Passionate Support
It was just kinda’ quirky
the way that system worked
Suddenly, there was a plethora
of passionate supporters
Cheering on her
every creative endeavor
Mad Dog
Mad dog barkingat the gate
Ready to burst free
rush past implements of reason
Enter the wilderness
in feral abandon
Sink toes in mud
and staunch the wild storm
running with the wind…
So, where’s your mad dog at the moment?
Waiting in Line
A wellspring of ideas
and insights
He played word games, wrote songs
and practiced tiddly winks
While he waited
patiently in line…
Art IS my real job!
I can’t tell you how many times in my life, I’ve been told either by hint or directly that it was nice that I enjoyed doing art, and wasn’t it about time I get a real job?
I’m here to declare today, “Art IS my real job!” At the center of me is this creative spirit that can’t help but practice art every moment I am alive. Many, many years ago I performed my own ceremony. I dedicated myself, my life, my efforts, all of me, to serving God, Goddess, Spirit, Great Mystery (I use all of those words and more interchangeably because I know my little human brain is incapable of having a complete concept of True Source). When I turn to this source to give me guidance, to use me as an instrument, my little self steps out of the way of God doing His work – His Art. That is my real and only job.
So many times, on the road to coming to this epiphany, this realization of some kind of truth, I have spent many an hour denigrating my creative urge, being judgemental of my natural state of joy, discounting my innate calling to spread beauty. What was I thinking? Too much, I suspect. Paying far too much attention to the loud voices without, rather than the small still voice within. Now that I have started to flip that around more often than not, I have truly come to realize that this is one of the most important understandings of this journey: art IS my real joy, uh, job!
Brand Consistancy
Do you have a consistant brand – a unified business identity?
I participated a series of workshops way back when called Alpha Awareness Training. I gleaned a lot of tools there for dealing with life in a positive way. One of the concepts that Wally Minto talked about in this work was that there are two ends of a spectrum called imagers. We each and every one of us imagine – “image” – things in different ways, including “seeing” no images at all. Anyway, the spectrum is “changing imager” vs. “fixed imager.”
Every time a “changing imager” imagines what they wish to create or what they would like as an outcome, the visualization is different. I used to work with a woman in a small art store who was a totally unleashed “changing imager”. Every time she would work, the store would take on a completely different look, and all of the stock would be moved around. It was great for sales. The customers would come in and not see what had attracted them before. Ack! When they discovered that it was actually still in the store, only on the other side of the store, they would buy it before it really did get purchased by someone else.
A “fixed imager” is the person who sees one thing in one place solidly always. If you should happen to move the couch an inch during cleaning, this person will most likely not be comfortable until it is returned to it’s correct place. The goal stays in mind until achieved and beyond.
Most of us are somewhere on the spectrum, not really one extreme or the other.
I, for example, have a constant stream of ideas. Given the slightest opportunity to brainstorm about anything, a treasure-trove of jetsam will wash upon my shores. On the other hand, there are unbreakable threads of motivation which have remained very steady as core values of my personality. These recurrent themes pursue my imagination with a bulldog-like persistance.
You might be wondering what all of this has to do with your branding. Your branding is an anchor: it provides a fixed image in which your clients and customers can trust. Rock solid, it provides the foundation on which to build of all your promotions and marketing.
A formula for success involves a happy combination: let the changing imagers create new and edgy products, promotions, and advertising campaigns while you tether them to your overall success with the fixed image of your unified business identity.
