Tag Archives: Alchemy

Why do we beat ourselves up over what we DIDN’T get done?

Posted on by
5

Lillibridge week of productivity dakota 1966

I often find myself at the end of a week wondering what I have to show for it all. Since I live a creative life with a constantly emerging curriculum it’s a challenge to not beat myself up over what else I would’ve accomplished. This week I decided to see things differently. Instead of looking at my list of what I didn’t accomplish, I made my list of what I DID and it was pretty interesting. I sometimes long for a narrower focus as I written about before, but the variety of stuff I do is interesting and puts me in contact with a lot of people who really fuel my creativity.

I spent time with my former studio mate, Chicago Artist—Adam DeVarney and we had an amazing conversation that if it had been all I did this week—it would’ve been enough. Check out Adam’s funky work. LINKS BELOW

Jane Frank is a Burlington Master Goldsmith and jewelery class instructor who I am doing the branding and marketing for. We had a reporter come this week to do an article on Tuesday and the photographer came on Thursday to talk about her new WERKSTATT/workshop. I can’t wait to see how the story turns out in next weeks SevenDays (Burlington, Vermont’s alternative weekly paper). She has a great story and does beautiful work and it has been a pleasure to be on her team. We’re doing a trade and I am getting a pair of her chandelier earrings for my design/branding efforts. A great deal for both of us. LINKS BELOW

I also am trying to source the right tote bag for my kids summer business The Town Neck Company. It is a business trying to bring awareness to a barrier beach in Cape Cod where my husband grew up and we spend out summers. Oh, and I had the pleasure of getting upstairs at Champlain Leather in Burlington, Vermont and seeing the workshop. LINKS BELOW

It was my daughters 14th birthday on Saturday so there were some festivities over the weekend. I’ve spent time with friends, cleaned things out, taken loads of things to Goodwill, worked in the garden and taken 3 NIA dance classes at The South End Studio in Burlington (to keep my back from going out which renders me unable to do my work on the computer). LINK BELOW

I had a big group of people over for brunch on Sunday and it was great to hang out at such a mellow time of the week. It’s always pretty fun to have a glass of Prosecco and a bagel in the morning. I cleaned out cars and ran all of the regular household stuff we all have to do. My husband, Jeff Govoni was gone on a leadership camping trip in the rafting down the Colorado with an incredible group of people. He was so remote there was only a satellite phone so it was just me and my kiddos this last week. He’s a leadership coach and this was quite a journey with interesting business leaders from around the globe. LINK BELOW to his site too.

So, the next time you’re temped to be hard on yourself for things undone on your list. Make a DONE LIST for the week and pat yourself on the back. There is always next week. Happy Weekend!

http://www.sevendaysvt.com/
http://www.adamdevarney.com/
http://janefrankwerkstatt.wordpress.com/
http://www.janefrank.net/
http://www.southendstudiovt.com/
http://springtideleadership.com/

Home


soft as a lamb & tough as a rhino

Posted on by
Reply

I have been nesting in my studio which for me always means making room for new possibilities—always very exciting. I rediscovered this bird, he was hidden away all dusty. This painting is actually titled “Possibilities”. I brought him out into the light, cleaned him up and have let him be my creative guide while I clean, sort and categorize. He reminds me that as artists, too often we make these beautiful things and then never show them to anyone for risk of failure or perhaps even risk of success.

I just had a lengthy discussion with a friend today—a remarkable jeweler Jane Frank. http://www.janefrank.de/index.html We are both artists and we discussed how challenging it is to be creatively authentic and develop the skills needed to sell our work. I was once told that you have to soft as a lamb to create and tough as a rhinoceros to sell. These are two very different skills and one area generally suffers if you are working hard in the other.

How do we solve this conflict as artists? We need to seek as much counsel as we can—feedback about work, conferences, search out expertise in areas that challenge us— advertising, social media, follow up with clients on and on. But, good golly even typing this list makes me want to quietly create something and never show it to anyone. However, the duality of this is that we also want it out there. We do want people talking about and buying our work. OK, so here I go…

To see more of my work go to: http://lisalillibridge.com/home.html
Now I put myself out there today. SO, what steps can you take to up your game?

P.S. Oh, and by the way lots of these works are for sale and I welcome commission work. I sure wish I had an agent.