Defining Success

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! While we still have to work on paintings and such today, we'll be taking extra time to contemplate the awesomeness of this great Civil Rights leader who kicked tons of butt and really fought for the changes he wanted made in the world. We hope you will too! Anyway, on to the talk about success:

When we think of success, we generally think of people who are well known, rich, famous, or leaders in their fields. We think about great contributions to humanity, or ground-breaking innovations, or work of cultural significance.

When we think of success, we generally think of all the people we admire, people who have what we (think we) want, who everyone else is heralding as being successful.

But what does success really mean for you?

This is a very important question that can help align (or realign) what your goals and hopes are. If you want to be successful, the first step, before taking any action whatsoever, is figuring out the answer to that question.

Does success mean money? If so, then would you be successful if you just worked your way up a Fortune 500 and made a boatload of money? What about if you managed to pull off an armored truck robbery?

Does success mean fame? If so, would you be successful if you were famous as a Hollywood actor? What about if you were famous for blowing up a city?

Our point is that when we think of success, we generally think in really broad terms. Money, power, fame, etc. But, what we really need to do to achieve that level of success is to break it down into concrete terms.

Success is really a personal, subjective idea. What if you were rich and famous and powerful, but you hated yourself and your job and no one loved you? Would you be successful then? If so, would it be worth it?

To answer that question, be specific. Very specific. By being suuuuper specific you can then figure out individual goals and the steps to achieve that success. This way, you'll have a concrete path that you can stay on to make sure you make it all the way through ON YOUR TERMS.

Becoming successful on your terms (and no one else's) is quite important, as this is probably the only way that you'll make it and still be happy with yourself. If success is just an end goal, and that's all you care about, then you'll make sacrifices and choices that might get you to that goal, but you won't be happy.

Have a conversation with yourself. Ask yourself "What does it mean for you to consider yourself successful?" If you answer "To be a professional artist that makes a living off of their art," then you could follow up with "Well then how about being a sculptor that makes toilet bowls for a living? You'd be living off your art."

We imagine your reply to then be "No, I want to paint for a living."

"What about painting portraits."
"No, I want to paint dogs."

"Well, what about painting a series of chihuahuas?"

"No, I only like Pomeranians."

"So what about painting portraits of people's Pomeranians?"

"No, I don't want to paint what other people want me to paint. I want to be my own art director."

"So then you want to be a fine artist who paints Pomeranians?"

"Yes, but I want to paint them with coffee."

"Okay, so you want to be a fine artist who paints Pomeranians with coffee."

"And I want to sell a lot of paintings."

"Like 30 of them?"

"Hmm, enough to make a living off of them."

There. Now you know you're a fine art painter who paints pomeranians with coffee, and your measure of success is to be able to live off your sales of pomeranian coffee paintings. Your goals are much clearer, and now that you have a concrete goal, you can now start making the steps to reach that goal. Market research. Actually making the paintings. Putting together press kits and an online portfolio. Photographing the paintings. Etc. etc .etc. (Although to be perfectly honest, you could probably keep on going with that conversation and you could be even more specific, but you get the idea).

While you might not be into Pomeranian coffee paintings, you are probably into something else. Whether it's being a creative writer who ghostwrites for Stephen King, or a comedian who is featured in a major, top-grossing motion picture, or an illustrator who makes $80k a year and has a client list that includes the New Yorker and Wired, it's up to you. But define your own personal measure of success. It's the first step to being successful.

Now it's time to ask yourself: How do you define success?

How to Save Money on Printing

Hey everyone, it's Monkey today.

Today, I'm going to go on about a website. Ebates.com. Why? Because as artists and as business people, we are constantly trying to find a way to save money on supplies. I spend a large amount of time looking for the best online printers. By best, it actually changes depending on what I need. For quick turn-around times on order with good quality and a great price, I use PS Print. For high-quality postcards in small quantities, I go for Overnightprints.com. For highest-quality everything, or for stickers, we say Moo.com, but you have to order in advance.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I happened to stumble across Ebates.com. From what it looks like, they've partnered with some of the biggest online retailers, including both PS Print and Overnight Prints in order to give you discounts (and of course, make themselves some money). The site is totally free, and they do what's known as playing the margins. What (I assume) they do is promise large numbers of customers in order to get a large % of each referred sale (for this example, let's say 10%). Then, they offer you (and me, and everyone else) 9% back. So you need to print up some holiday greeting cards, and you use Ebates, and you find a coupon for an extra $20 savings. Then, you'll get kicked back an extra 9% on top of that. Sweet, you just saved some money. Ebates then gets your business, and they get 1%. Everyone wins, right?

So the pros:

*They give you $5 for signing up ($5! )

*They have a crapload of online merchants, including Target, Barnes and Noble, Lulu.com (print your own books!), PS Print and Overnight Prints, Best Buy, Office Depot, Staples, REI, Safeway (you can even buy your groceries...holy crap!) and tons more.

*You get access to pretty much everyone online coupon that store offers (if they offer coupons)

*They send you a check every quarter or so of all the money you've saved

The cons:

*It's an extra step to go to Ebates.com first, then go to the website you want

*They don't have every single store in the universe on there

*You get an email once a week or so about their featured vendors.

So in the spirit of fair play, I'll be totally honest with you. If I refer 50 people who make a purchase, I get an iPad. But like we say about all of our affiliate links - we don't represent companies who do shady things, or offer crap services. Soo, I would be greatly appreciative if you signed up via our referral link here: We love Monkey + Seal! We love ebates!

Also, we want to give you the option of checking out their site, affiliate free, here: www.ebates.com.

Cool, thanks a lot, and back to your regular scheduling of Monkey + Seal.

Stopping

Trust that as an artist there are many times that you must stop. By stopping, you end something, and simultaneously begin something new. By stopping you say no more to sitting down, and you begin your creative work. You end a relationship. You start a new one. You finish a project. You pick up another. Life is always going at a fast pace. In order to create, to find your own voice, at some point, you have to know how to stop.

Often times, we have a negative association with "stopping." We think "red lights." Danger. Stagnant. An End. Or that we're quitting (and quitting is "BAD"). But without "stopping" we don't know that we need to quiet the everyday chatter and begin our creative work. We don't know how to put down the day job and pick up our art. Or to let go of the things that are hindering us from what we really want to do.

Stopping is like saying "no." No more compromises with our time and art. No more negative thoughts and procrastination. No more mindless existence.

What are things in your life that you need to stop? What are projects you need to complete and end? What are the jobs, housing, hobbies, activities, projects, or time-intensive activities that you need to stop?

Now breathe long and deep. Conscious of every breath. And STOP. Can you hear your own voice now?

Winter Cleaning

While we know it's still technically winter (and gosh, the weather most definitely agrees), we decided that we needed to do a major clean of our studio/apartment. While we are not super tidy people, there gets a point where clutter, reclaimed art supplies that were never used, and various other things make it difficult to work.

We actually believe that your workspace should fit your own working styles and levels of tidiness - if you're a super neat person, then keep your space that way. If you aren't, then let those paint spots go uncleaned and do your thing. While we don't believe it's necessary to keep a super-clean-white-glove-passing workspace, we do believe in cleaning house once and a while in order to allow for more work and new inspiration to move in.

Going through piles of sketches and preliminary drafts, even stacks of finished paintings, can be very interesting. We actually found some fairly old drawings, and it was interesting (and reassuring) to see how far we've come since we first started pursuing art seriously. While some of our old work we're definitely going to keep, we've also made the decision to recycle a lot of it.

If you end up hanging onto your old work, it's hard to move past it. There is a definite fear that perhaps you might never never do a sketch that good again, or that you really did a great job getting a likeness down. However, as an artist you should always be looking forward, and you should strive for having your best painting always being the next one you're working on.

By cleaning out a lot of older work, you're making both physical and emotional space to create more. Besides the physical constraints of not having all that much space to paint new things (or to store finished paintings), if you still are holding onto a lot of old work, you're going to have a hard time to move on and really let yourself go in your next work.

Monkey + Seal will also be having a sort of house-cleaning super sale on a lot of their old studies and paintings from years ago later in February. Don't get us wrong, we love these paintings and some we would love to keep, we just don't have enough space for new ones. This is probably one of the rare chances to score original Monkey or Seal paintings at an affordable price. Stay tuned and we'll definitely keep you updated!

Anyone else doing some winter/spring cleaning? How do you keep your workspace fresh?

9/11 Heartbreaker

We were approached a while ago to do a review of a comic called "9/11 Heartbreaker" and while we read it a while back, we finally got around to writing out all of our thoughts.

9/11 Heartbreaker, by Craig Staufenberg is quite the poignant read. We think that it's more of an illustrated novella rather than a graphic novel (as it's can lean a bit text heavy), but the storytelling is the strongest part of the comic, so no worries there. Bouncing around in time, the comic reads as a collection of memories and they way historic events have tremendous reverberations generations later.

The style of the art fits in with the conversational tone of the piece, and the book, in a very Tomine-like style of storytelling, leaves you with a quiet sense of reflection and hope. It was an enjoyable read, offering a very personal look into the way that 9/11 has affected us as a nation. There are also great parallels to other historical events, as well as a haunting look into the current state of the country in the midst of an economic recession.

Our biggest criticism of the book was that we wished it was longer as at times the integration of text and image could have been stronger, and the book would have only been made stronger by lengthening the book and adding even more storytelling frames. Also, the handwritten text, while adding to the charm of the book, can be a bit hard to read at times.

The book is available via physical copy as well as a pdf download, and for $2.99, it's definitely worth a quick download. Check out out at the author's site www.memoryisfiction.com (scroll to the bottom to order!).

Take a Step Forward

Here at Monkey + Seal, we think we're off to a pretty good start for 2011. We just published two free guides to help other artists sell their art, and bum-ba-da-dum! We're here to announce that a full course on how to start selling your art is in the works. It'll be at least a few months worth of materials, advice, how-to's, worksheets, and more, starting from the very beginning, assuming that you're starting from scratch.

Anyhoo, we just wanted to take a bit of time to talk about the necessity of moving forward. Often, we think to ourselves "Only if X was true, we could do Y." But in reality, we are probably making excuses for ourselves.

Sometimes the "X" seems like it's something that we could never get. Whether it's a million dollars, or job security, or more free time, or feeling less tired after work, we always seem to talk ourselves into thinking that there will be a better time to do something. "If only I could save enough to quit my job for a few months, I could finish my portfolio." "If only I had more energy after work, I could work on my art." Phooey, we say.

Like we've said before, it all comes down to a matter of priority. If money is in the way, then I suggest you take a good hard look at your budget. How much do you spend on coffee, or eating out or on drinks? If a lack of energy is your issue, what sort of behaviors (like staying up late, or going out to party) could you cut out so you'd get more rest?

Often at Monkey's retail job, when he starts talking about the opportunity for people to take workshops, if they aren't interested, they usually give the excuse "I don't have enough time." Well, while this may be true for some people, Monkey seriously doubts it. How many hours do you spend on facebook, or watching TV, or playing video games? How many movies do you watch? The truth is not that they don't have enough time for workshops, but that they choose not to make time for workshops.

One thing to note is that while we highly endorse prioritizing your art (that's what we're here for, after all), we understand and recognize the need for a life as well. Sometimes you need that coffee, or need to take a break and spend an hour (or two) playing video games. We just hope that if you're really in pursuit of a more artistic life that you learn to strike more a balance between your art, other fun stuff, and the stuff that pays the rent.

That said, when you're going to sit down to work on your art, how many times do you let something (a phone call, or a text message, any sort of interruption, really) distract you? Now think about when you're hanging out with your best friend or you're on a date (an enjoyable one, that is), how often do you let something interrupt you in the same way? Chances are, not as often. While we don't endorse necessarily putting your art over the rest of your life, we do want you to analyze your priorities.

It is an amazing human quality to be able to somehow find a way to make things happen if you really want them to. If you can see your dream in front of you, all you have to do is take that first step, and you'll start setting things in motion that will make it easier for you to progress.

If you start managing your priorities today, you'll start to rewire your brain in order to make new habits and new routines that will be more conducive to your art. And if you think it's too late, you're wrong - it's never too late. It'll just be later.

Let us put it this way. If we could guarantee that if you worked hard for 5-7 years to chase your dream you would get it, would you start today, or wait a few years? You always need to start sometime, so why not today?

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