In my drawing class we watched a Ted talk by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He talked about “Seeking Attention vs. Paying Attention”, and how social media have created an addictive craving for doing art to get attention. He said this diminishes creativity, but instead, our creativity is enhanced when we are fully absorbed in and paying attention to what we’re doing, be it painting, acting, or any other creative activity. We enter an altered state, and in this state we can feel like we are connected and collaborating with others instead of competing and comparing ourselves against others.
I totally agree with Joseph Gordon-Levitt! Comparison and using creativity as a means to get attention kills it. In the past, I have struggled with self-doubt and with constantly questioning my value as an artist. I used to say to myself: “I know I love to make the art I make, but who will be out there and think that it is good enough and will even want to have it? I had two standards, one for myself: “My art is honest and meaningful, and it has energy. I feel good about it” And one for the world that will see my art and (in my imagination) think: “This is not real art, not good enough, not skillful enough, not worth my attention.”
While I don’t think I’m making my art to get attention, I believe I love to make art to see myself and understand my experience of living in this world. Still, I am also wondering how I could let people know about it because I feel the desire to share it with others. However, what has complicated this endeavor in the past was that I didn’t believe that people “out there” would care about it.
Making art is a meditation for me. Just as Joseph Gordon Levitt points out, I am dedicated to being present and listening, fully diving into the creative current. It’s easy for me! Once I started to include my neurotic mind fuck conundrum as part of my creative projects and started inquiring and writing my art blogs about it, my neurotic addiction to negative self-talk eased. I realized that it had been based on comparison! I compared myself to other artists who were more successful in selling and showing their art in museums and galleries, and I told myself, “who would want my art in these venues? They will dismiss it quickly and simply see it as not good enough!”
Just recently I got an email from a high school classmate announcing yet another exhibition of hers in my home town, Bern, Switzerland. Immediately, I felt the sting: “Ah, she is making it, and I’m not!” The deflation didn’t last long, though. I know too well by now that many factors go into who is more successful at showing their art than others, and that it’s not only about how “good” the art is. And I am more and more making peace with who I am as an artist, one who is passionate about making art by feeling present and connected internally as well as with the world, and who sometimes manages to make a great piece of art among many others that are fun, playful, and pleasing to some. I’m an artist who is not very social or well-networked, who gets overwhelmed around too many people, and yet, one who is on a creative journey, through her art and her blogs, to find her unique way to reach those people who will respond to her art and treasure it. Mostly, she trusts that this will, for now, happen through personal connection, not through big marketing schemes, social networking, or even things like Instagram and other social media.
I clearly don’t make art to get attention. But I do derive tremendous joy from sharing my art and seeing others loving it and enjoying it on their walls. I will keep letting this feeling of joy in my heart when seeing others being nurtured by my creations be a compass that guides me in finding my own unique and creative ways of sharing it.
Hanna’s Art Blog 5: Can There Be a New Approach to Art Marketing?
Today I woke up really discouraged. Recently I had 40 new images photographed and uploaded them to my online gallery. While this is always a very exciting event for me when my new paintings make it onto the website, it also triggered a shame attack and my neurotic, hopelessly stuck thought process about it. “Why even do art (and try to be good at playing guitar for that matter)?” Both of these things that I dream of becoming masterful at seem such an uphill battle. In terms of art, it’s not only the painting itself, but sharing the art I make with others. I said to myself: “Why am I putting so much pressure on myself? Can’t I just relax and stop dreaming so much and trying to nurture my heart’s desires? Why not just give it up and let go of my dreams? I’m getting old. Couldn’t I just take it easy now?”
Yesterday, I talked with a friend, and we both agreed that art should not just be for the wealthy. But how can we share our art in an alternative way, one that doesn’t involve the rules of the art market and the enormously high prices? I shared that I hate Instagram. I feel visually and otherwise overwhelmed by it! I said that, for now, I actually am willing to do a few things: I put high quality images of my paintings on my website, “Hanna’s Worldwide Gallery”, and I write an email to my list of “Art Advocates” once in a while, especially when I have added new art to it. I also am writing this art blog which is my creative way of getting unstuck with my “how to share my art” conundrum. One exciting event for me has been that I recently found out how to create the email list I’m now using, on my Zenfolio website. This feels like a great step forward toward inner freedom!
What is an alternative way to market one’s art? Beyond what is the right way for me, this question could be explored in a bigger way. Like the French Impressionists who created their own alternative to the official Salon, some of us artists could brainstorm our own rebellion against the current trends in the art market, the high prices, the pressure on artists to have a “recognizable” (consistent) style, to produce a certain number of pieces in a short time for a gallery, the social pressure to make art that people understand, or that sells well, or that fits the current trends in the art world, for example, if it’s thought-provoking or making political statements, or is understandable to the logical mind. I believe there are already artists and art venues that are experimenting with new ways to share art with the community! If you have any ideas or thoughts on this subject, I’d love to hear them!
It is a daring and vulnerable act to show one’s art. Fears of rejection, comparison, of not being good enough, and for many full-time artists, of financial insecurity, can easily come up for any artist who is not established and well-known. I feel privileged and lucky that I have another career to make money with, and that I am actually already way into “retirement age”. So, I have the luxury to think about all this, about how to be an artist in the world. And I have the freedom, maybe more than many others, to make exactly the art that I need to make, without considerations about who will accept it or pay money for it. I feel I share this luxury with some of the very stubborn artists in history who didn’t want to or didn’t have to cave in to the pressures of the times or finances and steadily followed their own inner muse, such as Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Jay DeFeo, Clifford Stills, Grandma Moses, Luchita Hurtado, to name a few. I like to see myself in their company.
Hanna’s Art Blog 4: It Doesn’t Have to Be Great Art!
I’ve been ruminating again about how I could share my art with the world. It goes in circles: Great ideas of steps to take, excitement, then discouragement and realizing that this won’t work. I also looked at what my motivation is: Do I just want recognition? Be seen? No, it’s not that! It is my heart’s desire to share my art with others! My art is my gift to the world! And yet, in thinking about the “how”, I often hit this by now familiar impasse where I come to realize that for one reason or another, the usual ways won’t work for me, the introvert who is not wanting to market herself, is not socially connected, not networking, and is not connected with the art world, famous artists, or art collectors. I am not a well-known artist, and I don’t even make art that fits the current trends or expectations of the art world. Even though I believe in my art I may even not make art that will ever be seen as “great” by the art world!
There are artists I resonate with or who work in similar ways as I do: My all-time hero Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Kandinsky, Vincent van Gogh, to name just a few. In my last art blog I wrote about how some of them became famous. All of them, I notice, had some connection to the art world. They were either connected with other famous artists and galleries through art school or through being in the right place at the right time, or they were socially open and connected and thus easily “discovered”. None of these situations are true for me! Often I believe that my path seems impossible without solid marketing! And yet, I just as often am clear that this kind of effort would not fit for me. If the art world wants to discover me great! I’m not going to chase after it or cater to it! So, I have to find my own path to sharing my art with the world. But how? This is the conundrum that I am writing about to see if there is a creative way out of this impasse.
What I have come to is this: There are people out there who love and want my art! The feeling I get when a friend requests a piece of my art and loves it, enjoys it, is happy with it, is a feeling of utter joy and bliss. It’s as good or even better than painting itself, because somehow my act of painting it has become more meaningful by completing the circle! I intend to recall this feeling every time I get discouraged or neurotic about how to sell or share my art, and let that be the guiding compass for how, if, or when to proceed with my desire to share my art.
But careful! I tried painting while telling myself that “someone out there will love and want this painting!” This didn’t work at all. It made me feel self-conscious and destroyed my creative flow! So, I will keep them separate. Nurture the feeling that I have when someone enjoys to have my art. And, keep painting without thinking about anything else. Just being present and following the creative process. Ultimately, art business or not, I need to keep making art. It doesn’t have to be great art, just making it is what matters! Creating a painting is a mysterious process. It does something to my brain. And the Creative Mystery does something to my painting! All I need to do is show up, be receptive, trust, follow the flow, dare, and have fun with it all! It’s a gift of energy, of aliveness, and of love! I think I will write more in another blog about this wondrous creative process.
Hanna’s Art Blog 3: Going Round in Circles:
Alice Neel was a very social artist who painted portraits. Her apartment was an open house where people came and went freely. Often, she asked random people from the street to sit for her for hours and days as models for her portraits. The portraits are impressive and lively. One day, a journalist walked in and interviewed her and then did a piece on her in the newspaper. This interview was what started her to become famous. She was discovered! I would love to do what she did! I love doing portraits! But I’m a very reclusive person. So, it wouldn’t work for me to have an open house like she did and thereby be discovered like she was! Another artist, Joan Mitchell, was exhibiting from early on and had solo exhibitions throughout her career. She was well connected in the world of artists, galleries., and museums. I never had this experience or these kinds of connections! My favorite artist, Cy Twombly, moved from Virginia to Europe, specifically Rome, Italy and became famous there, painting about eight paintings a year and selling them for millions of dollars. But he too was friends with many famous artists from his art school days, and he effortlessly was part of the art scene in both continents. His collector friends, Udo and Annette Brandhorst, bought many of his paintings as well as art pieces of other contemporary artists, and their collection became the foundation for the Brandhorst Museum in Munich, a museum for contemporary art. When I was there, shortly after its opening in 2009, the whole top floor of the museum was filled with Cy Twombly’s monumental paintings! They touched me to tears! Here too I see that I am not connected to the art world like he was! Yet, sometimes I fantasize that I if contacted Cy Twombly’s collectors they would resonate with my art and collect it too! But I know this is pretty unrealistic. I don’t even know if they are still alive! However, I believe that being European myself I could possibly find more resonance as an artist in Europe! My other favorite artist, Vincent Van Gogh, sold less than a handful of paintings during his lifetime. It was his sister-in-law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who, through her late art dealer husband, Vincent’s brother Theo, was connected to the art world, slowly and methodically exhibited Vincent’s paintings throughout Europe and internationally and made sure that the world knew Vincent’s art. Today, his paintings are worth millions! Will there be someone after my death who will find my art worthwhile and will make sure the right people in the world will know about it? For now all I know is that the art is piling up in the storage space, and that I would love to find the right homes and owners for my paintings. There is really no need yet to speculate about what will happen with them after I die!
So, how do artists become well-known? It seems a lot has to do with connections, with being in the right place at the right time, and/or with being socially more extravert. And of course, it has also to do with how much their art touches people, even if sometimes only much later.
I’m thinking I would like to have an exhibit and even be well-known, and I am at times wondering if I should find a gallery that believes in my art. And then again, I don’t want to spend my precious time and energy on that, and also I’m guessing that it’s the wrong way for me to go because my art doesn’t fit! So, I get discouraged. And yet, I do want to share my art! But how? Then hope arises again every time I have a new idea on how to share my art in the world. Then I get discouraged and give up again. Mostly, I just want to paint! I don’t want to spend time marketing my art! …..Can you see how I am going around and around in circles?
Then I let it go again and just paint. No going in circles there. Just painting. Joy. Peace. Contentment. Love. Aliveness. Presence. Bliss. Curiosity. Excitement. No mindfuck at all.
Why Am I Making Art?
I should say: “How am I to live? How can I live the most meaningful life?”
I read my dad’s diary from the last year of his life. Mom had said he stopped writing it because it became too painful for him who was facing death while there was still so much beloved life in him, and loved ones to let go of, painfully. He was so present to me, so alive in the writing. A man grappling with the ever-clearer possibility of death, and still so acutely full of life. My father and mother both were courageous, lively people. My dad, a creative spirit and an artist at heart, my mom a caring angel who loved to help others in need, and herself an adventurous, strong, and sensuous woman who loved life. Both these beautiful spirits were not evident to me growing up. I experienced more their conditioned side, their poisonous pedagogy. And I got hurt by that. Now, I can uncover their beauty, their legacy. Now, I can own their essence in me. My dad’s diary, my mom’s 90th Birthday letters from those who loved her and knew her the way I hadn’t, (both sent to me recently by my sister). Redemption inside of me. Uncovering of the good in me, clearing out the muck.
What does this have to do with, ‘why am I making art’?
“With awake senses I am seeing myself drifting toward the end” (dad in 1963, age 50). Some painful thoughts, he wrote, like the thought of letting go of his wife and daughters are too painful to think. I remember the last times I saw him. Me 12 or 13, he a sick man in bed unable to connect with me with words, to tell me the truth, to say that he loves me, to say good bye.
This is the reason why I make art! I start where he left off. I claim aliveness, and I claim the ability to tolerate what’s painful, true, shameful, difficult, dark, lonely, unresolved, troubling, yearning, hopeless, despairing. This is where I start: I make art out of the unspoken, unacknowledged, unknown, unnamable, unacceptable, unbearable. I make art from the belly of the Mystery!
Why am I making art? Because I have to. The creative process of making art integrates my brain, helps me stay sane, digest my life, and deal with the world around me.
Why am I making art? Because I care about the world! Because I’m passionate about presence, and because I believe that the ancient purpose of making art is to heal the individual as well as the community and the world. I believe that in connecting deeply in presence with my own inner process, whatever it may be in the moment, my art becomes a portal for healing, transformation, presence, nurturing, inspiration...
Art Blog 1 by Hanna, February 28, 2021
I have decided to start writing this blog in order to document in writing my experience of being an artist in the world. By in the world, I mean that I want to also find loving homes for my art, besides making it. This writing project, I decided, will be part of my art. It will be a tale of my journey to try and find the impossible path for me to share my art easily, in a meaningful way that is uniquely suited to the individual human being I am. So, this writing is the same as my process of painting: a journey into the unknown.
Making art comes easily to me. I feel confident and free, and I trust myself and my art. I believe that my art is meaningful, honest, authentic, and worth sharing. But sharing the art, for me, is complicated, difficult, and full of mind-fuck and blockages. My father said to me and my sister about being an artist: “If you don’t make it, don’t even try!” I live to refute his statement, and also, to honor his failed dream of living the life of an artist. He gave up when the world didn’t respond positively to his offerings of paintings and novels. He was one in a crowd and not good enough to others. So am I. One of a crowd. Too many artists want recognition in this world, and only a few can “make it”. But wait, what does it mean, not to make it? So many factors go into making it, not just being good. Some artists who make awful art, make it big. And some great artists never made it during their life time, or ever! So, this is not a good argument!
There are of course the tried and proven ways to make it in the art world. And I don’t trust that this is my venue in which to share my art. I have the intuitive knowing (or is it a belief?) that I will not be seen, nor valued or appreciated because I don’t fit into the current trends in art. Artists are told to create art in a recognizable style and stick with it. That’s not me! I’m all over the place! In group exhibits, I should enter paintings that I believe people will like. But that’s not me! I am stubborn and impossible in this respect. I should have a marketing person help me promote my art. But the person would have to know me well, be compatible, and find exactly the markets I belong in, where people will see me and my art. In the general public, I believe my art will mostly be invisible because it doesn’t fit in, or is seen as ‘not good enough’.
So, let’s just start by naming all the reasons I tell myself why I can’t be an artist in the world and should just keep filling my storage room to the ceiling with my work. (I feel constipated when I think of that). Here we go:
1. Selling art is too work-intense. I have to pack and ship the art and deal with billing etc. This takes away time from making art.
2. People in the art world don’t think my art is skilled and meaningful enough to be considered.
3. Having 99.9% of people in the world walk right past my art without looking at it, if it is in a group exhibit, is disappointing.
4. I want my art to find loving homes where people are inspired and nurtured by it, instead of it being ignored, rejected, and put in dusty backrooms of galleries, as has happened to me.
5. I believe in my art and care about it, so I want it to be put in front of people who will value and appreciate it.
6. I am too attached to my best paintings and can’t let go of them.
7. I am possessive and controlling of my art. I want to know who gets my art, and I want there to be a personal connection, instead of just an anonymous business transaction and sale.
8. I am afraid of rejection.
9. I want to be in control of my art. I don’t want someone to help me sell my art.
10. When thinking of being an artist in the world I am confronted with my social fears and my old stories that I will be destroyed if I allow myself to be seen, and that I will anyway not be seen.
Now, here are the reasons why I want to be an artist who completes the circle by sharing the art with others:
1. I love it when others want my art and I enjoy it when it nurtures their spirit! This alone is reason enough to share my art.
2. I love sharing my art with friends, at gatherings. Usually, the pieces go like hot cakes and people love them! I love giving away or selling my art to those who love it! This makes me very happy! It’s like giving a kitten or child into adoption. It has to be just right!
3. I need space to make new art. It feels overwhelming to have all my art in storage.
4. I need to get out of my way and share my art, despite all my complicated considerations.
5. I need to let go of making this a problem. Just don’t worry. Let things evolve organically.
6. I choose to find my own, unique way of sharing my art.
7. I want to do it anyway, even though I don’t know how to do it!
8. I want to move into the unknown with this blog, and allow myself to do one step at a time.
9. I accept my challenging process of finding a way to let the right people know about my art.
10. I trust my process and I will no longer be stopped by my mind.
11. I choose my vision that my art finds loving homes with people who are nurtured and benefited by having my art on their walls.
12. I commit to walking this impossible, unknown path!
All my blogs will be here in my worldwide gallery, www.hannahammerli.zenfolio.com. While you’re here, check out my new art in the album ‘New 2019-2021! And please share this blog and my gallery link with others!
That’s enough for today! Please email me to let me know if you want to be on my list to receive future art blogs I write. In the next one, I will reflect on why I make art.
Santa Cruz, June 2022
Dear Friends and Visitors to my Global Online Gallery,
I hope this letter finds you healthy and happy! I hope you are enjoying my website, Hanna’s Worldwide Gallery, https://hannahammerli.zenfolio.com/ exploring all the albums, and reading “Hanna’s Art Blogs”! Let me give you a short orientation, here: All the paintings are shown in chronological order, so the newest paintings are always at the bottom of each album, and the most current ones are in the album, “New”. If you wish to buy archival art cards, prints or original paintings, please contact me to let me know what you desire. I will be happy to help you! All prices are negotiable. Request to be put on my email list to read my new blogs and find out about my occasional Free Art-Giveaway events. You can also schedule a Zoom consultation to find out which spiritual art portal (which I will describe in a future art blog) works for you and to get suggestions for paintings that resonate with your portal!
I am also writing to you with a request for help. I have a desire to find loving homes for my art, and I would like to ask you to help me share my art with others who might connect with it and love to have it on their walls. Please tell them about my Worldwide Gallery.
Be My Art Advocate! Creating art is an act of reverence for being alive. My art touches people who know me (or you) because it has a vibrancy and speaks to them energetically. It is a spiritual portal for love, transformation, awakening, presence, beauty, play, joy, integration, aliveness, stillness, nature, and mystery. My art finds its homes through personal connection.
Sharing my art through conventional venues has often been an unsatisfying experience for me. However, I have found that sharing it through personal connection is always very successful and makes everyone happy.
My primary intention in my art is to create from a place of wholeness and presence, with deep reverence for the unknown. Often, a painting starts with a very specific feeling, other times right from the beginning I have to find out one brush stroke at a time where I’m going. I fully commit to, and I trust, what comes through in each moment in this creative process. I do not control the outcome and this may at times result in some rawness of the art. Hopefully this is something you and others will like about my work.
As Art Advocates you are the people who like my art. You are now over 30 people who own my works and have one or more paintings on your walls. When family or friends visit and like the art they see on your wall, you can give them my card (request a stack of them from me) or give them the link to Hanna’s Worldwide Gallery. And if any of them buy my art because of you, you get a percentage (50%) of the sales price, just like a gallery would give. This is how you can help my art spread its wings around the world.
All paintings in my online gallery that are available are listed with a price. However, all my prices are negotiable! What I care most about is that my paintings find and benefit the right people who would love to have them on their walls. Every painting that finds its loving home makes me very happy! (Please note that if paintings need to be shipped, that cost needs to be covered by the buyer). And, as mentioned above, get on my mailing list to hear about my occasional Free Art-Giveaways!
Please help me find the right people who will love my art. Here are some ways you can help:
*buy my art
*request a few of my art business cards to give to your friends and family
*borrow and caretake paintings for me so that your friends can see them
*get 50% or more of the proceeds when a painting you are caretaking sells
*get 50% or more of the proceeds if people buy art from me because of you
*visit my online Worldwide Gallery frequently and/or share the link with others
*organize a private exhibit for me
*suggest charities I can donate paintings to, so they can keep the proceeds if someone buys them
*ask for a Free Art-Giveaway event for your community
*share your enthusiasm about my art with others
*visit my studio in person (by appointment only)
*schedule a private Zoom consultation with me to find out the right art portal and art for you (see the collection of albums, "Art as Portal: Find Your Portal", with examples of Portals)
*share this Art Advocate Letter with friends who you think might be interested
*buy some of my archival art cards to send to friends ($4-5 each)
And remember to write your comments in the guest book! I want to hear what your thoughts are about my art and about the different Art Blogs!
Sending blessings and love! In gratitude,
Hanna
Hanna Hammerli
831-461-4327
Hanna’s Worldwide Gallery: https://hannahammerli.zenfolio.com