New Year's Resolutions: Take Baby Steps (or Say NOPE!)

Happy 2014 everyone!

We hope you all had a safe and fun NYE, whether that meant sleeping through it, raging at some club, or playing board games or painting, we hope it was good for you.

This is the time of year when people often make resolutions about what to change.  We all want improvements in our lives (human nature, who doesn't?), but we think that often times we go about things the wrong way.

Two suggestions:

1) Scale back your resolutions into something absurdly simple.

2) Practice vulnerability and embrace who you are as enough.

Now, the explanations.

1.  Changing resolutions into something that fits who YOU are, and making them realistic.

Monkey keeps reading about how successful people wake up at 6am to get in some reading and crucial work done before the day starts.  Monkey is not a morning person.  Instead of fighting his nature and trying to do what others do, he has realized that he's much more likely to do work late into the night and then sleep in.  Instead of fighting who you are, embrace it and figure out how to mold advice into something that is possible (and easy) for YOU to do.

For artists, often we may say that we want to create more.  A typical resolution is to "draw everyday."  Well, if you're having trouble drawing once a week, maybe a new resolution you can make is "draw every week."  Make a resolution something that is REALISTIC.  If you work two jobs, are raising a kid, and have to check her homework every night, then it's probably not super realistic that you're going to be able to focus on your craft every single day.

Why not instead focus on doing something every week, or if you want to really prioritize the art making, maybe your new resolution could be "Pick up a pen and make a single mark in your sketchbook."  While this sounds incredibly easy, that's the whole point.

This is how habit formation works, and while making a masterpiece or a finished piece might be too intimidating, making a single mark seems almost stupid.  But that's the point.  As you keep making a single mark, or writing a single word of your novel, or painting a single brushstroke, you'll find that since you're already started, you'll probably want to keep going, just for a bit.  After a while, working on your craft, no matter how small, will be such a habit that you'll be creating more and more and you'll have integrated it into your daily life.

2.  Embracing yourself as "Enough."

Like we said earlier, it's in our nature to want happiness, and we often think that maybe we have to change to get it.  While often we can change (and need) to change our behaviors in order to change the results we get, we also need to recognize that we, as human beings, are good enough as we are.

In our hyper-media-saturated world, we often hear about other who are richer, happier, better looking, etc. etc. etc.  Since we're always being sold something, we often think that we aren't good enough or skilled enough or ____________ enough, and that we need more.  However, real happiness can't be bought.

Especially if the resolutions you were considering are thing that you think you need to do to be a better person, we highly suggest reevaluating them and seeing what it is that you're really after.  It's very easy to get caught up chasing the carrot, when really you've had some lettuce in your pocket the whole time.
Like we always stress, you should create art for you, not for anyone else.  It shouldn't be for the fame, or the recognition, or the love, or the chance to meet sexy people.  Creating art should always be about doing something that makes YOU happy.  Creating should always be about creating, not the end product.

Yes, fame and fortune are nice, but embrace the artist that you are RIGHT NOW, and you might find happiness is a lot closer than you think.

Best wishes for a happy 2014.  Keep your head up, and let's have some fun creating this year!

Building a Strong Foundation (In Life)

Before you decorate the roof, you must first build the foundations of the house deep into the ground.

In filmmaking, we call this “finding the broad stroke.” A couple of months ago, I sat at a film story-brainstorming meeting. We were all very excited about a new story we were working on. We had the details down to the characters’ colors, the time of day in which the story takes place, and we were chattering up a storm when one of the soft-spoken writers raised his hand, “But what is this film really about? In one sentence what is the backbone to the story?”

Now I ask you, what is the backbone to your dreams? Sure you can decorate your dreams with shingles, pretty flowers on the front porch, and a tire swing in the backyard, but what is it build upon? What is driving you? What is the reason?

Since I was in high school, I had dreams of being an art director. I didn’t know why I wanted to become one, just that I did and I worked really hard towards that trajectory. At age 19, I was given creative directorial duties at the community college theater program. At age 20, I was promoted at my work at Walt Disney into a supervisory creative role. At age 22-25, I directed plays at UC Berkeley. I am now currently working on two films as an art director. I had many chances at the role in the past and I messed up quite a bit in some of them. Because even when I had the title at an early age, I didn’t have a strong foundation to build my dreams upon. Growing up in a highly critical house being the shadow of my artistic older sister, I was constantly riddled with self-doubt, self-sabotage, and lack of belief in my own inner potential. I had no foundation. I may have looked like an accomplished decorated titled house on the outside, but the inside was bare bones.

It was as if I peered into the hood of a car and realized there was no engine. Perhaps the car had moved on its own because it was on a hill and gravity pulled it down into the valley at top speed. But when I found myself at the bottom of the pit, what drove my car, my dreams, up against the mountain?

It doesn’t take science to know that if you are empty or wounded on the inside, you cannot give much towards your dreams.

So how do you build the foundation for your dreams? It will differ from person to person. But first you must find the reason behind your dream. Then you must heal yourself from any physical, emotional, or mental splinters you might have had, so the trunks and roots of your dreams can grow deep into the ground. For a prominent blogger and millionaire business venture artist James Altucher, his physical and mental foundations are what were most important for him. If he is tired, and didn’t get enough sleep, or didn’t eat enough nutritional meals, he has a hard time focusing on his writing. So he makes sleep, exercise, and meals a priority. For Seal, her foundation is taking care of the physical body (yoga/jogging), meditation to quiet her inner critics (simple 5-10 minutes quiet time after she wakes up to know what to focus on during the day), as well as filling her creative life with daily adventures (visiting a bookstore, etc). When she sees new sights or experiences a new technique to approach her painting, the natural high can help her push pass the funk and challenges of going after her dreams. Her other foundation pillars also include integrity (she can’t take on a job if it goes against her values), community building (she wants other people to reach their dreams too, and she knows there are people she can count on when she’s down), optimism (you don’t know what’s going to happen within the next second, so why not hope for the best possible outcome?), and last but not least, her reason. At the heart of her dreams of being an artist, is the simple wish to share and be heard. To feel connected to other people through her art and her inner world. That’s it. Not as hard to accomplish and focus on her dreams when it’s narrowed down to a simple wish of living among other people and being understood.

What is your dream? What are your foundations to build upon?

How Self-Improvement Will Destroy You

A very non-serious .gif by Monkey for a serious post by Seal. What a silly Monkey.

When I was seven years old, I started my first to-do list. I was quite simple, with only three items I wanted to accomplish every day.

• Put away my toys
• Make up my bed
• Help parents clean the apartment

Ten years later, when I was seventeen, the list grew to more than a 100 items. It was no longer a daily list, but a resolution for life. I titled it “Goals in Life”. It included travel destinations, languages to learn, running record times to break, things to become . . .

• Travel to Nepal, Africa, France, London
• Learn French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese
• Run 6 minute mile
• Run 20 minute 3 mile (standard xcountry race)
• Draw in 20 sketchbooks (I gave myself 6 years)
• Read all of Shakespeare
• All Greek Mythology
• Collect stamps
• Wrtie a novel
• Make a film
• Learn how to brew my own beer
• Learn how to make my own cheese

The list went on, page after page. If you can’t tell, I was a very serious person who wanted to accomplish very big things. But at the heart of this list, there was something terribly wrong.

Although I read all of Shakespeare’s work in both junior college and in Berkeley, I couldn’t really use my knowledge of Old English and Literature in my everyday conversations. I hated Greek Mythology. I started a stamp collection, but I don’t even like collecting stamps. I managed to learn conversational Japanese and French on my own, but I have a high resistance to learning tonal languages such as mandarin. I don’t seem to have an ear for it. My friends make better beer and cheese that I did, so why not bum some off of them instead? And as I ran everyday and got close to breaking into 7-minute mile, I suffered an injury that put me out most of the x-country season during my senior year. I never did break that 6-minute mile or 20 minute 3 mile. And although I accomplished quite a lot from my giant list and I was generally happy, when I completed a task and crossed it off my list, the joy didn’t last as long as I thought it would. The experience of accomplishing a goal was tinged with a bit of disappointment. Since I didn’t want to think of what that would mean, I’d hurry onto the next task. My obsession with x-country record time was replaced by the next item on the list. At one point it was literature/ narrative theory at Berkeley, and now it’s art and film.

At the heart of these goals and resolution lists, I couldn't leave myself alone. Under the guise of self-improvement, I had rejected myself. Somewhere along, I believed that who I was at the core was not good enough and I needed to improve. I was thoroughly convinced that if I had accomplished certain things, it would sure to make myself feel worthy. I was busy trying to become someone else. I constructed a parallel life: someone that knew French, Spanish, Mandarin, and Japanese, someone who was a dedicated and revered marathon runner, someone who was cultured in Shakespeare and Greek Mythology, someone who could entertain her guests with beer and cheese made from her own very backyard.

“Self improvement” became self-rejection, a mad haste to becoming someone other than myself. I was always either “squeezing myself into a narrow version of revered behavior or crashing and rebelling against everything that constricted me.” No amount of goals I accomplished, no amount of tasks crossed off, satisfied me. “I had to keep doing more and more to silence the part of me that knows my actions were based on fear of what would happen if I didn’t try so hard” (Geneen Roth).

Stephen Levine, a meditation teacher once said, “Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.” If that’s true, then I spent a good number of my life in hell.

For a long time, I did this with art too. I signed up for workshop courses, made myself watch art videos everyday, draw everyday, paint everyday. I was so busy “climbing up the art career” until one day, I had pain and tightness in my wrist and tiredness in my eyes and I was forced to do anything else except for art. That same year, my aunt passed away. I hadn’t seen her for 20 years. There were so many words left unsaid.

I took a walk to my favorite coffee shop and had some warm chai. I didn’t realize that on that particular day, there was a festival at Japantown. So I sipped my chai and watched the kids playing taiko drums as the wind blew wisps of hair around my cheeks.

We are so afraid that if left to ourselves, without structure, without goals and resolutions, that we won’t accomplish anything, that we will falter and give in to laziness. Most resolutions are created out of fear, force, shame, or guilt. They are focused on “self-improvement”- the belief that something is broken and needed fixing rather than “self-actualization” – the unleashing of your already abundant amazing self and embodying your potential. Trust, that left to yourself, you will not destroy what matters most.

Ten years more, at age 27, I stopped making these resolution lists.

So what would happen if I didn’t try so hard?

I paint and make films. I just stopped counting how many sketchbooks I’ve filled up by a certain time. I do yoga and I jog, but I stopped counting how many calories I burned, how long it takes to run a mile, or how many times I go in a week. I learned enough Japanese to telecommute with my boss at SEGA in Tokyo, Japan, but I still don’t know how to write Kanji so I’ll get Google translator to help me with that. I gave away my stamps to an elementary kid who might have appreciated them more than me. If I do end up picking up Mandarin, great. If I don’t, that’s fine too. For my parties, I buy beer from my friend who is currently going to Beer School and cheese from the local green market ~ I’m never disappointed.

Our society has a very odd way of rewarding self-improvement and New Year’s Resolutions. We never question whether they are right to begin with. I’m not thoroughly against resolutions or goals. I think they are important in that they provide some sort of trajectory to aim for. As well as they are truthful tools to get you closer to self-actualization.

For example, you can begin from where you are. What are my goals? Say, to get a job at a top studio as an art director. What prize are you hoping to receive when you accomplish that goal? Is it fame? Financial reward? Or Creative reward that comes with a big studio? Is it rest from “having to find another job ever again”? or is it the freedom to choose your projects? Do you even like managing other artists (this comes with the responsibilities of being an art director)? So if you were able to narrow down your true desire from your goal, say you want to be an art director at a big studio so you can choose your projects and work with other inspiring top level artists . . . (you don’t really need a big studio or title of an art director to accomplish this true desire) what you, in fact, really wanted is freedom and creativity. Unless you can uncover your deepest desires, goals are elusive from one task to another. But if you ask questions about your goals, their true motives, and  they are very specific towards embodying your full potential; they can become your greatest tool and compass towards the theme of your life - the meaning you are trying to make with your life.

Whether you are just starting out or writing your resolutions for the 100th time, the biggest caveat, is that goals and resolutions should never be created out of fear or punishment (ie, if I don’t exercise, I’ll gain weight), but goals should be born out of trust in becoming and self-care (I like the feeling of moving my body and having strength in my limbs, so I’ll exercise). It shouldn’t be “Draw everyday (because if I don’t I won’t become somebody special, I won't create at all, other artists will pass me up, I won’t get a job, or I won’t have anything to contribute,” it should be “I enjoy the process of creating a visual physical thing from ideas, I love putting my imaginary worlds unto something visible that I can share with other people so I will draw whenever when I can.”

Here at Monkey + Seal, we’re a big fan of goals’ close cousin: themes. An extended explanation from out last post: whereas goals cover measurable units (running 3x a week), themes are broad strokes that highlight the values that are important to you (living a more a healthy lifestyle). With goals, you can get easily disappointed when you run 2 days and fail the 3^rd day while with theme, if I fail to run at all in the week, there are many other actions I can take to fulfill the theme of living a healthy lifestyle, I can drink more water, get more rest, eat low cholesterol diet, walk around the block during lunchtime. The same thing could be said for the artist. Instead of “draw everyday, write everyday, or paint everyday” I now “incorporate a more creative life in my moment to moment,” that could mean anything from sipping chai while observing the sounds of steam milk, coffee grinding, and laughter at a café, taking photographs outside my window, catching up on the latest film and discussing its cinematography and color, to walking around the block while hashing out the ending to my film.

So what are your themes for this year? For 6 months? This month?

What is your true north?

End of the Year Reflection

Hi Friends!

This will be our last post for 2012. Hope everyone has had a wonderful year, and we'll see you with new adventures in 2013!

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As with every end of the year, we'd like to take stock of everything that's happened within the last year and reflect/ appreciate/ and celebrate the challenges and growth it took for us to be here today.  We also want to share with you our dreams and goals/themes for the next year.

Seal's accomplishments:

• Worked on 3 films: a feature film, a cg animated short, and a live action short that involved giant green screens and riding a fast moving contraption down Embarcadero.
• Skyace Wasteland (personal graphic novel/ animation) 1st chapter written
• The Daughter and the Ogre (graphic novel) full story written & storyboarded
• Learned incorporating Gouache & Watercolor in concept art
• Painted 3 colorscripts
• Gallery Show in March: Rusted Souls at 1AM
• New painting techniques experimented with since July, finally came to fruition in December.

Monkey's accomplishments:

• Dark Wizard's One-Stop Shop new concept/ story
• Big Umbrella Studios reaches its 2 years with current owners
• Design and printed for Facebook.
• Invited to speak at Alumni Artist/Freelancer Panel
• Story Collection: White Mask, (list, etc).
• Learned how to paint on windows
• Invited to live-paint at RAW SF. twice!
• Revamped website and integrated blog

Monkey + Seal's accomplishments

• Our very first out of state show among out heroes and legends at Spectrum Live! in Kansas City, Missouri
• Our very first out of city show in Sacramento
• J-Pop Show (July at Big Umbrella Studios)
• New Tshirt Design "Not Bad, Just Different"
• Taught drawing class to artists/ designers from Apple, Inc.
• Both of us were invited to live paint for Hyphen magazine's 10 year anniversary
• upgraded display with new IKEA tie racks
• Broke our personal records at every show this year: Zinefest, A.P.E., and BazBiz Holiday Show
• Started showcasing originals at live craft shows
• Protested city college's closing of Fort Mason campus

While we've had a lot of great accomplishments, we've also had our share of trials and tribulations as well.  Over 2012 we've dealt with fights with colleagues, deaths in the family, financial strain, and countless bouts of self-doubt, fear, procrastination, and other self-destructive behavior.  Regardless, we count ourselves extremely lucky that we're able to continue to do what we love to do, and that we can continue to support and inspire other artists to do the same.

We've recently realized that instead of focusing on single goals (single markers of accomplishment that will always be surpassed), we should instead be focusing on themes (ongoing processes that are enjoyable and that bring you happiness).


Our Themes for 2013:
Monkey: "I will create more personal work and put more of my artwork and vision into the world. I want to find and cultivate a larger audience for my dark/horror inspired art and to somehow give back to my community of artists."

Seal: "I will continue story development for films and concept art with my awesome team. I'll develop more personal work/ direction (ie. graphic novel/ story writing/ painting series) and will cultivate the art community. I also will find more inspiring people and projects to work on."

Instead of making New Year's Resolutions, we'd like to encourage you to choose a theme that you'd like to pursue.  Instead of "draw everyday" (which, if you miss a single day, you feel guilty about breaking your commitment and you give up), think about "be sustainably more creative."  Instead of "I want a million dollars," think "I will create a source or sources of income that will allow me to sustainably grow my standard of living."  Goals are finite, and if you reach them, you have to make new goals.  Themes, on the other hand, are larger pursuits which will find you achieving your goals along the way.


So if you have any suggestions or ideas that could help us along with our themes, we'd love to hear from you.  And we'd love to hear some themes that you're thinking of taking up in 2013.  By taking the leap and putting it down in the comments, you're much more likely to follow through.  Let's make 2013 our year to shine!

Planning Your Way to A Dream

To many people, the path to a dream feels very nebulous. Because so much of our emotions are tied to our ambition, we often treat it as we might an impulse and just sort of "go with the flow." While this is all fine and dandy, we suggest imposing some order upon your path, so that you might find your way a little quicker.

Many of us want to quit our jobs, live off our art, travel, etc. But how many of us have a concrete plan in place? Banks won't give out loans to small businesses without a business plan, as it's a risky investment. Due to the way our world works you need to start thinking about the concrete steps you need to take to get your art off the ground. Whether or not you want to be a non-profit or a huge corporation isn't the issue - if you want to be successful as quickly as possible, then you have to start talking a little business.

Let's look at a fictional person, and let's call this artist Sabrina. She wants to live off the sales of her paintings. Since she hasn't sold anything yet, she's looking into the options of selling prints of her work to make them more affordable. She also works 6 days a week at her minimum wage retail gig (which she absolutely hates) to survive.

Now, prior to getting a plan in place, Sabrina has been printing prints a few at a time at the local copy place whenever someone asks her for one. She has an Etsy shop, but doesn't update very often. She's been putting off creating a website, as the technical aspect of it scares her and she doesn't have the money to hire a web designer. So how is she going to change her life around where she can escape the retail job and just paint all the time?

Sabrina need to put a plan into place.

The first step in Sabrina's plan is to figure out her living expenses, and how much money she really needs to survive. She needs to figure out the bare minimum (food, shelter, clothing, student loan bills, etc.) that she needs per month to make it through. She also needs to figure out her ideal income (where she gets to go out to eat, hit the bar with friends, watch a movie here and there, etc.). She needs to figure out her budget because that's how much money she's going to need to make off her art.

The second step is to do the cold hard math. Say Sabrina's target income (where she'd feel comfortable completely leaving her job) is $2500 a month. Now, if she sells her originals, which take her three full days to paint, she thinks she can reasonably sell them for $600. She currently sells her prints at a profit of $8 per print. Because she works all the time, she doesn't get three full days to work at something, so she prioritizes it and works on it a bit each day, even though she's exhausted after work. So let's say the painting takes a week to finish, so she can make four paintings per month. How many paintings does Sabrina have to sell to make it by each month?

If Sabrina sells four paintings a month will make $2400, but if that's through a gallery, she'll only take home $1200 due to the 50% cut most galleries take. She's not sure if she can sell two paintings a month even with mad hustle, but she thinks she can sell one. So that's $300 through her friendly local gallery. That means, she has to come up with $2200 a month through print sales. Which means, at $8 profit each, she has to print, ship, and sell 275 prints per month (or about 69 prints per week, or about 10 prints per day).

Sabrina needs to evaluate whether or not she thinks this is possible, and if not, then she needs to re-evaluate her marketing, her pricing, her sourcing, or all three. She could also re-evaluate whether or not she's willing to make less before she quits her job, and where she can cut corners in her budget if need be.

You see, maybe Sabrina can sell her prints for more, so she has to sell fewer of them. Or perhaps her art translates well into greeting cards and she should look into licensing and wholesales. Maybe her art has an appeal to interior designers, and she could sell her originals for more. If her job is especially soul-sucking, maybe she'd be willing to give up her book-buying habit and instead visiting the library more, or maybe she doesn't really need that phone upgrade. Perhaps she thinks she just needs a better, strategic marketing plan.

Whatever it is, Sabrina needs to face the scary unknown of what she has to do to succeed. Most of the time it's a lot easier to bury your head in the sand and wonder "Why haven't I made it yet?" but it's important to really face the reality that you need to think of art like a business - with a budget, a marketing plan, and a well-thought out course of action. Then, which is a post into itself, comes the real challenge - putting it all into action.

Hacking Your Own Timeline

For everyone out there who found this because they thought they were going to hack their facebook timeline, many apologies. Today, what we want to talk about is hacking your own personal timeline..you know, as in your actual life outside of the digital madness that is facebook.

You see, many of us, artists especially, have this imaginary timeline in our heads. Lots of it are socialized stuff that we grew up or had put in place by our parents or relatives. These are things like "getting married by 30," or "retired exactly at 65," or "graduate college by 22." Stuff like that. By indirect (and sometimes direct) messages, we've trained our brain to have these specific landmarks in time where certain things need to be achieved. However, we never stop to ask ourselves if these markers are really valid or even realistic.

While Monkey + Seal always encourages people living their dreams, dreams also need to be tempered by reality. If your dream is to be a world-class photographer, chances are you won't have the opportunity to really develop your skills if you're a freshman in art school. Now this is not to say that schooling is necessary, because it isn't, but the point is that if you are just starting off in pursuing your dream, your dream isn't going to come true on day 1, or even day 600.

When we set goals with timelines, we have to make sure that we temper our sometimes crazy-high expectations of ourselves with what is humanly possible. Going back to the 10,000 hour rule - if you want to be an amazing painter, you seriously need to log in thousands and thousands of hours painting. Assume that you have just started painting and your goal is to be a famous fantasy book cover illustrator, do you really think it's realistic that you can achieve your goal in a single year? It is possible (as we think anything is possible), but is it realistic? Say that you only need maybe 5000 hours to get your first illustration gig - that's still about two and a half years, assuming that you're painting 40 hours a week. Bump that up to an amazing 80 hours of painting a week, for 52 weeks out of the year, and then you're still at over a year. Is painting 80 hours a week - more than 11 hours a day - realistic for you? For more than a year?

We live in an age where we want everything now. With downloadable music and movies and TV, we don't need to wait to drive to the video store or to wait for shipping. We're conditioned to want everything now. We want to be millionaires today, to be successful today, to be famous today. We want our business to be profitable yesterday, to be scheduled for talk shows a week ago, and to be invited to conferences as a special guest a month ago. These things take time, and in order for us to be successfully sustainable, we need to set realistic timelines for ourselves.

So how do we do this?

Step 1: Figure out how much work, on average, you'll need to put in to your goal.

Take the time to write out your goal. How far away from it are you? This first step is extremely, extremely important. How many hours do you need to put in per week? Be honest with yourself. If you want that novel on the bestseller's list, how many hours does it take you to write 500 words? Multiply that by 80 and you'll have the amount of time you'll need to produce a 40,000 word novel. Now, how much time will it take you to edit that much writing? How many revisions do you think you'll need? Research publishing companies. What's the average time between an acceptance of a novel and the books hitting the shelves? Add all this together, and you will figure out how much time you'll need.

Step 2: Double that number.

We told you to be honest, and our bet is that you probably underestimated the time needed. Even if you don't factor in procrastination time, artist's block, and life emergencies or events, you also need to take into account sustainability. You're probably betting on some crazy, over-productive work schedule along with what it takes you to produce a small amount of work. However, as your probably know, larger scale projects usually just take way longer than you could imagine. Writing 10,000 words or painting 5 new portfolio pieces is very, very different from writing 40,000 words or painting 20 new portfolio pieces. If you thought it was four times as hard to do the larger product, you're probably mistake. It's more like 10 times as hard.

Step 3: Divide those hours by the number of hours you think you can manage to work on your goal per week. Keep in mind your day job (if you have one), vacations, weddings, sleep, your friends, family, and dates, your soccer team, etc.

Step 4: Divide that number by 50. Give yourself two weeks of a break. If not for sustainability, then for emergencies.

BAM. That's your realistic timeframe (in years) that it'll take you to achieve your goal assuming you're putting in the work and prioritizing your goal over most other things. We don't want to discourage you from following your dream, but we just want to let you know that your timeline in your head is probably unrealistic, and we don't want you to be disappointed when those deadlines come due and you haven't hit your mark there.

Since Monkey is very deadline oriented, he likes to set his crazy goal, then go back and set another "backup" deadline that is more realistic. He wants to be a Magic:the Gathering illustrator by January of 2013, but realistically? It's more like January of 2015. He's going to bust his little tail to make the first deadline happen, but after doing some research, art directors (specifically those at Wizards of the Coast) say that it usually takes about 2.5 years from when you start trying to go pro to make it to that caliber of an illustrator. Work like you'll do it in half the time, expect longer, and hopefully you'll end up ahead of the curve.

Set your goals today, whether it's looking for a new job, a specific achievement, or your end-all dream. Just make sure that they're realistic and true to you.

How to Make a Resolution That Sticks

With 2011 left with only 3 days left, we thought it would be timely for today's post to be about resolutions.

Often we hear of New Year's resolutions in the context of something that will be broken.  We hear about avoiding the gym in January as they'll be overcrowded, but in a month or so they'll be back to normal.  Part of this failure to commit to the New Year's resolutions is that we either tend to set goals either not thinking about what it'll take to get there, or we make a resolution that is too broad.  As we've said time and time again, it's all about specificity and prioritization.

In order to make a resolution sticky, you want to make sure that A) it's something that you honestly believe you can achieve, and B)you have a plan for.  

We always believe that people can do amazing things, but in order for people to achieve greatness, they also have to believe in themselves.  If you'd love to be an artist that works for a movie studio but don't really believe you could get a job at a movie studio, chances are, you're not going to work for a movie studio since you won't make working for a studio your priority. 

Sticking with our example, if you want to land that job at Dreamworks in the new year but fear that you aren't good enough to make it to Dreamworks, your resolutions shouldn't be to land a job there.  Your resolution should be to paint every day, or to do a sketch every morning or every day after you come home from work.  Maybe it's to take a few art classes or to download conceptart.org workshops.  It could also be to go to a counselor, or to read a book on self-confidence every month.  Either way, your focus should be on making a resolution that you can stick with.  Anyone can go to the library and get a book, or spend some time in a bookstore doing intense browsing through art books and magazines.  If you are reading this, chances are you have a pen or pencil to do a drawing daily, even if it's on grocery bags or the inside of envelopes.  Got junk mail or bills in the mail?  Then you've got something to draw on.  

If you have a large art goal as your resolution, think about breaking that large goal down into steps.  Instead of saying "I resolve to make $5,200 this year off selling my new comic," maybe think about saying "I'm going to make $100 per week off my comic sales," or "I'm going to submit my comics to a new comic store every week" or "I'm going to do one event every month that will bring in $434 in comic book sales."  

Figuring out what the actual goals needed to complete a resolution can also be very sobering, so don't be afraid to adjust your resolution.  If you hit your goal early, you can always ramp it up later in the year.  The key is to make sure that it's something that you honestly believe in your heart of hearts that you can do.  

The other part of sticking to a resolution is about making a plan.  Even if your resolution is something that you believe you can do like a resolution to sketch every day, you still need to  make a plan.  By providing yourself with a detailed plan of how you're going to achieve your goal, you'll make it easier to finish it all the way through.  

Even if you don't make a detailed plan, you should still think about your resolution to see if it really fits.  If not, revise your resolution to make sure it does.  Make a resolution to paint every day?  What about when you're flying to that wedding for a weekend?  Are you going to bring your oils on the flight?  Are you going to have time to do them on holidays?  Figure out the rules to your resolution - if you do two drawings a day, can you skip one?  What about seven, do you get to skip a week?  

Our point is not to drag you down with the nitty-gritty, but you do have to think about your resolution to make sure that not only is it feasible, but also easy.  If you only draw once a month and you want to go up to once a day, every day, for a full year (or beyond), is that something that you even have time for?  What are you going to change to make that happen?  

Maybe you could make sure that you go to sleep 15 minutes later to get that last sketch in before you go to bed.  If so, then what about also keeping a sketchbook and a pencil on your bedstand?  If you're only painting once a month, then instead of going for a daily painting, what about making a resolution to paint once a week?  Or if you want that daily thing, what about just making at least one brush stroke per day?  In that case, you want your painting to get set-up where you can easily access it, and you want to make sure that you have your paints and brushes and everything right where you'd need them to be in order to do your daily work.  

Part of making a plan can also involve getting someone to hold you accountable to your resolution.  Have a friend check up with you weekly - every time you miss your mark, you owe them $20.  Sign a contract to make it legally binding.  While this punishment principle might not work for everyone, it is a potential plan you can make if having the hordes nipping at your heels inspires you to get things done.  Alternatively, you could also give your resolution buddy a sum of money, or some rewards in advance, to give you every time they check in and you're on track.  If you need that Pavlonian training, we say go for it.  

So if you're looking to make a resolution (or ten) for 2012, make sure it's something you believe you can do and make sure you have a plan.  Knowledge is power, kids, and now that you know how to make some killer resolutions for next year, what are they going to be?

Perfection is Overrated (Enjoy the Ride)

We all (hopefully) are striving for perfection in our work (and if you aren't, what are you working for?). However, we think that perfection is overrated.

Often in the artist's journey, we are chasing after some sort of ideal. Perhaps it's the perfect translation from what's in your head to what's on paper/canvas/wood/the dance floor/etc. Perhaps it's worldwide fame and acclaim. Perhaps it's your own holy grail of technical perfection. Whatever it is, it's that elusive thing that we spend our lives chasing.

The thing to watch our for on this quest is the notion that we MUST find it. We often berate ourselves for not being perfect, for not achieving this impossibly high level of awesomeness. Every attempt feels like a failure and we end up crushing our own dreams because the elusive perfection is so far away. The key here is that if we are on this quest for perfection, we must want/desperately need to achieve it, but we have to realize that the road to perfection is what's important, not perfection itself.

You see, perfection itself is overrated. Once you achieve perfection, what are you going to do? You've crushed all competition, you have surpassed your rivals and mentors and instructors, nothing is ever new to you, you can't learn anything more. You just sit there alone at the top with nowhere to go but down. Not a very appealing prospect, if you ask us. What sounds more awesome is the notion of being close to perfection. You have competitors and rivals keeping you on your toes. You have to constantly stay on top of your game because other people are on top of theirs. You learn from your peers, and you look forward to finding something new and exciting in your craft. Sounds much more fun and interactive and amazing, right?

Now don't get us wrong - perfection is still something you want to strive for, but realize that it's something that you probably won't achieve in your lifetime. No one does. Take Michelangelo and DaVinci. These two genius masters of the Renaissance have had lasting effects on the world, and these two guys were alive over 500 years ago. However, they weren't perfect, but both strove for perfection and constantly worked and worked and worked at their craft so much that many would call them "perfect," even though they were not always happy with their own work. Michelangelo wasn't pleased with a tomb for the pope that he worked on for 40 years! The reason we regard these two so greatly is that while they were extremely gifted and talented and produced amazing works of art and engineering, they constantly strove for perfection. Additionally, just because they weren't perfect doesn't mean that their work wasn't amazing and awe-inspiring. You shouldn't knock your own work just because it is not perfect - it can still be amazingly mind-blowing - the secret is to embrace your creation for what it is, and the next time keep on striving for that perfect piece.

You see, oftentimes we forget in our hyper-competitive world that the trip is just as important as the destination, and in the journey of a creative, the trip is more important than the destination. If we must strive for perfection but never achieve it, you can either look at it as extremely depressing and you can give up now, or you can enjoy the neverending quest for perfection and enjoy the ride.

If you're in the creative field because you want to make money, get out. Whatever the field you're in, if you're in it just to make money, then why bother? The whole point is that you should be doing something that you enjoy and love, and you need to find joy in the pursuit of perfection, not perfection itself.

So go out there, try your best, and make something awesome today. Because just remember, while it might not be perfect, it doesn't have to be.

Embracing the New You

When you've been stuck somewhere, whether it be a physical location, or a job, or even a state of mind or action - it's easy to cling to it no matter how much it might be the exact opposite of where you want to be. While this seems like it could very well be counter-intuitive, humans are incredibly adaptable beings. We're practically the only animal on the face of the earth that can actually manipulate our surroundings to be something homey and familiar. When a tiger is placed in a iron cage, it can't plant trees and make it seem like a jungle. When we're placed in a cubicle, we can decorate our bland grey fabric walls or put up pictures, we can sneak off to play facebook games or play Words With Friends in the bathroom on our iphones. Humans are really sneaky in that we find ways to make threatening or new environments very, very familiar.

However, when you are on the cusp of moving onto towards your dream, towards something bigger and greater and more YOU, it can be very scary. Our minds will play tricks on us and you'll do whatever you can not to move forward towards the new. When you've finally succeeded in getting that new position or have landed a solo show or got admitted to the school of your dreams or got juried into some giant convention that's far away, you are now suddenly thrown into a situation that is unfamiliar. You're probably used to playing in the minor leagues, and now you're playing against hall-of-famers and your own idols. You're selling your prints next to the biggest names in the art world or you now have to figure out how to quickly produce thousands of handmade items you used to make yourself. Whatever it is, when you're getting close to your goal, new situations, unfamiliar terminology, different and new challenges will appear - and these are all things that make you want to run away and cower behind your old desk, your old job, your old familiar surroundings. To paint how you've always painted, to do things as you've done before, just so we won't have to face the new. But if you continue to do so as you've always done before, you will never embrace the awesomeness that you were meant to be.

It's okay, anything new is always a bit scary. However, we can't let the fear stemming from these new challenges inhibit our success.

You see, it's the Old You that doesn't know how to source national distributors, or how to navigate an international licensing contract. The Old You doesn't know what the art director for the Times wants, or how to manage a team of Disney animators. Perhaps the Old You doesn't know what its like to show in a group show, or how to fill out a call-for-entries form for Spectrum, or what it's like to vend at a craft fair. No matter what level you're on, stepping up to the next evolution of You is frightening, but remember that it is the Old You that doesn't know these things.

The New You, the successful one, is the one that has figured it out. Sure, there might have been momentary set-backs, stumbling points, and a steep learning curve, but you're now one step closer to your ultimate dream. Don't balk from the opportunity to dance with the stars or paint with the legends if you get that opportunity. Maybe you're not ready, but say "yes" anyway. Don't let yourself talk your way out of evolving towards your dreams because you're scared of what might happen. Ever notice that in epic sagas, the hero is always in over their head until the very end, when somehow, some way, they manage to exceed everyone (including their own) expectations of themselves and save the day? It's because that's the way it works. You evolve by stepping up to the plate and getting things done one step at a time.

Let go of the Old You and prepare to evolve a step. While it'll be scary, and can very well be difficult, the rewards are also always that much more amazing and plentiful the deeper the plunge you're willing to take. Now embrace the New You and let's get to work.

Celebrate All Success!!

Monkey here once again.

Here at Monkey + Seal, we often talk about chasing your dreams and setting goals - lots of long-term type stuff. But more often or not, the reason why lots of people give up on their dreams and settle for something less is not about the long-term motivation - everyone wants to follow their dreams. However, the biggest barrier is the short term blocks, and today, I want to talk about not rewarding yourself enough.

Once we're up and running and chasing after that dream, then what? Yes, we know it's a long and tough road, but are we just supposed to suffer through this long (sometimes even a lifetime) journey? If your goal is to become a famous painter (you should probably be more specific, but continuing on..) there's a lot that's going to happen on your way there.

You're going to finish paintings, put on gallery shows, submit to curators, sell pieces, have friends show up at your events, maybe you'll do some teaching, get a residency someplace - my point is that there are a lot of little (and big) things that will continue to occur until you're famous enough that museums are asking for solo shows and paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars for your art.

Often times, dream-chasers can be so focused on the goal that you're missing the bigger picture: you have to enjoy the ride.

Seriously. Like we've said before, if your goal is to be famous, it's easy. Go assassinate someone famous, blow up a city, give into the casting couch, run on television and shoot yourself in the face or something (please don't). if you want to be famous for doing something you love, that's the hard part, but it's also the enjoyable part as well. The big difference that when you say you want to be famous, you want to be famous by doing something you love and doing it well.

When you're doing something you love, it should be fun. Yes, it can be tiring or difficult at times (especially when you're shaking and trying to hang paintings because you're running on 2 hours of sleep), but at the end of the day, you're painting or dancing or singing or acting or writing or doing whatever it is that you love to do. It's awesome - so acknowledge that and be happy!

I personally often put down my own accomplishments because it's not received with some gigantic fanfare and the like, or it's not up to my 130% uber-expectations. However, if you don't celebrate these little achievements, what's the point? Every time you finish a painting, you should think "wow, I created something," not "ugg, this turned out shitty." It's probably not nearly as bad as you think, and if you hate it so much, then it's probably not finished and you need to do more work.

Celebrate everything, even your failures, and you'll find that the ride is becoming much more enjoyable and you'll be a lot happier. Complaining is fine, and acknowledging your weaknesses and flaws is fine, but just don't let them overshadow all that is going right with your life. Didn't sell any paintings at your recent show? That sucks, but YOU JUST HAD A SHOW! Lots of artists don't get shows. Finished a really great painting but didn't get into a show you submitted to? That sucks, but YOU JUST FINISHED A GREAT PAINTING! Lots of people couldn't paint to save their lives!

Everyone has good and bad days, successes and failures. Whether or not you're happy is all about your mindset. Enjoy the journey and the little success, and you'll find that you'll be a lot happier and the road to your goals will be much smoother.

Why Logic Doesn't Matter

I was over at Chris Guillebeau's blog reading his latest post and he mentions that while traveling, not everyone's logic works the same way. This insight has led us to write a 2-part series on logic. This is the first one, stay tuned for Wednesday's post for the next part!

While the idea of logic is that it is based on facts and universal truths, Chris brings up an interesting and important point - logic is based on subjective truths and facts that are available. What we mean by this is that although some choices may seem obvious and clear and logical to outsiders, often the facts aren't so clear.

If you're an artist, or even a closeted artist, chances are you burn with the desire to create. Whether that is creating a painting, an expression through dance, or a new melody, there is that itch in the base of your brain that is telling you to make something. We would guess that most "non-artists" are all actually closeted artists in some sense or another - some have buried that inner artist so deep they'll never find them again, and others are artists in manners that most people don't get, like creating an art out of using Excel, or being a financial forecasting wizard. If you're creating with your soul behind it, you're an artist.

This is our idealistic view on the world. However, many people who don't believe themselves to be artists (whether or not they actually are is beside the point), will often tell you that your art is just a hobby, or maybe they told you it wasn't any good, or maybe they just ignored it. Either way, because art isn't valued nearly enough as it should, people often try to tear down our dreams.

They tell us that only a very small percentage of artists actually can live off their art. They reinforce the stereotype of the starving artist. They tell us to "get a real job." Why? Because in their mind, it's the only logical way of dealing with this.

If you have not embraced your inner artist, it makes logical sense to base your life off what is going to provide you with food and shelter. If you have high student loans, it makes sense to try and get a high-paying job. If you can get a job as an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, or anything that pays well, it makes logical sense to keep the job because it pays well, and money (for good or for bad) is what provides us with food and shelter (and other cool stuff like computers, paint, brushes, canvas, etc. etc.). However, if you have not embraced your inner artist, you don't take into the consideration the burning desire to follow your artistic vision and that need to create.

As an artist, even though it may seem risky, it may seem stupid, it may seem illogical, chasing your dreams is almost as vital as food or shelter. The burning desire to do something more than just survive and consume, but to actually create - this is a need that cannot go unfulfilled.

That's why in some ways, it may seem illogical to be an artist. It may seem illogical to try and make it as a painter, or as a musician, or a dancer, or a photographer, or whatever, but if you feel that inner fire that calls out to you and shouts "CREATE" - then all you can do is listen and create.

Stay tuned for Wednesday's post on why logic does matter.

5 Qualities of Successful Artists

Today we wanted to share with you the qualities that we have seen repeated over and over again in successful artists. We've seen these qualities again and again in successful people, actually, so it doesn't just apply to artists. No matter what you want to do in life, if you develop these traits, you'll definitely achieve all your goals.

Ready for the secret formula? Here it is:

1. Be true to your Inner Artist
First off, if you aren't being true to your Inner Artist, you're never going to fully reach your goals, because if you aren't going for the goals that the Inner Artist inside you really wants with laser-accuracy, you aren't really following your dreams at all. You're getting distracted, and the fastest path to a goal is going in a direct line, right? So listen to your heart and what you really want and pursue that dream with all your heart. In the end, you really gotta do what you love.

2. Work Really, Really Hard
Pursuing that dream with all your heart is tough, because it requires a lot of work. It's drawing or painting every single day. It's staying up late at night to make sure that your project is done on time. It's doing that tenth revision even though you got bored on the second. It's relentlessly and doggedly following your goal. It's not easy, but by doing the best you can at any given time, you'll get that work done.

3. Don't Be a Jerk
At the same time, while you're chasing your dream, we don't recommend being a jerk. People with bad attitudes are just as memorable as those who are super cool, only while we're anxious to help friendly, respectful, kind, wonderful people, we're just as anxious to do our best to not work at all with the jerks.

4. Be As Generous As You Can
Going along with inspiring others to help you, be generous in return. No person makes it all on their own - we're social beings that thrive with the help from others. By being generous and giving what you can (it's also important to note that you should never give more than you realistically can), the rewards, in whatever form that they might take, will always outweigh any benefits you could have gotten by being selfish and hording information or resources.

5. Never Give Up
This one is pretty self-explanatory. While one might assume that every great is this perfect, unfailing person, the opposite is actually true. The most successful people you've met have failed many times. The difference is that these successful people have learned that failure isn't fatal, and that each failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. They've then taken those learned experiences and knowledge to come back bigger and better, and that's what's gotten them where they are.

Kinda boring, right? Not the most world-shaking revelations. Sadly, there is no magical formula for success overnight. Sometimes the road to success is longer than you might want it to be, but there are really no shortcuts. If you do discover any shortcuts, just figure out what that trade-off is, as there are always trade-offs (you just might not realize there are, depending on where your values and moral compass lie). Now that you know what you have to do, what will you do now?

Go get 'em!

Your Pace

In our society, there is definitely a big push to do bigger, better, be greater, faster, stronger, etc. There is a sense of urgency - we need to do it yesterday, and if not then, now now now.

However, this fear of losing something - an opportunity - is based out of a mentality of lack. We think we won't have another chance, or that perhaps that you'll never be as good as you are now.

While there is definitely times when you do need to go all-out, those times are probably less frequent than you might believe. As weighed-down as we are with commitments, duties, responsibilities, and a bunch of other stuff, it's good to really evaluate how much time you really have.

Sometimes it might seem like you're going back downhill when you're trying to desperately to climb uphill. Well, maybe that's for the best, as if you were going to fast previously, perhaps you need to take a break - don't burn yourself out too quickly.

When you are climbing a mountain (literally), if you ascend too quickly you can get altitude sickness. Monkey has experienced this firsthand, with extreme headaches, nausea and/or vomiting..it is not fun. Guess what the only cure for altitude sickness is? Going back down the mountain and lowering your elevation. You can stay where you are and painfully tough it out, but climbing only makes it worse.

Same goes for any challenges in your life. Go at YOUR Pace. Some people might have trained longer than you have. Some people might be riding yaks up the mountain. Whatever. Don't compare yourself to the rates that other people are going because you don't know their story, their backgrounds, their support teams, or their advantages. You can only go at Your Pace, and that's the fastest you can go. Go any faster, and you risk burning yourself out and hurting yourself in the long run.

Sure, Monkey + Seal preach sustainability over destroying a bit of yourself to reach the goal faster, but that's because we're in this for the long haul. There are numerous times where we could have taken shortcuts, or done things like other people, or worked ourselves sick. But every time we've even considered doing this, we realize that it's just not how we work. If we push ourselves too hard, we get sick or burnt out. If we do things unethically, we feel guilty and terrible and self-sabotage ourselves. If we copy others, we feel cheap and like we've lost our identity. All in all, you just have to be yourself and go at Your Pace.

The fastest way up the mountain - where you can enjoy the view at the top - is Your Pace. Embrace it.

Happy Year of the Rabbit: Certainly a Friend of Monkey + Seal!

Hi Everyone!

Thank you again for another awesome year with us. We’re so happy to have a humble rooftop above us, brushes and canvas to paint with, and a tomorrow to look forward to. We hope you were able to reflect on your year with plenty of gratitude, forgiveness, lessons learned, re-commitments, and more space for a creative and adventurous life.

Here at Monkey + Seal, we have so many things to be grateful for over the past year. Through generous gifts, support, and chance meetings, we were both able to finish art school. We produced two successful gallery shows “Out of Place” and “Alienation.” (There have been talks for potentially a third show). We’ve both been individually scouted and booked for a collaborative show this June! Through all your wonderful responses, we’ve been able to blog three times a week and share our love of art, grow from one show a year to almost one every month, and offer more free guides to empower artists into making a living with their art. We’ve also ventured into our love of screen-printing and created some fun Tshirts. (We hope you like them too). Thank you to everyone who purchased our charity Tshirts, we’re very proud to announce that with your help, we were able to donate a subsequent amount to La Casa de La Madres, whose dedicated and constant work is to offer shelter, advocacy, and support services to battered women and their children.

Thank you dear old and new friends alike. We hope you’ll be along with us for the next phase of our adventures! This year, we’re looking to make a grand entrance in out-of-state art shows, publish a Monkey+Seal book, and perhaps dabble more into our love for animation. (Monkey also said he would take a dance class with Seal).

We would also like to always thank our readers and we hope to empower more artists to pursue their dreams by offering local workshops, words of wisdom, more free guides, and a more personal inner glimpse into our lives as working artists.

It’ll be a festive year! Without further a do:

Workshops in January

This January, we’ll both be teaching workshops at Big Umbrella Studios. To see the workshop schedule, please click here. Come spend time with us. It is our mission to make the classes affordable and a small teacher to student ratio. We’re very excited to see you flourish in your art whether through our class on with your own projects.

Free Guides

To start off the New Years, we’re giving out presents in the form of free guides. We're big advocates of artists in getting their art our there. Want to know how? You can download "The Psychology of Sales" and "7 Tips to Better Customer Service (for Craftspeople)." You can download the guides for free here!

Upcoming Monkey+Seal Shows

• Monkey (Rick Kitagawa) will be in a show in early March alongside with Grant Gilliland at Big Umbrella Studios. They'll be bringing the beasts back in their show "Bestiarum vocabulum."
• In June, both Monkey+Seal will be doing a collaborative split showat Oz Gallery in the Mission. Final dates TBA.

What are your goals for this year? What new horizons will you explore? What new heights will you reach?

“Unless you make the decision that things will be different, they most decidedly won’t be. This decision comes from a sense of hope and eagerness, and is centered in certainty that what you want is not only possible, not only probable, but inevitable.”

– Deanna Davis

Managing Expectations

Monkey + Seal hold ourselves up to high expectations. While this is usually a good thing to strive and work and bust your behind to make it to the top, it's always a good thing to make a clear distinction in what expectations you hold to yourself. That distinction is doing your absolute best, and doing your best given the circumstances.

The difference is that your absolute best is probably a near-impossible level of work to keep up with any sort of consistency. If you were doing your best 100% of the time, you wouldn't have time to eat, sleep, or do anything that is remotely relaxing. Your stress levels would be so high you wouldn't be digesting your food (assuming you ate anything). It's an unrealistic expectation.

This is not to say that you shouldn't try, or that you shouldn't push yourself. Especially with working with clients and deadlines, sometimes you do have to push past what you think you can do and do that 30-hour day, or finish those five paintings in twelve hours. However, when you work yourself that hard, you're going to burn out. The crash isn't fun, and the whole experience generally isn't that fun either.

What you should aim for is that you do your very best given the circumstances. If you forgot the box of your highest selling comic and only brought the old stuff that no one buys, you can't expect to do the sales that you would have. But, you can do your very best given the circumstances and figure out how to sell what you do have. Or you can lose an hour of sales to leave and go get the comics. Or you could buy some paper and a pen and start selling one-of-a-kind comics that you draw there and then.

Basically, while we strongly promote setting lofty goals and expectations, make sure you realize that sometimes life doesn't always work out the way you want it to, but you shouldn't let those bumps derail you. Do not let missing a mark end your career. Use the missed goal as a learning experience, and as long as you did the best you could given the circumstances, you can walk away knowing that you did all that you could.

Is your life and your art meaningful?

Creating Meaning:

Seal here.

What is your purpose in life? It's a loaded question, but once you figure that out, you will find the passion and drive in your art to overcome any obstacle. So, isn't it important enough to know?

Most people, Seal too, confuses meaning with goals. Goals are things you want to accomplish. Meaning is why you want to accomplish these goals. Is your life meaningful? In other words, is your life full of meaning? Is there a reason you get up every day?

Many people have come to Seal with frenetic passion and exclaim their goal: I want to make a comic, a novel, a book, a painting about ____ (blank). My next question usually consists of genuine encouragements and then the dreaded question: "why? what drives you to write that particular story? ... what is your purpose behind this work of art? what is this story REALLY about?"

Recently I wanted to do a painting about an ancient wasteland inhabited by old robots. But when I ask myself why, it took me awhile to find the answer. At first it was, "oh, I don't know. Everyone loves robots and ancient ruins. It looks cool." So I kept asking "why do I want to do this painting? What is the drive behind this painting?" "Why is it so important?" Eventually, I came down to the following answer: I wanted to depict my experiences of abandonment growing up in a household of working parents.Having also survived civil wars in the homeland country, they were emotionally drained and detached towards my sister and me." This was, of course, a far cry from my robots in a wasteland. . . but is it, really? Now that I understand the "meaning" and reason behind this painting, I can fully let my passions out. The robots become something more. It is a statement about myself. It also becomes easier to complete. Because every day I look forward to meeting and conversing with myself within the painting.

I think people often get the wrong idea when I say meaning. They think their meaning has to be "deep" or "grandiose." Monkey can draw monsters and it is still full of meaning. Because he is living truthfully to who he is. He is genuinely doing work for himself and living life with intention and honesty about what he wants to do. He faces his art head on, without apologies or compromises. When he is not drawing or painting, he comforts Seal and supports her dreams. They go on adventures and discover new things. Sometimes they hit a wall and overcome it. He also works passionately for equality and justice by donating his time to teach workshops or donating proceeds from his art. These are some of the many more reasons for why he exists on this earth.

It is simply living day to day with intention. Sometimes, the meaning in my day is as simple as: I would like to make someone laugh, then I draw a squiggly drawing of a penguin inside of a toilet bowl. Sometimes, it's something along the lines of I want to make my friends happy with a delicious meal, a dish I've never cooked before (so I have to research new dishes and learn something new). Those are the day to day meaning. You also need to know what is the overarching meaning to your life. For me, I create art that tell a truth about myself, whether literally or allegorically, in hopes that it resonates with people. It is my meaning, to also lead other people to their dreams. So I also hope to mentor and be mentored by other artists. Meanings sometimes change. As teenagers, (not all of us) but probably we had hoped to learn as much as possible, find friends, and a person to love and be loved. As adults, we tend to want to pass on our knowledge and experiences. As I grow older, sometimes it's simply to share more time with Monkey, friends, and family.

One way to know what your meaning is to ask several questions, here are some to begin with:

1. what makes me happy?
2. what do i look forward to every day?
   
3. what are some things I truly enjoy doing? (time passes and you don't even know it)
   
4. what are my gifts (art, intelligence, listening, etc).
5. how can I utilize my gifts to get genuine satisfaction out of life? (it can be simply, entertaining people, fighting for a cause, using your gifts to donate to a cause, teach aspiring artists, etc).
   

Making meaning is scary. It means that you matter. You matter to the world. And what you create matters. That's scary because it also means that you are charged with the important task of making a mark in your everyday world. However big or small.

I'm a firm believer that each individual is put here on earth to do a task. Most likely this task is something that only you can achieve. Only your voice can reach and say your story. Will you take this challenge?

"You decide to matter, to live a principled, creative, active life in support of your cherished ideals, to manifest your potential, to do work,[ . . .] do not presume that your life matters on a cosmic scale or that your efforts will move mountains [although, they might] But in short, it is to make your life meaningful at least to you." - Eric Maisel

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For further reading:

Fearless Creating by Eric Maisel

You Can Have it All and Then Some

“What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.” - Anthony Robbins

Seal here:

What if I were to say, no matter where you are in life, no matter how old you are, what your economic or educational background is, you can have it all and then some?

I know the skeptics in us, will start its rampage of defenses: "Of course you can't have it all. I'm 50 years old. I am in debt. I have no money or food. How dare you try to get me to hope on something I cannot possibly be or have." You will think I am crazy. You may be even afraid to believe in what I am about to say, but I am saying this out of experience: The very thing your heart desires, is very possible and very doable.

We often discount the possibilities and our own potential to accomplish what we desire most, if we simply try. We are afraid of looking like fools on an "impossible grandiose quest," so instead, we obsess about the odds against us. Rather than working on the novel, a page a day, and finally getting it published, we research the trends and decide that there is no market for our art. We put the novel away and go back to our daily grind. We put a marker on everything and label it: "impossible." Going to art school: impossible. Meeting and dating a wonderful partner: impossible. Getting a gallery to curate my art: impossible. Finishing my art in time for the art fair: impossible.

Then let me ask you this: has this limited belief, thinking, and behavior gotten you anywhere? Has it made you happy? Or allowed you to take the next step that can possibly lead you EXACTLY to your dreams?

I don't blame you. This is an old human trick. Our very biological impulses has made it hard for our to change or grow. Human life has survived on in-action. We stay safe in the cave. We do not go out, because out there -- it's scary. So we say, it is impossible to go outside of the cave. There is nothing beyond this cave. So we stay inside. We remain as we are. And we rot.

But aren't you curious? About what's outside of your own cave?

Isn't it egotistical to define the confines and limitations of what is possible in this world by human standards? Humans are merely babies in comparison to the immeasurable universe. There are galaxies beyond our own. So who's to say, what is possible? So how about that art class you've been thinking about? Seems easier to do than riding to the moon, right?

I invite you, for even just a moment, to entertain the possibility of your dreams. To do away with the word "impossible." Whatever you desire, it is possible. It is possible within my budget. It is possible within my time frame. It is possible to accomplish just as I am right now.

Beethoven was deaf when he composed his final symphony, the famous European Anthem "Ode to Joy," one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire.

I can't speak for all of us, but most of have ears, haven't we? We have legs to stand on. And Hands to create with. Even if we're poor, we have napkins and cardboards to write on. So what's stopping you?

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” - Christopher Reeve

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you have imagined." - Thoreau

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The road to recovering your dreams:
Try these activities for starter:

1.) Take one sheet of blank paper, write on the Title "I want/ I desire." Now fill up both sides of the page. Your wishes can be big like an "art job" or it can be as small as a sticker. No censorship. Just write.

2.) Now take one of those wishes/ desires and focus on it's possibility. Take actions towards that goal. If it's an art job, how about searching the internet? Do you know anyone in the art field? (Monkey and Seal count). How about making a portfolio to apply for art jobs? If it's a sticker, go to your local Wallgreens, and buy one for $1.

Just writing down your desires, invoke the possibility of the universe. You'll start to find that "all matter of coincidences" will fall towards accomplishing your dream, if you simply focus and take actions towards it.

Good luck and know that you're not alone!

If you know what you want, then be specific

We all (hopefully) have goals and dreams. Whether it's living off your art (like Monkey + Seal's dream), or becoming the highest grossing actor ever, or being able to get 40 regular marshmallows in your mouth and still being able to say "chubby bunny," we often have some sort of benchmark or achievement that we are striving for.

Sometimes, your goal is specific. For example, to be the highest grossing actor ever, you need to start making tons of money through acting. Sometimes, if your goal is being an internationally-recognized artist, it might be a bit more nebulous. How many countries do you have to be known in? Who has to recognize you as an artist in said countries?

Monkey made this one of his goals a year back, hoping to be invited to show his paintings around the world by some of the largest lowbrow/pop surrealist galleries in places like Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Tokyo, Japan. However, he never really consciously stated that. He chose his goal to simply be "an internationally recognized artist."

When your goal is more of an internalized concept like Monkey's was, you'd be surprised as to how quickly you can achieve it. Monkey has been selling zines overseas for two years now via our Etsy site, and recently, he sold some ties and prints to some fans in Australia (thanks everyone!). Technically, he has now been recognized by someone as an artist outside the United States, thus qualifying him as an internationally-recognized artist.

Sure, that's not what Monkey really meant. It's not what you probably think of when you hear "internationally recognized artist," but the term is sort of a vague one. While Monkey is happy he hit this goal, he's made his goal more specific, and is still waiting to hear back from curators abroad.

The point of all this is that if you have a broad goal and are constantly working towards it, you may have already achieved it in a sense, without even knowing it. If this this is the case, congratulate yourself for a job well done. If you find that this is a bit of a let-down, that you didn't really get what you wanted, then it's fate's way of telling you to be a bit more specific with what you want.

The realization of knowing that you're already gotten what you wished for is a bit sobering at times, and the feeling of "this isn't what I wanted" isn't the greatest. Many times Monkey + Seal will realize that we were asking for the wrong thing, or perhaps we didn't even know what we wanted in the first place. Use these "mini" milestones and learn from them, and use them to figure out what you really want, and set your sights on it. We think that once you figure out what you want in your heart of hearts, the steps to getting it will be clearer than you could ever imagine. Now it'll just be up to you to taking those steps.

What is Behind Your Art?

Have you ever saw something "really cool" but when you looked again, it was "essentially empty" ? Like an action movie full of explosions, state-of-the art effects, and "cool shit," but with a painfully terrible plot, lines, and acting? Like channel surfing, fast cuts, pulsing eye-catching flickers of spectacle, but you can't remember what it was that you watched a minute ago?

Is your art like this?

Sometimes, people create for mere spectacle. They just want to grab your eye without really committing to stating something. While there is no wrong way to do "art," What is your goal? If "eye-catching" is your goal, then congratulations, you've probably already reached it. If it is something else . . . if you seek questions more than to answer them . . . then congratulations, you've got a whole lifetime to create.

Seal forgot where she got this quote but it has always stuck by her: "What is your goal? Is it to paint better? or to see better?"