You're Hired!
By Amy McClure
11/10/2008 5:32:00 PM
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Expression. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since my last entry. Expression of what, you may ask? Of me, I guess…or respectively, of YOURSELF. I think it started out that way at least. I long to create something that expresses (or just releases) all those whirls and swirls of images and ideas I have in the midst of my day, while I’m are doing something else, typically. What keeps me from working is typically the things I have to do to keep the business, or life in general, running smoothly. I find that for most entrepreneurs, finding time to be creative is the hardest part of running a business, despite how hard we try to ignore our bookkeeping. Some oversimplified questions I like to ask myself are:
What would you do with an entire day/afternoon “off “ ? (That’s a funny concept, isn’t it?)
What is most restful to you today?
Have you noticed any kind of pattern/correlation over the past few weeks…?
What would you like to know more about? A new skill you’d like to learn?
They are simple and pretty nonspecific for a reason…b/c if I can slow down, even for a moment, or a couple of hours one morning, I don’t have to make it more difficult than it already is. I have the opportunity to look outside my day, week, month and think about and dream about the things I want to be different or the things I want to grow in the business and my life. To fuel myself with some kind of newness...Or opportunity for newness to be invited into my sphere.
For some, and myself, I have had to realize my need for help and GET SOME….even if it’s just 5 hours a week. Think of stay at home moms, college students, or even sharing an assistant among several designers to provide them with more hours per week. The E-Myth Revisited, by Gerber should help you with thinking (i.e. convincing you) through this a little more.
Recently, I did hire a girl to work with/for me. Granted, I agonized over hiring help since we moved to the Bean in April and I came up with every excuse imaginable. Seriously…I have trust issues, but that’s a whole other blog entry. Interviewing and hiring someone to come in and look at the unkempt underbelly of my little business has to have been a hundred times more of a pit in my stomach than any interview I have ever been on myself. And now that she’s here, I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner. Totally. Since then, the amount of time I’ve had to concentrate on the things I have dreamed of doing is astounding. The ability to get things done beyond immediate tasks like production/shipping/emailing takes me back to days long forgotten…to the hopes I had 2 years ago that my day could be filled with moments of free time, design epiphanies and the magazine spreads detailing them, not to mention the latest celebrity caught in one of my pieces or the fact that I can enjoy my work again…I should dare dream...*sigh*.
So now that we’ve accepted our need for help, acquired said help, we dream. That’s what we do as entrepreneurs, right? We dream bigger than our day to day. We love the essence of what we’re doing, but let’s be practical: We also long for our efforts to reap respect, money and maybe garner a little praise along the way…oh and I’ll say it, a little jealousy from others too. No harm in that, right? Certainly we can cheer on our fellow designers in much the same way we do as bridesmaids when our friends make it to the altar. But we still want to be the bride for once…
Often times, what fuels new designs and creations are typically from things completely unrelated to my medium. Experiencing and learning new things shows me so much about myself and my processes. So, what would you learn if you had time? Right now, I would learn how to weld. Have you noticed a pattern/correlation of things over the past few weeks? Well, yes I have, in fact. A literal pattern this time…And I would study the historical use of the quatrefoil. (yes, seriously). I’m totally weird like that. I’m not sure how or if I would use those skills in my work, but maybe I could? I went to the MFA here with my studio mate the other night and saw the most amazing art nouveau exhibit…Totally inspiring and easily relatable to my work. And now, I have the time to flesh out my expression of it rather than spend my time in production. Woohoo!
Living in one of the world's most educational cities, I have access to pretty much any type of adult edu class I would like to take...there are even artist 'Skill Share' nights around town, of which I am preparing to partake. I know not everyone has that opportunity, so I invite you to post links for your city's adult education programs/online programs you've found helpful/your own skills you'd like to share in the comments section below!
In Boston, we have (to name a few):
Stonybrook Fine Arts
BCAE
CCAE
Brookline Center
MASSART
SMFA
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How do you do!? My name is Amy McClure and I am also one of the designers at the Beehive, trained at the University of Montevallo just south of Birmingham. To try to give you a brief recent history on myself and Olaria Studio, being a part of Beehive and getting to know other designers in the same boat I am in has been one of my favorite things over the past 2 years. Recently, I moved to Boston with my husband from Birmingham. We moved up
here to not only take a sabbatical from (our much loved and yet a little too settled) Southern life, but to take
some opportunities we had only seen from a distance: creatively,
professionally, educationally, and socially. However, moving a business 1100 miles did not prove as streamline
as I thought it would have been in any sense, leaving me with mountains of administration and marketing efforts, research and development, show scheduling, etc to deal with in leaving my assistant behind. It feels a little bit like taking a very large dog for a very fast walk...
In talking about entreprenuership, I'm finding and losing my
footing all at the same time. Two steps forward, one backward....Even here in New England, where
everything already seems so foreign and difficult to maneuver at times, I'm finding segways into the small business and creative communities. I've
started getting emails from younger women asking for advice b/c they
think I'm supposed to know what I'm doing in running a business. Things that I would have become unraveled about last year are just part of another week for me...and I
realize that it's not that I know what I'm doing as much as I've gotten
comfortable with some of my fears and expectations about it in my day
to day. Some people might call that perspective, I guess. I think that's part of what drives creativity and motivates me
in some sense, despite being someone who's prone to disaster fantasies.
I mean, Olaria only began after I got married and got fired from my
administrative/marketing job within 4 months of each other,
providing me with lots of time to think and thus, create. I couldn't not create. As I
interviewed for job after job, it occurred to me that what I had been doing to self-soothe was actually something that could help pay
bills. That people responded to, and wanted to pay me for my work when they saw it. Instead of responding to other people's
opportunities as an employee, I felt like part of me came alive in
being able to create my own place in the market, and it was staring me in the face.
Now I know there is a slew of things that I'm not saying about owning a business in the above paragraphs, but we've got time for all that discussion. I have quite a few frustrations and soul-killing moments in trying to manage and balance my life so that it is not completely overrun by business. I think by my next entry, I'll have had time to wrap my head around some of what I've been thinking about in that regard, so please don't think I'm quite as existential as this entry may lead you to believe. I want to talk about fear, hope and growing ourselves as much as I talk about growing our businesses. I've read/reading the E-Myth by Gerber, Art and Fear by Bayles & Orland, Craft, Inc by Ilasco, and Let Your Life Speak by Palmer within this last year and feel like the timing of things in those reads has been good for me both practically as well as professionally and even spiritually. I think there is a correlation of finding what gives us light and hope, nurturing and making room for it, that will naturally flow into all that we do, business, family and all. I feel like there is room for that kind of person in the marketplace of today. Especially today. Because that kind of person can thrive amidst a bad market or economy (or administration) and inspire those around him/her. I think the process of our art-making, our business of being in business, is something we began maybe hoping to make some cash, maybe not. Maybe we felt that call to expression that put light in our day or gave lightness to someone elses. But despite our daily flurry of activity, I think it has the potential to help us see ourselves for who we are and change us dramatically...hopefully for the better.
"...Making art is a common and intimately human activity, filled with all the perils (and rewards) that accompany any worthwhile effort. The difficulties artmakers face are not remote and heroic, but universal and familiar..." -D. Bayles & T. Orland, Art & Fear.
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