Today I went to a frame shop & art gallery to see if they could fix a frame that we picked up recently.
Since I was there, I looked around at the different artwork they had. I keyed in on this one painting of a few sailboats.
It was a great image, I even took a picture of it with my cell phone so I could remember it and told my wife about it when we talked.
The piece is by Thomas Kincaid titled “New Horizons”
Well, this evening as I ended up looking at his website for the first time. When I found the image I noticed this one icon below each of the images on the New Releases page & appears to have done so for a few years now.
I clicked the one under “New Horizons” and up pops a video of the artist talking about the painting and the story behind the painting. After typing this up I found it on youtube too.
It made me want the painting even more.
Now, that in and of itself is not why I am typing this up and attempting to get a copy of the image to include, it’s the face he takes the time, energy, and money to do this video for each of his paintings.
This is a concept I had promoted to artists in the past.
Tell your story, if you are not a writer, then record your audio at least, or a video. Build your fanbase, feed your fans, let them get to know the process you went through to create this intellectual property. Sometimes the creative juices flow, the words, brush strokes, or code just happens almost like you are not controlling your hands or mind. Other times, you are locked down, nothing is working, you try different methods from reading, listening to music, or taking a walk.
Long term, I say, don’t hide either side, at least not with your biggest fans. They will understand, respect you more, and be an even bigger advocate for you.
You should always focus most of your time on your greatest strength or strengths, yet customer or fan relationships must be managed, cultivated, and developed. If you are a one person operations, that means you. If you can hire or recruit people to help and support, then go for you … you need to do what is your hedgehog concept or specialization.
