Why Being A Robot is Easier

Life is full of choices. We can choose what to eat for dinner, what to watch on YouTube, and what to listen to while we go jogging. We can decide what we want to paint, or which model to hire, or what sort of landscape you want to research. For the most part, we have agency.

Agency is the ability to make choices. It's basically the foundation that American was founded upon - freedom. Without agency, we'd be trapped in a pre-programmed cycle that is boring, predictable, and completely out of our control. We'd basically be robots. We would do whatever we were programmed to do, function how the overseers would tell us to function. Pretty craptastic life, if you'd ask me.

So while I don't think any of us would want to be mindless robot sheep-lemming creatures sitting in a box, often times we make the mistake of giving up our agency to others. We decide that its a lot easier to go the way of the robots and just throw our hands in the air, close our eyes, and follow blindly.

You see, responsibility is the burden that comes along with agency. If we choose to do something, we have to take responsibility for the consequences. Too many of us want the freedom of agency yet make excuses about not acting how we'd really like to. If you want to get into galleries, you have to send gallery owners/curators your work. If you aren't showing in a gallery, and you haven't sent anyone your portfolio, you can't say "Oh, they wouldn't take me anyway" - that's being irresponsible. You need to take ownership of your life and take responsibility, even (and especially if) that means fessing up: "I'm too afraid to send my portfolio to gallery XYZ." There is nothing wrong with being afraid. Fear is a biological necessity that keeps us from killing ourselves doing stupid things. However, we have to learn when being afraid is holding us back from realizing our potential as amazing human beings.

Lots of time we cut ourselves short and underestimate how great we really are. Excuses prevent us from really growing because it shields us from the sometime harsh reality - we have a lot more agency than we think. While we might constantly give it away with excuses like "I ran out of paint," "my boss won't let me," "the bus was late," we need to take responsibility for our shortcomings so we can overcome them. Buy more paint, or borrow some, or ask for some on Craigslist. Quit your job, tell your boss off, call in sick. Get a cab, steal a bike (please don't), start running.

The scary truth is that we are often at fault. While we don't condone victim blaming here at Monkey + Seal (ie survivors of domestic violence, women being harassed for wearing short skirts, people who are mugged in areas of a city with a higher crime rate), we do think that for a lot of our life if we want to grow and shine and realize our true potential, we have to accept responsibility and move beyond our limitations. The difference between victim blaming and owning up to your life is that if you are a victim, you have had your agency taken away, and if you are a frustrated artist who wants to take your game to the next level, you're giving your agency away.

So, while being a robot is probably a lot easier (they also have laser beam eyes, which is useful for just about everything), you're not a robot. You're not even an automaton. You're a human being with the power and responsibility to shape your own life. Realize that you're stronger/wiser/craftier/talented/amazing than you think, and choose to do something that is a step towards realizing your dream today.

A Blueprint for Quitting Your Day Job

So Seth Godin and the team of awesome-makers over at the Domino Project came up with something called Trust30, a daily writing challenge that would take place over 30 days that will focus you onto doing something that we tend to forget about - trusting ourselves.

Monkey decided to take this challenge and has been posting over at his own blog Politics:Art:Culture on a daily basis. We thought that one post in particular, titled "A Blueprint for Quitting My Day Job" was especially relevant to all the artists out there following our blog. The topic was being bold - participants were asked what one thing that they have been afraid of pursuing would they pursue, what obstacles were in their way, and how were they going to overcome it.

While I can say that I'm pretty lucky in terms of owning some businesses, getting to paint, etc. etc., the one thing I've always been afraid to pursue is doing art full time. I've had numerous business ideas and different product lines and whatnot, but I've yet to really formulate a strong business plan and formulate a plan for a wholesale line or work.

Having a fall-back job that comes really, really easy (see last post), in a way has almost become a crutch. It's not the worst job ever, and it doesn't really challenge me most of the time, and I get to talk about (not actually do, a lot of the time) art with people. I do get to teach, which is cool, but basically, I'm pretty comfortable.

So why don't I just quit? Well, the surface reason is that I have huge student loan bills, rent, etc. to pay every month, and if I were to completely set out myself, I would not have any of that safety net to cover myself. Additionally, I would need to get some capital for marketing, photography, raw materials, etc. Since my monthly bills are so high, I can't afford to save. Lame.

Additionally, part of it is basic fear. Fear of failure. While the idea of failing isn't such a huge deal, I think that a failed business venture early on when I quit my dayjobs marked with the high price of failure (not being able to pay rent, getting me and Eve evicted) is frightening.

So how to go about defeating all these obstacles and doing it up right? The plan is to a)reduce risk, b)create capital, and c)make it happen.

First, reducing risk. First off, to defeat the fear of failure, I have to make it so that if I fail, nothing too bad will happen. I won't have to live on the streets, etc. etc.

In order to reduce risk, I need to basically do B, which is to create some capital. I can do this by working to create multiple alternative streams of income. This will be done via $20 illustrations, craft fairs, and getting a handcrafted license to sell on the streets of san francisco. Saving and eating out less will also help. Additionally, making a kickstarter video can also be awesome.

So I guess the last part is just doing it all. While this is an overly simplified plan of action, I already have the entrepreneurial know-how to make most of these things happen, so why not start today on my day off? Oh wait, I guess I will.

So that's Monkey's plan. What have you been afraid to achieve? How are you going to do it? What are you waiting for?

PS - Monkey is starting to do 5x7" paintings on watercolor paper for $20. He'll paint anything for you, but it will most definitely end up involving a monster in some way, shape, or form, but that's probably why you'd be buying an original painting from him anyway.

If you'd like to commission one of these little paintings, you can buy one (or more!) right here:

$20 Custom 5x7" Painting

Ex: If you told me to paint your lawn, it would probably end up like this:

Wonderland SF 1 Year Anniversary / The Undiscovered: New World/The Secret of Deadbrook

HEEEEYY YOOOUUU GUYYYYSSSSSS!

Sorry, got a sleep-deprived Goonies flashback for a sec.  Anyway, we've got two shows for your viewing pleasure coming up this Friday June 3rd!  Two shows, one night, a crapload of paintings.

First off, from 6-10pm, we were invited by the ever-awesome Irene Hernandez-Feiks to be two of the 60 featured artists in her gallery/boutique's 1 year Anniversary!  Woot!  Wonderland SF is located at 2929 24th Street (btwn Florida and Alabama) and from the list of artists, it's going to be super awesome!

Then, bus, drive, walk, bike, or jog the 10 blocks over to Oz Gallery at 3224 1/2 22nd Street for The Undiscovered: New World/The Secret of Deadbrook for our feature show!  We're both really excited about this show and we've not slept very much making sure it's an awesome experience for you.  This show will go from 8-11pm.

Monkey is personally going to be at the Wonderland show probably around 6:30, then will be headed over to Oz Gallery for the rest of the evening where he'll meet up with Seal.

Thank you so much for the support and we can't wait to see you at the show(s)!!!

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.

The Undiscovered: New World / The Secret of Deadbrook

Hey everyone! We haven't had time to write up a full new post this week, because we have been busily painting our behinds off for our upcoming split show!

This is going to be our first feature show and we're really excited about it. Seal is preparing a whole new slew of amazing other-worldly landscape paintings, and Monkey is preparing an interactive narrative to accompany his paintings. It should be a really fun evening!

The show opens on Friday, June 3rd from 8pm-11pm at Oz Gallery, located at 3224 1/2 22nd Street (between Bartlett and Mission). We're super excited and we hope to see you there!

The Undiscovered is a two-person show made up of two parts: "New World", a collection of new paintings by Eve Skylar, and "The Secret of Deadbrook," new paintings by Rick Kitagawa that weave an interactive tale of the macabre.

"New World' will explore a journey into the uncharted territory of the fantastic landscapes that inhabit Eve Skylar's mind. From steampunk junkyard swamps to soaring new heights and forgotten robots, come explore the realm of the New World.

"The Secret of Deadbrook" is an interactive horror murder mystery told through paintings and their accompanying narratives. Children have been disappearing in the town of Deadbrook, and when a witness comes forward concerning the most recent disappearance, it's up to you to unearth the sinister secrets of Deadbrook. All you will need to solve the mystery will be at your fingertips - can you figure out who is killing the children before it's too late? If you can, enter your guess and you'll have a chance to win original art!

Building Up Your Dream Team / Thank You!

Don't fight by yourself!

Being an artist can often seem like a solitary profession. Even when working as a team to say, produce a game or animate a short, a lot of time is spent by oneself actually producing the art.

We often tend to think that we're forging ahead alone, a lone commando typing away at our computer or painting in our studio. Especially if you work a dayjob, it's often work at the office, then come home and create by yourself.

However, as you begin to look to create more opportunities for yourself, there is a huge revelation that you must come upon if you hope to ever "make it" as a professional artist:

You cannot do it alone.

Plain and simple, no matter how skilled you are, if you forsake all help, you're not going to go too far in life. Whether it was your teachers who taught you how to paint, or your friend who listens to you after a bad day at work, or your partner who helps out with rent while you pursue a more financially-risky dream, you are not alone.

Quite frankly, it's impossible to go it alone. Even if you build an internet empire from scratch, it's the word of mouth referrals and the help of your fans that will eventually build you up. No brand is without it's buyers, and no empire is an empire without people supporting it.

The easiest way to build up your own dream team of supporters, friends, allies, and other people who will help take you to the top is to help them to the top. While we don't advocate giving more than you really can (or making false promises), supporting others when you can and doing your best to help others reach their goals is by far the way to do things.

The rule of thumb is to just be a good person that helps out their friends and is a caring, supportive teammate, partner, friend, coworker, co-ninja, etc. etc. That way, you'll find that your own team is more supportive, caring, and generally awesome, and then your combined efforts synergistically evolve into crazy things that you wouldn't have been able to achieve on your own.

We also understand that not everyone is going to be right for your team. There are tons of people who you won't connect with, or are too self-absorbed to ever consider giving back. But if you keep putting yourself out there and being supportive to others, you'll find that you'll connect with other like-minded people and your tribe will grow.

Additionally, make sure that you don't take what people give you for granted. Just because you helped someone out doesn't mean they're ever obligated to help you out in return, and you shouldn't operate under the mentality that you're giving so people owe you. Understand that you're giving because you want to support other cool artists, and in turn you'll naturally find others who want to support you because people like helping other cool people. We believe that most people are generally good, and if you show them a little love they'll show it right back.

When you're in an appreciative mindset, you'll not only be creating a positive energy for others, but you'll be creating a positive space for you too. Gratitude is contagious, and nothing is more empowering or awesome to see than a whole group of people working together, happy and thankful for each other making awesome stuff happen.

On that note, we know that we appreciate everyone who reads our blogs, and reposts our tweets, and follows us on facebook, and who has either bought or recommended our art to a friend, or has introduced us to their artist friends, or have come out to our gallery shows. So while this post was supposed to be primarily about how to build up your own support team, we just wanted to take time out to say "Thank You" to everyone who has supported us all these years. Whether you've been with us back while we were still in art school or are just joining us now, Thank you. Whether you lurk about on our website or post on the blog, whether you say hi at craft fairs or send us letters, thanks a million. We wouldn't be where we are without you, and we hope that you feel like we've got your back as well.

So while you're out there making friends and changing the world, we hope you aren't afraid to reach out to us for help along the way! Let's make our dreams come true together!

How Bad Do You Want to Succeed?

It's the Monkey here again:

First off, this was inspired by this article over at Muddy Colors, a pretty cool illustration blog. While I highly suggest you go take a look, I know some of you don't like clicking blog links (I know I'm usually guilty of that), so I'll summarize for you: Life as an artist is hard, it usually takes on average, 5 years after graduating from art school to really get a stable illustration career. Live inexpensively, and take all the work that you can get.

While this is very, very true and great advice, it sort of brings up the big question: How badly do you want to succeed at this whole "chasing your dream" thing? Because with all the awesomeness that comes along with being able to do what you love for a living, not everyone will be able to do that right out of college. Yes, there are definitely exceptions, and we know lots of illustrators who got picked up by game companies within 3-6 months of graduation. However, that's not going to be the case for everyone, and especially if you want to be a successful fine artist, the road could be even longer assuming the traditional gallery path.

So you have to ask yourself, and be totally honest - are you going to be able to do what you love right now and make a living off of it? Personally, I think that the advice to live inexpensively is great, but when you've got nearly $200,000 in student loans to pay back, living super frugally still doesn't cut it a lot of the time and it's not even living frugally, it's being broke-ass poor.

Now to be totally honest, this is a question that I've found myself asking myself more and more. I'm generally a super happy, go-get-'em type of guy, and this isn't some front that I put on to just try and encourage other artists to go after their dream. I'm not the type to sell you something that I don't believe in. However, we've talked about going through Hell before, and the reason we can talk about stuff like that is because we've gone through it, or in my case, are going through it when we write these posts.

While co-owning a gallery and running the Monkey + Seal shop and co-running a screen printing biz and teaching workshops and doing demos at Paper Source and painting for gallery shows might seem all super awesome and fun and magical, and don't get me wrong, it is most of the time, it's also really, really, really, really fucking hard.

I work, on average, between 50-70 hours a week. I don't usually get entire days off, and if I do, they come about once every three weeks or so. Now yes, some of that time is painting or making prints, or designing a new tie design, or writing blog posts, or updating FB, or whatever, but nevertheless, it is work. I also cannot stop because to be perfectly honest, I'm broke, and if my income comes from the art hustle, I gotta hustle.

There are times where rent is put into jeopardy, and times that I skip meals because I spent all my money on bills or on art supplies or table fees at craft fairs. On good nights I get 6 hours of sleep, on bad nights I get 3-4. I also have to go to my two community college classes twice a week in order to defer my student loan payments.

Don't get me wrong - I'm really happy most of the time as like I said, I get to paint and draw and illustrate and make cool stuff for people for a living. But the cost is that I can't currently afford to travel or take vacations, and I can't stop. I'm constantly worried about money, and that's why I hustle trying to simultaneously make Monkey + Seal, Lords of Print, and Big Umbrella work.

So while this may come off as a whine-fest, it doesn't intend to be one. At any time I could go and apply to office jobs that would pay me enough to get by, or I could do my best to manage a retail store or something like that. All very valid and perfectly okay decisions for some people, but just not me.

But thanks to Eve's tremendous emotional, psychological, and financial support, I'm able to keep on doing what I love, even if it means some great sacrifices at times. And that's why I can't give up. I can't squander everything the lovely Seal and lots of other people have given me. To me, art is (almost) everything.

And while you might think that I'm trying to convince you to give up everything to follow your dream (I'm not), an equally important thing you have to figure out is your limits. How long will you give yourself before you give up? 6 months? 2 years? A decade? Your entire life? What else are you willing to sacrifice to get it? Are you willing to give up the love of your life for your dream? Your friends? Will you leave everything behind and relocate? Personally, I've decided that art is the most important thing in my life - besides Eve. We don't talk about our personal lives a lot on the blog. So while there are a lot of things I'm willing to give up for my art- vacations, eating at fancy restaurants, etc., I'm not willing to give up the little (seal) lady. But whether or not you are in a relationship, figuring out what you're willing to give up is crucial, if only so you know what not to give up.

There is no right or wrong answer to this. Everyone is different, and everyone needs to make up their own boundaries for themselves. The most important part is that you stick to them! Once you break a boundary, it's a slippery slope downhill. Just watch Requiem for a Dream and you'll see what I'm talking about.

So if you're already living the dream, congratulations. If you're not there yet, ask yourself: How bad do you want it, and what are you willing to give up (or: what aren't you willing to give up) to get it?