing shell and rock specimens There was no Internet then, probably no TV either. There would have been only books, with illustrations of exotic shells to reference, but these would of paled in comparison to actually holding them in the palm of your hand.

She must of felt that zing of wonder every time she re opened these drawers as I was now doing some 45 years later. Raquel said that most of the shells were found by her Aunt during her life, however, as she grew older, her friends, when visiting, would always bring a shell that they too had found.

What drives someone to spend a life collecting things, sewing little boxes to hold each one, cataloging and organizing so fastidiously, a small corner of the natural world? I believe it is curiosity. It is the same garden variety of wonder and curiosity any artist feels when experiencing something we haven’t before. Whether it is the undersea world of tiny shells, the infinite variety of found rocks or stones scattered hundreds and thousands of miles from one another or simply the surprising outcomes that sometimes occur when you decide to play around with art materials. The creative process, any creative process for that matter, is fueled in part by wonder and curiosity.

I believe these feelings are not only contagious and very desirable but also are ultimately responsible for making you feel more alive. I notice they are always present in my life when I feel the happiest. There is an open heartedness, a degree of humility and a large measure of gratitude that just ends up circling around genuine curiosity. It starts with a question and thankfully, more often than not ends with another one. It is a delicious cycle that just ends up making you want more and more.

With wonder, Nicholas

Are you ready to be seen? This seems like a pretty basic question but I am realizing that for many people the answer is not completely a yes. I am speaking of their Art, whatever that may be, but because your Art comes from you, it is actually quite a bit closer to home than your Art. It is actually about you.

It is a natural desire to want to bring more creativity into your life. I see this over and over again with people I meet. Most people are not able to drop into this arena as much as they would like in their lives. The tricky part about Creativity is that there is always something, be it a painting, a song, piece of sculpture, a manuscript—something that will be created. This thing will be outside of ourselves. It will be seen and then it will be judged by others. There in lies the fear.

The bigger our statement, the more daring we go with scale or audience, which in turn increases the potential for judgment. Just posting on Facebook, or putting up a website, potentially exposes you to thousands of people. This can be challenging. It is this reluctance – caused by fear – that can so easily stifle our creativity or block our dreams from materializing.

I get stuck in this place too. And then I remember this: the best work, the best art, the best writing, the best conversations all contain within them this element of vulnerability. It is almost as if good work of any kind should have at least a small amount of Fear associated with it. I believe that is what good work actually is…work that is born out of taking a risk, going a little further into the center of the stage, allowing your work and as a result, you, to be seen by others even if you are not sure.

My new trick I do on paintings that are turning out to be just mediocre is to do something bold, something unplanned, something irreverent, something that I do not know will work. I just totally wing it. This “deliberate mistake” in midstream can really bring something interesting to the work. We think struggle and unsureness are limitations but I see them more as fundamental building blocks to great work – of any kind. When we are nervously moving away from what we know, into uncharted areas, we expose ourselves. When we allow ourselves to be seen even when we don’t know the answer, then and only then do things get interesting, not just for us but for everyone else as well.

In regards to our work, simply stated, the more we can show of ourselves the more personal and different our work will appear. This is a crucial little idea that is at the heart of the only business plan I teach to creatives who are trying to expand their following. The idea being that work that is more like you will be more unique (because everyone is utterly different from everyone else!)  and if you are willing and brave enough to make work that feels like you, to really figure out what you love to make, then and only then will the outside world really start to take notice. The world, it turns out, craves things that are as different and unique as you. But first, you have to be willing to be seen.

Visibly, Nicholas

Above: Detail from “A Bigger Splash” by David Hockney, 1967

I have had numerous conversations this week with friends about how difficult it is to just simply let go of control. It is always hard to do so in life but especially in Art.

Of course this is one of the primary challenges that defines art making. It is this dance between being in control and then slipping out of control that can so often feel uncomfortable. Like a little kid peering over the edge of a diving board, the thought of jumping in is far more worrisome than the actuality of doing so. It is a bit nerve
racking when we do not entirely know what is going to happen. We have gone from A to B, B to C then C to D just like we always do, but then we are supposed to just let go and be ok with ending up at K (or even worse, Q) without any warning or even understanding why.

We have an investment in the way things should turn out. We want successes that are just like the previous ones. We want a painting to feel fresh and easily made (or at least to appear that way.) Unfortunately, this is not often the case. It can be just damn hard work and it often shows. The process of creativity cannot be gamed. It comes pre assembled with a big section called “not sure I know what is going to happen.” It is a drag to have to always deal with this part at some point along the way. All creatives, I believe, experience this. No one is exempt.

But even so we all keep at it. Why?

I think it is precisely because of this losing control part of the creative process that keeps us coming back for a second go. It is just so amazing to arrive somewhere fantastic without even really trying. That point when we realize that something just occurred without us being in control and lo and behold it turns out ok. Sometimes it is way better than ok. Sometimes it can be extraordinary.

Maybe we should just remember that it is only the thought, more than the reality, of losing momentarily control that is uncomfortable.

Interestingly, it is the controlled part of the creative process that seems to deliver mediocre results. The rehearsed part is rarely extraordinary. It can be sufficient, it can even be good but usually it is not great. Great is reserved for the times when we finally let go. Great is just waiting to rush in, waiting till our toes finally lose contact with the diving board. Once we see it, once we feel it, even before we can swim to the surface we already know we are just going to have to try it again.

And again.

In fearlessness, Nicholas

Artists and Careers in Art

Limiting Beliefs

#1 You will be a starving artist.

#2 You will not be successful till you have died, and even then this is unlikely.

#3 You are a reclusive, uncommunicative person who generally stays inside.

#4 A lifetime of angst is a prerequisite to creating work that you and the world deem satisfactory.

#5 Galleries and artist agents make your career.

#6 Artists are afraid of sharing too much with other artists because they fear their originality will be stolen.

#7 Your artist statement has to be written in a way that doesn’t sound like yourself.

#8 Your art has to have a conceptual justification to make it worthy.

#9 The opinions of critics are extremely important to your career.

#10 Artists will always donate their art because they can easily make more.

 
Transforming Beliefs

#1 Artists, because they create something highly desirable, rare and authentic, can create rich, tremendously abundant lives.

#2 People are extremely interested and attracted to how and why you make art. They want to connect with you today. As a result of this connection they will buy your art.

#3 Artists are highly social and thrive in a supportive community of others who are passionate and creative.

#4 It takes only a moment to shift your thinking, which can catalyze a monumental, extraordinary change in your art.

#5 The artist is capable and responsible for generating their own following. If desired, because the artist prefers making art rather than selling it, she/he can utilize others to do so by giving them a commission.

#6 Originality is within everyone and cannot be taken away. This fact is demonstrated again and again by the making of Art.

#7 The artist’s statement is written by the artist about his/her work in the same, interesting way he or she speaks.

#8 Great inspiring Art is made, in many cases with no apparent initial plan or idea. That is why it is Art.

#9 The opinions of the artist are extremely important to her/his career.

#10 Artists understand giving something of extremely high value away for free undermines and lessens the value of previous and future work and rarely do so.

In truth, Nicholas

I am coming to the end of an enormous amount of art making. I have produced about 25 paintings in the last 5 months and soon they will all be picked up from my studio for a month long exhibition at Caldwell Snyder Gallery opening Thursday, June 5th.

For months I imagined how great it would feel to get to this point. I prayed that I would. I woke up in the middle of the night worrying that I would not. Now that I have, I see that this actual point in time is not particularly different from than any other point in the year. Yes it feels gratifying and I am happy that this body of work is finally complete. Knowing you have to accomplish a giant pile of anything is daunting and of course completion offers some relief. I certainly have learned a tremendous amount.

However, thinking there will ever be some final endpoint to your work is illusory. Like a mirage, the endpoint just moves further away as you get closer.

I think what I am saying is that you never really arrive. The next painting, the one just started, is always going to be the best. It usually is not, but somehow completing it moves you just a little bit closer to that eventuality.

Sometimes, in the middle of workshops, after a few days, once everyone knows each other and pretty much everyone is happily making their own work, I just acknowledge, try to remind people that this satisfying moment, this experience of happily making art with friends IS the endpoint. It is an enormous achievement to just be happily in the creative process humming away, feeling curious and excited about what you are doing.

That is the whole point. Picasso in all his fame and success probably did not feel much different than you or I when he was contentedly working in his studio. I love not buying into this idea that only after years and years of toiling, then and only then, will you start to feel happy and content in your Art.

Art making is not something you ever perfect. It is not supposed to get easier with time. It is supposed to be solid in its refusal to be gained. It can’t be perfected and if it ever becomes so then inevitably feelings of boredom will set in. First experienced by the artist and then, soon afterwards, the audience as well. Art making is a practice. It is begun and if continued can be tremendously transforming for the practitioner. Each artist’s practice gets to go through all the wonderful stages of maturation. The journey, the ride through this highly personal terrain with all its hopes and disappointments is what makes it all so worthwhile.

Thinking some point in the future will somehow be better than what is present is slightly flawed. You wouldn’t want to miss ANY of the stages that you get to experience as you and your work mature. It is a ride only you can experience and fortunately/unfortunately you get to do it only once. It is reassuring that the most compelling, fulfilling point so far in your art making is now.

Kind regards, Nicholas

This is watercolor is of me standing outside the Art Studio at Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma, California.  I took a break from teaching the ArtLife workshop to see the beautiful afternoon light hitting the Sonoma hills. My friend Wendy took a photo and then from this made a watercolor. I love how this watercolor painting captures the richness of the light.

What is unusual about this watercolor painting is that it only took about 34 seconds to make and no water was even used. Nor were any brushes. This watercolor painting, in fact, is not a painting at all. It is a digital photograph made to look like a watercolor painting. It was generated from an app called “Waterlogue.”

Armed with this $2.99 app you can take any digital photograph and convert it into a watercolor painting.

What is so compelling about this little app is that the watercolors that are generated are so much like actual watercolors. Not only do they look like they are made with watercolor paint on watercolor paper – that would be impressive enough – but the fact that it generates pretty good watercolor paintings practically every time is mesmerizing. The luminosity of color, the distribution of light and dark, the edge control, the spontaneity as well as the control of detail is surprising there. And it does so practically every time.

I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. I did learn how to watercolor before I learned how to paint in acrylic or oil so I am not a total amateur and still have some of my old watercolor studies lying around. I am, after all, an artist. This is my world. I spend a majority of my time making and thinking about art so it was somewhat disheartening to see my phone generating representational watercolors better than I could make, in about the same time it takes to take the trash out at night. I kept hoping it would make a dud, reveal some area of weakness, like not being able to do faces well or horses perhaps.

But no, this is an app, not a person. It possesses zero holes in its specific skill set. It utilizes a complex set of zeros and ones that when all added up together in some logarithmic way ends up creating a watercolor digital image that looks alarmingly like one created by a veteran watercolorist.  It is quite consistent. It is fearless when it comes to laying down color and shies away from no color combination.

As I watched it generate its 8th watercolor from photos in my iPhone library I felt relieved that I didn’t paint in watercolor anymore and that my chosen media, at least for now, is mixed media.  Clearly if everyone who has $2.99 can generate pretty damn good watercolors of whatever they want, why would they pay a 100 or 1000 times more for a stranger’s watercolors that are not even related pictorially to their own life? What are the chances that an artist, who also has a knack for watercolors, is going to choose your mother, your kids, your dog or even your close personal friends as subject matter?

I am not sure the outcome of all of this, however I do know that this app does have one primary flaw. It is incapable of producing one of the most important, treasured aspects imbedded in all great Art: the mistake. The correction, the struggle that comes from risking venturing away from what one already knows into an arena that is not certain. Art without this tiny imperfection does not, in the end, feel like you and I. And as a result falls short, by quite a distance, of actually being Art.

Although we generally try to avoid mistakes or going the wrong way, I would argue that it is precisely this facet of art/life, that gives it value and makes it all worthwhile.

Kind regards, Nicholas

I came across these amazing photographs of mushrooms by Steve Axford, a photographer living in Australia. What astonishes me is that even though I have been alive over 50 years there is still so much to see. Just peering into this world of mushrooms fills me with wonder. The colors, textures, the forms are to die for.

I know I am probably not alone in my awe of these photographs.

I work with many artists and in our discussion about sources of inspiration, Nature is always on the top of the list. Why? Is our attraction to Nature because it is the surrounding environment that sustains us? Is it in our genetic make up to like a flower because of the nourishment, the fruit that often follows? Is it about survival? I think we are hard wired to be attracted to anything that make us feel vital and alive.  I guess that varies from person to person. I know that I am very inspired by Nature, so much so that if I am not experiencing it daily, not just in my environment but in my art as well, I just don’t feel entirely myself.

I no longer paint particular images from nature, such as birds or plants, but I definitely have hung on to its textures. Looking at this red mushroom, for example, I see a gorgeous color, but the texture and surface is also phenomenal. If I could get this kind of surface, this matte, dusty burnished luster I would need little else in my work. Just one giant square painting of this in an interior space would be amazing.

However, surfaces like this are difficult to create. Nature does it over time, with rain, sun and countless forces that shift and richen a surface over time. A polished beach stone, its perfect luster only becomes so with the endless tumbling action of the sea.

When a surface, whether it be a stone or a work of art, when it is right, when it is seductively rich it makes us want to touch it. There is a reason why we stop and pick up beach stones, hold them in our hands and bring them home.

I am beginning to understand, at least in making art, that in order to begin to approach these surfaces like those found in Nature, it is necessary to use some of the same strong forces that Nature utilizes.

Mostly it is doing something erosive – a wearing away of a surface with some means that isn’t entirely controllable. I have used large disc sanders, enormous squeegees, steel brushes and even car polishing tools and waxes to try to get surfaces that begin to mimic what is found in Nature. In a way, these strong external forces being applied with sanders and polishers are the same, only possibly faster, as what is found in Nature. The slow erosive quality of seasonal rains on a surface, a swift moving river that polishes the stones within it or even the glacially polished granite in the Sierras that took millions of years to accomplish can be reproduced somewhat, much quicker, with some mechanical means. Even a piece of sandpaper can produce remarkable surfaces.

Incorporating a mindset of utilizing some out of control, larger than life forces, inviting the possibility for this expressive, physical change to occur in your art, seems to me, to be an exciting addition to the more traditional way of slowly applying paint with a paintbrush again and again till completion. The combination perhaps, the juxtaposition of both, using an 18 in. cement trowel to apply paint as well as a ½” sable hair paintbrush just seems more exciting and certainly carries within it some enticing unknown potentiality.

What forces do you use, natural or otherwise to create your art?

Inquisitively, Nicholas