“We’re thrilled to be able to accept the invitation of an organization on the forefront of arts education like the Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship,”  McCall said. “The opportunity to bring our students to the United States and experience a city full of culture like Chicago will be immense in their creative development and we’re excited to bring our own flavor to the community as well.”

The Ensemble Free Theater company is a new ensemble program that emphasizes the collectivizing of theater artists and the importance of true collaboration.  While the curriculum is primarily focused on theatrical works, EFT encourages interdisciplinary projects that include other media such as film, dance, photography and music.  This fits perfectly with the Institute For Arts Entrepreneurships interdisciplinary arts education curriculum and the belief that artists should be working together to create new paths towards making a sustainable living.

“Collaborating with the EFT was a no-brainer,” Canning said.  “Brendan McCall’s work is so relevant to the mission of the IAE.  We encourage provocative new works and creative career paths with a focus on interdisciplinary curriculum which the EFT provides.”

EFT classes will be conducted primarily at the Greenhouse Theatre Center and will be held Monday through Friday during the day for approximately 25 hours per week.  The total cost of tuition for the program is $4500.  Courses will be taught by McCall in conjunction with guest workshops from associates of the IAE, including Lisa Canning, David Cutler, Amanda Leigh Cobb, Aaron Landsman and Laura Lynn Macdonald.

“Greenhouse is excited to be collaborating with the IAE because we believe in the development of artists and the effect they can have in the community,” said Jennifer Kincaid, General Manager of the Greenhouse Theater Center.  “The Greenhouse Theater prides itself on encouraging artists on the rise and is excited to help premiere the new works of the Ensemble Free Theater program.”

For more information on this residency and all of the workshops and programs offered by the Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship, visit www.TheIAE.com.  More information about application and enrollment can be obtained by contacting Lisa@TheIAE.com or calling 773-756-2163.

For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.

I think that’s a question we don’t really consider often enough as we’re assembling our marketing plans.  As a creator, I’m a proponent of momentum…if I’m going to the trouble of building up a hubub about my current project, it seems foolish not to try and stay connected to my audience after they leave the theatre and parlay the buzz and their obvious initiative to buy tickets into my next show.  But how do you do that?  Is that a social networking thing, is it building an e-mail list, is it block booking shows?  Honestly, it could be any number of things depending on your project, and we’re going to be asking all those questions and more in the workshop.

The other thing I’ve noticed a lot in the Chicago independent theatre community is a certain expectation that you don’t need to find an audience because they’ll find you.  If anything, we have an even more uphill battle in this community because of the glut of comedy and small theatrical productions all vying for a few regular theatre-going audience members.  In this workshop, we’re going to look into targeting your show to a particular audience…maybe one that doesn’t even know they WANT to go out and see theatre.  Performing for your friends and family is great, but the real satisfaction of creating is in sharing your brilliance with people who don’t already know you’re brilliant.  I’m assuming everyone reading this is brilliant.  That’s correct, isn’t it?

We’re going to have a packed 3 hours on August 7th, and I hope to see many of you there.  Because of our relationship with the Gorilla Tango Theatre and their amazing relationship with independent producers in the community, the workshop is free for select Gorilla Tango producers who are currently working on shows or have shows coming up.  If you are a producer putting on a show at the theatre, inquire with Gorilla Tango if you’re eligible to come to this workshop for free.  General registration is $50 and you can enroll online at produceyourself.eventbrite.com or by calling the IAE at 773-756-2163.

If you have any questions about the workshop or aren’t sure if it’s right for you, feel free to e-mail me directly at Shawn@TheIAE.com and we can chat.  Asking questions is a good thing!

1. Focus
2. Self-motivation
3. Collaboration
4. Communication
5. Creativity

In support of Pertl’s message, Craig Cortello provided a link to an excerpt from his book Everything We Needed to Know about Business We Learned Playing Music.  It identifies “9 common lessons of music education that translate into success”:

1. Confidence and Self-Esteem (Stepping Up to the Mic)
2. Collaboration and Teamwork (I’m in the Band)
3. Leadership (Conducting Your Symphony of Employees)
4. Salesmanship and Branding (Give the Fans What They Want)
5. Creativity & Innovation (Improvising From the Charts)
6. Risk Acceptance (Let’s Just “Jam”)
7. Discipline and Fundamentals (Learning the “Scales” of Your Profession)
8. Individuality (Make Your Own Kind of Music)
9. Passion (Play it With Feeling)

Wow.  These two statements remind us just how many powerful transferrable skills music can foster.  But do we really value and cultivate these characteristics in conservatory settings?  If so, that should allay the fears of many uneasy parents, worried that music degrees won’t translate into a sustainable careers for their children.

I have no doubt that Pertl’s training helped prepare him to excel in the business world.  The same can be said of business leaders referenced in Cortello’s writing.   But much more common are tales of conservatory graduates who are ill-equipped to manage their own music business (i.e. career), let alone thrive within outside sectors.  So which is it? 

To argue that conservatory prepares musicians for business success, we should be able to answer the following questions in the affirmative.

 1)      Do traditional conservatories truly emphasize these things?

Trained musicians undoubtedly tend to possess some of the traits noted above.  Focus, self-motivation, discipline, and passion come to mind.  But what about the others?  Let’s consider how traditional conservatory training impacts a few of these points:

• Creativity.  Most classically trained musicians are terrified to improvise one note, let alone make creative decisions on more consequential matters.  Traditional curricula have little if any room for creativity.  (For more thoughts, click here.)
• Risk acceptance.  Many musicians come to believe that mistakes and failure are the enemy, rather than badges of honor.  Almost 100% of curricular requirements are tasks where students who work hard can find success every time.  True risk is not part of the equation. (For more thoughts, click here.)
• Individuality.  In school, budding musicians are traditionally encouraged to be exactly like everyone else, only better.  They play the same old music in the same old halls wearing the same old outfits with the same old conventions.  (For more thoughts, click here.)
• Communication.  Most students are not required to communicate verbally with the audience during recitals. In ensembles, conductors or coaches often make important musical decisions, rather than allowing participants to communicate, listen, consider, debate, and compromise.
• Salesmanship & branding. ???  Not at all a part of the typical conservatory experience.

For conservatories to develop the full array of transferable skill sets that music study can absolutely offer, they must emphasize these aspects within curriculum.  (Click here and here for suggestions.)  But the “intrinsic” argument is not sufficient. Music is a powerful tool. But the ways in which it is approached affect the kinds of graduates we build.

2)      Do traditional conservatories genuinely celebrate these things?

View the webpage of any music school.  Somewhere, a passage will describe great professional accomplishments of recent graduates: top grad music school study, orchestra employment, college teaching, lead opera roles. Even when these claims only represent a small minority, they are used as clear evidence of excellence. 

If a desirable outcome of conservatory training is success in non-music fields, this fact should be proudly advertised as well.  “Some of our alumni have become world class business leaders!!!”  A conservatory that markets this fact is one that values it. The opposite is probably true as well.  

More important than Internet statements are attitudes expressed within institutions. The majority of music students are still groomed for “traditional” careers.  When someone opts to pursue non-music options, how do teachers and colleagues view that decision?   If conservatories are indeed powerful breeding grounds for doctors, lawyers, politicians, business people, and other community leaders (in addition to musicians), they should celebrate and encourage a variety of paths, framing music study as a means to a variety of wonderful ends.

3)      Do traditional conservatories actually advocate these things?

Let’s assume for a moment that conservatories are doing everything in their power to prepare students for professional success across discipline.  What then?

There are in fact companies that actively seek to employ creative musicians.  I once heard a Google executive explain “we look to hire musicians. We’d rather employ someone with vast creativity and teach them technical skills than the other way around.  It’s a much easier proposition.” 

But most companies are not so enlightened.  Instead, the majority of business employers immediately discard resumes of musicians.  Without a business degree, they simply aren’t considered.  Which is a shame IF conservatory training truly embodies coveted and necessary skills.

When music students are groomed to succeed in an array of areas, conservatories should become outspoken advocates of this benefit.  Music administrators and faculty members have an opportunity to deliver that message, with clarity and pride, to corporations and other business communities.   

 Conclusion

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, claims that the MFA is the new MBA.  Pertl and Cortello argue that music study cultivates essential traits that help musicians succeed in the business sector.  I desperately want to believe them.   But to tap into the full potential of music study, conservatories must modify both traditional curriculum and their message to students and the world. 

There is some good news.  Many music schools are making exciting changes to their model.  Brian Pertl, for example, is working to modify the approach at the Lawrence Conservatory (where he serves as dean) to better emphasize entrepreneurial success.  Similar trends are occurring elsewhere.  Perhaps there will be a time when conservatories prioritize professional success for their students—whether in or outside music—as much as artistic excellence.  When that happens, both students and society will be better served. 

If you know about a music school or faculty member who is challenging conventions along these lines, please let me know about it: cutler@savvymusician.com.  I’d like to feature these visionaries in articles here.

Private Teachers

Looking for independent music teachers with:

• Good business models
• Income streams other than private teaching
• Interesting marketing strategies
• Independently run classes or camps
• Media (recording, video, etc) integrated into their teaching
• Yearly income of $80,000-100,000+

College Professors

Looking for college music professors such as:

• Applied teachers who integrate innovative strategies that help students develop practical and entrepreneurial skills (in addition to great playing technique)
• Ensemble directors who employ a model that goes beyond the typical conductor driven format to cultivate creativity and savviness
• Classroom teachers (i.e. theory or history) who use their interactions as an opportunity to foster working musicians

 If you or someone you know fits these descriptions, please email me at cutler@savvymusician.com. 

 Thank you for your assistance!

On the third Thursday of every month, the IAE hosts our own networking night specifically for artists and entrepreneurs called Create.Innovate.Repeat. The event takes place from 7-9 pm at the ING DIRECT Cafe Chicago and features guest presenters from both art and business backgrounds talking about current projects, organizations and ideas that you can get involved with right now.

Last month’s event was BUZZING with conversation. There was so much energy in the room there was plenty left to take home!  So come pick up some inspiration and connections.

You can snag a free RSVP to the event by checking out our Create. Innovate. Repeat page. This is a private event so you need to reserve a ticket to get in the door!

ING DIRECT Chicago: 21 E. Chestnut Street View a map.
Telephone: 312-981-1236

My guess is that the title of this blog caught your attention, because it seems so incredibly unlikely. The world of business and the world of music appear to have very little in common. What on earth could playing a Mozart symphony have to do with leading a budget proposal meeting? Most of us would say, “absolutely nothing at all.”

At one point in my life I would have agreed, but from where I sit now, as a conservatory trained trombonist, the current dean of a major conservatory of music, and a former senior manager at Microsoft with 16 years of experience in the business world, I see the connections between conservatory training and core business skills from a unique vantage point. Over the years, as I analyzed the reasons for my successes as a business manager, it always came back to the skills I had learned as a musician and had honed at my conservatory of music. Now that I am back in the world of the conservatory, many worried parents of prospective students ask me what good conservatory training will do if their child doesn’t happen to become a professional musician. So I thought it might be helpful to devote this blog to the subject.

When hiring employees, Microsoft and every other successful company looks for an underlying set of skills that will bring the most benefit to the business. These skills are easy to list, but very hard to find in a single individual. For this discussion I will focus on five of these traits. The perfect employee should be:

1. Focused
2. Self-motivated
3. Collaborative
4. Communicative
5. Creative

So let’s start by putting aside all of our own preconceptions about music being concerned only with the expression of emotion and beauty. Instead, we will now take a cold hard look at what goes into creating a successful musician.

Focus & Self-Motivation

In most conservatory settings, a student has one hour of intense one-on-one instruction during their weekly lesson. For the rest of the week, they spend 3 to 6 hours a day, all alone in a small practice room steadily working towards that week’s goals. That averages out to about thirty hours of practice for every one hour of instruction. This is not an easy task, either physically or mentally. The student has to develop her own strategies to maintain focus, overcome obstacles and achieve her goals. Focus and self-motivation are vital to success. The goal of any successful conservatory is to help students develop the skills of self-criticism, self-motivation, and self-focus to the point where, upon graduation, they can become their own best teacher. For a business manager, having an employee who can work for days at a time with minimal instruction, solving their own problems and working steadily toward their goal isn’t just nice, it is a dream come true!

Collaboration

In the world of music, learning to work well with other musicians is key. In a quartet, for instance, the four musicians discuss how they want to approach the work before even picking up their instruments. Opinions may differ and there could be disagreements, but the process of collaborating as a team to reach mutually agreeable solutions is key to a successful performance. As you can imagine, this type of collaboration occurs every day in the world of business. But you may be surprised to discover that most employees have nowhere near the depth of experience with the process as musicians!

But for musicians, this is just the beginning of their collaboration skills. Once the discussions stop and the music starts, teamwork moves to a whole new level of refinement. Each musician must be acutely aware of everyone else’s input while still being completely focused on her own individual contribution to the whole. The ability to really hear all facets of the group’s performance while making instant micro-adjustments to create the best performance possible is an amazing skill to master.

You probably agree with that statement, but aren’t quite sure how that particular skill translates to the world of business. After all, meetings where everyone is talking at once should be the exception rather than the rule. This is quite true, so luckily these skills have little to do with handling meetings that have spun out of control! Instead, this highly refined listening ability has everything to do with success at the extreme ends of collaboration, negotiation, and communication. When negotiations or collaborations become difficult and delicate, being able to pick up on the slightest cues and then react instantly and appropriately can mean the difference between success and failure. That minute waiver in a voice could indicate a tentativeness that will give you the chance to step in and lead the conversation; or that hint of aggression, may cause you to step back and calm the waters.

The skill also lends itself to one of the core functions of management–understanding people. As a manager at Microsoft, I spent a great deal of my time listening to people. Often times the real crux of the matter at hand isn’t contained in the spoken words. Someone may be talking to you about diminishing workloads, but their real worry is job security. The key here isn’t the act of listening, it’s the art of hearing. It’s what musicians do every day, and it can help make the difference between a good manager and a great manager. The business world would be better off if every manager spent a few years playing in a quintet!

Communication

Communicating your ideas and thoughts to groups of people is also a critical part of business success. The presentation may be to a meeting room of five co-workers or an auditorium full of conference-goers. In either case it is vital to communicate your point clearly and convincingly. Whether your proposal or idea is adopted can hinge entirely on the effectiveness of the presentation. I have seen many good ideas fall by the wayside because of bad presentations.

As musicians we have a natural advantage. For us, these aren’t presentations, they are performances, and all the same rules should apply. The performance should be engaging, captivating, interesting, and clearly communicate the core ideas. The conservatory provides the perfect training for this important business skill. You would be amazed at how many people in the business world are terrified of standing up in front of an audience to speak. How lucky a conservatory student is to get all of that great performance experience under her belt! When a critical presentation is coming up, who would you rather have delivering the message: a professionally trained performer or an accountant?

Creativity

Finally, let’s consider creativity. A new study by IBM just identified creativity as the most highly valued leadership quality for success in business!  Creativity! Isn’t that both wonderful and amazing? Now I know that studying in a conservatory does not guarantee that you will emerge a creative person, but it certainly is an environment that provides ample opportunities for creative exploration and development.  From composition to improvisation to the interpretation of musical masterpieces, creativity is at the core of what we do.  This topic is so rich it definitely deserves its own blog, but for now, I’m sure you get the point: creativity at the conservatory can translate into creativity in the board room.

Conclusion

The bottom line is not to sell conservatory training short when it comes to developing skills that extend well beyond the realm of music. Whether in the concert hall or the board room, conservatory graduates can give truly great performances! Our challenge as musicians is to successfully convey this message both to disbelieving conservatory students, and to disbelieving HR departments of leading businesses. If we are success in our efforts, we can help change the world!

—

Brian Pertl has led the life of a savvy musician. He lives by the motto: “be prepared for anything and anything just might happen!” He received his BM in trombone performance and a BA in English from Lawrence University. Then the fun really began!  As a Watson Fellow, he studied didjeridu in Australia and Tibetan sacred music in Tibet, Nepal, and India. While pursuing higher degrees in ethnomusicology, he lectured on world music themes and performed widely on didjeridu, trombone, shell trumpets, as as a harmonic singer.

When Microsoft called in the early 90s to get a 30 second didj sample, he managed to turn that opportunity into a full time job as an ethnomusicologist at Microsoft!  After 16 years at Microsoft, first selecting music for the Encarta Encyclopedia, then as a high-level manager, he was asked to return to Lawrence University to give a recital.  This visit back to his alma mater got the Lawrence faculty and administration talking about a crazy idea: what if Brian left Microsoft and returned to Lawrence to become the Dean of the Conservatory of Music? And this is exactly what happened!  He is now the Dean, and he is thrilled having the chance to help the current class of students “get savvy!”

HOPE AND INSPIRATION CAN’T BE SOLD FOR 1/2 OFF because we, as artists, can’t function at a high enough level to sell them for their full VALUE!

As artists WHAT WE SELL is hope, inspiration, peace and a chance to dream. THAT’S ALL. The painting, the vase, the clarinet, the play, the ballet, the scrumptious dinner– all of those experiences represent for our audience a renewal of who they are, and what they believe and why they SHOULD DARE  to DREAM and RISK TO BECOME MORE ALIVE!  If we  are NOT SHINING EXAMPLES and allow EVEN A DROP of  toxicity to enter our life, our artistic value is IMMEDIATELY downgraded to a sale item and eventually discarded with the past-their-sell-date items in the grocery store. As absurd as it sounds, what is hope and inspiration worth if they are now 1/2 off?

What kind of assurance can we give our paying customer as to the authenticity of the hope they are buying if WE OURSELVES ARE NOT LIVING EXAMPLES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HOPEFUL AND INSPIRED ENOUGH IN OUR OWN LIVES?  We need to be emotionally happy, creatively flowing and financially flourishing to truly shine and be ABLE to make the difference our gifts were meant, on this earth, to make.

Yes, I sadly and with great heartache refused to play in an orchestra and sit next to isms, anger and “affairs”. I did not think that was how to create the beauty and joy I knew hope and inspiration required.  I also refused to stay married to a man who was more interested in sabotaging our relationship, or stay close to my adopted pothead brother who has succumb to numbness instead of creating sculptures out of computer parts; which he as a teenager loved once to do.

I guess, despite being an orphan and having literally no family besides my husband and 2 four legged kids, I am happy I have lived to learn from and rise above these hard experiences; because they continue to shape who I am AS AN ARTIST and WHO I HAVE YET to become.

What about you? Do you have hope and inspiration on sale in your life? Is there something you need to do TO BE the brightest light in the room? Don’t be afraid of standing out in the crowd. Make the difference you seek and that YOU, uniquely, SEE needs to be made. What is it you see that frightens you, disgusts you, makes you cry or burns you up with anger inside? What is it you need to help others do or be or change or create?

This, my friends, is WHAT WE, AS ARTISTS were put on this earth to do…. And guess what? It SELLS AT FULL PRICE!!! NO 1/2 off sale EVER required. Your customers will line right up and pay you well and joyfully for every drop of inspiration you give them. But they only want 100% OF PURE, AUTHENTIC GENUINE YOU. Nothing short will do.

In honor of achieving independence as artists, I began a string of short creative stories about life in The Blue Bike Shop during the Fourth of July holiday back in 2007.

I was writing my book at the time, Build A Blue Bike, and thought building your own  blue bike would be a lot easier to learn how to do if I shared stories about The Blue Bike shop and Miya LeBleu; the bike shop owner.

This story was also the inspiration for the ETA logo.

Do Not Enter

“Do Not Enter,” cautions the sign on the red door. John stood there looking at it, wondering what to do. The guy at the bike bar told him that the first red door was the fastest way out of The Blue Bike Shop, but surely he must have been mistaken. As John looked down the hall, there were nothing BUT red doors, with the same white sign, with the same “Do Not Enter” boldly lettered red on each.

“What a strange place,” thought John. ” Nothin’ but blue bikes and red doors…”

The Blue Bike Shop was a brand new shop in downtown Nowhere. It was filled with blue bikes in every configuration imaginable: trikes, unicycles, bicycles built-for-two, mountain bikes, racing bikes and blue peddlers for the leisurely traveler.

The Blue Bike Shop had quickly become a hot spot in Nowhere. After all, The Blue Bike Shop served lunch and drinks at the Bike Bar. It was a great excuse for John to check out all the blue bikes, and dream.

John had grown up in Nowhere and had never been outside its city limits. John lived down Rural Route 7, a long dirt road, which eventually, if you stayed on it long enough, would take you out of town.

Today was the day John was going to begin that ride. Impulsively, after lunch at the Bike Bar, John decided that he was ready. With every dollar he had saved in his pocket, from his job at Solo Staffing Services, he was going to buy that blue Schwinn he had his eye on.

When he handed the money over, the cash in his hand quickly became the bike in his dream. As a celebratory gesture, the clerk who sold him the blue bike stepped behind the bar and handed him a shot of Don Julio. With John’s throat on fire and his heart pounding with excitement, he asked his server, “Tell me, what’s the fastest way out of town.”

The clerk smiled and said, “Go down the hall, and take the first red door you see. It’s the fastest way.”

Several minutes had passed as John stood in front of the red door with his new shiny blue Schwinn, reflecting on the clerks last words.

“Why in the world, would this guy have told me to go through this red door if it was not the right door?” John thought.

John had never walked through a door that said “Do Not Enter” in his life. He also had never spent his entire life’s savings on a blue bike. John looked down the hall at the other red doors and again the “Do Not Enter” signs, and then he reached for the knob to his own.

“What the hell. All my life, people have been telling me ‘Do Not Enter’ this, or do that, or try this, because it is too hard, too risky, too much work or too… something. It’s time I try to go somewhere.”

When John opened the door, this is what he saw.

DISCOVER HOW TO OPEN YOUR OWN RED DO NOT ENTER DOOR TO YOUR INDEPENDENCE: WRITE DOWN THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS.

What red door with Do Not Enter written on it is stopping you from continuing to develop your artistic vision? What road blocks do you need to tear down in your mind? What about yourself do you need to accept, learn about or change to deepen your creative work?

What investment do you need to make to create a sustainable independent creative life? Write down everything you need to do in no particular order.

Who do you need to stop listening to and how will you do it? Write down every person who’s words and actions stand in your way of making true artistic, emotional and financial progress.

Where will you put your trust and who will help you in earnest to move your creative life emotionally and financially forward? True independence cannot be reached alone. It takes a village of support to make really impact FILLED life changes. Write down your plan to help you accomplish this for a minimum of 2 years. Write from your stream of conscious and don’t stop until you can’t think of anything more to write.

WHY do you do what you do?

Do your patrons know? Do you know?

Is your Why deeply embedded in your marketing materials, your website, the way you speak about who you are and your work?

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it“ says Lisa Canning.

28 year veteran arts entrepreneur Lisa Canning, has lots of happy clients, as well as has made a six figure living for more than 20 years as an arts entrepreneur by focusing on the answers to her own WHY and effectively communicating it to her audience.

Come to this innovative workshop and bring your marketing materials, your elevator speech or your product and share your story with Lisa Canning.  Lisa will help you learn how to deepen your WHY; allowing it, like a magnet, to draw more of your paying audience to you and your creative work.

Come interact with other aspiring arts entrepreneurs and (re)discover your WHY.

When: Thursday July 8th @ 7:00 pm

Where: Art Gallery, Flourish Studios 3020 N Lincoln Avenue, Chicago

What:   7-9pm workshop and networking

Tickets: $10.00 at the door or FREE if you are a participating artist in the Flourish Artisan Program. SEATING IS LIMITED. PLEASE RESERVE YOUR SEAT HERE.

The Flourish Artisan Program is a new initiative that offers visual artists low-cost space rental on Flourish’s high-end retail floor and provides them a brick and mortar home as they build their arts business. Participants in the program receive exclusive access to resources and training, such as the co-sponsored speaker series which continues monthly.

As co-sponsors of the event, the Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship” continues to spread awareness on the issues and possibilities surrounding arts entrepreneurship in Chicago.  Applications are also currently available for their two-year program starting in January 2011.

1. Headspace: Artists, and creative people of all kinds, need intellectual room to breath. Headspace requires time, and – depending on one’s personal preferences – a certain amount of solitude and quiet. When interacting with others, creative headspace needs constructive feedback (both positive and not) and an emotionally supportive atmosphere. Too many conservatory environments, to provide one counter-example, include teacher-centered classes in which the master teacher expounds on his or her own work, negating the validity of the budding student artist. This teaching method does not promote the kind of headspace needed for students to be innovative and creative. Headspace is akin to the image I included last week as well as this: a wide open expanse filled with possibilities – ideas don’t happen inside closed minds!
2. Physical incubator space: Artists need physical space in which to develop work. Artists need physical space in the same way scientists need laboratories – a place to experiment and evolve ideas long before they are ready for exhibition to or performance with the public. Many of my region’s emerging visual, media, and performing artists were bred at the university at which I work, but once graduated, they lose access to the physical space in which to create the new work they were taught to value and create. Without physical space in which to develop work, the fertile headspace will lead only to frustration.
3. Networking space: Artists benefit tremendously from interaction with one another. The coffee shop next door (or inside) of the incubator space can serve this purpose physically, and the web provides those networking opportunities virtually. My colleague Jake Pinholster is developing a networking web-based space for metro-Phoenix artists called AMOK: Arts-Materials-Organization-Knowledge that, once it goes live, will create a networking space not only to facilitate the exchange of ideas, but the exchange of materials as well. How cool would it be if artists could use a site like this to create a local barter economy in art-making materials (and I don’t just mean visual arts, but performing arts as well)? There are some models for this nationally (the Ohio Theatre Alliance comes to mind for materials and Springboard for the Arts (Minneapolis) for knowledge sharing and other important infrastructure support – like healthcare) so we need not re-invent the wheel, at least not from scratch, to create such space.

My own headspace is opening up significantly as I begin a much needed sabbatical. No doubt my imprecise ideas on this subject will continue to evolve over the next several months.

Since I touched on the subjects of networking and virtual spaces, I’ll let you know that the p.a.v.e. symposium website has just gone live. It contains a mere tickler of information at the moment, but as the schedule develops, we’ll be posting updates. Registration for this free event will open in October. See http://theatrefilm.asu.edu/initiatives/pave-symposium.php

This joy-filled art gallery was BRIMMING FULL with little spinning rudders and all aglow with life and vibrant creativity. My mother would have been proud.

Their little cafe, Cafe Ono, served scrumptiously HEALTHY fare.  Chuck and I ate lunch there. Their food was amazingly hip in its clean organic healthy simplicity.

The grounds dripped with GREEN vibrancy and the awesomeness of it all couldn’t help but pull on your heart strings; especially when  you heard  their mascot, Earnest the goat,  “baah!” He was a heart felt touch.

.

I found these pictures this past weekend as we sat around with a house full of  lit candles to honor my mom and her joy and life filled moments. That’s what we hope for most while we are here on earth, isn’t it? Happiness and Joy and TRULY MAGICAL MOMENTS?

Are you doing all you can to protect and develop your creative vision to ensure yours will come, or never go away?

When we come to find both peace AND prosperity with WHY we really are here on this earth and WHO we really are meant to serve  through our music, our paintings, our films, our writing, our creativity– our salvation and freedom to FULLY BE ALIVE and HAPPY is secured.

My mom never found hers. She fought tooth and nail through her life with herself and everyone around her instead because she never could. What a sad way to live with her powerful creative force that was once as vibrant and green and pure and rudder-filled as Volcano Garden Arts.

Our creativity and its highest purpose and best use needs to be discovered. We owe it to ourselves to know WHY we do what we do- what truly is driving us- and WHO we are suppose to deliver our magic and hope filled journey to…

There’s a question that perplexes many aspiring and emerging artists.  My answer…absolutely. If you truly want these things out of life, unconditionally YES! 

Of course, building a great arts career is never easy.  Nor is having a family.  But the best things in life usually aren’t.  And if you’re truly devoted to both visions, each will add fulfillment, meaning, and depth to the other.

If you’d like to have your cake and eat it too—the joy of raising a family while following your passion for a career—here are some suggestions that make this proposition more feasible.

1)    Choose your partner wisely.  The word “partner” is apropos.  It’s essential to find someone who communicates well, shares similar values, and supports your artistic lifestyle.  It also helps if you actually like the other person…a lot.

2)    Choose a complementary partner.  Though love may flow, it can be tough when two parents have parallel career goals.  For example, if both of hope to land an orchestra position or college gig, securing work in the same city may be near impossible (unless you met on the job). It is tricky when two parents are regularly on the road, or both are subjected to the roller coaster finances of freelancing.  Finding a partner who balances you professionally is a great asset.

3)    Become financially literate.  Both raising a family and supporting an arts habit require money.  Learn how the money game works, and win big.

4)    Consider cost of living.  Not every artist must live in NYC, LA, or other celebrated urban area with an exorbitant cost of living.  Raising a family is much easier in a house than a studio apartment.  Pick your geography carefully, and reside where you can afford.

5)    Live by family. It is extremely helpful to live close to at least a few family members who babysit in a pinch, play an active role in your kids’ development, and provide moral support for the ups and downs that accompany an artistic existence.  When this is impossible, consider “adopting” some neighbors or colleagues who invest positive energy in your family.

6)    Make great decisions early on.  Living gig to gig is expected when you’re 20, but not a great place to be when 30, 45, or 60.  Establish a sustainable arts business (aka your career) that automatically generates opportunity and capital as you age.

7)   Practice a lot when you’re young.  If you think things are busy now, just wait until you have a family!  One of the first activities to be compromised is often practice time.  The more you master your art technically when young, the better you’ll be able to cope with this reality.

8)    Become a master of time management.  Everything takes time. Learn how to work efficiently and live exceptionally.  For time management strategies, click here.

9)    Prioritize work and prioritize family.  It’s easy to get caught up in just one.  Some artists become so focused on their work, they neglect spending quality time with loved ones.  Others become absorbed in family life, and cease to remain active vibrant artists.  There is enough time to do both if you want them badly enough.

On a proud personal note, I just became a father for the second time!  My baby daughter Alaina Avery Cutler was born June 25, 2010.  Her brother Ashton Ellington, barely two, couldn’t be happier about it. 

And neither could I.  The time since Ashton was born has been one of the most active periods of my professional life.  And spending quality time with my family has made the endless hours and hard work required to succeed as a musician all the more meaningful.

Here’s a picture of me with my beautiful son and baby daughter.

 Good luck to you.

Mom's mass was held at this beautiful church.

Since her passing I have been gifted with a string of  JOY-FILLED miracles. There is no other explanation for WHY my life has ALL OF A SUDDEN lite up like a giant birthday cake with stunning sparklers and firecrackers going off. Maybe mom’s birthday card after all has arrived and her soul has been saved.  Let me explain.

For starters a university who I will not for awhile be able to name,  has stepped forward and is ready to explore how they can become The IAE’s  academic accreditation partner. Breathtaking all by itself and THE VERY NEXT THING we MOST need right now.

A general manager from a mid level theater but 7 blocks down the street from where the IAE will open, emailed me the other day and offered to donate rehearsal space to the school.  While  Flourish Studio’s is an IDEAL classroom setting, it is NOT an artistic noise producing one. We have been pondering how we would solve this problem close to our location and then this magically appears.

Next came a wonderful opportunity for me personally to present a workshop at the 2nd annual P.A.V.E. conference at ASU. I have always wanted to meet Ben Cameron from the Doris Duke foundation and now I will finally be able to! I am so honored to participate.

Last Thursday I had lunch with the chief editor of an established AND up-and-coming Chicago based magazine. She asked if she could help me edit my revised book proposal to repackage the book I wrote 3 years ago that did not sell; Build a Blue Bike. She wants to help because she believes my book needs to be published by a big publisher and wants to do what she can to help me finally get it sold.

Incredibly, as we were returning to her parking lot, and I was about to pull into the first open parking stall to drop her off, there was a Blue SCHWINN Bike chained to the fence.   I have a 1960′s Blue SCHWINN Bike I bought for my book still in boxes in my garage, and a whole presentation I created around the material in the book that involves taking it apart and putting it back together. There is also a blue bike that roles in on my flash intro to LisaCanning.com. It too is a Blue SCHWINN. I intentionally wanted a Schwinn because the bike I rode as a child was a blue Schwinn. I even had an exchange with the marketing people at Schwinn to gain access to their image files so that I could use their brand of bike to promote my book, when it was published.

According to my new publisher friend, there has never been a bike before chained to the fence in the lot; nor have they EVER seen this bike before. ( For those of you who don’t know-Build a Blue Bike was picked up almost three years ago by NY literary agent Susan Schulman and never sold; Susan has represented Richard Florida and Julia Cameron.)

In hind site I now realize what Build a Blue Bike was missing- a hook. And dear reader, my mother, through her death, has given me the hook my book NEEDS –the stories I am now FREE to share about our dirty little family secrets.  My mothers creativity in life and through her death is simply otherworldly; breathtaking. As spectacular as all my mom could be.

This week has TRULY offered me DEEP and PROFOUND blessings. The passing of my mother, and my tormented relationship with her clearly, finally, undeniably has ended through her physical death. I TRULY feel a profound peace and gratitude for this to have happened to me. I feel 20 pounds lighter and free. I can FINALLY TELL MY STORIES ABOUT HER TO HELP TRANSFORM so many artists creativity into something valu-ABLE; NOT rudderless!

And yes, while it made me sad that so few people loved my mother enough to say their goodbyes at her funeral other than my husband, my ex-husband, my brother, the mother of my best friend when I was 10, four of my friends and two of my mothers;  I have to tell you that all of this last week has offered me NOTHING short of divinely sent miracles.

You see, when you PLAN to clear your life of the debris that is IN YOUR WAY to lead the LIFE YOU WERE MEANT  to live– it’s not total destruction and annihilation you find at YOUR ground zero- but instead the source of true miracles that will define you for the rest of time. And trust me you will know when you have arrived at your Ground Zero and when your transformation has begun.

Although I do have to tell you that I felt as though the heavens above were playing a little joke with me on Thursday afternoon when I went to pick up my mothers remains at the funeral directors office.

When I arrived at the building, I walked down the hall the wrong way.  Quickly I realized that not only was the building being dug up all around it- just like ground zero- but that indeed the funeral directors office was inside DePaul University’s Rosemont Campus and was next to be torn down. I successfully helped build a program at DePaul but it was never the arts entrepreneurship program I had hoped it would be.  Symbolically, the school I had taught at for 10 years was being dug up and replaced by a casino.  My school FOR NEW LEARNING IN THE ARTS will NEVER BE REPLACED BY A CASINO! 

So here I am picking up my mothers remains at my true ground zero. All that preceded this moment was meant to help me grow but not meant to be permanent. All that is unfolding before me NOW IS my true and undeniable destiny. THIS IS one of the hardest lessons to learn, really; how to truly change our destiny through the choices we make and the emotional shifts we must learn.

Are you ready to learn?  Are you ready to find your rudder? Won’t you please apply to the IAE, or help us promote the IAE to others you know, or add our button badge link to your website?

Isn’t it time for ALL ARTISTS to learn how to make THEIR VERY OWN MIRACLES happen at a SPECTACULAR ground zero of their  VERY OWN?

How does my minor epiphany relate to the arts entrepreneurship curriculum we’re developing? Here there’s a more direct relationship with my current reading, although its still involves reading between the lines. I’m working on a chapter for a book on “signature pedagogies for disciplinary habits of mind” with two colleagues from Australia. Our chapter is, as you might imagine, about arts entrepreneurship/enterprise education so I have been doing a lot of reading on business entrepreneurship pedagogy. Reading between the lines of that scholarship (and there’s a lot of it compared to the scholarship on arts entrepreneurship pedagogy) and about the fine work Rick Cherwitz is doing at UT as well as my own experience with the p.a.v.e. program at ASU I have come to realize that we need to teach students about ownership in the business sense by first providing them SPACE to have ownership over their own learning about arts entrepreneurship. I want students to come into my arts entrepreneurship classroom with a commitment to their own work. Then I need to get out of their way to provide them the space to be as creative as possible, providing a backstop where necessary on the issues that can, if misunderstood, put a premature end to their creativity: financing, IP protections, and the like.

Perhaps my interest this week in SPACE is more personal. As I embark on a bit of a professional transition, I find myself looking ahead (and looking forward) to having more space – space to think, to write, to teach, and to find connections that will help support the creativity of emerging artists.

While I have your attention, don’t forget to mark you calendars for the second biannual p.a.v.e. symposium on Entrepreneurship and the Arts, to be held April 1-2 2011 in Tempe AZ. Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation will be our keynote speaker and ETA’s very own Lisa Canning will be conducting a workshop on “Discovering your WHY? Artist Empowerment and Self-mangement.” We’re partnering with the Arizona Commission on the Arts to help get the word out, and the symposium coincides with the fast-growing Phoenix Fringe Festival, a project that the p.a.v.e. program helped to launch.

Ever wonder why Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, our white gazelle’s who define entrepreneurial success, never finished college? Is what made them hugely successful creating their own kind of lifestyle simply all based on their ability to out smart everyone or write THE BEST business plan? How did their creativity fit into all of this and what can we learn from how effectively they used it?

Artists, after all, have GREAT ideas all the time. An idea a minute it seems- many spectacular.  And yet all the studies show most cannot even make a modest living most of the time.  And while this article below demonstrates that we increasingly are going to now see programs popping up to teach artists how to write a business plan, or teach them the business skills they need through an 8 to 12 week one day a week program, I believe, most may be wasting their time.  It’s NOT  book smarts OR a well crafted business plan that is FIRST IN LINE to turn our situation around. Sure, its on the list. Don’t get me wrong. It’s in the IAE’s curriculum for sure. But what is REALLY REQUIRED to do the job, is repairing the WAY WE EMOTIONALLY THINK about who we are and what we do that WILL FINALLY MAKE THE DIFFERENCE. And this is NOT an 8 week course! IT IS AT A MINIMUM an interdisciplinary 2 YEAR PLAN.

Thanks to what I have learned from observing highly emotionally intelligent people to help myself, and then some who were not- like my mother- I have learned very well where the differences lie; as well as how to help others deepen their own.

Entrepreneurial intelligence does not rest on what you know. You can know very little. It rests on learning HOW and WHEN to discover WHAT you need to know; and then knowing HOW TO MANAGE the context of what you have learned to achieve your result. All very subtle and it requires close, regular, personal contact to uncover. What will make artists entrepreneurs is building emotional intelligence. I am opening The IAE to build VIBRANT STRONG ENTREPRENEURIAL Emotionally Intelligence Artists. Please help me find the right artists who want to join our first class to SHOW THE WORLD how we TRULY CAN redefine our own lives in positive, healthy and life changing ways. No More Starving Artists. Let’s Change History.

If you doubt a word I am saying, just read the last line of this article. Mr. Barman’s comment says it all…

Creative Types Learning to Be Business Minded By KATE TAYLOR

Published: June 18, 2010 in the New York Times

He calls them Audioketubah and, at $1,500, they come in the form of handwritten scrolls and CDs, perfect gifts for a couple who cannot stomach another set of stemware.

Juan Hinojosa makes collages from found materials like Metrocards and food wrappers, and clothing tags that he filches from high-end stores. He often brings an attractive female friend along to distract the staff while he snips off the labels, though he said he has never actually taken anything of value.

On five Saturdays this month and next, Mr. Barman, Mr. Hinojosa and 54 other artists are attending a class paid for by the City of New York that is intended to help them turn their creative works into money.

“Does everyone have Excel?,” Peter Cobb, a lawyer and administrator at the New York Foundation for the Arts, which runs the program, asked the class last Saturday. “For next week, your assignment is to make a list of all your expenses for 2009.”

The sighs and complaints that followed were proof of the challenging task Mr. Cobb and his colleagues have taken on: trying to teach people who like to color outside the lines about drawing up business plans, budgeting and making a sales pitch.

The city’s cultural sector “attracts very, very creative people who have incredible ideas, but they don’t always know how to turn their ideas into financial sustainable entities,” said Seth W. Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. His agency is spending $50,000 on this program and a similar one being run by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, with Creative Capital.

It is harder than it used to be to live as an artist in New York City, given the cost of housing, studios and rehearsal space, and the Bloomberg administration does not want artists to leave the city. Culture is a magnet for tourism and a major reason why people in other professions (and often higher tax brackets) want to live here. Ergo, two city-financed courses devised to help artists help themselves.

“It’s kind of the teach-a-person-to-fish school of cultural support,” Mr. Pinsky said.

The group attending the five-week program includes painters, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, creative writers, actors, directors, dancers, singers, musicians — and some who defied categorization, like Ryan Murdock. He said his work encompassed filmmaking, radio documentary and photography, as well as organizing events that brought together “silent films, live music and homemade pies.” He said he had recently quit his job in public television, and hoped to arrive at “a business structure that will allow me to do everything I want to do, because I’m too curious to pin myself down.”

Along with group sessions covering subjects like intellectual property and Internet marketing, each artist has a 20-minute meeting with a New York Foundation for the Arts staff member or an outside adviser to review his or her business plan. At the end of the course, the students can apply for subsidized studio or rehearsal space at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, courtesy of Chashama, an organization that transforms vacant properties into art spaces.

“Artists are not taught to plan,” said Jackie Battenfield, a painter and the author of “The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love.” Too often, she said, they’re “going in circles, and that’s very demoralizing.”

This is the first time the city has financed such a program, though others, like one at the Bronx Museum called Artists in the Marketplace, have long strived to help artists manage their careers.

Most of the artists in the class had some kind of day job. Many teach. Mr. Barman, who has released several albums, does freelance journalism and teaches hip-hop to high school students.

Mr. Hinojosa works as an assistant to a more established artist, Shinique Smith. He has also sold his own works for as much as $2,000, and thinks that he’ll eventually be able to make a living from his art. One benefit to art made from found materials, he points out: “The supplies are free.”

Eric Wright, a lanky puppeteer, is one of a few students who already have a successful business. With two partners, he runs The Puppet Kitchen in the East Village, which has built puppets for the Disney Channel, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, the Public Theater and the noted puppeteer Basil Twist.

They have more work than they can do themselves and want to expand, but, being artists, Mr. Wright said, they need help with the financial side of things. “Most business development courses are for restaurant managers” and people in other traditional businesses, he said, so he was thrilled to find one geared to artists. “People think that art and business are at odds,” he said, but “you can create great art and have it also be a business.”

Mr. Pinsky said the city plans to follow up to see how many participants succeed in implementing their business plans.

Mr. Barman said that when it comes to his Audioketubahs, he is motivated by much more than just profit.

“It’s the most positive, fun, exciting, deep and funny thing I’ve ever been involved in,” he said of writing the songs, for which he often interviews the bride and groom at length, over drinks. “Every single one I do makes everyone so happy.”

It’s design was brilliant simple because my mom NEVER called me. She never wanted to chat or find out what was up with me. There were no lunches, no get your hair done together days. A shopping experience perhaps here and there to dress me up pretty and for her to find another $500.00+ purse or four new pairs of sparkling high heels. I remember my mom trying on a pant suit once that was $2500.00 and she asked me if I thought she would wear it.  No the hope of A REAL relationship with my mother, had long ago gone.

Even when I was little I knew something was wrong..

It’s all been sorted, sifted, cried over, and ladled with a heavy cream sauce of guilt LONG before now. No, indeed it was finally over.  Finally, I managed to button it down four years ago almost to the day– nice and tight for a LONG winters sleep, my relationship with my mom.

And this week I  finally I get to bury her. What remains of her is now figuratively and literally dust.   This week feels like an all time record life high actually.  It feels like the EXTREME opposite of loss,  which for me is foreign and in itself quite shocking. So shocking all I can seem to do is sit “shiva” and realize the destruction phase is over and the transformation phase has launched.

How could I not feel this way if you think about it? The ONLY WAY my my highest purpose and best use could ever be present during my time on this earth was to find a way to remain sane and hopeful of what the possibilities in life WERE for me.

I had strategically come to know that  if I really wanted my creativity to grow to the point that I was TRULY ABLE to MAKE the difference I believe I was put on his earth to make, I had to orchestrate a strategic plan to out root and destroy all toxicity in my life once and for all. And that certainly had to begin with my mother.

Frankly, I am really proud of how well and carefully I did it and how masterfully I have come through it. I have learned so much from  life with mom and used it so wisely to rise well above it. And yet, the harshest part of it all for me is that my mom hated me THAT MUCH more for finding ways to replace her and HEAL the pain she caused. The better I got at doing it the more creative and clever her infliction of pain became.

And I decided long ago to use her pain and dysfunction to free me. I learned how to be down right creative, entrepreneurial, artistic and PEACE FILLED ( eventually) in how I learned  to respond to her actions, no matter how horrible, or low the blow.  I am so proud of who I am, REALLY, and how strong I am and how well I see INTO MYSELF and others. My mother- she TRULY has blessed me. But trust me, NOT in the ways I ever thought or imagined a mother could or should.

Yes my mom is dead. The mass and funeral are on Friday. 10 am at John Continious Catholic Church 825 N Carpenter, Chicago and 1pm graveside at Evergreen Cemetery, 3401 W. 87th Street, Evergreen Park, IL 60805. phone: 708-422-9051. Section: Fairmont / Lot 46 / Part 6 / Grave 26. My mother will be buried next to my father and I pray she is NOW FINALLY overcome with joy and peace.

For most of us the grieving process starts at death. But not for me.  It started in earnest when I was 13.

My parents threw a Christmas Party every year at our house for family and friends.  Like so many times before, my mother had knocked herself out. Her buffet table was tantalizing, the flower arrangements so fragrant and full they competed for attention from room to room. And then there was my mother dressed to the 9’s embarrassing the hell out of me in front of my Uncle Marvin. “Lisa Alexandra Argiris are you even HERE and FULLY PRESENT and LISTENING? You just live in a world ALL your own, don’t you now?”

My mother was, as usual, making an ass out of herself. Dressed in Chanel, dripping in diamonds and slurring her barb wired bitter words at me was a routine occurrence. And yet, she was right. It was hard for me to want to listen to her anymore because of the way she treated me.

But for some reason before I could lower my self-esteem a little more and utter some form of cordial attempt at a reply, I heard a voice. A clear and convincing voice that said to me.” Lisa, your mother is crazy. She will never be able to be your mother. Run, Lisa from her. Run!”

I had never heard a voice like this before. After all, who does at 13?   Time stopped.

It was the heat of the blood flowing into my cheeks and the sensation of them turning bright red that snapped me back into place. But this time, the embarrassment rising inside of me was NOT to utter some cordial attempt at a reply, but to simply let my mothers words hang lifeless like a dead man swinging from a rope. It was right then the first part of my mother died to me as my self-esteem rose.

Indeed it took me over 28 years, 6.5 months and a few days,  to FINALLY TRULY accept my mother’s figurative death to me. It happened almost four years ago and almost to the day of my birthday, BY CHOICE. This day WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT FIRST of a number of significant emotional shifts I would make for MY CREATIVE LIFE to FINALLY evolve and FLOW.

Like I said there was no drama. I did stop calling and I sent this letter:

“Dear Mom,

I love you with all my heart and soul. And yet, you are at war with the world and with anyone who loves you, especially with me. If you ever are willing to take even the smallest part of responsibility for your actions, and ever want to try and really be my mom, I will come back to your side in the flash of a moment. But short of that– PLEASE know I LOVE YOU and will be THERE FOR YOU IN YOUR GREATEST TIME OF NEED, but until that time, our relationship is over..”

And that is how I began my strategic creative-for-life sustainability plan.  I rooted out ALL the dysfunction out of my life. EVERY SINGLE DROP. Just the same way eating egg whites and oatmeal, chicken and salad is CLEAN eating, I out rooted  the dysfunction in my life that was depriving me of having life’s special sauce.   And it was the damndest thing- about 6 months after I really let all of the dysfunction freely flow away from me,  my thoughts began to change. My energy began to flow.  And the real creative person I  always WANTED to BECOME  FINALLY SHOWED HER FACE and has begun to rock and roll.

Through my music and writing and artistry I am creating a  new recipe, a new kind of  artistic  hope and value filled stew of possibilities.

Dear creative friends, our time to shine in life is here. It’s ARRIVED. It’s RIGHT NOW. Our broken world is literally and figuratively gushing from the bottom of the ocean and needs our creative gifts TRULY LIKE NEVER BEFORE.   Our glory days helping to SAVE THE WORLD ARE  RIGHT in front of us.

BUT NOT until we learn how to become the wonderful human beings we have mostly fooled ourselves into believing we are. We need to be WONDERFUL so we can work together, play together and CREATE VALUE together. We deserve to shine! Our gifts are great!

Please won’t you spread our good news and help me to open my school. This is what God put me on this earth to do. It has never been so clear or real. God bless you Lea. I would not know how to do this work if you had NOT been my mother….

“Ms. Canning?  This is Chris, manager of Malibu East, where your mother lives. Someone is concerned they have not heard from her in several days. Do we have your permission to enter her apartment and do a wellness check?”

December 26, 2005. A picture of me, my brother, mom and Scooby. This was the last time I saw my mom...

As the words “yes, but of course” blurted out of me, I knew immediately what had happened. My mom was dead.  My mother and I had a horrible relationship. It had been 4 years, almost to the day, since we have spoken.  But I knew something seriously had to be wrong when the birthday card- her only form of communication with me- did not arrive on my birthday- June 11th. As exasperating as it was to deal with my mom, she made this one and only communication clear, as the cards were never late. But this year no card arrived.

You may think me cruel or heartless or it unimaginable that a mother daughter relationship could implode. Trust me I did. But it was not for a lack of trying on my part.

And yet, my mother’s idea of a relationship was filled with dysfunction, threats, self-sabotage, hostility, addictions and pain filled memories and embarrassment. There was little that was consistent or positive about our relationship. And yet I learned so much about my own creativity through my mom.

My mother was an amazing cook.  She LOVED to cook and the fancier and more complicated the recipe the better.  She loved a challenge and as a Polish woman who grew up eating animal innards from the south side of Chicago, who married a well to do Greek man, she quickly learned how to embed high style Mediterranean cooking into our family nightly meals. She learned how to make mousaka, tiropita, spanakopita and every other amazing Greek dish from scratch and her presentation was breathtaking.  My mother also made the best beef wellington, stuffed Cornish game hens and a killer scalloped potatoes dish I wish I had the recipe for.  And on my birthday, for years, my mom made me a home made banana cream pie- my favorite. I have NEVER had one since that was anywhere close to as good as the one my mom use to make for me. Indeed,  the whole back wall of our kitchen was full of recipe books that my mom studied for hours while I devoured Baermann scale books. Her cookbooks were literally falling apart, stained, ladled with butter and sauce drippings and full of her love of the art. So really, it’s no wonder I struggle with my weight. My mother taught me all the joys of eating deliciously prepared food.

But this wasn’t my mother’s only creative gift. She also had a green hand- she was blessed with more than a green thumb. My mom could revive, nurture and grow any kind of plant. She had an assortment of orchids that bloomed so vibrantly they did not even look real.  I, to this day, have killed every one I have ever had. She was also a masterful artistic flower arranger. She made fresh cut flowers look like art in a vase. My mother could take any bunch of flowers and entirely change how they looked simply through her choice of vase and how she positioned and grouped them together. It was amazing to watch her fluidly and effortlessly assemble a stunning arrangement every time as if anyone could do it. I wish I could.

My mother was an amazing seamstress. She made all my clothes when I was little and I remember every one ‘oohing and ‘ahing over how cute I always looked. She also fashioned herself a furrier. While it might not be fashionable now, I grew up with the smell of garbage cans of mink pelts and a rack in the basement of home made designer quality fur coats my mother made for herself.

But my mother, unfortunately, for all her innate creative talents, was an insecure person. Despite a number of years as (almost) a professional model, she had NOTHING to BE  insecure about- at least not from her looks.  But my moms creativity was never validated in a way that empowered her life forward.  Like so many artists, her creativity as fulfilling as it was, was rudderless. As a result, slowly, her self-esteem plummeted and the “isms” crept into her life.   Of course, this further stifled her creativity and drew her deeper into the dark side of life instead of into her highest purpose and best self.

My mother became an alcoholic. She used to mix her liquor of choice with Diet Dr Pepper and hide it in the turn style in the kitchen next to the nutmeg. She would sip it as she cooked until she was so drunk so would collapse at the dinner table as my father, brother and I enjoyed her scrumptious meal. The contrast between the food we were eating and my mothers appearance were shocking. It was so sad to see her this way.

And yet how many creative types who have lost their self esteem do you know like my mother? It manifests itself in different ways but I bet a lot.

All the stories of betrayal I hear from other creative individuals who work on projects that arrive DOA. What about all of the prima donna’s-  the”high priestess’s” in our field?  The temper tantrums on stage in rehearsal from conductors, actors, soloists.  The knowledge of who’s sleeping with whom and the question we ask ourselves” is that how they got this gig”?  The low self esteem, the anger that ensues, the addictions, the sadness, and often the sense of entrapment that comes when we hear the voice in our head that says, ” my art is the only thing I want to do and that I am good at. Yet I can’t make the difference (or a living) I seek doing this.”  And then, the ensuing self- sabotage that follows. All this is enough to be a worthy comparison to life with my mother.

Yes, indeed, dysfunction and “isms” are our dirty little “family secret” as artists that we try and hide from our audience, our supporters and even sometimes, ourselves. Not everyone in “our family” is like this, but it seems the arts as a whole are vulnerable in this regard. Isn’t it time we truly rallied together and finally ONCE AND FOR ALL decided to BE the DIFFERENCE we seek? Isn’t it time to fight the good fight in EARNEST and learn the skills we need to do so?   If my mother had, I am sure she would have lead a totally different life. Our beauty and our glory as artists will come from being ABLE to make a difference in life. Not by burning bridges and blowing up our own lives simply because we don’t know how to BE the DIFFERENCE we seek.

It was because of my mothers creativity, and how it became stifled and then became dramatic and outrageous behavior, that I truly came to believe that creativity can take us anywhere in life we want to go, as long as you have a CREATIVE-FOR-LIFE sustainability plan. I saw how alive and vibrant my mother once was with it, and how she became without it.  And I have noticed throughout my life as a result of this experience how easy it is for our creativity, just like my mothers, to die too without the support and rudder it needs; do you REALLY WANT to starve your soul from your creativity PRODUCTIVELY flowing while you are alive?

And yesterday, as I set the phone down and realized my mother was truly gone from this planet we call earth, I realized how much she had taught me about the value of my creativity and what to do and what not to do with it. I realized that as much as I had discredited her as the parent that taught me everything to not do in life, it was because of her that I was opening a school.

My idealistic values about art would protect me, and do to this day, because through my mother I learned that living a creative life can be our freedom and our salvation if we build it the rudder it needs- a creative-for-life sustainability plan- to take us ANYWHERE in life we want to go.

In honor of my mother, and in honor of your highest purpose and best creative self, I am asking you to join me.

Apply NOW to the IAE .  If you believe in you and want to make a positive difference on this earth through the arts and are not sure how to, our two year program will help you bring to life your own creative-life-sustaining plan.

Attend Boost Camp. If your not sure your rudder is still attached or you have an idea how to build one, please enroll. Scholarships are available.

Support Our Work. I am asking you to support our cause by buying a button or tee shirt and spreading our mission of hope and change for artists to come.

Spread Our Word. I am asking you to believe that life CAN be DIFFERENT and that your circumstances are changeable no matter how hard and challenging they are. Spread our good news and believe we can create a life we love and that empowers us and those around us in positive and life sustaining ways.

We are looking for strong individuals with good character and clear determination to overcome their fear and life obstacles. Please, won’t you join us. No More Starving Artists. No More Dirty Little Family Secrets. Let us BECOME the DIFFERENCE we seek to be ABLE to MAKE the DIFFERENCE we WERE put on this earth to make.

We just found out the Coleman Foundation will be providing us with some financial support for this years Boost Camp from July 26th through August 6th.  As a result, we now will be notifying those of you who have applied about your scholarship requests AND we have room for just a few more applicants who also may receive a partial scholarship. Our final application deadline is July 1st. Apply now to participate and be eligible for a scholarship.