So the first vulnerability hurdle, as we discussed last week, is creating the art itself to begin with, and all the things that go along with that.
The second hurdle is putting your art in front of others. Now within this obstacle there are many challenges. - here are some of them.
The first is getting over the embarrassment of letting other people see your work. We usually show our beginning offerings to friends and family, who do one of two things. They either praise it enthusiastically or pick it to pieces. Of course neither of these are very helpful to our fragile new artist. In fact friends and family can often totally undermine our confidence in our abilities. So I would suggest that you largely ignore what they have to say. A great response, if they make negative comments, is to say - “That’s an interesting point of view”. So the next step is to pluck up the courage, to put your work in a first group #exhibition This step is always very confronting for the fledgling artist. We don’t feel comfortable doing it - our vulnerability meter is going off the scale. We feel embarrassed and our “I’m not good enough” radar is blaring in our heads at full volume.
But when we see our work hanging with others, suddenly we do feel that there is a possibility “We’ll I might be able to become an artist. That’s not too bad after all!” If we can get our inner critics to be quite, we will feel a pride in our accomplishment and a bit of a thrill. The next #vulnerability will come at you as people come up to congratulate you and praise your accomplishment. This is where we feel shy and unless we are very confident in our selves and our work, the vulnerability monster will rear its head once again. This is where you want to focus on the pride you were feeling a few moments before. Thank them graciously and tell them something interesting about how you were inspired to paint that piece. People love to know the story behind your art. If they have. A similar story in their lives, they then connect emotionally to the piece and are far more likely to buy it.