I seem to be suffering a crisis of confidence at the moment, and it’s all been triggered by a kind act.  I received an email this morning from an acquaintance who likes my art and knows I’ve been yearning to make a sale. In it, she has offered me the opportunity to make use of some good open space in a public venue to host a personal ‘exhibition.’ Now, neither of us really knows how to stage an exhibition but that’s neither here nor there. What has happened though, is that now I’m plagued with a ton of self-doubt about how good my art is.

I know I’m a good decorative artist, and my landscapes have grown better and better. But am I good enough to invite people, even strangers, to come and see it? I am just struggling to believe that I am. It didn’t help that I was hearted by someone on Etsy who does similar paintings and I feel they blow mine out of the water! I also don’t think I have enough to do an ‘exhibition’ as I only have 12 paintings right now and they range in size from 5″x7″ to 24″x28″. To me, an exhibition should have a lot of paintings of larger size.

I also have no idea how to invite people to such an exhibition or how to display my art. Would I need to invest money I don’t have into a bunch of easels? This isn’t a place where I can hang things on the wall as the owners would kill me for putting nail holes in the walls! Frankly, I’m worried about self-sabotaging a good opportunity but I really feel frantic and scared at trying to do this.

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to approach this that they can share?

The Persistence of Memory (1931), Salvador Dali.

Well, going back to a 40+ hour work week last week really had a major impact on my art and crafts. I thought I was prepared for it, I really did, but I wasn’t prepared for it at all. Despite my best efforts, I have done very little painting, no sewing, and even went a day without any new original blog posts! As Pink Floyd sings, time is slipping into the future….

As being productive is very important to me, especially in light of the additional plans I’ve been working on, I really needed to whip my prioritization and time management up a notch. To begin with, I needed to determine what my priorities really are. Putting aside family (my children in particular), the priority of project-focused effort goes: Read More