Playing Ball in Running Water

or using mindfulness to see the flow in controlling the controllable while letting the uncontrollable float by.  Is that about as clear as mud? 

I’ve been caught in a long-running struggle to find a balance between studio time and marketing time, in the hope of feeling less overwhelmed by computer commitments.  There are so many interesting marketing possibilities out there on the web, it can be quite a job for a monkey mind like mine to track them all.

I attended a seminar recently on using social media to market your small business, co-hosted by Indie Business Blog and the Carolina Mixed Media Art Guild.  I have to admit that I didn’t feel any less overwhelmed after the seminar, but I definitely came away with an awareness of the importance of defining my targets.   Lisa Stewart gave a great talk about what she has learned in the process of building her successful business, and how she uses social media to keep a buzz going about her elegant products.  One of her exquisitely simple cats is shown at left.   Donna Maria Coles Johnson, the organizer of the event, has written a wonderful post called How to Defrag Your Social Networking Activities.

A few months ago, I had a terrific consultation with Marion Barnett, an artist and artists’ coach (whose work I proudly own and is pictured above, and whom I met through social media).  Marion helped me understand the necessity of clarifying goals and defining what it is I want to do and make.  Being able to state a simple “What I want” is so out of my range of experience, I’m still stewing over it months later.  I’m really looking forward to the publication of Marion’s book, Finding your Creative Focus, which is with her editor at the moment.

I’m so grateful to have access to all these inspirational women and their work!