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Episode 225 - Creating Valuable Art that Sells
531 Plays7 months ago
Today’s guest is painter and artist mentor Emily Jeffords. I’ve owned a few of Emily’s prints for years and it was a huge honor to chat with her today. In this episode we walk through finding inspiration, creating artwork that sells and the artist journey. Regardless of whether you're a painter or fine artist, if you have a creative heart, you'll find a ton of takeaways in this episode.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check ’em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/creating-valuable-art-that-sells-btb-225. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
The Power of Passion: Finding Your Market Niche
00:00:00
Speaker
Most of the time, if you're creating work that you enjoy, there is a market for it. Because if you enjoy it, someone else will also enjoy it. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high-converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show.
Meet Emily Jeffords: Artist and Mentor
00:00:30
Speaker
Today's guest is painter and artist mentor Emily Jeffords. I've owned a few of Emily's prints for years and it was a huge honor to chat with her today. Emily leads creative retreats called Creating with Nurture Retreats that focus on nurturing deep creative inspiration.
00:00:45
Speaker
She's also the visionary behind Making Artwork, a course that has empowered thousands of artists to run successful and profitable businesses, catalyzing a culture shift in the artistic community. Additionally, Emily hosts The Collective, a dynamic monthly membership for artists, workshops, and classes, all crafted to empower creatives to thrive in their studios and businesses. Doors to The Collective actually open again this month, and we're going to make sure that we include a link in the show notes.
00:01:11
Speaker
In an era when being a successful artist is more attainable than ever, Emily friends immense joy in witnessing the flourishing of countless creatives under her mentorship, as well as the growth of her own studio with collectors around the globe and partnerships with major brands like Anthropologie, West Elm, and Ornaments through Schoolhouse Electric. In this episode, we talk through creating artwork that sells the artist's journey in finding inspiration
00:01:37
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And regardless of whether you're a painter or a fine artist, I think if you have a creative heart, you're gonna find a ton of takeaways in this episode. So now onto the episode.
From Music to Art: A Creative Transition
00:01:48
Speaker
Emily, I am so excited to be chatting with you today. I have owned prints of yours for a very long time. Really? Yeah. So they've been hanging in my house for years and years. And so it's just like feels so special to be talking to you. And I really love all of the resources that you put out for artists. I feel like that is so unique. And so it's been really exciting to follow along with you. I love that. I didn't know I was talking to a collector.
00:02:14
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I feel like all fluttery inside. That's so cool. I love that. Thank you, Krista.
00:02:20
Speaker
So I'd love to dive into like how you got started as an artist because I know that you have kind of a unique story where you started as a music major and then did you shift to fine art? Well, okay. So I took a gap year and had I gone to school without that gap year, I would be a musician today. Okay. So I'm a big proponent of like when you're a child, when you're 16, 17 years old, you might not know yourself. Right.
00:02:47
Speaker
But I was talking to a musician a couple of nights ago who was just absolutely incredible. Her name is Rose Hotel. She's just like getting this like wave of like early traction in her career and it's so cool to watch. Yeah. Talking about the similarities between like the heart of creatives. And I think like all creatives do this thing where we have
00:03:10
Speaker
emotions that we need to synthesize, ideas that we need to synthesize, and it might come out in music, it might come out in paintings, it might come out in poetry, it might be designs, it might be the perfect fonts that you can pair together, or maybe a combo of all of these things. As a multidisciplinary creative, you can really express yourself however you want to. I am a photographer now. I'm not really a photographer. I use camera on auto mode all the time.
00:03:36
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But there's just these things that you can try and you can express yourself in these new ways. So all of it's kind of from the same heart. So yes, I was going to be a music major. I am so glad that I'm not a music major because I am a Leo, but I despise performing.
00:03:51
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And I came up on stage and like performing violin or piano or whatever I was going to get into. I'm like having mini panic attacks. And I did it every weekend. It was my job for a bit during high school to be a performer at weddings and events. And every weekend I'm like, I hate this. I was like a stressed out mess.
00:04:11
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But why don't I just maybe choose something different to do with my life and see
Early Career Struggles and Breakthroughs
00:04:16
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what else is out there for me. So I worked for a graphic design studio. Okay. Loved that. And this is in your gap year? Yes. Okay. And I was doing things like they were also a printing shop. So they did design, printing, book finding, things like that, like kind of the full works.
00:04:30
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Okay, exactly. I mean, Adobe was around, I guess, but we weren't even using it. It was like pre Adobe, like it was like, we weren't quite cutting out letters like in the 60s.
00:04:44
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I learned a lot of skills. I learned a lot about printing. I learned a lot about design and layout and things like that. And I'm like, okay, I love this, but can I be more expressive with it because there was something in the artist in me, the musician in me that wanted to express. So I took a painting class. Loved it. I loved it. And I would just stay in my bedroom creating all the time and just
00:05:08
Speaker
making whole catalogs of work that no one ever saw and no one will ever see because that's okay. And then I went to school for art, graduated, had my first official art show and it went extremely well my senior year of college. I sold almost everything that I had made which was unheard of for like every senior has an art show. Okay. What I did was I was
00:05:32
Speaker
a little bit, like, I don't know if you can see this pattern of like, I'm just going to try to figure it out. Like, I like this, I'm going to try to do it. So I'm like, okay, if I want people to come to my art show to buy my paintings, maybe I should invite people to come to my art show. Like, I should send out invitations and like market this thing a little bit.
00:05:47
Speaker
And did no one else do that? Were you the only one that was doing that? They were doing it, but they were all scared. Okay. So I think I don't know what it was. Maybe it's having the Leo son in me. I'm a big astrology person. So maybe, maybe there's something in that tenacity that I'm like, I'm just going to do it. If they, if they don't come, whatever, I'm going to have a great time with my friends. I know they're going to come. My family will come.
00:06:08
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I would invite like, I would Google image search, like wealthy neighborhoods and just send invitations to all of them. Oh, wow. That is like so like forward thinking. I know. And I'm like, you know, I guess at that point, 21, so maybe I had some tenacity that was a bit more grounded. But so that went extremely well. Okay. I graduated during the recession. Okay. And an eight. And it was a really strange time to become an adult.
00:06:35
Speaker
I don't know. I graduated in 2010 so it was really similar. It was just weird. Like if you had a job you were lucky no matter what job it was. Yes. And prices were extremely high and you kind of learned
00:06:49
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to be thankful for what you have because people around you had nothing. And we had nothing, like I had nothing. But I don't know, it was just like I had a job, I worked at Banana Republic and I was thankful for it and I taught art and I was thankful for it. And then I got pregnant and had my first baby very soon after college. And having her recalibrated a lot of things inside of me, I feel like I kind of coasted into that part of my life. Like suddenly I was married and like,
00:07:17
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Working and like an adult and it just felt like whoa, what's what's happening? And then I'm having a baby at 22 and I'm like, what is happening? I'm so confused was this moment where I was like something matters outside of me and I need to recenter some things and I
00:07:37
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figure some things out in my life. So I was extremely sick while pregnant, which actually was a blessing in disguise because it made me quit most of my jobs. And during the recession, it meant we had absolutely zero money.
00:07:51
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Okay.
Daily Discipline: Emily's Art Revival Journey
00:07:52
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So your husband wasn't working at the time. He was working a few jobs. He worked at Starbucks and like retail style jobs. Okay. And we just made it. So I stayed home with her and then I found myself, she was such a good baby. I was just so bored. Like, honestly, I love you. This is so much fun. I love being a mother. This is great. But now I'm no longer dealing with morning sickness and you're such a good baby.
00:08:18
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And I also can't get a job because no job would pay me enough to make the math work to send her to daycare. It is expensive. Yeah, even with the degree and with all the varied skills I had had and I'm just an entrepreneur. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to figure this out. So I began my art career again at that phase and began doing a painting a day project and selling those paintings the day after I painted them.
00:08:41
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And i learned a lot about art production like how do you show up in the studio every single day and create work that you're proud of that is a skill artists have to learn and just like. Trusting yourself trusting your abilities trusting your aesthetic trusting that your hands and your eyes are going to communicate in a certain way and that you can depend on yourself i think.
00:09:02
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We sometimes shy away from having to learn that because it's scary. Because what if you can't depend on yourself? You can. You always do. Yeah. But it's hard to win that. Yeah. And I'm sure that like as an artist, too, I have like so many creatives just want to do things when they feel like it. And so I'm sure it took so much discipline for you to like show up and create even on days where like maybe you didn't feel super inspired. Exactly. Or if you have a cold or if
00:09:28
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You know having to blend in things like you know social life and also this creative project that I built into my work which I wouldn't recommend doing a painting a day necessarily but it was a really good job start to like okay how do I do this.
00:09:42
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So that kind of evolved and grew and shifted and then maybe like 10 years went by and I find myself being the one providing for my family with my art, which is like a gentle evolution. It wasn't like jumping from one to the other, but I think it was just a lot of like, again, can you depend on yourself? Can you trust your abilities? And in 2013, I was just painting and selling paintings and it was
00:10:12
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just this beautiful moment of being like, how much do I need to live and can my art supply that amount of money? And the answer is and was yes, like that's something that I think is...
00:10:26
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incredible to watch your creative work catch you like that. So that was very, very sweet. And now we're in 2024 and it's still going and it's shifted and evolved and my life has shifted and evolved in every single way. I now have two kids. I'm no longer married. It's just this beautiful like trusting yourself all along the way and trusting this process of
00:10:49
Speaker
Do I have the courage to lean on myself and to learn of my creativity? Do I have the courage to say yes to things that are beautiful and good and true, even if that looks like walking through a lot of risk or a lot of hard or a lot of
00:11:07
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change and a lot of like, you know, it's a brave thing to be a creative entrepreneur. Yeah. I mean, like hearing your story, I'm like, wow, you were not afraid of rejection. And I feel like as an entrepreneur, like that is something that I've had to wrestle with because it's just so, it would have been so easy for you to feel hurt if those like wealthy people that you invited to that first show or like, no, your work is not good and I'm not coming and I'm not buying it. But like you obviously had so much success and like you took that risk.
00:11:36
Speaker
I don't know that I'm not afraid of rejection because I'm still afraid of rejection. Yeah, I feel like we all are, but it seems like you have something in you that has been enabled you to just like maybe squash it more than maybe other people. I think it's like to me, the risk of not believing in myself hurts more than the risk of someone else not believing in me. Yeah, I think that's the only change is like I want to know that I will show up for me.
00:12:05
Speaker
And if someone else chooses to do that, I can't control anyone else's actions. I say that all the time to my students. I'm like, you can't make anyone buy your art. You can't ever make anyone book your services or book your retreats or anything like that. You're only in charge of honoring what's inside of you and bringing it to the world in a certain way. And I think that matters more to me than what they do with it. And it's still scary. Oh my God.
00:12:31
Speaker
But, you know, there's that inner congruence that I think we aren't taught to like to practice that. We're taught to follow the rules and do the things and follow the system. And as a creative, you're already going against all that because no one looks at you at fifth grade and says, you should be a graphic designer or you should be an artist. Like they're all like, no, you should be safe because that's a system.
00:12:55
Speaker
and so you're already going up against that. Why not just keep it going and honor yourself at every decision you come to? What is most congruent? What's most aligned? My new thing is learning to trust when pleasure guides my actions because I really think it's not even this hedonistic, what feels best, but it's the things that
00:13:18
Speaker
feel aligned, feel very good, even if they feel extremely hard. Like I have to do some stuff for my accountant this week. It feels good because it's the most like best true aligned, like it'll keep everything fitting properly together. Avoiding that even though it might feel better to like go frolic in the meadow, which you know, that sounds great.
00:13:42
Speaker
avoiding that doesn't actually feel good in the long run. So it's kind of like, what's the most aligned thing to do? Yeah, that's a really great point. And I love it like that concept. And I also love how one creative endeavor led to others. I feel like I really resonate with that. So I paint as a hobby just because when I had my first child, I felt like I needed to do something to get out of the house.
00:14:04
Speaker
And so I signed up for a painting class and I feel like I need a way to force myself to rest on the weekends. Otherwise I just like sucked into housekeeping and like all the paying bills and the things that I wasn't able to do during the work week. And so like, if I know I have an activity like painting,
00:14:20
Speaker
that helps me find that active rest. I love gardening and baking. And so I feel like when somebody asked me what my hobbies are, it's like all these creative things just like kind of come together. And so it seems like that was true for you. And I've seen that with a lot of creatives. Oh, yeah, it's so interesting when you have a creative job, how you also have to do creative rest like last night.
00:14:41
Speaker
Best dinner it was so good it could have inserted a restaurant i'm like that was so fun and i would never be a chef i would never be a cook i would never invent recipes and sell them like this is not my thing yeah it's just like let me express myself in this other way and also.
00:14:56
Speaker
We're talking to creatives in the room here. We can just acknowledge that we are so magical. Like there's something about being a creative where you suddenly problem solving becomes the normal way of thinking. And you're like, do I need to create a recipe or do I need to create a garden or do I need to create a beautiful scene in this mantle? Do I need to create the most beautiful website? Like you can shift how that comes out of your body and your brain because you're someone that has
00:15:25
Speaker
I always think you can't teach someone how to have a good aesthetic and teach them what to do with the tools that are available to make a good aesthetic. But as a creative, you already have that inbuilt personal aesthetic. Whether it's good or not, we all have different preferences and styles and that's fine. But we have the ability to problem solve and to create whatever that medium looks like. So we're kind of magical and we can kind of do whatever we want.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that when I'm cooking sometimes I'm like, I feel like this needs more balsamic vinegar and like that might not even be in the recipe. So it is like this a neat thing. Okay, so back to your like business career. Did you introduce Prince pretty early on? Because I know that that was probably something that really helped you to scale your business so much. So I yeah, let's kind of take it back 2013 was really, really pivotal because I had been
00:16:20
Speaker
painting and I began a blog prior to that. So that was kind of the foundation. But then I walked into 2013 suddenly being the sole breadwinner and suddenly being like, this is all on me.
00:16:31
Speaker
how do I
Building a Sustainable Art Business
00:16:32
Speaker
do this? I have at that point two little tiny children and no home and no money, like no, no, no money. And I'm like, okay, I can paint. That's all I can do here. Let's do this. So I began painting and I began selling this painting was really consistently like on a very strict schedule. And that was only because I needed financial safety. So I began building that in for myself, even as a painter, you can do that.
00:16:59
Speaker
I began taking commissions and I began offering prints in 2013. So those three things, I would call them open paintings where I just painted whatever I wanted and sold them on a schedule. And then commissions where someone else got to purchase a set work, they paid a down payment for it or a reservation fee. And down payment sounds like a ton of money. It wasn't that much money. And then offering prints was that passive income piece.
00:17:26
Speaker
not fully passive because I still had to like get them printed at a printer and then cut them and mail them. So it wasn't like totally passive, but at least I didn't have to engage that like fresh creativity in my brain and make something new. I could just keep using whatever you made and make more money on it, which I loved and I still love.
00:17:44
Speaker
I began weaving in other products in the next couple of years by 2015. So now I'm two years into being like, I would say a legit business owner. I was already doing it prior to that, but I took it very seriously from 2013 onward. And from then I
00:18:03
Speaker
woven products like t-shirts and expanded what I offered and expanded my collections and expanded like the body of work that I created. I began offering workshops and consultations and retreats. And these are for other artists, correct?
00:18:21
Speaker
Or are they for people who just love, like, love the aesthetic or that lifestyle? Back then, the consultations were for other artists. I would, you know, hop on the phone with an artist that was, you know, I could see potential and they booked me for an hour or two and we would just talk about their business. And the retreats were for anybody. People came in who, and that still is the case, they're not just for artists. And I love these retreats. They're so,
00:18:47
Speaker
like rejuvenating and inspiring. And just if you have a creative bone in your body and you just want to like let it out a little bit more and like strengthen it a bit, oh, they're perfect. But you don't have to be an artist. We have a lot of non-artists come into these retreats. And the workshops were either I would offer painting workshops or I would offer like business workshops. And those were kind of for either artists or non-artists also. So a little bit of diversity there as far as who I was serving, but I began serving other artists at that point too.
00:19:17
Speaker
And then that evolved by 2018, I can continue that model for a few years. And then by 2018, I offered my first mastermind to other artists that were like at a certain level in their career, they knew what they were doing. They were ready to make, you know, $100,000 a year. And just like, they were ready for this. They knew they had the bones in place. So then we could work with those and make them grow from there.
00:19:42
Speaker
And I noticed that we all have the same questions and everyone who came into that mastermind and everyone that I mentored or coached had really consistent questions. So I began noticing and taking notes and writing notes and just writing and writing and writing. And suddenly I realized that I have a full course on how to run a creative business. So as a 19, I created the course that I still run and love and it's changed a lot since then, but,
00:20:10
Speaker
Making artwork was born in 2019 and that course it used to be 12 weeks long. We condensed it. We didn't take anything out with just like
00:20:19
Speaker
made it fit into less time because 12 weeks is a long time to like be, you know, studying something. So now it's nine weeks with one little break week, which we're on this week. And it was just life-changing for myself for so many artists. I think we've had like 8,000 artists go through that course at this point. And it's just like, yeah, it's incredible. And the ripple effects of what that's done for the artist community in particular is so powerful because in that course,
00:20:49
Speaker
And like in everything that I teach really, I get to help artists learn that the things that they create can, like I've said it here, we can depend on them, that they are in you for a reason. They need to come out of you for a reason. And when they do, people want to see them. We're not creating things that are ugly or undesirable or offensive. We're creating things that are needed and meaningful and connecting. So letting that work have a space and letting it have a voice and knowing that your career can
00:21:18
Speaker
and wants to hold you and provide for you. Those are just things that I know sound very simple. When you begin living them, you're like, wait, is this true? And how do I do this? And there's just so many things that come up in that process of learning to trust yourself as an entrepreneur and as an artist, which I know you know is in this creative world. It's so like, we all feel this.
00:21:41
Speaker
And I feel like so many of us, especially like maybe being the age that we are, when we were growing up, there was this mentality that like artists didn't make money, and that that like wasn't a stable career. And like, even sometimes I think people look at me, and they think that I just have like a side hustle where I just bring in a few extra $1,000 for my family and like, my husband provides everything. I'm like, no, like, that's not it.
00:22:04
Speaker
And so I think it's so hard for people outside of the creative world to imagine that it could be something sustainable.
Debunking the Starving Artist Myth
00:22:10
Speaker
And like you said, that it's life giving, and that you can really scale it to something that supports a family long term. Yeah, it is culture shifting. And the idea of the starving artist is so prevalent. And the starving creative, the suffering creative, the like, I mean, the narratives that were handed are so bleak.
00:22:29
Speaker
like come on can't we look at like all of the I mean primarily in art history it's mostly men that succeeded which I think is also a shift to say like no you as a woman can succeed in this day and age and you as a take it one step further like you as a mother I have three kids like even with three kids my youngest is six years old I've grown up with them by my side I had my son when I was like the primary breadwinner and
00:22:54
Speaker
You can do it. They're not an inhibitor. And there's just so many things that you have access to now that are revolutionary for creatives. Like the ability to meet collectors around the globe because you have this little app on your phone that's free. And I know that it's, you know, Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest all have their like annoyances and all the time, but these are free tools that we use to connect globally. And like, that's incredible.
00:23:23
Speaker
And what you can do with that is so powerful. So I think it's just like, just take a moment to realize where we are in history and realize that we have unprecedented connection and control and the ability to create magnificent careers that never, like this has never been the case. Like even 20 years ago, 15 years ago, when I began my career, like even then it was limited compared to how it is now.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, it was like you couldn't live anywhere you wanted then. So like this online business world, like I know for us, it's allowed us to leave a different state and move to a less crowded area and run our business here. And we have other friends in this town who have don't work in this creative world. And they wanted to get coffee with me to figure out like, how do I get out of this job that just feels dead and I don't see my kids or I don't pick them up until five or six. And so I think especially being a mother, there's just so much more freedom and flexibility.
00:24:21
Speaker
It is a massive privilege. And I think it's also something that understanding the privilege of it also makes me want to work hard for it. Back to that tenacity piece or that fear of rejection piece. Another part of it is the fear of this not... Of having to figure out something else and having to work a different style job, that I would rather hear no 10 times a day and hear one yes than be like, okay, I'm just going to give up and change my life because you're right. I would have to work
00:24:52
Speaker
probably like maybe a remote nine to five because of like what kind of job would I even get? I don't even know. But the alternate reality is like I would have to work a more traditional corporate job and you know with co-parenting and things I want to be as accessible to my kids as possible. So now when they're with me I am fully with them which can be hard in the summer is because
00:25:15
Speaker
That's a lot of time. You are my one priority, which is such a privilege that I haven't even had my whole life. And now I've kind of built myself up to a place where I have a team that can help me and I can create when it feels most congruent and most in flow. And, you know, it's just a little bit of a very, very privileged place to get to work. So I think if you have that privilege or you have the hint of, of being able to step into that privilege, treat it like a privilege and love it and nurture it. And like,
00:25:45
Speaker
You don't take that for granted. I try not to at least. It's worth a little bit of fighting for. Yeah. So on this podcast, we talk a lot about marketing and I know that you mentioned a blog and you mentioned Instagram. Do you feel like there was a primary avenue that really helped you build your business the most?
00:26:04
Speaker
Cause I build websites for people and I think I have to convince quite a few people to start a blog and like the benefit of it. Even in like this day and age, I think a lot of people think like, Oh, I can just post stuff on Instagram. But like, do you feel like the blog was really helpful? Do you feel like that's still helpful? I'd love to know more about the marketing aspects that you did. Oh, first of all, the science that you build are so beautiful. Thank you. So, so like,
00:26:27
Speaker
thoughtful and fill editorial and feel like you can explore a thing so i love this. I okay so my evolution into marketing began before instagram so i have a bit of a dinosaur brain when it comes to marketing because i think of marketing is.
Marketing as Human Connection
00:26:43
Speaker
Humans wanting to connect human to human with entering the marketing game now you're hearing something a little bit different you're hearing things like.
00:26:52
Speaker
reach and engagement and audience growth and things that are just like, which the following is now dead. Like don't even worry about your following. It doesn't even matter anymore, which is just crazy. And that's a change that happened in the past like 18 months. But I think there's something really beautiful about being like, we are here to learn from each other. And especially in careers where if we're selling something meaningful,
00:27:15
Speaker
like anyone who's selling anything creative, it's something meaningful. You're not just going to flippantly buy one of our services or our products. We're not selling like erasers or socks unless we are, which is great. We're selling things that probably take a bit of consciousness and take a bit of like emotional connection. So if that's the case, then start where you can make that emotional connection most easily. And I think one thing that is massively overlooked is long form communication.
00:27:43
Speaker
I weave it into my Instagram. I write a little bit too much. Instagram is not a long form communication platform by any way. It used to be, but not anymore. Not even long form, but you could post a couple paragraphs and people would read it. And now I'm like, they're not even reading this, but whatever. So I think if you have something to say, first of all,
00:28:03
Speaker
If you are trying to bring people into your space and communicate with them and help them appreciate the things that you're creating, your long form communication is where that's going to happen. So the first thing that I help my students think about is like, what do you want to say? And can you trust your words? Can you trust that you have something to say? Can you begin journaling and writing and thinking and being like,
00:28:26
Speaker
This is such a cliche phrase, but can you be a thought leader along with a creative leader? Because even if you only write two words and you express your thoughts in this visual display, this feeling, this music, or this website, or this experience, that's you being a thought leader. That took a ton of thought to get to that point.
00:28:45
Speaker
And you have to bring someone down that thought path so clearly and with so much guidance, if they get distracted, they're going to leave. If they get turned off by something, they're going to leave. If they get confused, they're going to leave. So you have to keep all those things out of the way, which a website is a great example of this. Yeah. Because you have to just like keep that like actual physical scroll. It has to make sense. But think about that metaphor of like the website scroll that applies to all of your marketing.
00:29:15
Speaker
So where can you, where do you feel most comfortable having those long form conversations, whether it's like having a gallery show, that's a long form conversation that is marketing, or I love podcasting, I love like talking and sharing my ideas in this 30 to 60 minute like
00:29:35
Speaker
container where I can share, I mean, we've already shared infinitely more than anyone will ever read because that's just how people communicate and how we consume information. And you have your own podcast, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. Okay. We'll have to link to it in our show notes. Yeah, please do. It's called Do It for the Process. And it's definitely primarily talking to creatives that want to grow their business. And then I also share a bit about my process. The last episode that I created was just like,
00:30:01
Speaker
pleasure painting was kind of the theme of it. And I'm having so much fun painting again. And I wanted to share what that feels like and what I've learned. So there's a few podcasts like that. Okay, nearly it's like, okay, let's talk about marketing for creatives. Let's talk about web design for creatives. Let's talk about again, like all the different things that you can do once you know that you're a creative and it
00:30:19
Speaker
come out of you and whatever what needs to come out of you. But no, the blog is not dead. Podcasting is absolutely a beautiful and valid way to market. I would even say that I think of my website as marketing and it's my primary marketing tool because it's where if anyone finds me at random places like Pinterest or TikTok or Instagram or wherever, if I'm gathering them and I'm sending out my net and I'm gathering these little fishes to my place, they're coming to my site.
00:30:48
Speaker
So my website is my most important marketing tool. And from there, a blog could be a place that they're coming to. If they're coming to a certain article or a thing, they're coming to my site in that case. So giving them that place to sink in and be like, oh.
00:31:04
Speaker
This is a beautiful home and I want to snoop in every single room. Like you know when you walk into someone's home, we have this home design tour thing that happens in my town and it's like mid-century modern design week or whatever and you can go in people's homes and like and snoop and I love that because it's kind of this metaphor of like I get to walk into the foyer and now I get to just snoop in every room.
00:31:27
Speaker
This is so fun." I'm checking out their cabin entry and their fireplace design and all these things. That's what our site should feel like. If they come to your site as if it's coming into a blog post or coming to a linked thing, that's their first entry. Now, they make it so sexy and so like,
00:31:48
Speaker
Wait can I snoop in your like, guest bedroom? Can I snoop in your about page? Can I snoop in like, these things should feel like, yeah, come on in, come on in. You want to see in here. I know you did. Come on in. Yeah. That's my primary place that I try to really thoughtfully mark it. And I think it's so much fun.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think that when somebody gets your website, you want to have things to read and explore. Like you said, I've seen some creatives try to get away with a site that has like just images. And while that can be beautiful, like one, it's not great for search engines. And then two, there's not as much of your voice there. And you don't really get to know someone and there's not as much of a reason to stick around.
00:32:24
Speaker
Absolutely if somebody is interested in getting started as an artist do you have like a framework for how does somebody know when they're ready to start selling their art oh i do i actually had the most like i said we are magical beings as crazy.
00:32:42
Speaker
One of the most magical moments of my life was this weekend where I'd finished helping my mastermind. They had graduated. It's like a year-long program. I was beginning to create the course that I offer called Making Art Work. And in this interim,
00:32:58
Speaker
I had a framework or like it came out in the form of like a mini book pour out of my brain
Framework for Creative Entrepreneurship
00:33:04
Speaker
and body. I'm just like, oh my God, this makes sense. I figured it out. So it's called The Artist Path to Success. And it basically, it's so beautiful. It's free. You can go download it. This is one of the things that I created it like five years ago, six years ago. And it's like, I can't believe I did that. Like what? I did that. It's like, you know when you, I don't know,
00:33:26
Speaker
I'm not the most like woo woo person out there, but I'm maybe a little bit so and it kind of feels like I channeled this thing that was outside of me. I'm like,
00:33:36
Speaker
It's so good. It's so clear. It's so empathetic. It talks about each phase of the creative journey, like from just beginning to think, maybe I want to be an artist to what I would call the creative maven, which is where you're running a business similar to yours and mine, where it's multifaceted and you're creating a lot of different offers and you probably have a team at that point and you probably have like a lot of structure and stability in place. But the journey to get from
00:34:03
Speaker
Wait, do I want to like maybe start this thing or like, I don't know if I can call myself an artist yet. The journey from there to, you know, there, it's so consistently progressive. And I think that as artists, we don't want to hear that because we think that we're very unique and special and we are, you're all so unique and special. Don't hear me wrong.
00:34:22
Speaker
But the path of inner growth that we go through, it's fairly consistent. So we begin by saying, I am an artist. I create these things. And then putting them out into the world very bravely. It takes so much bravery at first because you're putting them out to people that, am I putting them out and sharing your work for the first time? You're publishing that blog post. You're creating a website. You're putting your work on Instagram. These things can feel scary and people that are seeing them are maybe your biggest critics because they love you the most.
00:34:52
Speaker
They're so critical. It can be exhausting when you're like, mom, I'm a painter now, or a college friend, I'm a painter now. That can feel so scary because they have put you in this box that you may not fit in, and you're saying, I actually don't fit in that box anymore.
00:35:10
Speaker
And I've gone through that in so many areas of life and it can feel, oh God, I just want to like, just stop looking at me for a minute. Let me just don't watch. I'm doing this thing now that we go from there. And then the steps to growing a business are relatively consistent between all kinds of creative businesses, all kinds of creative endeavors. Like the, what comes out of you might look very, very different, but what happens inside of you, it's so nice to know. I think that it's not abnormal.
00:35:37
Speaker
But the growth that we go through is you can track it. You can take that next step logically. So this book outlines those steps with a lot of empathy and understanding because I walked every one of them and I've watched my dearest friends walk these steps and I've watched people that I've gotten to mentor walk all these steps. So there's just a lot of clarity and understanding there.
00:35:58
Speaker
And in this book i also tell you like okay if you're here this is gonna be your next step and i might feel like a tiny little stretch but you can do this and here are resources here are books here are reasons why it's hard and your reasons why it's easy here you might want to look out for if you're getting hung up on fear of failure or of imposter syndrome or of.
00:36:18
Speaker
lack of success. One thing that happens in a lot of our careers is suddenly our friends can't be our supports anymore because they don't have the tools. They don't have the resources. They haven't done this themselves. They're working in different kinds of careers and they're your friends and they should be your friends. You don't need to lose those friends. You might need to weave in new people that are like, oh yeah, you're having low engagement on Instagram and that feels really hard. I know what that feels like. Let me talk this through with you.
00:36:44
Speaker
or, oh, hey, you're selling more prints than you expected and you don't know what to do with it. Do you need to hire someone? And this is hard. Let's talk about it. Like your friends may not know how to help you with that. So this book can come along as like a little bit of a resource and encouragement. But then having that community is just like, oh, it's a make or break it. I think if you have normalization of the success of creatives around you, that can be life or death to your creative career. I think that's really sweet.
00:37:14
Speaker
What you're creating in this podcast too, like this is like the tools that we need are just hearing other creatives speak. You're creating space for that just with this, which is beautiful. Okay. And this is a free book, right? That we can link to. I feel like you should publish this book like printed one day. That sounds like an amazing read. You like to have it printed. You do. Okay. You can purchase it printed, but the download is free. I want it to be like.
00:37:35
Speaker
I mean, we've already spread this thing so far and wide, you may have seen it in the world, but you can buy a printed copy if you want to hold it in your hand. I love it. It has like little circles that you can like check out your little bubbles. So it does have some things that feel very good to like mark your copy, but you can print it if you want to for free.
00:37:55
Speaker
So we realized that too with like the creative friendships and we had really good creative friends. They're the ones who convinced us to move where we live and other friends moved in next door. And it just felt like we got to a point where they understood what we were going through more than our other friends. And it's not that those weren't good friendships, but it is different when somebody understands like, oh, I created this thing and I'm putting it out in the world and I want to seek attraction and they just understand you on a different level.
00:38:22
Speaker
They understand when you say, hey, I can't come to this random thing on a Friday morning or Friday afternoon because I'm doing this thing. And they're like, oh yeah, I'll come bring you coffee. I'll sit with you while you put on this thing. No big deal. It's interesting to have friends that can meet different areas of your life. I love my non-creative friends. They're so delightful and funny. And honestly, they're so carefree.
00:38:43
Speaker
Which I just love. I'm like, just give me some of that juice every now and then. But what happens as you work in this career for long enough, suddenly all your friends become creative. And now I have two friends that work typical corporate jobs. And I'm like, what is that like? Do you like it? Is it fun for you? And they always say yes. So that's good. But most of my friends are creative now, which I'm fine with. Yeah.
00:39:08
Speaker
Okay, my last question, just because I don't want to take too much of your time. Do you feel like it's better for somebody to niche down within the art industry? Or do you think that like appealing to a broad variety is the better route? Hmm. Well,
00:39:23
Speaker
There are pros and cons to both. And I think that an artist like me, I have both niched down in that I am most known for my landscape paintings. That's kind of in making it work, I call this like understand your highest work. Your highest work is the thing that when people think of your brand, they think of that thing.
00:39:43
Speaker
So what is that thing? And it doesn't have to be the thing that you love most or that, I mean, I hope you do love it because it's going to be a really important part of your brand. Yeah. But it's that thing that like when people think of your work, that comes to mind right away. And then from there you can create like, I'm known for landscape paintings, but I create
00:40:03
Speaker
whatever I want to create. I don't limit myself at all. And I think that as an artist, in particular, a fine artist, if something's coming out of you, it's going to fit some inner aesthetic that belongs inside of you. And it's going to fit some inner alignment that belongs inside of you. So it will look consistent. A lot of artists come to me like, I'm painting whatever I want to paint. And now I'm painting like flowers and then cows and then portraits and like they're just painting whatever they feel like painting. And I'm like,
00:40:30
Speaker
That all looks like you, like it all. I see a similar aesthetic. I see a cross through. You're not, you know, shocking me with this. Sorry. Sorry. You're not that special. No, I'm kidding. Everyone's very special.
00:40:41
Speaker
But I do think there's something to be said for understanding what's marketable. But most of the time, if you're creating work that you enjoy, there is a market for it. Because if you enjoy it, someone else will also enjoy it. There are other types of creative businesses, though, where you're not necessarily trying to be marketable. You're trying to be, as an artist,
00:41:02
Speaker
This is kind of unique to the art and maybe like the music world, but you're trying to be culture shifting or awaken the culture in a certain way. And that's a different way of running a business because you're not trying to make mass sales. Like I'm in the business of selling a lot of art and selling it for a value that value is my art. So I'm more in the like, I want people to enjoy my work and buy my work.
00:41:24
Speaker
Some types of artists paint work that is here to awaken culture and not be purchased a lot of times. There's a painting that is so profound and it has the blood of people that have been killed in drug wars in their actual blood. They're not going to sell that.
00:41:45
Speaker
That is a piece that should be sold for a million dollars and it actually already has been. So that artist created something that was conceptual and awakened culture and it's not mass produced and it's not, you know, it's that different way of running a business. But most of the artists that I coach and mentor are in the other way where they're trying to create work that feels really good.
00:42:05
Speaker
in their bodies and someone else will also feel good looking at it. It's a different way of creating art. It's a different focus, a different lens to put on that process. So as far as niching down, I think for an artist, we already are niche down because everything is coming out of you.
00:42:22
Speaker
you are the niche. And then from there, create things that feel very aligned. And then don't distract yourself too much from what you should be doing. I think a lot of times when we watch, especially a business that's evolved a bit more than where you may be, again, on the artist path to success,
00:42:37
Speaker
If you're on phase two and you're trying to emulate someone who's a little bit further along, like phase four, who has five income streams and has products that fit all these different product categories, and you step into that, think, oh my God, I got to create so many things. Okay, I have to create candles and note cards and a course and a retreat and all these things.
00:42:59
Speaker
That is so distracting and so exhausting. Focus on what you need to focus on right now. Sit with where you are. Make that the most beautiful thing it can be. And then from there, as you feel led and as your inner compass aligns to that thing, then you can weave in something new, sustainably, thoughtfully, with profit margins, well in the black, like we are not suffering artists anymore. Then you can begin to diversify a little bit and try new things.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah. Cause somebody might order like a ton of candles or notebooks and they might not even know what people like of their art. And so they could be ordering the wrong products that are, like you said, going to put them in the red. Oh yeah. Whenever I weave in a new product that I'm not sure about, which I think I'm going to do this fall from trying some new things that I'm like, I'm ready to innovate. I'm ready to try some new things that excite me. It feels very much like the reawakening of my energy. Cause I've been pretty consistent for about six years.
00:43:58
Speaker
And now I know how to run this thing really well and it has really great profit margins and I know how to create my work and everything feels like, okay, this feels good.
00:44:06
Speaker
Now I can weave in something that feels a little bit risky, but I'm such a risk adverse person that I, which I know is surprising cause I'm like, Oh, we'll just send invites to everyone. But that doesn't feel risky to me. That feels like a good ratio of like yeses and nos that I'm working with, but I'm so risk adverse that I am not, I've never had any like credit for my business. I just got my first business credit card recently cause I'm like, okay, it's time to get some points.
00:44:34
Speaker
But I've never like had an investor or taken out a loan or anything from my business. I've grown like, can I sell this painting? Cool. Then I can buy two more canvases to sell two more paintings. And now I can buy canvases and now I can like, you know, just kind of snowball this financial growth. So what I do is I make sure that something that I'm doing, I still enjoy and I can maintain and I can sustain. And it has enough substantial profit margins that this new thing I can try. And if it fails, we're still good.
00:45:04
Speaker
Part of that's because I have a team of three people that I, you know, they depend on me. I have three children. You know, I don't want to sacrifice my life or my lifestyle for my business. Right. So there's a little bit of that, like weaving in of like financial safety that I'm always very conscious
Innovation Within Stability: Expanding Art Ventures
00:45:22
Speaker
of. But innovation is so much fun though. Just try something new. It's probably going to work out great.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being with me. I really enjoyed this conversation. I had thought we were going to talk more about like business-y aspects, but I really enjoyed all of the inspiration talk and just like talking about like the heart of a creative. So that was really fun for me. I mean, we can talk business, but I typically, God, they're so linked.
00:45:48
Speaker
They are so linked. You can't show up on Instagram unless you know why you're showing up and why it matters to you. And if it is you and then you can show up and it's easy.
00:45:59
Speaker
but they're so connected. And I think a lot of us skip past the inspiration and the congruence and the alignment piece. And that's where we enter into a lot of burnout and we enter into a lot of ego and a lot of like stepping into something where it's maybe it's not fully you and you don't know that because you don't even know who you are. And I'm like, let's start with that because that's where it really, really matters. If you can be you, yeah, you can love you and love your creative work.
00:46:27
Speaker
then marketing becomes so easy and showing up becomes delightful. Again, like back to that pleasure piece, it becomes pleasurable and you can do anything when it feels good. So let's do that.
00:46:39
Speaker
Okay, well, if somebody has not followed you or they don't know anything about you yet, other than listening to this, where can they find you? Click on social channels and your website and all the things. Okay. Emily Jeffords is where you find my art. Emily Jeffords Learn is where you find my course, my membership for artists.
00:46:59
Speaker
free resources, all the things like that. I'm on Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest at Emily underscore Jeffords. Okay. And those are my main places. And I believe your membership opens up again soon. We'll try to release this before it opens up. So do you want to tell people is this a membership for artists? Do you want to give your kind of like what it is?
00:47:20
Speaker
Okay. So that artist path to success that I talked about this membership is to guide people through that path. So it's designed for artists that know that they want to run a business, but they may not really be, you don't have to be far along. We have a lot of people that are in year one of trying to make this like a side hustle or make this their full-time thing for the first time. And it can feel so daunting and confusing to walk that path alone.
00:47:44
Speaker
So this is a resource that is the most affordable thing that I offer. It's $34 a month. It's very affordable. You can leave any time. Just join us for one month and change your life. That's fine. It's full of resources. There are hundreds of videos of me just being like, do you want to do wholesale? Here's how you do it. Do you want to make better Instagram reels? Here's how you do it. Do you want to avoid burnout? Let's talk about burnout. Like just a lot of different categories, a lot of different topics.
00:48:14
Speaker
And at the beginning, when you first join, you'll take an assessment that feels very fun. It's not like you're going back to college or high school, just to be like, hey, where are you? And who are you? And how can I get to know you? And how can I serve you better? And then I'll recommend some things for you to dive into first, because maybe you want to learn how to use Pinterest better, or maybe email market better, all these different kinds of topics that swirl around the creative act.
00:48:40
Speaker
So it's beautiful. The community in there is so generous and so sweet. They're all artists that are walking this exact same path with you. So they get it and they're here to answer questions and be a support and offer advice or perspective. And it's really, really precious.
00:48:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that's that built-in community that we talked about a little while ago, so that's awesome. Yeah, exactly, which can be really hard to find and sometimes easier to find online than it is locally. I hope you find local friends, of course, because meeting someone and sitting with someone and laughing with someone is just like
00:49:13
Speaker
life changing, but they can feel tricky to find your people in your space sometimes or in your location sometimes. So this is a really great, just you walk into the room and you're like, oh, people like us do things like this. People like us create artwork that we love and we want to grow our businesses. We want to share our work well. We're all kind of in the same playing field, which is just so neutralizing. Yeah, that is really cool. Well, thank you again for joining me. And yeah, I love this conversation. I love this. Thank you, Krista.
00:49:44
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Bransa Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianChrista.com.