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In Episode 56... "How do I overcome my hesitation and take action toward my goals?" - Pamela Paulenko

Pamela Paulenko is a conservation artist from Toronto, Canada. She uses watercolor and acrylics to paint mostly marine ecosystems, which are the focus of her conservation interests. Combining her major interests with her art, Pam uses imagery to promote a feeling of hope. Pam has been at her art business for three and a half years, and even though she says that feels like a long time, she continues to persevere, going through the stages and believing strongly in her art and her mission of conservation. She is currently trying to grow her audience by looking for places to put herself in front of her ideal art buyer.

Pam works with the Toronto Nature Stewards, a local conservation group that meets weekly to remove invasive species and restore natural habitats for the Conservation Authority. In the late fall and winter months the group suspends their weekly field trips, so Pam won’t be spending as much of her time on habitat restoration. Instead, she will be training to become a lead steward for the group. Through her art, Pam feels strongly that she is meant to speak to people about the power of art, color, composition and energy and how they relate to conservation and the restoration of habitats. She believes that spreading this message will encourage more people to become involved.

Because Pam will have more time on her hands in the coming months, she’s working on a plan to maximize what she can accomplish with her time. She plans to not only to work on building a body of work, but also to apply for group shows and grants. Even though she knows these things will help grow her business, Pam's lack of experience makes her nervous about diving in. However, her commitment to spreading her message of conservation may be just the motivation she needs. 

Listen in as I lay out a plan to get Pam moving toward her goals so she can see the progress she’s been longing for.

Key takeaways:

  • Make a plan for getting in front of more people. (00:05:51)

  • Define the motivation behind your goals. (00:12:50)

  • Create a visual to help you focus on what you’re moving towards. (00:16:30)

  • Imagine what it would look like to be wasting your gift to increase your motivation. (00:26:57)

  • Create reminders about your motivating factors to help when you feel stuck. (00:32:22)

Resources and links mentioned:

Learn more about selling your art:

  • For more practical and energetic strategies to create consistent income and life balance, follow Jessica on Instagram @artistmarketco

  • Would you like to know where to spend your time in order to create consistent sales, without letting it take over your life? Awesome! Grab your free training, "The Artist's Day" here: https://theartistmarket.co/

  • For information on working with Jessica, send your questions/thoughts to jessica@theartistmarket.co


Read the Transcript for this episode

Jessica: Welcome back to Intuitive Art Sales. I am here with Pam Paulenko, who paints largely aquatic marine based works based on ecosystems and preservation and the whole idea of hope behind them. She's about three and a half years into this art thing, and she's going through the stages and everything's feeling like it's taking a long time.

Can anyone relate? Right now she's looking for places to find her ideal art buyer, joining some groups and starting a YouTube to start branding herself. So that's kind of where she’s at today.

Welcome Pam.

Pamela Paulenko: Thanks, Jessica.

Jessica: Nice to have you here.

 We were starting to talk about this before I jumped into the record mode, but you had said two things specifically that you're working on right now, which is joining groups that have your ideal art buyers in them, one specifically, and also starting to do more videos for YouTube to help with kind of getting your message across.

Can we talk about one or both of those? Tell me a little bit more about it.

Pamela Paulenko: Well, it seems something that I've learned at least partially from you, thank you, is that my work has more value and I'll be able to reach the value of my work if it's put in front of the people that are actually interested in it, which is people that are interested in conservation.

Jessica: Yeah.

Pamela Paulenko: So I'm following your advice. Thank you. Also, I joined a conservation group, the Toronto Nature Stewards, a local group that meets weekly, and we remove invasive species for the Conservation Authority, essentially.

Jessica: Thank you for doing that.

Pamela Paulenko: Oh, yeah, it's so much fun. It's really great.

It makes me very happy, and I started videotaping our little get togethers. They're ending soon for the fall, but I'll be taking a training through the winter, which will put me, hopefully, as a lead steward with my own little piece of land on the Don River for next spring. That will help me with my own team and everything, so I'll be right there in the thick of it with the other people that are like minded conservation people. So like I said, videotaping, I've got somebody to help me edit the videos who's doing a beautiful job, and now I have to manage my time very well.

 So I just have to really schedule myself between those weekly outings, physical outings. And you know, staying physically fit to be able to do that stuff and not get hurt and, putting aside time for painting and everything to just continue because I also need to be creating my body of work.

And I'm endlessly, endlessly inspired by things. There's just no end to inspiration from nature.

Jessica: What I really love about this is a couple things. One, you found a way to bring in some of your major interests and your art so that they come together and almost are starting to create like your own little niche.

It's also great for your mental health. It also provides inspiration for your work. It keeps you fit, which, you know, is a big part of staying healthy and your mental health, which makes you more able to create and put yourself out there and build your confidence. And there's like all these moving parts and pieces that All work together beneficially.

So I love that.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah. Thank you. Well, you had stuff to do with it. So thank you.

Jessica: We've had a lot of conversations over the years, and I'm vaguely remembering this one conversation where I was like, What is your art about? How can we find those people? And it sounds like you really took it to heart and went that direction. So kudos to you. Where do you feel like your next step is? What it what's the thing that? Maybe you don't know, but maybe that I could help you with today that would make some of these things that you're doing, help you gain some traction with them.

Pamela Paulenko: Oh, that would be amazing!

Jessica: You know, how can we make it more doable, or do you even know what it is that you need? Normally I don't ask that.

Pamela Paulenko: My next steps are, you think?

Jessica: Where might you get stuck on this path that you've set yourself on?

Pamela Paulenko: Sometimes I still struggle with decision making between what my tasks should be, because I, the number of tasks are getting bigger. Like, as we move into winter, I won't have to be worried about going to the weekly plant removal with the Toronto Nature Stewards. Won't be doing that for the winter.

Okay, I guess it'd be kind of like, do I work on my social media, which is something that really needs attention for me. Am I going to figure out what videos I'm going to make next? Am I going to like write scripts for my videos?

Because that's, I'm finding is something that is important to do also. sort of having an outliner script. And creating my body of work, continuing with creating the body of work.

[00:05:51] Make a plan for getting in front of more people.

Jessica: Okay, so what I see here is two things. I see content and I see art and the third thing that I think is super important, which you are currently doing this, but well, let's just back up, is relationships.

Like, how are we building relationships, getting in front of more people? And to be fair, content can do some of that. It's just a longer game than actual tactile relationship with a person. So you have joined a group with a lot of like-minded people. And you are interacting with them for now. Over the winter though, those scheduled meeting times end.

Pamela Paulenko: Yes.

Jessica: So you said content and art. But how are we going to continue to get your art in front of people, sans content? How are we going to continue to, build on those relationships we've started, maybe find some new ones, tell people about our art and what we do and why we do it. Do we have any thoughts there?

Pamela Paulenko: Well, there's various, I guess, local artist groups that I could, that I haven't touched on. So there's that. One of them, like the main one is something that seems to really focus on creating shows indoor or outdoor in the summer.

Jessica: Yeah.

Pamela Paulenko: Like, that doesn't, I'm not, like, I want to get in touch with those people and connect with them.

Jessica: But I haven't. You do want to, but you haven't. Is that what you said?

Pamela Paulenko: I haven't had the desire to go make myself present in an outdoor show. I don't know why.

Jessica: Is it a fear thing?

Pamela Paulenko: I've seen the artists standing in their booth with their gorgeous artwork and people just, I've been one of those people just like walking by. And those people, like I, I empathize with them, and I feel bad that I'm just going to saunter through and you know, not necessarily be able to engage with them at that moment in time.

But I feel the vibe of. Maybe some people feel dejected and there's not necessarily a positive, relation with that experience for me. So maybe I'm afraid of being one of those people sitting at the show and being lonely and dejected

Jessica: I've never, I don't think I've ever heard that reason before, but that's okay. Maybe just nobody's ever said it to me. Or I don't want to be the lonely, dejected person that no one is stopping in at my booth and engaging with me. Is that the biggest reason there?

Pamela Paulenko: I guess it is surrounded with fear so fear of not selling anything. And it being a, like a weekend long show or something, you know,

Jessica: Okay. So what if we take it back a couple of notches and we say, how could I put my work in a group show where there's an opening night, and it's a couple of pieces, and I can be there and I can talk to people, but it's not this huge thing, this huge step, this huge commitment that I just have to jump feed first into

Pamela Paulenko: Much more manageable, but then this is what I do all the time, putting the cart before the horse. I don't even have enough work to go into a show right now.

Jessica: That's why I said group shows.

Pamela Paulenko: Oh, okay.

Jessica: So group shows, normally you submit one or three pieces where it's not a, I have to have an entire beautiful, cohesive, perfectly curated body of work. It's, I can have one piece hanging on the wall next to all these other people.

Pamela Paulenko: So open myself up to these things.

Jessica: Right. I don't want to say baby steps cause it's not a baby step. It's still a big step, but it's a, you had said that you brought up festivals, which is why I'm talking about them. I'm not saying everyone has to do festivals, but there was also some fear surrounding that.

I'm assuming there's still some fear surrounding one piece in a group show, but it's a lower level of, what's the word I'm looking for here? Commitment isn't quite right here.

Pamela Paulenko: Investment. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Investment. It's a lower investment, lower energy investment. That type of thing is. Something that you could do possibly over the winter as a way to one, start finding these groups. Two, introduce yourself to them. Three, start practicing applying, when you get in, like start practicing standing by your work and talking to people. And like, it's all these little practice steps that you could use in the future to do something bigger.

Pamela Paulenko: Yes. And when you just said the word applying, you just reminded me of what is like a very large next step for me.

Jessica: Tell me.

Pamela Paulenko: Applying for a grant for the spring. So in the spring, it comes time to applying for grants for business grants for artists. And that's going to be really important to me because as I'm creating this link between the conservation and my art.

Jessica: Yeah.

Pamela Paulenko: That's a real, real, real thing. Right. So if I can get myself a grant, learn cross that bridge and learn how to, successfully apply for grants for my business. Because it relates to conservation, I might have a nice, nice opportunity to be able to.

Jessica: I mean, even before you're selling work, that can be an income source.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah, and I'll have help paying for the tasks that right now I'm just paying out of pocket. My sales levels are developing. That's a very positive way of saying that.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah.

Pamela Paulenko: Things are coming. So I'm trying to be, I'm persevering and I believe in what I'm doing and I believe in the idea behind what I'm doing, the artwork and everything. So,

Jessica: Yeah. And I also know that there's heart behind it.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah, there is for sure. Yes.

Jessica: I mean, you've been at this for three and a half years and in your words, I'm going through the stages and everything feels like it's taking a long time, but you're still here.

Pamela Paulenko: I'm doing what I'm, what I think I'm supposed to be doing. Like, so I'm just keeping doing it. And I know that, one mistake that people do make when striving towards something that takes time is they stop and give up. And I'm not willing to be that person because that's going to feel really bad to me.

It's going to be something I don't want to have to deal with, feeling that way and looking at myself in the mirror. It really does mean a lot to me, and it feels great. When when things click, my work clicks with somebody, and the message gets across, and it feels wonderful. It's just fantastic.

[00:12:50] Define the motivation behind your goals.

Jessica: You brought up something that I think might be fun because it sounds like, you know the things to do. You know, I want to put out videos and make social around. This conservation ecosystem system, excuse me, preservation, hope, like, you know, the topics. It's just about putting it out there. You know you need to be creating more work, that applying for business grants can bring an income in quickly. Maybe not quickly, but like quicker than some other things.

And you also know that there are based on this conversation, some artists group shows that would be beneficial for you to start applying for.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah.

Jessica: So those are like your four things, right? If you only did those four things, I'd say you're winning.

So you know what those are, but some of them are maybe a little bit tricky because of fear based thoughts. So one thing that I think might be beneficial for us to do is to talk about motivation. Because when we find that real motivation, it's easier to say, well, I could not apply for this grant. or I can keep putting this off, or I can say, well, I have to do it because X and Y.

So, people are motivated by two different things. One is this

moving away from something motivation, and one is moving towards something motivation. And some people are more motivated by one over the other, but I think it's helpful to have both in mind. So, let's define those, shall we? Does that sound good?

Pamela Paulenko: Okay.

Jessica: Okay.

Pamela Paulenko: Sounds great. Yes. Let's do it.

Jessica: We're going to get vulnerable here.

Pamela Paulenko: All right. Let's do it. Let's do vulnerable.

Jessica: Where do you want to start? Do you want to start with moving toward or moving away from?

Pamela Paulenko: Toward.

Jessica: Toward. Okay. Let's talk about your grand vision, your dream, the thing you want more than anything else. What does that look like? Do you have any idea like if you could snap your fingers and be at the end of the movie and we're doing a montage of all the ways you had to get there, but now you're here.

What does that look like?

Pamela Paulenko: I wanna, I'd like to get more people helping with restoration and preservation of habitat.

Jessica: Mm-hmm.

Pamela Paulenko: And for people to, to see that it, it's enjoyable to do that and to join and it's really good for you to get outside and, get your hands dirty and, Okay, so here's the thing.

It's really easy to feel, overloaded with pessimism to do with the state of our environment and environments and even our local environments that we see. But restoration is still a possibility and I think it brings a ray of hope. I know that people on a local basis as as little teams, as a family, as friends, can get together and make little differences.

And that's why I joined a legitimate group to help do that and to get more people together. And that's why I'm trying to raise awareness about that. We can do this stuff. It's not that hard, you know?

Jessica: Yeah.

[00:16:30] Create a visual to help you focus on what you’re moving towards.

Jessica: Let's, let's paint a picture. You want more involvement, more people, more enjoyment of restoration. We want a ray of hope. We want to make a difference. And those are all amazing things, but they feel a little ambiguous. So I've been watching, catching up on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Have you ever seen that?

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah. It's great.

Jessica: Yeah.

So I just finished it and I can't give Maybe this is a bad example. How do I go without spoiling?

At the last couple of episodes, it does flashbacks from where she is in the future to the things that she had to do to get to that future, but it's like very specific.

It's her in a scene doing these things and she's wearing this and she's doing that. See no spoilers. It's very unspecific. But it's actually like, it was written down on paper. This is the scene we are going to do. And so it's a visual. What does "visual" look like for you.

Do you want me to throw out some possible examples?

Pamela Paulenko: I have so many ideas though.

Jessica: I know. So maybe it's like, I want to start my own nonprofit where the art sales, 50 percent of them go to this specific river that I really love. And I hold events twice a year, and it has these kinds of people, like that kind of thing, like something where I can visualize you being there doing that.

Do you have that yet? It's okay if you don't.

Pamela Paulenko: It's kind of a little, it's a, it's a little ambiguous, to use that word again, but, definitely involves YouTube and may even involve a future podcast.

Jessica: Okay.

Pamela Paulenko: And, restoration But it also involves speaking to people about the power of art, the power of color and composition and energy and how it relates to these things.

So I'm kind of multifaceted with my art interests. So as I'm trying to portray like a vision of hope to people. So it's not just in based on visuals of environmental stuff, it will be put together with color and the power of color and light.

Right.

So

Jessica: I kind of feel like a TED talk and I'm not saying that that's the only thing. But like that is something that, as you were talking, that could be a really powerful TED Talk at some point down the road once, you know, everything has molded and formed. And, okay, so I'm just going to write TED Talk for brevity's sake, but that's where we're going.

 So that's our motivation. Does that make you feel motivated? Like I'm going to have a Ted talk about this someday, and people are going to listen. And it's going to change opinions, and it's going to, you know, involve not just restoration and not just hope, but also how art has an influence on all of that.

Does that make you feel truly motivated or not?

Pamela Paulenko: It does actually.

Jessica: It does. Okay, great. So if I said, Hey, Pam, I need you to go finish applying for that business grant by the end of the week. And you had a picture of Ted talk in your mind that this is where I'm going. This is not where I'm going today, but this is a step on my way to my Ted talk.

Would you be able to complete that task?

Pamela Paulenko: I would be able to start that task. So I know it's going to be hard to accomplish that task because I've never, never put together an application for a grant. And I understand how it's a little bit complex.

But this leads me to what you were going to say about moving away from, why I said, let's go for it, "moving away from...", that's a whole other topic. And I'm all ready for that one because there's so many things standing in my way.

Jessica: Right. And the other thing about this is like, I love that we came up with the business grant example, because it's obviously involved.

There's a lot of layers to it. You don't know how to do them yet. And also there's probably a fear of rejection, a fear of not looking professional, a fear of whatever those fears are. So there's fears and there's I don't know how. So this motivation has to be strong enough to say, I don't care that I don't know how, I don't care that I'm not scared, I'm doing it anyway because I want the TED talk.

But flip side, some people are more, like I said earlier, some people are more motivated by moving away from. Some are more motivated by moving away to like the combo. So let's do the other side.

Pamela Paulenko: Okay.

Jessica: What don't you want? What would be, if you never moved forward, if you stay exactly where you are right now, which is not a bad spot, but let's say this is as far as you possibly get because, whatever. Why is that bad?

Pamela Paulenko: Well, it would be a very shameful waste because I've got a lot of aspirations that are, I think, pretty positive. It would be a shameful waste of what's given to me, which I feel is a gift. Like I feel like this energy and these interests that I have and these passions, I feel like they were given to me as a gift from the powers that be say. You know, and, not everybody has interests in general.

And I feel that the fact that I have been given These passions is, is a gift. And to waste a gift, I think is, it's very sad.

Jessica: Very sad.

Pamela Paulenko: I don't want to do that.

Jessica: What else? What else do you not want? Let's, let's ask a different question.

So if we're saying move away from, what are some things? We don't have to necessarily talk about right now, but like maybe in the past or that you don't want to go back to that motivate you to move forward?

Pamela Paulenko: My career that I spend a lot of time in,

Jessica: Which was? I don't remember.

Pamela Paulenko: I was involved in the animation and also the VFX industry for, 13 years in one. And like. Almost 10 years in the other. 2d animation and first it was visible effects as a texture artist for which was fascinating in some ways because I got to create textures on characters, which is also a passion at the time, but eventually I ended up just feeling all the time.

The inner voice going, this is not what you're supposed to do. you're wasting your time. You're supposed to be doing this other stuff, lady. I don't want to go back to that feeling.

Jessica: yeah, so it's not necessarily the job cause you didn't hate the job. It's just going back to not what you're supposed to do.

Pamela Paulenko: Just to, to keep that concise and not go delve into that. Just to go with that. Yes.

Jessica: Okay. What else?

Pamela Paulenko: The avoidance of what I feel is my mission. I know that sounds like a stupid, like, very serious word, but I think I'm here for a reason. And, avoiding that. I don't want to keep doing that. So, I want to not go back to avoiding considering what I'm supposed to do.

Jessica: So I feel like all the things you're saying are very similar.

It's a shameful waste of aspirations. Not everyone has this gift. Moving away from not what you're supposed to do, avoiding my mission. That's not a bad thing. That just to me says like, that's a really strong motivator for you.

[00:26:57] Imagine what it would look like to be wasting your gift can increase your motivation.

Jessica: But again, let's go back to the painting a picture of that. What would it look like if you were wasting your positive aspirations, you're wasting your gift, you're not doing what you're supposed to do, you're avoiding your mission.

What might that picture look like?

Pamela Paulenko: I would be possibly more stressed out,

Jessica: What would you be doing in your day?

Pamela Paulenko: I might be back in the animation industry, so unfortunately that industry has gone to largely from home work, which is really unfortunate these amazing, amazing, incredible people that are involved in the animation industry. So many fantastic, cool individuals are not interacting with each other. Now they're at home working from home, and that is really sad.

It doesn't suit me at all. I love being in front of people interacting with other people. That's not painting a nice picture,

Jessica: No, it's not, but we're kind of trying to paint a not nice picture at the moment, because if I'm not putting myself out there to apply for business grants and group shows and creating a body of work and putting out videos or social media, and I'm not moving toward all of that, then I might as well give up and go back to being stressed out and back in animation and lonely where I'm not interacting with people because let's face it, money is a real thing.

Pamela Paulenko: Yes, it is. And I don't know your financial situation. Maybe you are in a space where you do not have to be a breadwinner and if you are, awesome.

Jessica: And if you're not, this moving away from motivation can be very powerful.

Pamela Paulenko: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm right now looking for part time work, so I don't need to be the full time breadwinner. I'm like, so grateful and fortunate in that respect. I do need to be bringing in something. The pole is there for me to be, bringing in something a little more regular because that's the goal through these stages with my business.

Jessica: Do you have like benchmarks set? That's not necessarily something that I say you need to do, but just the way that you're talking about it. Where you're talking about going through the stages and the levels and all of that. I feel like maybe a financial goals attached to those. Is that true or no?

Pamela Paulenko: Ideally I'd like to be bringing in a couple thousand dollars a month to contribute to the household and everything. Like I'm, contributing my share of stuff, but I really want to contribute more.

Jessica: Yeah. That's a motivational factor too. So is that moving away from or toward?

Which one does that land on harder?

Pamela Paulenko: Well, it feels like it's away from, but it's a necessary. And I've had to come to terms with not feeling badly about, that. Cause actually when you look at it in a different way, it's actually enabling me to be an artist. Pulling in, like finding something that.

Is, you know, like part time gig,

it's going to enable me to be,

Jessica: I'm all for it. If you need a part time gig to be an artist, go get you a part time gig.

Pamela Paulenko: It's enabling

Jessica: Or a grant. One or the other.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah, maybe. Or both. Yeah, exactly. So that's fine. So my benchmark would ideally be like about that, but I mean, anything would be great.

Jessica: For me, and this is not going to be the same for everybody, but for me, moving away from not being able to pay the mortgage so that. Other paycheck can go to X, Y, and Z. For me, that would feel like, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or make anyone think that they need to feel how I feel, but like, that would make me feel, I don't know, guilty or like, I'm not doing enough or like all of those kinds of words, as opposed to for me saying, I want to contribute 10, 000 a month.

Yeah, that sounds great, but is that as motivating as moving away from not paying mortgage? Not for me. So is, does it land on one side of the scale heavier? And I think I already asked that, but I'm just kind of digging a little bit more.

Pamela Paulenko: It's kind of twofold. Moving away from, I want to say in a, in the sense that for me personally, it takes a lot, discipline.

An effort for me to go through these stages that I'm going through with this business of mine. So

Jessica: For sure. It does. And they are stages and they are levels, and we're not just tomorrow going to start hitting 2000 or 3,000 a month. But we're working toward it

Pamela Paulenko: if you're being optimistic about it, you're moving towards. So that's what I think that's probably the most important way to do is to Just so easily it goes the other way and the mindset is, absolutely everything here.

Jessica: I agree.

 Okay. So we're moving toward a TED talk and 2000 a month or more, and we are moving away from going back to a job where we are lonely and not interacting with people and stressed out. So when you have those two things a little bit more defined, do you think. It becomes, I hope the answer is yes.

Otherwise this sounds very stupid and we just need to delete this whole episode. Do you think it's easier to go towards applying for business grants and group shows and even like, let's, make it even another step harder. If I said the only thing that is going to make you money is to start applying for festivals right now, would those motivators be strong enough to go do that?

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah.

Jessica: They would

Pamela Paulenko: that if you said that was the only way then of course, yeah.

Jessica: It's not but if I said that it was.

Pamela Paulenko: I know.

Jessica: Okay. So I think then we landed on some pretty good stuff because when we started talking about festivals, we were like, , All this tenseness.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah.

Jessica: Showing up.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah.

Jessica: And so if you could go do that now, I'd say we got some winners.

Okay. Wrapping this up, bringing it to a conclusion.

Pamela Paulenko: Yes.

[00:33:22] Create reminders about your motivating factors to help when you feel stuck.

Jessica: I would love for you to spend an hour finding some sort of visual that illustrates both sides. and them up on the wall, making a wallpaper for your phone, setting a reminder to show up every morning and say, here's what you're moving toward. Here's what you're moving away from, something that'll keep these factors top of mind. And I'm not saying you need to go like create a whole vision board, although that's fun, too, but something that's really going to help you look at those when you're feeling stuck and say, nevermind, I'm not stuck. I'm taking 1 step forward.

Pamela Paulenko: It's kind of like a vision board, but not as involved. Maybe.

Jessica: Yeah, it depends what is going to resonate for you. It might take longer than an hour. I just said an hour because I didn't want you to spend the next three weeks on it. Because there's more important things to do.

 Lastly, you said, I don't know where to spend my time this winter. And then you told me all the things you were going to do this winter. I'll say him again, social media and videos. I'm grouping that into one. I know that you did not, but it's content, putting it all together.

Pamela Paulenko: Okay. That's cool.

Jessica: Creating a body of work, applying for group shows so that we're still interacting with people and applying for business grants. So those are your top four priorities.

Pamela Paulenko: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: Which one's going to get pushed to the wayside first?

Pamela Paulenko: Oh, probably the applying for art fairs. Okay. just because I'm still like, I need my body of work, right? I've got three pieces tied up in, in like an online art gallery, Artterra. And that was, that was my first body of work that I started really at the large pieces. That's how young I am as an artist really. Everything else I have is in like print form cards and stuff like that and prints.

Jessica: So, I was going to say, whichever one you're going to put off first is the one you have to do first.

Pamela Paulenko: Okay.

Jessica: I need you to start pumping.

Pamela Paulenko: I know, dude. I know, I know, I know. You're right.

Jessica: Fifty percent of your time. The second thing you're going to do is go create a calendar. And then you don't have to stick to it perfectly. But like a, my ideal week calendar. I have, making this up, twenty hours a week. Ten of them are going to be spent on art. I prefer to work in five hour chunks.

That means Monday and Tuesday is studio day. Wednesday is social media video day. Thursday is group show day. Friday is applying for business grants day. Whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to stick to it, but I want you to see some sort of visual of, I need to be prioritizing these four things.

And half of that time needs to be art

Pamela Paulenko: At this point, hell yeah. I know. I've been pulled away by it so much, just getting, that's one of my problems getting bogged down by other tasks and then not being able to get to it.

Jessica: One thing that's worked the best for me, and I've tried a hundred thousand different things is I don't schedule my time before 10 a. m. 98 percent of the time. So those two hours in the morning if I have to clean the kitchen God forbid. Or I have to XYZ I can get that done, and then it's what I want to do time, which is it's not my art business, but it's my artist marketing business. There we go. You could try that.

Another thing that I've done is. I use this planner that I created for clients and one of the things in there, you may have seen this somewhere else, is there's a, and I didn't do it exactly like this in the planner, but there's a grid where you've got important and urgent, important and not urgent, not important, not urgent, et cetera.

One of the things that I write down in the morning is what are my important and urgent tasks. And a lot of times I won't do anything before 10 AM because that's like my need time. I have in the past scheduled from 11 to 12. That is the only time I have to do things that are in the important urgent category, meaning I need to pay that bill.

I need to schedule a doctor's appointment. I need to do this thing for my kid, like all those things that tend to take over. And then you only have an hour long slot. You check off as many as you can and then you, the rest go to tomorrow. Cause those will take over faster than anything.

Pamela Paulenko: So true.

Jessica: So couple of different ways you could do it, but starting to really prioritize those four things that we said were important.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. What's your homework? Repeat back to me.

Pamela Paulenko: Number one is, number one is creating the body of work, sort of at the same level as applying for the business grant. The, the art grant, like, that's like super, hugely important. So those two are like neck and neck with priority, I Different, very different in nature, but

Jessica: Very different in nature, but also one, they know not one supports the other.

They support each other. Yeah.

Pamela Paulenko: Yes.

Jessica: And then also some sort of visual or reminder of your moving away from and moving toward so that when we get stuck, whether it's, I don't know how, or that's sounds scary. We can do it anyway. The third thing was. It's creating some sort of calendar of how we're going to organize our time so that we get those things done.

Pamela Paulenko: they're all related, so the calendar is huge though.

Jessica: Yeah, the calendar and the motivator feel like you could have those done by tomorrow and then we move into the important stuff.

Pamela Paulenko: I feel like you're right. Okay. Again.

Jessica: So thanks for that ego boost. I appreciate that. So where can people go to find your work or your newsletter or where do you want people to find you?

Pamela Paulenko: I do have a website. It's Pamela Paulenko Art. com.

Jessica: Let's spell it. P A M E L A 

Pamela Paulenko: And then P A U L E N K O That's my last name. That's PamelaPaulenkoArt. com. I know it's a bit of a handle.

Jessica: That's okay.

Pamela Paulenko: My website has links to Artterra where I've got three pieces of large work and links for prints and some other originals. And then I have Instagram where I am at PAMMERZAM, P A M M E R Z A M.

Jessica: Perfect.

Pamela Paulenko: Yeah. And my logo is this cute little yellow fish on Instagram.

Jessica: I remember the fish. I love the fish. All right, Pam. Yeah, this was fun. I expect an update. By the end of the week.

Pamela Paulenko: End of the week. All right.

Jessica: I said tomorrow, but I'm giving you some grace and I'm saying update by the end of the week so we can see where we've landed by then.

Pamela Paulenko: Very kind. Very kind.

Jessica: Well thank you again.

Pamela Paulenko: Thank you so much. And for the support emotionally and mentally and every, everything in every way. Love you.

Thank you.

Jessica: Thank you. And we'll talk again soon.

Pamela Paulenko: Okay. Thanks so much, Jessica. Ciao.


More about Intuitive Art Sales

This is the show where I, Jessica Craddock, am going to teach you how to source your art marketing from within. You're going to practice claiming that authentic art business that you want and leaning into the most natural way for you to get there. You're going to learn to get connected to your intuition, your confidence and your community, so that you can sell your art consistently while holding strong boundaries on your work life balance.

Seasons 1 & 2 are full of interviews with your peers. In these and all episodes moving forward, I explore what each artist wants and give them the next steps to get there. You can take their struggles and their challenges and learn how to navigate your own and create actionable steps towards creating more art sales, more consistently at higher prices than you've ever sold before.

Just a note to our long-time listeners: We're doing away with our "Seasons", but you can still find this designation abbreviated at the end of the show titles. From now on episodes will be numbered chronologically at the end of the title as well as in the episode description.

You can find all the episodes here.

About the Author

Jessica Craddock

I mentor intuitive visual artists who are sick of one-size-fits all formulas sell more work, more consistently, at higher prices — with better work/life balance. My clients regularly make 3x more in art sales within a year.

Using my signature Consistent Income method, we’ll push you over the precipice of some really amazing growth so you can become the creator of your next chapter.

My secret sauce is that we focus on not just the "doing", but also the "being". Affirmations, trusting yourself, knowing when to go slow and when to go fast, practicing getting out of your comfort zone and making room for the feelings that go with that... all this is equally as important as the action steps.

For once, you'll be ahead of the game and understand what's right for you.

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