“People often accuse anyone who does not fulfill their image of fine artist as suffering martyr of being a sell-out.” — Shepard Fairey
For years, I lived out my belief that I was a struggling artist who was destined not to make very much money off her creativity.
But at some point, I realized that I couldn’t actually afford to be broke. I was in my mid-thirties with aging parents. No siblings or other family members could help out if anything unfortunate were to happen to them. I needed financial stability, and I was not willing to re-enter the corporate workforce.
So if I wanted to continue living a life I was proud of, I had to accept two things: Yes, I was running a business, and my business needed to profit in order for me to survive.
And no matter how much I didn’t want to be seen as a sell-out, I still had to, like, sell stuff.
Accepting My Limiting Beliefs
Accepting that I had founded a business forced me to come face to face with my limiting beliefs. Here are some key mind shifts that helped me push through the barriers I had created for myself:
Being alive and taking up space is worth it.
Ignorance can’t help you.
Your business IS art.
Being alive and taking up space is worth it.
For some time, I had cultivated this view that we humans were just using all the Earth's oxygen, creating pollution, and not adding any real value to society.
I would deflate when I read news about climate change, social injustices, and the evils of capitalism, and generally found it very difficult to carry on.
It felt like no amount of art-making or storytelling could actually make a difference, so creative efforts were therefore pointless. Like an invisible mist, this nihilistic conditioning had somehow crept into my life.
But when I sold t-shirts with my designs on them, I would see the delight on my customers’ faces. Some would change right there at my vendor table and walk off proudly, telling their friends how much they loved the art on their new shirts.
These experiences happened again and again, and at first, I denied their significance so I wouldn’t have to change my beliefs. But over time, even I, a shy artist with imposter syndrome, came to believe that art could have a positive effect on people’s lives.
The shirts I sold weren't artisanally crafted tees made of exactly 100% upcycled and organic materials. And even though they weren’t printed with the absolute most laborious printing processes, they still made people laugh and smile and remember that their lives were wonderful.
Maybe t-shirts couldn’t save the world, but to me, helping people remember their joy was a great start. Knowing why I was making art and selling shirts made me feel good about selling more of them.
Ignorance can’t help you
At first, selling things feels SO awkward. But just because something feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Sometimes discomfort comes with the territory of learning something new.
But I avoided this discomfort by denying that I had a business at all. I stayed away from financial analysis because I believed that making art should be a passion project that transcended money.
It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Uhh, actually, no!
By refusing to see the holes in my business, I was blissfully rowing along in a boat full of holes, thinking that goodwill and moral high ground would carry me along. I couldn’t see that I was sinking.
I missed so many useful resources that were literally at my fingertips.
Who knew that you could learn how to run your artsy t-shirt business better just by searching about it on Google or Youtube? I certainly didn’t. And it’s because my ignorance stopped me from even considering typing in those words into a search bar.
But once I let go of my resistance, I found an entire world of free education out there. Sure, some of it is awful advice, but I learned to love weeding through all the junk from fake gurus and viral content creators to find a few nuggets of useful information.
And once I was able to see what was possible and just how little effort I had actually put into building my online store, I was able to work on improving it.
Your business IS art
We don’t think of business owners as artists, but the longer I run mine, the more convinced I am that founders might be some of the most brilliant artists we have.
The tools a traditional artist might use are charcoal or paints — or nowadays, iPads. Artists have a message or point of view they want to express in their work, so they use color, composition, and imagery to create a piece of work that accurately gets their message across. Doing so clearly and accurately is the unending challenge of art, and artists strive to reach the goal of expressing their points of view in a way that is beautiful to them.
In business, we may not use pencils and brushes, but we have tools like branding, marketing, and even manufacturing to show how we think. We can build companies that stand for something in the same way that artists create bodies of work to make a statement.
Founders, like artists, can hope to express their viewpoints in a beautiful way.
Final thoughts
You know what’s funny? I used to call my business an “art project” really early on. I did it because the term seemed less offensive, and I had a hard time embracing my new identity as anything business-related.
Eight years down the line, I am starting to see my business as an art project yet again, but in a completely different way.
Now, I understand that building anything at all is a creative endeavor. It doesn’t matter if what you are crafting is a painting, a company, or a house.
Each project requires the maker to use their tools effectively and allows the creator an opportunity to voice their opinions.
Imagine what we could build if we stopped seeing certain tools as pointless or evil, and instead, committed to making something beautiful?
On that note,
If you’re an artist or writer who wants to learn more about selling your art on products like shirts, stickers, and mugs, I’m putting on a free online workshop this Wednesday, March 8!
Sign up here:
https://lu.ma/jbflsmn3
Signed up! Great piece, Leslie. Really enjoyed it. :)
Well that resonates strongly with me today. Thank you for writing this!