Business and Finance Week

Comparing yourself to others

Romance of Autumn, 1916, by George Bellows. I’m leading with a painting that makes me squirm every time I see it, to make a point: if you judged Bellows by this single painting, you’d think he didn’t know how to mix or apply paint. But he knew exactly what he was doing, as his catalogue attests.

The other day Brad Marshall jokingly asked us whether he or Anders Zorn was better looking. We of course immediately said that Brad was. “Oh, well, Zorn was the better painter,” he replied.

“Not better, just different,” I answered.

As mature artists, most painters have achieved mastery over their materials. What we react to isn’t their technical skill, but how they speak to us. When we don’t like their work, it’s usually more a question of not responding to their worldview than that they are technically deficient.

Illustration to Dante's Divine Comedy, Hell, by William Blake. Blake was painting his edgy, uncomfortable, oddly-drafted work at a time when the highly-finished Grand Manner was in vogue. No wonder that his work was almost forgotten until he was rediscovered by Victorian England. Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest artists England ever produced.

It’s only in the learning phase that one painter is ‘better’ than the next, and even that is transitory. Some of us are faster learners than others, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be better painters in the end.

Last weekend, one of my beginning students got very frustrated. She was having trouble understanding why I asked her to lay down paint in a specific way. It didn’t help that her classmates were sailing through the exercise.

“I feel like everyone is doing a great job except me,” she said.

Childhood's Garden, 1917, by Charles Burchfield. His genius lies in his spirit and vision. He is often called the dark Edward Hopper, but many of his paintings radiate happiness.

Like most artists—experienced or not—she really has no idea where her strengths lie. She is emotionally transparent, so what she feels vibrates through her drawing. When she’s happy, her trees dance, the pavements sing. When she’s not happy, her canvas glowers.

That is a kind of talent that can’t be taught or bought, but can only be nurtured like a seedling set out in a garden bed. And it’s so easy to knock such a talent apart, because it comes from one’s inner vision, and that’s a fragile thing.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. My Belfast, ME, workshop is almost sold out. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Oh, buoy!

Day #2. Will finish today. I love this fundraiser for Penobscot Bay Resource Center almost more than anything else I do!

If I were gonna make a habit of painting on buoys, I’d find some way to hold them steady. I painted on this one for five and a half hours yesterday, and it wasn’t my painting hand that was tired, it was the hand clutching the buoy.

I haven’t got a table per se in my studio, so I sat in the dinette in my kitchen to work on this. That had the advantage of being more comfortable, but it had the disadvantage of exposing me to my peanut gallery.

How can you tell the lobster is attacking New York? Because that's the Brooklyn Bridge!

“Do you really think a lobster could stand on his tail like that to attack the city of New York?” asked my son.

“A lobster could theoretically grow that big,” noted my daughter, who is a biomedical engineering major and presumably au courant on matters of biology. “Unlike humans, who have a finite number of cell replications, they can keep growing forever.”

Even my engineer husband and daughters haven't found a way to make working on this buoy comfortable. Any suggestions?

“However,” she added, “I think the lobster should be lighted from the bottom. He is, after all, in the City.”

I hate when my kids are right. But I also plan to finish this painting today, so they can have it in Stonington, ME, by May 15.

Credit Card Debt Help In Canada: Tips On How You Can Improve Your Circumstance

Credit cards are confusing tools. In some ways, they are helpful as they do provide people a means to purchase needs when they don’t have money. But at the same time, they do promote unhealthy spending habits and poison consumers with the idea that they can get anything for nothing. It is a troubling fact. But that’s not where the problems end. Banks that issue credit cards also take advantage of people’s inclinations and trap them with unreasonable interest rates and deadlines that make it difficult for them to cope up with their dues. As the lack of control escalates, people find themselves almost head deep in liabilities, thereby needing credit card debt help in Canada. But what can they actually do to prevent things from going bad, fast, without relinquishing the perks they get out of it.

Well, for starters, consumers could track their expenses and establish a limit for them. It would be appropriate if this limit is based on 30% to 50% of their monthly income so they do not end up clamoring for funds. Not only does this spare them from the stress and shame brought about by compounding liabilities, it also keeps them from becoming too complacent about their spending habits. Now, if you do find something that costs more than what you could pay for in a month, you may consider using your credit card only if the resource has payment programs that allow you to cover a one-time expenditure in a few months. And before actually taking advantage of the option, you must calculate whether or not the monthly dues you are obliged to pay fits within the limits you have established.

Next, consumers must learn to prioritize their desires or needs so that they do not end up buying and paying for everything all at once. It will be very inconvenient but prioritization helps a lot, even after you’ve taken on credit card debt help in Canada. Financial management agencies can only do so much when it comes to controlling creditors and making sure that the collateral you’ve put up is not taken away. It is prioritization that would allow you to work through those compounding interest rates and loan payments so that you get to resolve everything at the right time.

Third, it would be smart if consumers only stuck with one credit card at a specific period. That way, they don’t get tricked into spending beyond what they can. More credit cards also mean more membership fees. And that alone is a significant burden financially. If you are tempted to switch to another credit card that has better services, see to it that you settle your previous account first and then cut your original subscription so you could transfer to a new one. Having a bad credit score as a result of unpaid loans will make it impossible for you to acquire more pleasing arrangement with another bank.

Finally, never hesitate to take on financial counseling, especially from an expert. See, they may not seem like the credit card debt help Canada service that would wipe out your money struggles. But they do impose effective approaches to curbing your economic troubles. And they further your understanding when it comes to finances.

Barrier-free plein air painting

Schoen Place, even though it's a reworked old industrial space, is very accessible to the less-mobile painter.

As much as I loved teaching at the Irondequoit Inn and Lakewatch Manor, neither of them were barrier-free. I have a student here in Rochester who wanted dearly to come to Maine with me, but the staircases kept her away. So when we booked into Belfast’s Fireside Inn, which has a lift, she signed up right away.

Ironically, my home studio in Rochester isn’t barrier-free, so V. only studies with me in the summer. When we first met I thought plein-air handicapped-access was probably not a workable concept. But in fact here in Rochester it works very well. We find a location, V. spins her walker around and uses it as a seat, and we’re good to go. We’ve painted at Lake Ontario, along the Erie Canal, at High Falls and at many other places.

Durand-Eastman is another place that's more accessible than it seems at first glance. It has a paved path along the waterfront.

It’s just a matter of avoiding places with really soft gravel, or places that require too much walking. Realistically, if it’s not safe and pleasant for V, it’s not going to be pleasant for someone schlepping 15 pounds of painting supplies on his or her back.

It’s not something I ever thought of before I met V, I’m ashamed to admit. But since I’ve been paying attention, I’ve realized that barrier-free is something smaller cities like Rochester have done better than other, trendier places in my orbit. We have the space to reinvent ourselves.

Highland Park is another place with excellent, paved paths, and it's possible to circumnavigate the space without using stairs.

I think it's going to work just fine in Maine, too. (I am almost sold out for this workshop, so if you’re on the fence about coming, you really should do something sooner or later.)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

The internet and art

The Romans kept their ancestor-geniuses in boxes. (Okay, they were actually shrines.) This one, from the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, shows two Lares (or guardian angels), flanking the household’s ancestor-genius.

When I went looking for Iván Ramos’ photos, it was very easy to come up with them, because he is practicing an open-source business model. When I went looking for Van Gogh paintings of an orchard on Tuesday, I had no problems, because Wikipaintings is open source.

Open source started off as a software development model, but has become more generalized. It means universal access through free licensing, and universal distribution, including subsequent iterations. For artists, it’s about sharing your process and it means not worrying too much about the low-res images of your work that are spinning around on the internet. (That’s not too difficult, since we sell paintings, not images of paintings.)

We keep our geniuses in different boxes: Wikipaintings, for one, which claimed to have 75,000 paintings on line as of June, 2012.

That’s pretty much the norm in my world of visual arts, where painters are happy to share process and images of their work. But it is not universal.

I would love to show my students how Andrew Wyeth set up his paintings. But the Wyeths are very protective of their intellectual property, so if you want to study them in breadth, you have to hie over to a museum that holds their work.

I would love to show you Jamie Wyeth’s Seven Deadly Sins, which uses seagulls as models. However, the Wyeths are very tight with their intellectual property, and so you’re unlikely to see the series on the internet. Here are some ravens in Maine instead, which aren’t out of copyright and which Wikipaintings displays under fair use principles.

What does this exposure do to the Cult of Genius that has elevated the artist since the 18th century? Hopefully, it destroys it forever, since the idea of the artist locked in his garret and thinking brilliant but ultimately solitary thoughts, is pretty terrible for the actual production of art.

Artists never worked in a vacuum.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

How A Professional Accountant In Tampa Can Help You Save Money

If you are running your own business, you are probably trying every possible way to save money. Hiring an accountant Tampa can help you save substantial amount and ensure you use the money for necessary expenses. Here we shall discuss the different ways an accountant in Tampa or for that matter in other parts of the world can help you save money:

See Your Tax Bills Reducing:

If you do not have access to a financial advisor, you are likely to end up paying more taxes. Qualified accountants can minimize the liability of your tax, so that you do not end up paying more than what you are legally supposed to. If you are working from home, or just starting your business, an experienced accountant can offer you details about tax reliefs that can help you get your business off the ground.

Avoid Fines:

If you are not able to get all your records within the stipulated time and file them with authorities, it is highly probable that you will end up paying huge amounts of fine. You may even have to pay higher amounts of fine, if you make a mistake. In most of the cases you won’t even realize where you went wrong. You can avoid such mistakes when you have an accountant helping you. So, if you want to avoid visits from a tax inspector, you must get in touch with an accountant.

Make Informed Financial Decisions:

When you are running a business, you must make informed financial decisions. You can make informed decisions, when you are under the guidance of specialists to advise you and help you take the right decision. Profitability of your business will get seriously hampered when you take a wrong decision. So, if you dream of better growth prospects and increase the margin of profit, you must have your own financial advisor.

Utilize Your Energy and Time Elsewhere:

Ask yourself if you should spend your time elsewhere, if you find yourself spending several hours together working on your accounts. If you hand over the accounts to your accountant, you will be left with plenty of time that you can spend on your business. You thus have more energy and time to do the best for your business and generate more income.

So, if you are the owner of your business, you will be making one of the most sensible decisions by hiring an accountant. You can thus focus on other aspects of your business, while your accountant looks into the financial matters and legal aspects. So, make sure to hire a qualified accountant, who shall help you to run your business efficiently.

The accountant you choose must be aware of the present tax laws. Financial pressures and government regulations tend to change from time to time that an accountant must be aware of. If your accountant is not aware of the latest tax rules, then it is high time you look for an experienced professional. Accountants make your life easier. So, if you do not want to take up the complicated and tedious task of accounting, make sure to hire the right financial advisor.

More on this elusive business of success

Success to the artist means making time to make art. All the rest is just details.

Yesterday I wrote about three techniques for success. A reader asked, “Do you actually keep a planner with your schedule blocked out? Or have you just worked your way into a routine? It’s hard when everyone else’s schedules are so fluid.”

I worked my way into this schedule gradually, so it’s not written down. But I do understand about being answerable to other people’s schedules. It’s part of working from home, and part of being a parent. I just try to shake the interruptions off and get back to what I was doing as quickly as possible. After all, if I were in a corporate setting, I’d be interrupted all the time for meetings.

In part, it means persevering even when everything is going wrong.

It helps if you understand exactly what your goals are. People with dependent kids or parents are actually working two jobs at once. To pretend you can work eight hours a day at art when you have a toddler helping is unreasonable, but you should be able to work some time every day. Keep that chain unbroken.

The point of being self-employed is that you can set your own goals. For example, to scamper over rocks at my advanced age, I must keep fit. So I spend several hours a day exercising. For a younger person, that would be a ridiculous priority.

Success—for an artist—means organizing your life so you can make art. Everything else flows from there.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!