Joshua Tree
I’ve spent the last week in Joshua Tree doing some sort of my own artist’s retreat, hanging out with friends in nature and doing some painting. It’s been pretty relaxing and I’ve been able to get quite a few things done.
What I’m working on
I’ve been working on a “botanical” watercolor painting of Northern California Seashells. Figuring out what shells to include and sketching them has been pretty easy and now I’m in the process of painting them.
I planned and sketched how I want to set up my booths at the two holiday markets I’ve been accepted to since they’re in different space sizes that I’ve done before. This helped me figure out what I still need to buy in terms of tables and other display items to make sure I have enough space to display my artwork.
Outputs
Since I’ve been in Joshua Tree for a while, I’ve been going on hikes and drives throughout the desert and it’s been very cool to be here.
That’s all for now. I’ll be flying back home next Wednesday and I think it’ll start becoming very busy!
Preparing for the holiday season
Even though it’s still the beginning of October, I’ve begun to seriously think about the holiday season and what I need to prepare. I would consider this my ~first~ holiday season as an artist even though I participated in one holiday fair last year. I think this year, I am putting most of my efforts into in-person events, but I will continue to try to sell my art via my website and market via Instagram.
What I’m working on
I applied to two more art fairs and have already heard back from one of them. I’ll be vending at the West Cliff Holiday Outdoor Market in Santa Cruz on Friday, November 25 and Saturday, November 26th from 10-4pm both days.
I’m preparing the 12”x16” paintings to be photographed for prints. I’ll be getting prints made for them to be available on my website and at the art fairs.
I’ve been painting these 4”x4” canvases that I’ve had since 2020. I’ve been inspired by an artist I follow, Brooke Cormier, who is doing a “Project Clearout” where she is painting all the canvases she has in her studio to clear out some space. I figured I should do the same thing, since I want to be painting larger paintings moving forward, but I have a bunch of smaller canvases.
I landed on creating a pegboard display that will sit in front of my table for smaller booth setups. I got all the materials and “built” it, which really consisted of minimal wood cutting and screwing things into place.
Inputs
I finished reading The Practice by Seth Godin. I find it pretty motivating and I think it’s a book that I’ll probably buy and refer to when I feel unmotivated.
Outputs
I just got back home in California earlier this week. I’ve been trying to get my art business things in order to be as prepared as I can for art fairs. I’m flying out to Joshua Tree tomorrow and will be spending two weeks there, so my October is mostly gone! I’m looking forward to hiking, sunrises and sunsets, and spending time with friends! Maybe I’ll have some nice sunrise and sunset paintings that come out of this trip.
Beginning of October
Since my last post, not much has happened, but I’ll still write something to keep up my blog post habit. I’ve been in NJ/PA for the past week and spending time with family. My general schedule has been thrown off with the time difference and spending my time differently than I do at home.
What I’m working on
I’ve been looking for additional holiday art/craft fairs in the Bay Area and will apply to a few more events that occur before the end of the year
I’ve been sketching seashells and planning on doing some watercolor paintings
I’ve been researching fair display setups to figure out how I’m going to display larger paintings and prints in non-overwhelming way
Inputs
Still reading The Practice by Seth Godin
Outputs
I’ve been seeing friends in the Philly area!
I’ll be back in California by next Tuesday and then I’m traveling to Joshua Tree with friends shortly after. I plan on varnishing my six oil paintings to get them ready to be photographed for prints upon my return of Joshua Tree so things are ready for the art fairs applied to. My October is pretty much dedicated to traveling!
End of September
I’m a few days late on my blog post because I flew out to the East Coast on Tuesday and it’s taken me a bit to get settled and into a new routine. I’m visiting family and attending a wedding during the next week and a half.
Since my last post, I realized that I was trying too hard to relax while maintaining some sort of working schedule and the two concepts were conflicting with each other and making me quite stressed about what I was supposed to be doing with my time. I decided that I wasn’t going to force myself to relax and instead work on aspects of my art business that are not just painting and creating art. Turns out, keeping busy makes me less stressed and anxious, but I already knew that. Trying to ‘relax’ doesn’t exactly work for me.
What I’m working on
I applied to two holiday art/craft fairs in the Oakland and Berkeley area. I was accepted to one in Oakland by the Oakland Cottage Industry on December 3rd, so Bay Area friends mark your calendars!
I think the six paintings I’ve been working on are done and they’re drying
Inputs
I finished reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
I’m still slowly reading The Practice by Seth Godin
Outputs
As mentioned, I flew to the East Coast on Tuesday and I’ll be hanging out with family for the next week.
Second week of self-employment
It’s been over a full week of self-employment and it’s been nice trying to figure out my schedule. I have painted every weekday and I am leaving my weekends open with not much scheduling.
What I’m working on
I painted six paintings so far, which are all mostly done. I have to remind myself that done is better than perfect and not constantly touch up/fix tiny things that I notice each time I look at the paintings. All six paintings have a misty/foggy atmosphere.
I’ve been thinking about painting oceanscapes with more color, which maybe will be the counterparts to the six paintings I already have.
Inputs
I’m still reading The Practice by Seth Godin and The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. I find them motivating and they’re helping me think about how I want to structure my days/weeks.
I’m still listening to Radical Candor by Kim Scott on audiobook
Outputs
I didn’t really do much in terms of outings/outputs this past week. Last week was mostly painting whatever I felt like and a lot of hanging out at home and resting.
Turning back to the five projects that I had set for myself this month (1. Paint “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection, 2. Plan and apply to 2022 fairs/events, 3. Plan and apply to 2023 fairs/events, 4. Write weekly blog, 5. Post on Instagram two times a week), I feel like I did a decent job addressing them. I decided not to do 1 and not let it haunt me. I started thinking about 2; I’ll do more research today to see if there are any events remaining this year that would be a good fit for me to apply. 3 can be part of next month’s goals. 4 I’ve been successfully accomplishing, I think it may be almost a habit. 5 I’ve also been successfully accomplishing but it’s less of a habit, so it’s going to stay on my project list for a while.
It’s also almost time to plan out my next quarter of projects since I only planned out the months in quarter three. I think this system is working for me decently well. Some initial thoughts include figuring out getting photographs and prints done for my recent paintings. I’m spending most of October traveling, and I’m thinking I’ll work on watercolor paintings since those are easy to travel around with.
First week of self-employment
My first week of self-employment has been going well! I cleaned up my studio space as well as my entire apartment over the weekend and have mostly stuck to the daily schedule I had set for myself back in July in preparation for my self-employment. It’s only been two working days since my last day at my data science job, but things have been very busy!
What I’m working on
I decided to not work on the “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection because I tried working on two of the paintings over the weekend and it was feeling like a chore and not fun. And that is not the point of the rest of this year and how I want to start out my full-time painter life. So that’s off the project list and instead I decided to paint a 12”x16” painting of a misty seascape and finished it and started another one. I think I’m going to keep doing these until I run out of motivation/inspiration or run out of canvases.
I’m also working on writing my artist statement and it’s just words on paper right now. Not much to say about it.
Inputs
I’m still reading The Practice by Seth Godin and The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.
I’m still listening to Radical Candor by Kim Scott on audiobook
Outputs
I went to a friend of a friend’s joint photography exhibition which was fun and I learned/re-learned photography/composition concepts at the talk they did at the exhibition
I started volunteering at a food pantry today. I packed produce and it was a nice brain off and repetitive activity. I’m planning on volunteering at a regular interval after I come back from all my traveling at the end of September through October.
That’s all for now. I’m still trying to figure out my schedule. I was worried that I would be a little aimless and not know what to do with myself after I left my job and end up wasting time trying to figure out what to do but that’s not the case! I think that I may be doing a little too much now, so we’ll see how things settle over time.
Beginning of September
It’s my last week of work at my data science job! It feels exciting and stressful, but mostly exciting. I’m also going to start sharing this blog with a wider audience of people I’ve worked with, and I’m hoping that many will enjoy reading my weekly updates and that some will leave me comments (I’ll respond!). I’m wondering if people will find it useful to get a weekly email reminder about my updates, so let me know! I initially thought it would be annoying/invasive to get a weekly email about my blog and I wanted this to be something that people chose to read on their own, but maybe it’s helpful to have an email reminder, so let me know your thoughts.
Also, for context/background on this blog and some ground rules, read through my first blog post Hello World.
Anyways, onto my weekly updates:
What I’m working on now:
In my planner, I had written out the following four projects for the month of September, which I had written out the first three back in July because I tried to plan out a quarter chunk of time (following the methods in Start Finishing by Charles Gilkey):
Paint “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection
Plan and apply to 2022 fairs/events
Plan and apply to 2023 fairs/events
Write weekly blog
Post on Instagram two times a week
The last two I added last week because I needed to make my social media goal SMART, and I’m not sure if writing my weekly blog has become a habit or a part of my regular schedule, so it’s still a project. Things that are projects turned habits/regular schedule include:
Exercising every week day
Working my data science job (which is going away soon)
I have some other habits that I’m trying to build like taking a morning walk and learning Chinese, but they’re not projects, so I don’t let them stress me out if they don’t happen. I’m sticking to a maximum of five projects at a time.
But what am I actually working on
I am telling myself that I am going to start painting this week and painting my oceanscapes for my “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection. No more hiding from it if I want the paintings to be done by the end of this month before I travel to the East Coast.
I started a list of Instagram post ideas so it’s easier for me to put something together without having to be stressed about it.
Inputs
I finally got a library card for the library in Santa Clara (I feel officially like a resident now) and borrowed The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, The Practice by Seth Godin, and The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. I finished The War of Art and just started the other two.
I also finished reading through Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod (can you tell that I’m procrastinating painting by reading?).
I started listening to Radical Candor by Kim Scott on audiobook and I think it’ll be my painting audiobook.
I started the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron again so I’m doing my morning pages as well.
Outputs
I rearranged my studio office to be just my studio! I opened up some space in the room and I’m planning on doing some finishing touches later this week, but I’m excited for the new setting. I needed the rearrangement to reset and it feels like a new space, which has felt motivating.
I spent a lot of time this holiday weekend with friends and it felt nice to have more social time.
I’m hoping by my next weekly update I’ll have painted and maybe share some progress pictures!
End of August
I am feeling like I’m finally back into the rhythm of things in terms of my schedule and habits that I have been working on since traveling, getting sick, and being on vacation. I’m back to my daily workout routine on weekdays and on my Tuesday blog posting schedule. I haven’t started painting again, but there’s no time constraint or logistical blocker for that. I haven’t painted in a few months and I’m struggling with starting it up again, but I know that I need to force myself to do it and everything will be fine. My weekly updates are:
What I’m working on now:
I would like to start painting again this week on the “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection of 6”x8” oil paintings I mentioned last week. Maybe I need to create more SMART goals around that to motivate myself further.
I’ve had a project titled “Instagram posts” on my list of projects for August, but it’s exactly not titled in the conducive way that Charles Gilkey describes in Start Finishing, so I definitely need to improve that. I guess a better title should be “Post on Instagram X times this month”. I have started posting more on Instagram the things I’ve been working on and I’m enjoying make Reels, which I didn’t think would happen. I’ll make a better project title and more SMART goals around this to help encourage me actually “finishing” this project and hopefully posting on social media will become more of a habit. It is “free” marketing, “free” cloud storage, and a good way for me to track the things that I’ve done.
Inputs
I finished reading Give and Take by Adam Grant. I’m still thinking about how I can implement/integrate what I’ve learned from it into my daily life and life as an artist. I think I have a decent idea of where I fall between giver, taker, and matcher styles across different situations/environments in my life. I also did take the short Give and Take Assessment on Grant’s website and scored 47% matcher, 40% giver, and 17% taker, which I think is fairly accurate. I love assessments and tests like this (ask me about my MBTI, Big 5, or Enneagram) and I love hearing what other people get (tell me what you score on the Give and Take Assessment!).
I renewed my loan of Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod and am still reading it.
I have two audiobooks on loan that would be great to start and listen to while I paint (I’m really trying to motivate myself here)
Outputs
I emailed the gallery owner in Pacifica and shared some photos of my work I thought would be a good fit for the gallery, so we’ll see what’ll happen. I will say that I am impressed with myself that I actually emailed them within a week instead of sitting on the task and then never doing it.
I’m also rounding out the last few days at my data science job. I’ve been in a lot of meetings and very deep into the process of transitioning work and knowledge and it feels like I’m outputting a lot (aka exerting a lot of energy). I’ve been meeting with many of my colleagues and it feels a little sad that I’m leaving, but the conversations are really nice and fun and they make me feel very excited about this next step that I’m taking!
Back from vacation
I’m still off schedule from what I had intended to be a weekly Tuesday posting cadence, but something is better than nothing. I went pretty “screenless” last week while my friend was visiting me, which was a nice change from staring at my phone/computer/etc. while I was sick the week before.
I’ve also made some progress on my goals! I finished my beaded embroidery collection including the 7th hoop and embroidering two other hoops! I feel like I’m starting to getting back into the swing of things after getting sick and my stay-cation, and I feel rested and re-charged to take on my art business projects.
I’m still working my desk job, but my last day is in less than three weeks! While I’m wrapping things up at my desk job, I’m planning on mostly focusing on creating and painting and less on the business aspects of being a full-time artist and business owner, because the creating part is more familiar to me and I don’t have to think as much. But I know that I’ll need to revisit and work on the business aspects of being a full-time artist. I’ve been using the Five Projects framework that Charles Gilkey talks about in his book Start Finishing and have been applying other frameworks he covers in his book to scheduling out my time in the big picture (quarter, month, week timeframes) and in the day to day timeframe. For this month, my remaining project is painting the “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection of 6”x8” oil paintings that I started back in probably 2020.
What I’m working on now:
I’m hoping to start painting again this week. Specifically, I am going to start up the “Sand, Sea, and Sky” collection of 6”x8” oil paintings that I started back in probably 2020. I have 2 paintings to finish and 3 paintings to start. My goal is to have this series of paintings finished by the end of September. I’ll be traveling at the end of September into the beginning of October, so it’s a nice goal to wrap up those paintings before my trip.
Inputs
I’m still reading Give and Take by Adam Grant.
In my e-library loans, I have Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod and the audiobook of Radical Candor by Kim Scott on loan right now that I would like to start and finish before they are due.
Outputs
My partner and I went up to Pacifica and Half Moon Bay this weekend and as we were walking around Pacifica, I visited a gallery. I talked to the owner and exchanged information with her and it may be an opportunity to display and sell my work on consignment at her gallery. I need to send her an email of my portfolio, which I should put on my to-do list for this week.
Stay healthy!
This week’s post is a little off schedule, but I’m still here! I tested positive for Covid late last week and I’ve spent all the time since then recovering! My partner and I got pretty sick, so we’ve needed to take time to rest. So in terms of progress towards my goals, things had to be put on hold. Also, my friend was able to switch her flights and she’s visiting next week, which I am greatly looking forward to!
What I’m working on right now:
My beaded embroidery collection: Still working on the 7th hoop. But I’m actively embroidering and I have hope that I’ll finish it by this weekend. I also need to finish up two other hoops in the collection, which I don’t think I’ll finish until after my friend’s trip.
Inputs
My library loan on the Big Leap expired, so I never finished it. I probably won’t try to borrow it again.
Give and Take by Adam Grant. I started this book months ago and got distracted. I’m hoping to pick it up again and finish it.
Outputs
My friend is visiting next week and I’m looking forward to spending time outdoors, especially after spending a week plus inside my apartment. We’re going to the coast and maybe do some hikes depending on how well I feel. We’ll also try to do some painting, drawing, and photography!
First week of August
Since last week, not much has changed, except that it’s a new month. I had hoped to start implementing some new habits this month, but I think it may be better and more successful to start with integrating them gradually and not specifically at the start of this month. I guess one habit I’m working on is being consistent with this blog on a weekly basis. So far, so good. Another habit I want to build into my life is a morning walk each day, which I haven’t been as intentional about. I’ll work on that more this week. Onto my weekly update:
What I’m working on right now:
My beaded embroidery collection: I’m still working on the 7th hoop and I’m aiming to finish it by the end of this week.
I have a collection of 6”x8” paintings of different perspectives of the beach that I’ve been working on and off for the past year that I want to finish. It’s probably going to take another month of on and off painting to finish and I’m hoping to finish painting all of them by the end of September.
Inputs
I started reading the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks and it may be a book that I won’t finish. I’m not finding any of the information/content to be new and I don’t like the writing.
Outputs
I just got back from Chicago after attending Lollapalooza on Sunday and I’m feeling quite worn. Which is probably why I don’t feel that motivated or optimistic about implementing new habits. I’m hoping after a few days, I’ll feel recharged!
I have a friend visiting me next week and I’m really looking forward to her arrival! We have many outdoor activities planned and we’re going to do some painting/drawing/photography together while she’s here!
Hello World
As many of you know, I am pivoting in my career from a public policy data scientist to becoming a full-time artist and business owner. Which is a giant shift in what I get to do for my work and how my day to day is structured. I am beyond excited about what I get to do in my day to day as an artist and business owner: creating art, traveling and looking for inspiration, organizing my inventory and supplies, sharing my artwork with others, the freedom to choose how I want to spend my days (mostly). However, I’m a bit nervous about the loss of structure that comes with being self-employed and pursuing a creative business: no more task lead or manager or team to report to and keep me accountable and many, many less meetings that force structure on my time. I know that I excel under tight deadlines, having structure, and feeling accountable to someone else besides myself. Also, what I really enjoyed in my corporate job has been the opportunities to meet and talk with my colleagues; providing and hearing status updates on tasks or projects, discussing next steps and new ideas, talking about career progression, and simply chatting about our lives. So, to help myself with some challenges that I foresee I will encounter as I pivot into a full time artist running a creative business, I figured maintaining a blog will help me stay motivated and accountable.
As I see it now, the purpose of this blog is for me to provide my family, friends, and close colleagues updated on how my pivot (what I am going to consider a big experiment) is going to keep me motivated and accountable. Also, I’ve found that most of my friends and family do not use social media (I think a selection bias based on my personal preferences), so I thought this would be a great way to keep them up-to-date. I’ll talk about topics that I would discuss on 1 on 1s and check-in meetings: status updates on what I’m working on, progress I’ve made towards career goals, what I have coming up in the future, blockers to my progress, etc. I’ll also include some more personal things like what books I’m reading or general life updates that might not be related to my art. I’ll probably also ask for advice and guidance, and I’ve enabled the comment feature to my blog posts, so anyone can comment and share your thoughts. A rule about comments though: be nice. Also, because I don’t really like oversharing with strangers, this blog will be private and password protected. So if you’re reading this, it means that I’ve personally given you the link to the blog and the password because I feel comfortable sharing this level of information with you and want to stay connected with you. This is implied, but let me be explicit: Please don’t share my blog with others. There may be a moment in time where I will feel comfortable sharing this with a broader audience of people I don’t know, but that moment is not now. If you do want to share my artwork and progress with your friends and family (which I would really appreciate if you did), you can always show them my Instagram account (@margaret.luo.art), my TikTok (@margaret.luo.art), or my general website link (margaretluoart.com) and they can sign up for emails. I’m also hoping that, by keeping this blog private to those I have directly shared it with, you’ll feel encouraged and comfortable to comment on my posts, using your first name, so I know who’s talking to me. That all being said, this is going to be a casual blogging effort. So expect typos, bad grammar, bad English, and stream of consciousness typing. My plan right now is to write a blog post once a week, but I’ll revisit this schedule depending on what I think is working for me and my business.
So onto the first weekly update, which will probably also change format over time as I figure out what works best for me.
What I’m working on right now:
A collection of beaded embroidery hoops. I’ve just started on the 7th hoop out of 7 of the collection. I still have to embroider 2 hoops that I only put beads and shells on. I’m hoping to be done with all 7 hoops by the end of this week, but being realistic, they probably won’t be finished until another week.
Inputs
I just finished listening to Atomic Habits by James Clear
I’m about to read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
Outings
I’m going to Chicago Friday - Monday and attending Lollapalooza on Sunday and I’m very excited
That’s all for now. I’ll be back in a week for another update!