RIGHT BRAIN LEFT BRAIN

As you may know, we have two hemispheres in our brain, one on each side.  Studies show that each hemisphere is responsible for controlling specific functions of the brain.

Right Brain Business Plan workshop June 7-8
http://www.ArtistKaren.com

The Left Brain is where we live most of the time.  It is the logical side of the brain.  It is the side of the brain that lets us use language to communicate–reading, writing and speaking are all left brain functions.  It is the part of our brain that creates a structure for our lives, a sequence to our days.  Our left brain analyzes things and notices the details.  With our left brain, we process data and numbers. Telling time is done on the left side of our brain.

Creativity is what dominates the right side of our brains.  It is home to our imaginations, dreams and emotions.  Using the right side of our brain, we solve problems, invent new solutions and follow our intuition.  And it is timeless.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/66480764″>Right Brain-Left Brain</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user18123191″>Karen Friedland</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

While both sides of our brain are quite necessary and work together, many people have one side that dominates the other.  We can sometimes experience the shift from one side to the other.  Let’s say you want to listen to music.  Your left brain picks the song from your playlist.  But when the music plays and you start grooving, your right brain has taken over.

Betty Edwards, in her book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” talks about experiencing the left brain-right brain shift.  She has the student, slowly and carefully, copy a drawing of a person but upside down.  As the student works, they focus on the shape, intersection and form of the lines and time just drifts away.  This total focus and timeless feeling is the shift to the right brain from the left.

I tend to have strengths on both sides of my brain, having a Masters degree in Business Administration, in addition to my

being an artist.  That is why I became so excited when I discovered the Right Brain Business Plan and decided to become a licensed facilitator.

 

I am offering a 1-1/2 day Right Brain Business Plan workshop in Brooklyn on June 7 & 8, Friday night 7-9:45PM and Saturday all day 9AM-4:45PM. 

By the end of this workshop, you will have learned how to:

Clarify your business values and vision                                              Paint a picture of your business landscape                                     Determine what products and services you’ll offer                Understand your competition, and what makes you stand out from the crowd                                                                                                Identify who your perfect customers are and how you’ll reach them    Set and manage money goals that honor your values and align with your life                                                                                                        Select your circle of support to help you get the work done                Map out concrete action steps to bring your Right-Brain Business Plan® to life

Your business will take flight with the Right Brain Business Plan workshop!

If you are a creative person looking to make sales of your work, a healing practitioner (psychologist, acupuncturist, reiki master, nutritionist, etc.) or solopeneur, this workshop will use your right brain creativity to master your left brain business!  Register or read more about it on my website: www.ArtistKaren.com, click the Right Brain Business Plan button.  If you sign up by May 24th, you get $50 off!  Plus-register with a friend for another 10% off!

Figuring Out How To Get It Out There

As most professional artists know, there is a big difference between making the art and getting it out into the world.  And as most of us have experienced while studying our craft– whether it is visual arts, music, dancing, yoga, psychology, acupuncture or any heart-centered endeavor– we learned what we are passionate about, but nothing about how to get it to others.

I went to graduate school and received an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) to unravel the mysteries of business.  But when I became an artist, my education became difficult to apply to my art business.  When I found the Right Brain Business Plan®, I found a new way into the business of art.  It is such a fabulous approach that I have become a licensed facilitator.

I am excited to invite you to my first Right Brain Business Plan workshop in Brooklyn on June 7th & 8th, Friday night 7-9:45PM and Saturday all day 9AM-4:45PM.  Let me invite you in person.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/65472142″>Right Brain Business Plan Workshop Announcement</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user18123191″>Karen Friedland</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

This intensive and fun program was created by Jennifer Lee, author of the bestselling book The Right-Brain Business Plan. The workshop will guide you through a visual, creative, and accessible process to clarify your business vision, goals, and actions steps. You’ll even make it through the traditional (a.k.a. “intimidating”) parts of the plan like competitive analysis, marketing, and finances in a way that’s creative, inspiring, engaging, and expressive (just like YOU!).

This could be the perfect summer project to get you set up for a stellar second half of the year: Sign-up here! www.ArtistKaren.com

Jumpstart your plan with me on June 7th. Isn’t it time you finally got your business plan done? And why not have fun while you’re at it!

Register now at my website, space is limited: www.ArtistKaren.com

A LOVE LETTER TO MY CUSTOMERS

A LOVE LETTER

To my dear customers,

I want you to know how much it means to me that you have my art in your home.

I know that your home is a very important place to you, that it is your sanctuary and also the place that most reflects who you are. It is an environment you’ve lovingly created to be your place of comfort and refuge.  It is a way that guests in your home get to know another facet of who you are.

Our homes give us a way to express our creativity in a very personal way, to bring beauty into our lives, to have a place that reflects who we are in a very personal way.  We are aware that people make assumptions about us based on what our home looks like.

When you bring my artwork into your home, it infuses your space with color.  It adds vibrancy and energy.  I trust it gives you a sense of satisfaction and pleasure each time you look at it.  Living with the artwork, it becomes part of your personal landscape.  I know we are all proud of the beauty in our homes– it greets visitors upon entering, and you’ll experience that pride having this original painting or fine art print, elegantly framed, each time you share it with others.

It thrills me that I have to opportunity to share my passions: travel, color, interiors, elephants, among others, with you so I can communicate the movement, compassion and energy that I see in the world around me.  My non-objective works reflect the city’s excitement and cacophony, calming and structuring it so it can be  enjoyed without being overwhelming.  In all my work, the purity of pigment and gesture express depths that will keep you visually involved and satisfied for many years.

I thank you for sharing this place of honor – your home – with my art and, by extension, with me.  It is a special way you let me be part of your life and I hope my work will continue to bring you joy and satisfaction for years to come.

With deep affection,

Karen

“The Wedding” pastel. Original in the collection of Leslie and David Dasher. Signed and numbered giclee prints on paper available in three sizes. Please contact: karenart99@yahoo.com to purchase.

INTUITION

I had been reading lately about “intuitive painting” and wasn’t quite sure what it was, so I did what we all do nowadays, I googled it.  I found a long list of artists who said that their artwork was intuitive but it seemed to me that maybe they had bad intuition because most of their work was not particularly good.  One of the artists, Flora Bowley, has written a book about intuitive painting and, after watching her video, I became inspired.

My approach was to take myself completely away from the familiar.  I started with a pristine white canvas, 36 inches square, a size I had never used.  It was exciting to work that large but all that white was a bit intimidating.  Starting with a brand new color to me–vat orange–added another charge.  Without much thought, I took that tube of paint and squeezed a thick blob of orange onto that white expanse.  The thrill of that move was like a kid who knew-just knew- that this was something not allowed, that I certainly would be punished for it!  To compound my infraction, now that I had embarked on a trip of no return, I took a credit card and smeared that orange blob into place.

“Intuit Orange” 36″ x 36″ acrylic on stretched canvas, unframed

I continued painting with joy, in that timeless zone where the color, shapes and texture all take over.  Each time I added another piece, it was in reaction to what I had done before.  I painted 98% of that painting in one go with one small but critical area not resolved.  Costing me hours of sleep as I tried to decide what to do with that central piece.  Once I had left the zone of my timeless “intuition,” it was so difficult to capture the same aura to resolve the painting.  I feel I have resolved it successfully and that it fits together seamlessly.  Do you think I might have been better to stop after that “intuitive” session?

I posed the question of intuition and how it operates in our lives to a group of women at a dinner last week.  There was a lot of discussion about making decisions based on “the gut” and whether this was really the full integration of a lifetime’s experience and education.  I also strove to make a distinction between a gut reaction and true intuition.  My friend, Coco, came up with what I think was the definitive distinction between intuition and listening to your gut.  When you respond to your gut, that is responding to external stimulus.  In trusting your intuition, you are following an internal instinct.

These definitions made the most sense to me.  I am unsure, however, whether my painting came from my gut or my intuition.  I’m not sure it matters.

What do you think–gut or intuition, or something else?

BUSY, Busy, busy

An artist’s life can be mighty busy and mine has been particularly so of late.  I finished two paintings I have been working on–one representational and the other a totally non-objective intuitive painting.

“Ristorante” 24″ x 18″ acrylic on stretched canvas

Doing both at the same time made me feel a bit schizophrenic but the representational painting has a mysterious aura, so it too is a leap forward.  I shared these works with the members of my artist coaching group, Artist Conference Network when we met at my house yesterday.

After two weeks spent on cleaning and organizing my basement to turn it into a teaching studio (including removing 14 cartons of books), it was finally ready for my students in the adult painting class.  I loved looking at the space, clean, empty and orderly, with new work stations, individual lighting, new stools.  I even hoped it would never change, at least until my students arrived.  We spent two hours exploring color, creating personal color non-wheels, each person inventing their own unique take on primaries, secondary and tertiary colors.

My teaching studio was no longer pristine.  It was alive, filled with creative energy and COLOR.  Exploring color with my students reminded me of the pure joy of color, unembellished, just being its beautiful self.  The studio is greatly improved!

My other new development is that I have signed on to become a licensed facilitator for the Right Brain Business Plan.  This is a way for creative people, like artists, alternative healers, therapists, designers, restauranteurs, solo-penuers, consultants, to create a business model and plan for themselves without wanting to run for the hills.  All the creativity and ingenuity that you used to create your career is then applied to help you find your vision, create your goals and plan, and break it into actionable tasks so you can be successful.  Plus it’s a really fun process!

I’ve decided to make a video diary of my developing as a facilitator, so here it is:
I hope you will travel with me on this journey and I promise I will get better at the videos!  So how’s this for multi-tasking?  What kinds of things do you multi-task with?

ART CLASSES

I’d love to have you join me for a class if you’re in New york!

ANOTHER NEW YEAR – THREE LITTLE WORDS

Here we are at the beginning of a new year and I want to wish all of you a healthy and happy one.

This is the time of year that I take some time to assess where I am at and where I want to go in the coming year and forward.  Being very lucky to be part of a great coaching organization, Artists Conference Network, I already have a great framework to help me structure my goals.

But I need to do the work of figuring out what it is I really want.  Part of that is looking back to see where I am and to appreciate what I have accomplished.  I find that is an especially important exercise because artists and those who are self employed don’t have the same benchmarks that those in big organizations have.  Artists don’t usually look at their work as those with a production line, nor do they have clients who they are trying to please.  Not one of us has a boss who will pat us on the back and say “job well done.”

So the first thing I do is review all I have accomplished the past year.  Happily, it is always more than I’ve thought I’d done.

The next task is in a less tangible area.  I ask myself  ”what do I want?”  It helps to have my accomplishments in front of me.  I can see what I’ve done and the direction in which it moves me.  I’m also able to see what I haven’t done. These are the things I have avoided doing, probably because I didn’t want to do them anyhow.

Once I honestly determine what I want, not what I think I should do, I ask what I can do to achieve it.  There are a variety of answers to that question and I list as many as I can think of.  As subsets, I list the tasks that need to be done to make that happen.

Refections–appropriate for the way I’ve been feeling the last couple of days.

From there, I pick what I want to pursue and proceed to structure goals, assignments and timeframes.

The most important part of making this a creative tool is to open one’s mind.  Let yourself roam to the edges of your world and beyond.  The dreams of childhood inspire; seeing yourself soar limitlessly will charge you up and give you the electric power to accomplish.

I believe that seeing the global picture is what is necessary to take your vision to reality.  Reading a blogpost by Chris Brogan, he talks about his three words for 2013.  Picking three words truly is a powerful exercise.  They are three words about what you want to actively change or improve in the coming year.  I’m still working on mine.  I’ll share them next post.  What are your three words?

HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS

This month has been quite busy. I had the opportunity to share my work with others at two studio shows, as well as two weekends of the Flatbush Artists’ Park Slope Salon.

For these events I created a number of gift items including jewelry, notecards, magnets and mini-journals.  These were art pieces in themselves as I created various hand painted paste papers to use for covers to the accordion-fold blank books.  Work of the heart, I loved both the art and craft of them.  My buyers were not so taken with them but some friends were when I gifted them.  There was joy in the making.  This is the way I feel about about my work overall, that it brings me joy and satisfaction.  Not that it is without hard work and challenges; in fact, the challenges and what I invent to meet them, is what keeps me inspired.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, as I did.  Mine was filled with visits from my sister and then my kids, with whom the time always goes too fast.  We spent time with dear friends, who are really extended family.  It has been a time filled with love.  I am blessed.

With all these other activities, I have spent little time in the studio.  As the year grows to a close, there are things I want to accomplish before embarking on a new year.

1)  I will straighten up the studio.  That way, I can set off on new art-ventures (my new word for “art adventures”)  in an organized way.

2)  I will finish any loose ends that have been hanging.  To start the new year with those old, unfinished projects hanging over me would be disheartening,  Things that keep recurring on my “to do” list will either be completed or stricken off completely.  If they haven’t gotten done yet, perhaps they needn’t be there at all.

3)  I will thank those who make my work possible: my clients, suppliers, students, Brooklyn Arts Council, cooperating teachers and those who believe in me, especially my husband, Gary Zelko.

Then I will be complete.  I will celebrate the arrival of the new year with dear friends and watch the fireworks over Prospect Park at midnight.

After that, I will make plans for the art-ventures in both the business of creating and business creativity.

So, thank you reader friends, for hearing my voice and sending your thoughts and love. Wishing you a new year of health and beauty, adventure and pleasure, happy challenges that take you to your best self and love and peace.

See you next year!

YOU’RE INVITED THIS SATURDAY!

You are invited!  With the busy season, a number of people couldn’t make it to my open house last weekend, so I’ve decided to reprise it this Saturday, 11:30-4PM.  

 

I’ve been busy making all sorts of art gift items– hand painted and handmade mini journals and books, jewelry, notecards, art magnets.  Plus I have quite a lot of new art that I’m showing for the first time!  Can’t wait to have you see it and hear what you think!

 

Feel free to bring a friend.  Come by and peruse the wares over a glass of wine!

 

 

EXPERIMENTING

I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation lately.  In fact, for the last several months, my work has been undergoing a transition.  Now, experimentation is good because it stretches your mind, your capacity and your capabilities.  It opens creative channels that did not exist before and may send you exploring whole new avenues of creation.  Of course, inherent in any experiment is the possibility that what you are doing may not work or that it will be something will turn out in a way that is wholly unexpected.  I have been experimenting with a number of techniques, not all of which come out wonderfully.  But we all know that sometimes we learn more from what does not work than what does.

It’s not hard to find new techniques; there are lots of books demonstrating how to use some material for art in an unconventional way.  I have pored over books by Patty Brady like this one, “Rethinking Acrylic” .  I took inspiration from Lisa Cyr’s “Art Revolution” and had lots of fun with suggestions from “Surface Treatment Workshop” by Duran-Wilson & McElroy.  Just can’t wait to try their shaving cream paint technique!

“Ghost of Love Lost” 8″ x 8″ acrylic/multi media $150-

With a sense of exploration, I embarked on the small (8″ x 8″) gem, “Ghost of Love Lost.”  It was an adventure in process.  I began by adding texture to the canvas, troweling and stamping into it, then covered the canvas in aluminum foil, conforming to the textures below.  Many layers of acrylic paint went on before I collaged the transfer that I created of the “ghost.”  I stamped a letter onto paper that I tinted and then burned the edges.  I applied acrylic “skins”, collaged the heart, tinted rice paper and the rose that I painted and cut out.  This “spooky jewel” (still in my Dia de los Muertos mood) is power-packed with original approaches.

Does knowing how it was made interest you?