Category: podcast

There was a moment in illustrator and cartoonist Jake Parker’s career, where this is what he, his wife and five children faced:

“There was a summer there where we had no money. We went through savings. We had some food storage we saved for when times get hard, and we were like, “Let’s break out the mac and cheese and beans.”

“I was really depressed, I took serious stock of everything. I said, “This is never going to happen.”

In this moment, he did something that I found astounding. He didn’t hide away, he didn’t diminish. Instead he did this:

“I doubled down on sharing online and hitting my social media hard. I really figured out where jobs were coming from, and about three months after, everything started falling into place.”

I can’t even express to you how excited I am to share my interview with Jake Parker. If you make creative work of any sort, and wonder, “How can I take this full-time?” you will learn so much from what Jake shares.

Jake is the perfect example of why it matters to:

1. Truly devote yourself to improving your craft.
2. Develop colleagues with other creative professionals in your field.
3. Share your creative work publicly online, even before you think you are ready.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking ‘play’ below, or in the following places:

• iTunes
• Google Play
• Spotify
• Stitcher

Not long ago, I had no idea who Jake was. When I released my interview with illustrator Lauri Richmond, I received this note via Twitter:

“Hey thanks Dan! Just read your About page, impressed with how you’ve devoted so much of your life to creativity.”

It turns out Jake and Lori knew each other. When I checked out Jake and his work, I was blown away. I fell down the “Jake Parker rabbit hole” as I discovered his many videos, Instagram posts, and incredible resources he shares. Jake doesn’t just have talent, he has a gift of teaching others how to succeed with their craft.

In today’s interview we discuss:

• The key points in his career where he made big decisions that lead to, “An evolution of me as a creator.” This includes the times he moved his family across the country to pursue his dream.
• How when he first went out on his own, he failed, and had to take a job he didn’t enjoy. Then, what he did differently to prepare to venture out on his own again — this time, successfully.
• How he views his career as a “financial table,” and in order to hold it up, he puts as many legs beneath it (unique revenue streams) as possible. This includes his own online shop, illustrating children’s books, writing his own, graphic novels, Kickstarters, and his own online school.
• How he has found success by following opportunities, even if at first he didn’t believe in them, and then bringing passion to them.
• How he balances working from home (in his basement studio) with his wife and five kids upstairs. He shares practical advice on how this effects many facets of his day; he says, “I know that if I go upstairs, even for a snack or using the bathroom, there are consequences. It could mean 10 minutes of me looking at what my kids are working on. So I choose those moments wisely.”
• His exact daily and weekly schedule.
• Why he says, “You have to know your personal limitations and work with them.”
• We explore his advice for work/life balance: “Whatever you are doing, be fully engaged in it.”
• How he moves past his own self-criticism as he improves his skills.
• Why he encourages creators to share their work publicly, and to “Invite people on your journey.”
• The thought process behind why “The main driving point for me is finishing things, not perfecting things.”
• Why he has no fear of people stealing his ideas: “In the end, it’s all about execution, not the idea.”
• How he feels about social media, and why it is an important part of his work, and his success.
• How he found all of this success despite the fact that he was a C-average high school student, and attended a total of a single semester of college before dropping out.
• What drives him to teach: “Because I teach myself, there is always a thirst to learn. At some point when I started teaching others, not only was I helping them learn and get better, but I was improving myself as well. I was leveling up as I was teaching.”
• His parting words in our chat: “If anybody can take anything away from what I’m doing: there is creativity inside of you. I just want people to express it and do something with it. We live in a culture that is very consumer based; most everybody does more consuming than creating. I want to upset that a bit. I want them to create something — put something out in the world — more than they are consuming.”

I have learned so much from Jake as I did research preparing for the interview. In our interview, I reference this video from Jake, where he takes us step by step through his career timeline:

It reminded me of how valuable it is to keep going, even when you experience failures. This is something I see echoed in the lives of writers and creative professionals who persevere through years of rejection. Here is another reminder I saw as I was writing this post, from Kathryn Schulz:

You can find Jake in the following places:
mrjakeparker.com
SVSlearn.com
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube

Thank you Jake, for your incredibly generosity, not just with me, but with everything you do for the creative community.
-Dan

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If you are a writer hoping to craft a career as an author, you are going to LOVE today’s story. I recently chatted with novelist Tammy Greenwood, who shared with me the harrowing journey to getting her 12th novel published.

She and I last spoke a couple years back, in an interview titled “The “Terrifying Crisis” of Finding the Second Act to Her Writing Career.” Since that time, Tammy released two new books. Today’s story takes us through the process of finding the third act to her writing career.

I encourage you to listen to our conversation here (above or via iTunes), where she takes us step by step through this journey:

• How she wrote a new book that she loved, but which was very different from her previous work.
• How her publisher was not too enthused about it.
• How her agent was not too enthused about it.
• How she ventured out to find a new agent.
• Then to find a new publisher.
• Then to do another major revision of the work. She says: “Ultimately, I did 7 major revisions of this book overall. It was bonkers, I couldn’t believe it was finally done.”

You have to listen to the interview to see how all of this ends!

What I love about Tammy’s story is how it shows the reality of living the life of an author. She concludes:

“Risk is terrifying, but it is critical to finding success as an artist.”

Amongst all of this, we talk about how much she has been working full-time on top of the writing, teaching 7 courses. But she is in transition again, because being an author is a journey. She is scaling back her teaching, with this mission:

“I’m ready to be a writer first.”

You can find my first interview with Tammy from 2015 here: “The “Terrifying Crisis” of Finding the Second Act to Her Writing Career. An Interview with Novelist Tammy Greenwood.”

Tammy’s books on Amazon.
tgreenwood.com
Twitter: @tgwood505

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How do you earn a full-time living as an artist, while raising three kids, and navigating through a failed business venture? Today we find out.

Jay Alders is a professional artist, whose paintings, design work, and photography embodies the surf culture. But that alone is not what inspired me to interview him for the podcast.

I grew up with Jay. After high school, I lost touch with him, and by the time he re-emerged in my life, he was working full-time as an artist from his home studio, and a collaborator with many of creative people. He and his wife Chelsea (equally as awesome as Jay), seemed to have this strange duality:

1. They lived deeply creative lives, with a focus on appreciation, giving back, getting involved, and finding balance.
2. They were each incredibly hard workers, earning a living through pure grit and taking risks needed to create sustainability around their work.

In the past few years, I watched — astounded — as Jay and Chelsea had three kids back to back to back. In the blink of an eye, they went to “that cool couple that I know” to a family of five. Then, I was dumbfounded when Jay opened up a huge physical location on the Jersey shore — a gallery and event space. I just couldn’t believe how bold the vision was.

But that venture didn’t make it. About a year after opening, he shut it down.

My interview today delves into a range of topics that I think are critical to anyone who wants to make a living with their creative work, while also honoring their creative process and lifestyle with those they love.

• Lessons from a failed business that actually brought him closer to his art and his family.
• How he works from his home studio, while parenting three kids, and supporting his wife who has her own business as well.
• How he finds the time (and energy) to create.
• Why he feels marketing and business are a welcome part of creative work.
• His path to going full-time as an artist.
• The value of taking care of yourself, even when you are swamped, so that you can take care of those who rely on you, as well as your creative work.

You can find Jay at:
JayAlders.com
Facebook
Twitter: @JayAlders
Instagram: @JayAlders

You can find Jay’s amazing wife, Chelsea, at the following places:
ommamasdoulas.com
Instagram (personal): @Sundreams
Instagram: (doula): OmMamasDoulas

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In this podcast, I speak with Lori Richmond who made a huge shift in her career — leaving a corporate job in order to pursue her dream of becoming a children’s book author-illustrator. In this interview, we go through the specific steps she took to pursue her creative vision.

You can find Lori at the following places:
http://www.loridraws.com
https://twitter.com/loririchmond
https://www.instagram.com/loririchmonddraws/

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A few hours after I interviewed artist Eric Wert, he emailed this to me:

“Since we spoke, I’ve been hit with anxiety in a way that I haven’t felt for quite a while. I think I realized that one of the ways the I deal with anxiety is just to stay too busy to think about it! I enjoyed our interview, but think I may have come across as having conquered anxiety, so I just wanted to underscore that, even now 15 years into my career, staying focused and positive is an everyday struggle.”

Then, the next day, another reply:

“I was feeling really low yesterday – you caught me at a point where I hadn’t had any sales for quite a while, which can really make you question the value of doing something as difficult as making art. Today, I just had a major sale and am back in the safe zone financially for a good while. In one day, the stress went from not being able to make ends meet to not having enough work to meet demand! Funny how that goes.”

This exchange perfectly encapsulates the everyday reality of the successful creative professional. The one who has created an established career, has received accolades, whose work sells for five figures, and who is well into working on their art full time.

Every day is still a battle with anxiety.

I am so excited t share this interview with artist Eric Wert. You can find Eric on Facebook, Ello, and Twitter.

His most recent show opens in November at William Baczek Fine Arts in Northampton, MA. Here is a sampling of some recent work:

Key insights from my chat with Eric are below, and you can listen to the full conversation here:

Here are some key quotes from Eric that blew me away:

Eric’s parents were incredibly supportive of his art, and this underscores how important it is to have support from others. When deciding on colleges, this was the conversation with his mother:
His mom: ”I think you probably really want to go to art school.”
Eric: “Well yeah, but I don’t think that’s a reality.”
His mom: ”Well, we’ll make it a reality.”

For years Eric had to find ways to make ends meet as his art career became established. You have to give your creative dreams enough runway to take off: “I started teaching right away at community colleges and various schools around Chicago and so that was really how I supported myself for the first seven or eight years. I taught evenings and weekends and that was how I made my living.”

Getting his work seen took a serious investment in time, money, and pure gumption. To get his work shown in galleries, he said this: “I put together a body of work, a series of drawings and I just sent them to every gallery I could think of that would show that kind of work. At the beginning of my career that was really how I got all of my opportunities is every time I would see a gallery anywhere in the country that looked like it would exhibit the kind of work that I do, I would just send them a packet of slides and material. So it was sort of the shotgun method. And I got in the habit of maybe every six months or so just sending out material to 25 or 30 galleries and if you were lucky you got a rejection letter, but maybe once a year or so I’d get a group show out of that or occasionally a gallery would pick me up. And it was just a matter of timing. They would say, “Oh, we’re having an exhibit of drawings right now and this would be perfect for it.” And so it was a matter of being seen at the right moment. Now this was back before everything was digital so it was a matter of sending a sheet of slides. So it was kind of an expense to do that much promotion.”

Eric’s advice to young artists: “The one piece of advice that I always give to young artists is take yourself seriously from the very beginning. Hire a professional photographer, make sure you have a well designed website. Even if you’re not that confident about your work, present it in the most confident way possible. And having that experience of presenting yourself as a competent professional, that’s what people will take seriously. I think it’s easy to think that you’re not ready yet, but the truth is you’ll never be ready. You always have another level to get to, right? So even now I think, “Oh, I’m not at the place I want to be.” So when you’re a young artist you think, “Well, maybe in a year I’ll have a more developed portfolio. Or maybe two years from now I’ll be ready to show with that gallery that I love.” But the people who get the opportunities are the ones who put themselves out there.”

On dealing with rejection: ”You just go for it and don’t be disappointed by rejection. If you’re rejected 90% of the time, that means you’re getting 10% of the things you apply for and you’re actually incredibly successful.”

The biggest distraction in his life: “Managing anxiety is the main issue in our lives, that’s the biggest challenge. The uncertainty around the income and around what the future is going to be, that’s the biggest distraction and that can sometimes be the hardest thing to overcome when you’re working in the studio.”

On the value of having habits to manage physical and mental health: “Anxiety was a big issue for me. Especially a few years ago around the recession. I was just terrified and I found that it wasn’t just the realistic anxiety, it was the having anxiety attacks and the distraction involved with that was cutting into my work. I couldn’t concentrate the way I needed to so I started running and went on from there. Now I exercise about an hour a day and I’m religious about that because it really has changed my ability to focus and concentrate on the issue at hand. When you have anxiety, even if there’s nothing you can do about it, you still just sit there and worry about things. And I find that if I just exercise, whatever that does, whatever change that makes in your brain, I can put my concerns aside while I’m working and just do what needs to be done. You know, exercise evangelists are always annoying but I think I’ve become one.”

On putting in the hours with his craft: “I get up probably 8 o’clock, I go right to the studio by 8:30 or 9 and I work pretty much straight through until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Then I exercise and make dinner, and then I get back into the studio probably around 7 or 8 and work until midnight. I do that five days a week and then I work a little bit on the weekends, too.”

How even at mid-career, success always feels like something that you have to fight for, “I’ve sold a lot of work but every time I sell a painting part of me says, “That’s the last painting you’re ever going to sell.” That’s maybe a depressing way to think about it, but it also keeps me motivated in the studio. That the next thing I do has got to be really good because I’ve got to prove myself again.”

How oftentimes, success in creative work is a process of falling forward, not a grand plan that allows you to feel safe and comfortable, “With my career it’s feast or famine. I never just had steady sales where I just finish a painting and it sells and I get a regular paycheck. Often I’ll have a show every two years and those will do very well and I’ll get a large amount of money from that commission. But then that might have to last me for another year before there’s another sale or another . . . who knows how long? So there’s that uncertainty in terms of planning how you’re going to manage your life. You get a big check and you think, “Well I’m going to buy all the stuff that I need for the house, new furniture and what not.” Then you have to think, “Well yeah, but who knows how long this is going to last?” So even when you’re flush you have to live like you’re not. It’s taken care of itself for the last 15 years. And it’s gotten very close to the bone. There’s been plenty of times where I think, “Well, I think I’m gonna have to figure something else out.” And then some miraculous sale comes through and I get to keep going for a little bit longer. I wish I could make it sound more like it’s all part of some grand plan, but I’ve really just been kind of limping along and it’s been working so far.”

You can read the full transcript here.

Thank you to Eric for your incredible generosity in making time for me, and for sharing so openly. For more interviews in this series, please click here.
-Dan

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