Mark E Shellshear.

  Dear Artists and friends. I just wanted to take a few moments to thank you all for the great support that you have given me this past year, allowing me into your lives and studios, hopefully some have been helped and encouraged as you navigate this Art Business we are in. 2021 is upon us and it is time for us all to write out our goals for next and begin to plan the life we want. Over early breakfast this morning with a dear friend he asked me to say one word for next year and what I wanted to bring to that year, to my own life and to those Artists and friends who read what I write and hear what I say. My word for next year is " value". I want to add value to my own life and to all those who read my posts and to all those I come into contact with in the Gallery and my talks. Value, because when we bring value to the market place the market place responds to that, that is what you get paid for, the value you bring into play. We can bring value into the life ...

Pessimism, the deadly disease of always seeing what's wrong and finding faults. This disease causes people not to look for virtue and good, but to find faults. Our lives are mostly affected by the way we think things are, not the way they really are. Poor thinking habits, keeps most people poor. As you think, so you become. Beware of pessimism in 2016 [ and 2021], the way to defeat this disease is to look for the good in others, give praise where it is deserved and don't find fault, but train, educate and build lasting value into the people around you and you will become valuable to them. Finding fault is easy to do, no value in that. Building lives is harder to do but it produces great value. Lets make 2016 [and 2021] a year of value. [  Blog from 30 th  December 2015. ]

If you are trying to build an Art career, then sales to strangers are as important as it gets, no sales no Art career. You cannot build an Art career without sales because collectors want to know you sell. I have seen Artists try to build an Art career by doing as many solo shows as possible. I had one Artist do a show and no sales and he came back to me a year later and asked for another solo show and I asked why, he had no sales and he said it looked good on his resume and I said no, because you had no sales. Sales get collectors talking, so we need sales. The more sales you generate the more attention you will get. I have always said price is not so important at the beginning of your career or when restarting a career, the most important thing is getting your paintings on the walls of strangers. Strangers are the bridge to your success.

What must I do to be deserving? If you need to grow food to live and you have seeds, but you never plant them, then you have a need for food, but you do not deserve a crop. To deserve a crop you must plant the seeds. The planters deserve s the crop. Don’t say I need. Say, how can I learn and earn? What new skills do I need to learn so I can earn? We must take our seed to our soil, the Art business. Our seed is our willingness to create original Art work. Our willingness to work hard at our craft. Our willingness to be friendly to strangers. Our seed is our self discipline and our positive attitude. These make us deserving of a harvest.

Success is not an accident it is small daily habits that bring lasting change, progress. To be a very successful Artist you will need to take on more and more responsibility, put pressure on yourself to grow and beware of excuses. Average Artists make excuses, successful Artists take responsibility. Success really is a mind game, you prepare for it in your mind and then you see the reality of it. Some mind musts. You must visualize your success. You must verbalize your success to yourself. You must love what you do and you must tell yourself that you love it even if it’s hard to do. Make your brain work for you not against you. Your brain wants to give you what you want, not whats best for you. If you say to yourself I would love to have a rest, then your brain will give you enough reasons why it would be good for you to do it. Don’t ever take a rest, earn it by completing all your must do’s each day. Repetition will bring change because your brain wants to gi...

It is not enough to be just a good Artist, there are lots of good Artists out there, you have to be different, exciting, amazing and original to get attention. One Artist took exception to my writing and questioned who did I think I am to say that. Now why would that statement threaten someone? Maybe they thought that just being a good Artist was enough and no need to strive for excellence. I think it is so obvious, I would watch Artists come and go from the Gallery back in the day and the majority of them were good Artists. They were competent Artists, they produced good work and the majority of them were nice people but most times I always felt that there was something lacking. Looking back now I realize that most of the Artists were not interesting people, they were reserved and did not push themselves forward, they didn’t hold a conversation they just said as little as they had to. Ok, I accept they may have been nervous being in the Gallery because it can be a li...

  To sustain being the best me that I can be, will take continual improvement. A daily decision to finish all the tasks that are set before me. So lean into the hard stuff and get it done and don’t put it off, we want improvement. We want to be able to finish every day, every week and every month and know we have given it our best and we can see improvement. Improvement is measurable. Did I finish my daily list, am I ticking off achieved goals, are my sales increasing, is my bank account growing? All measurable and we will see if we have improved. That is why it is always best to strive for improvement, not perfection. Perfection is impossible, improvement is step forward every day.

Consider the upside of being able to sell your work, you are in control of your financial future. This is a subject many Artists do not think about but should. If you control your financial future then you have the freedom to pursue your goals in Art and life. There is nothing worse than be under the constant stress of financial pressure, having to find the money to pay bills and live and it is a monthly cycle that many cannot get out of. Yet with a little initial pain and sacrifice we can all get ourselves to some kind of financial freedom. I am not talking about getting rich but I am talking about being in that place where we are not constantly burdened with pressure to pay bills with money we do not have. If we learn to control our money we take control of our future and our life. Learn to sell, it’s a skill that you can master and as a professional Artist you have to sell. Learn to save money, it’s a discipline that you can do. Be frugal and sacrifice, it’s ...

I don’t think Artists become famous because they work harder than other Artists. I don’t think it matters what art school you went to or didn’t go to. What is important is understanding what matters and not allow ourselves to get caught up in things that are not important, that eat up our time and nothing worthwhile is accomplished. We want be one of those Artists that captures the imagination of others, make sales regularly and grows our Art business by perfecting the things that matter and ignoring what does not get us to our dreams and goals. Be the Artist that understands what matters and works hard on perfecting that, constantly improving your Art, constantly improving your sales and constantly improving yourself, these are the things that matter.  

Everything we do as a professional Artist needs to lead us to the sale. In selling situations beware of questions, remember who asks the questions controls the sale and often customers ask questions looking for an advantage from the information you give them. When asked a question, answer short, do yourself no harm and ask a question back. People often ask questions like, how long does it take you to paint a painting? How do you work out the price of your painting? Now you don’t have to answer questions, they can hurt you so don’t, and if you are going to apologise, put it at the beginning of the sentence not at the end. “ I am sorry, but I don’t discuss how I run my Art business, can I show you some other pieces?” Apologise, don’t answer the question and ask another question.

We need to tell a story to ourselves about two people. The story about ourselves, that we can do what we want to do and recognize that it is fear, not people that holds us back. Strangers and customers, that they like us and want to do business with us. Once we are sold on these two thoughts, selling becomes so much easier. Most people in the Art business are skilled Artists and have a great product, so they are 90% there and the last 10% comes from people who say they can do it and they tell ourselves a story that they can do it and they do it. Skills are never the problem, it’s mindset, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves and our customers. If it’s a negative story then fear makes it become a mountain, change it into a positive story that we tell ourselves, then it becomes a rock we can step over. The story you tell yourself will have real outcomes, choose which one.

Do Artists have pain points and if they do what are they and how do we fix them? Every Artist is not the same and will have different pain points but I will generalize and look at the obvious ones. The worst is being unknown, no face or name recognition. This needs to be fixed and I believe the best way to do it is making videos, especially when we see you talking about your paintings and telling us the story about the painting. I don’t believe paintings speak for themselves and I believe that by putting a story with your Art you provide a gateway for the viewer to enter the painting and see it through the Artists eyes. Show your face, say your name and story tell your Art.

With success if you understand how you did it then it can be repeated. It can be reviewed, refined and improved. Now when you sell a painting watch what you say to yourself, most say I got a sale or I sold my painting. Selling a painting is success and we must acknowledge it, say to yourself and others, “I successfully sold my painting.” If you say it like this it is acknowledging the success and it is positive reinforcement to your self belief. We need to talk to ourselves like it is someone we love, encourage yourself, praise yourself, use positive words that builds self belief. If someone we know sells a painting we often say to them “congratulations” but we would never think of saying that to ourselves, yet we should say, “ Congratulations Mark you successfully sold your painting, I am successful.” We can so quickly criticise ourselves and pull ourselves down and we need to change this and speak positive encouraging words to ourselves. Next time you sell a pain...

When the going gets a little hard always remember not to change your goals change your strategies. In the journey I have been on over a life time I know that every good idea might not work out, but it is trying and seeing if it will. If it doesn’t work out that is not the end, it is far better to get another good idea and implement that. Ideas can change but the goal will always be the same. Persistence isn’t using the same strategies and ideas over and over when they are obviously not working. Persistence is always going for that goal. Change your ideas and strategies but don’t change your goals.

Do not look at other Artists and be jealous and envious of what they have because you can never be them, look in the mirror and appreciate you. Others do not hold the key to your success and happiness, the person in the mirror does. Next time you look in the mirror, smile at that person and tell them you love them and say out loud, “You are the key to my success,” for they are the only person who can help you be who you want to be and achieve all your dreams and desires. Build you success on these three foundations, positive self image, self love and self belief, do so by daily affirmations and written out goals which you can then check off as you achieve them, do both and you will continually strengthen your foundations. Positive self image, self love and self belief are the foundation on which you will build you Art career, without them you will struggle to appreciate the person in the mirror. .

Many people in the Art world think that being an overnight success is the only success worth having and if they are not, they give up and quit. Most overnight successes take years to accomplish, figuring out what you have to do day after day to be successful in the future. Patient daily progress is the key, working hard to make today a successful day, building a strong foundation for your Art business future. If you believe in your Art then you will invest years of your life into it, believing totally in the successful outcome. Educate yourself don’t leave it to chance, learn all you can about selling, become the person that people like quickly and build the life you want and never give up. Make daily painstaking progress until you become an overnight success.

I think for most Artists we mostly all find when we start painting we paint in a traditional style. I know I was taught as a young boy to paint like Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, two early Australian Artists who painted in the traditional landscape format. I really thought this was the correct way to paint because my teachers told me so, but when I discovered abstraction in my twenties I loved it but total abstraction wasn’t for me I wanted to paint life. A lot of Artists start out like I did and never change because it’s what they love and it’s how they paint and it’s them, they are fulfilled and they sell well, others change to a form of modern contemporary Art. The key is to paint in the way that most fulfils you and not worry about what others are doing, there is more than enough Art lovers around for all the different genres of Art. Find where you are most fulfilled and don’t get caught up with which genre should I paint in, time and the Muse will push you where yo...

You cannot count on luck and things turning around, if there is no cash flow, then it can’t be done. You can fool yourself with different creative accounting ideas, but that will end in disaster. Money is finite and if none is coming in but much is going out, then you are in trouble. There must be cash flow. Cash flow must cover your spending, it must be sustainable. We must be selling and aggressively selling our Art to create cash flow. Sales do not happen by magic. Sales happen by intention and action. Sales happen when we take action, send that second email and the third email, pick up the phone and text or ring them, sales happen when we go after those who show interest in our work. Mix up your selling strategies, always be trying new things to get the attention of strangers and get you and your Art in front of them. Sales generate cash flow and cash builds your strong Art business. .

Safe is very achievable, so is mediocre and average all these goals most people can achieve easily. If we want to successful in the Art business then we are going to have to stand out from the crowd and yes our friends may think we look stupid but the alternative is to be lost in the crowd forever. To be successful in the Art business we are going to speak to people and give speeches at our opening receptions and yes we may say something embarrassing things, but the alternative is to cower in the shadows in fear and never get out of the crowd. Unfortunately failing at projects in the Art business is just part of the learning process and we grow through the experience but the alternative is to do nothing and be invisible in the crowd. Yes it is not fun when our friends think we are stupid or when we say something embarrassing or something doesn’t work out like we hoped it would but if you are putting yourself out there and standing out from the crowd then you are giving yours...

If you are going through hard times, remember that life happens to everyone. Its not what happens, its what we do about it. Its never time to give up or slow down, its time to push harder. I find when things are going well I can be so positive and enjoy work, but my true character is seen when things are not so good, hard times brings out the real us, especially in our Art practice. In the face of problems don't give up doing what is good for you even if it seems not to be working, it is in these times that you build resolve. There will always be hard times followed by good times and the cycle of life will go on. Small disciplines won must not be lost, as hard as it may be to do the disciplines, this is your life you are building. I know how easy it is to slide down the slippery slope of neglect , rather than the discipline to climb up the mountain. Remember there lots of people at the bottom of the mountain, but once you commit to the hard work of climbing the mountain,...

  Create your Art culture around you by sharing your Art through posts, videos and blogs. Work hard on your Art, do original work and always be interesting, that is worth talking about. We need to spread the word about our Art, so be seen, be heard, be known and be interesting. Interesting will get you attention and get people talking about you. We want people talking about us, we want their attention, so be worth talking about. .

  Getting good ideas on how to market your Art is not the issue as we all have good ideas, the big challenge for many Artists is acting on those good ideas to make them a reality, otherwise they are just good intentions. We need good ideas on how to get the attention of strangers as this is our main concern because we need strangers to buy our work and if they do not know who we are they cannot buy from us. Getting your name, your face and your Art work in front of strangers is your main priority outside of producing wonderful Art. We need to get the attention of people on social media, making videos, entering competitions, group shows, pop up shows in malls, markets, on the street, we must go where the strangers are. It will take time and hard work to get the attention of strangers but you must persevere at this because without strangers buying our Art works we have no Art business. What could you do more of in your promotion of yourself and your Art work that would make...

  I know there is so much to learn about dealing with people. We have lots of strategies, key words and these are all important to know, but for me the great key is realizing that in the first few seconds of the sale, it is a stranger talking to a stranger, not many talk about this in sales books, I suppose it’s a given. Once you understand it’s a stranger talking to a stranger, you can then approach it very differently and do what most salespeople don’t do, care. Yes, care about this stranger standing in front of you because most don’t care and the stranger can feel that. If they see that you really do care about them and you are genuinely interested in them, within seconds the meeting will change and it will be like two friends talking. The key is caring about the person, most don’t, it’s just a financial transaction to them and it’s not, you want this person to come with you on your Art journey and become your collector. Care about that stranger standing in front of ...