Hello loves, how are we today?
Yesterday I finished a 12 week accelerator called the six figure artist. In this class, hosted by Lindsey Kirkendall, me & 10 other artists were put through a series of different tasks over the span of the 12 weeks where we were asked to reframe our thinking & belief systems about what it means to be an artist as a whole, how it’s possible to make money in the current independent artist economy, & what strengths we as artists/individuals bring to the table. In addition to that we were asked to put together an offer that we, as artists, could offer to the public that would add value to the world & help those who are walking the paths we have already trod. This accelerator is where the desire to share my object writing pieces came from, it’s also where past blogs such as Vulnerabilities & Rejection, Curiosity & Experience, Understanding Your Value, &, of course, Object Writing came from. This course also encouraged me to step out of my artistic & personal comfort zone; it got me to audition for a major musical, try on new live streaming platforms & ideas, & pushed me towards expression not hindered by the walls that I’ve built to hide being.
While many people in the course have gone through & are already out selling their respective offers mine is still a work in progress. You see in the group we narrowed down that the thing that makes me tick, the culmination, the shared thread amongst all of my many passions & hobbies, ADHD aside, is experience & curiosity. I am driven to try new things out of another of my defining words, consideration. I want to know how other people live, I want to experience their culture, their passions, I want to, as I’ve stated before, chisel away the marble encasing the man underneath. I think we as humans all do that to some extent, we use experience & curiosity to decide who we are because of the things that light us up, or as Lindsey puts it “flip our skirts up.” So I looked around at this idea of self discovery & wondered what I can do as a knowledge enthusiast to help others discover who they are.
My first offering came in the form of live performance. At the end of the day I am a lover of performing, it’s where I feel the most alive, on a stage. The idea modeled itself off of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” where in I would put on a concert & with the price of admission you would also get to experience some of my favorite things locally. From restaurants to distilleries/breweries/vineyard to shops that help fuel my many hobbies, the idea was a concert that was interactive & a little less formal. Think Sofar Sounds meets a craft fair/farmers market meets a restaurant pop-up shop meets a Q&A session. If this is an idea that “flips your skirt up” don’t worry, I’m in the process of planning one!
That exciting offering aside Lindsey & the group kept coming back to the feeling that I needed to be mentoring people, to offer my rather large knowledge & experience bank up to those who may feel a tad lost or disoriented. There in lies the second offer. The idea behind offer #2 is that I would spend five weeks with a group of individuals under my wing, prompting them to try new things, new ways of thinking, new paths, in the hope of helping them find which direction feels right for them in the next stage of their life. Originally the idea was to aim this at those who are switching from the high school world to that of the collegian. After a talk with my friend Miss Christine, whom I met through the group, they suggested that I bump my ideal participant up to those who are now exiting the college world. They stated that someone in their life had just graduated & was feeling entirely lost after spending the last 18 years of their life entirely entangled in the education system. I get it, I’ve been there, the other side of school is scary especially after we spend 82%-ish of our lives dedicated to it up til that point.
As I said above, the finalized version of this group offering is still a work in progress, but if you feel this is something you &/or someone you love could benefit from, I’d love to offer my assistance!
I truly wanted to just hop on here today & give a little insight into what I’ve been up to the last couple of months & why I’ve been posting the way that I have! Not sure what the next two weeks of posting will look like from me, as I’ll be in the UK, but you can bet there’ll be a travel blog or two to follow when it’s all said & done!
As always I hope you all have fantastic weekends! If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading, it means the world to me!
Much love to you all,
-C