If you've been following the blog this year, you will likely remember that I won a position in Jennifer Lee's Right Brain Business Plan eCourse hosted by Kiala Givehand. I posted my progress with that and the subsequent video challenge here on the blog.
Since launching the Living With Arachnoiditis: Art, Adaptability, and Empowerment project, I have been following the 2014 RBBP Video Summit and decided to apply for the scholarship for the mentoring and networking opportunities available with the Premium Pass.
Application Q&A
Tell us a little bit
about your business in two sentences.
What is next for your
business? What are you super excited about?
The main goal at my studio has always been to become a
self-sustaining studio which increases my own personal independence while improving my
quality of life. It is important to me to create art which has a resonant
purpose for the patron. Now that my
studio is established, I am excited, and a little terrified, to be expanding my
reach beyond the boundaries of my
local community.
What are you currently doing to move toward
that vision? (Every little step counts. Keep in mind that I'm very interested
in this answer as it lets me know that you're already taking the initiative to
make your big vision real.)
I completed the
Entrepreneurial Assistance Program and very Left Brain business plan at my
local community action agency in 2010. I then purchased my own live/work studio
space to allow reasonable accommodations for a new permanent disability. Later
my business plan won a small business grant from vocational rehabilitation
services. With their assistance, I started my business in 2011.I began
following RBBP in 2012. I have recently completed the RBBP eCourse and posted
progress and reflections on my blog throughout that process. I have a small
following on my studio website (2010), blog(2009), and Facebook page.
In 2013 I became
the artist for the annual Great Wellsville Balloon Rally. My conceptual drawing
for the painting, Safe Landing, was selected by the committee to be the painting
on all of the T-shirts and posters for that July 2013 event. I joined the
Allegany Artisan Studio tours and opened my doors to the public in October
2013.
Having achieved
all of my vocational rehabilitation goals, I wasn’t really sure where I wanted
to go from there.
I began 2014 by
doing the Root 30 Day Journal Project with Lisa Sonora Beam. This progress
generated my daily blog post about portions of the process and increased my
blog following. Working through this also helped me get back in touch with the
things that were truly important to me about having my own studio.
This year I
completed the 15 day Zero to Hero video challenge with Holly Sugrue to help me
reach my “getting the word out” goals during the RBBP eCourse. This increased
my following on Youtube. As the e-Course was coming to a close, I began to
expand my use of Pinterest and Google +.
[I also have accounts on Manta, LinkedIn, and Tumbler but do not use them as
often. Like many other businesses, I am working toward moving away from reliance
on Facebook.]
With the clarity
that came with working through the eCourse, I planned and decided to launch a
very large project called Living With Arachnoditis: An Art, Adaptability, andEmpowerment Project to benefit fellow spinal adhesive arachnoiditis survivors
and increase Awareness and Prevention efforts for this little known condition.
After the initial launch of this four-component project on my website and
facebook page, I also began my first crowdfunding campaign on AIM|hatchfund to
raise the money needed for the travel portion of the conceptual portrait series
of this project.
My studio is an
established for-profit business. Campaigning via Hatchfund gave me the option
to provide donors/sponsors/benefactors with a tax deductible method to support this
project.
What is stopping you?
Although money is always
an obstacle that I must find a way to work around, my biggest struggle is re-developing
a network. A community of support, “followers,” and patron lists will not grow at a satisfactory rate under
my current isolated circumstances. Although I am working on this issue daily,
there are significant limits to my own personal reach.
What have been your biggest take aways so
far from the summit?
The most important
take-away for me has to do with remembering self-care. Without attentiveness to
self-care, any discussion about business goals becomes a moot point. My
business and my life will literally fall apart if I do not pay attention to
what my body tells me to do. I have always been a very driven person. It is
easy, and hazardous, for me to fall back into old habits of over-doing it. I am
absorbing the tips on ways to incorporate this important topic INTO the big
vision.
Next in line is
the message about self-image. Having the courage to put your true self out
there for public consumption is a huge leap of faith. My own personal struggle
to accept the “me” I have to be now, has, at times, gotten in the way of doing
that. The RBBP creative cohorts are truly helping me to move beyond that frame
of mind.
How do you think the premium pass will help
you move forward and how do you plan to make the most of it?
In 2013 I
completed my vocational rehabilitation goals. I had reached the limits of the
services that they could provide. I believe the continued support of a creative
network of like-minded individuals will keep the momentum going for me. The
knowledge and experience available at RBBP truly has the potential to fill in
the gaps that are causing my business to stagnate at this phase of development.
Exchanging knowledge and ideas with a trusted group of courageous people (who
really understand how easy it is to get in your own way) is a crucial resource in both the planning and implementation process.
