Actively Living Artistically

I subscribe to The Daily Rumpus (a writer, Stephen Elliott, sends me an email every now and then with his thoughts-- I guess its like a feed thingy? I'm not sure the internet definition of this type of thing). The email today had such a fantastic perspective-shifter. And, it was great timing because I have been super depressed about my etsy holiday sales-- I had high hopes to sell a lot of jewelry, and I haven't. I sold more than my monthly average, but not by a lot. I believe the problem is two-fold, and I didn't realize the second problem until reading this email today. Anyway, before I ramble on any further, here is the passage from Stephen Elliott:

"...you can move around with your work through different mediums. You can choose to live as an artist, as Steve Jobs did. And being an artist doesn't mean you're a good person, it just means your focused on making something great, that the task at hand, the quality of the thing you're making, is more important to you than the money or other rewards. It's simple, really, deciding to live as artist. It's as simple as rewriting a sentence, instead of moving on."

Problem 1: SEO
      I was telling T-Bear about my etsy dissapointment and his response was "Gotta pump up the SEO, yo." I had no idea what he was taking about because I'm not a marketing nerd. Apparently it stands for Search Engine Optimization. I am still not exactly sure how to fix this problem yet, but I think it revolves around rewriting my sentence. I'm definitely going to make some changes, but I am not sure exactly what those changes are, yet. I think it is going to center around legitimizing my shop-- putting out a real website and taking really good pictures and using higher end materials, but the specifics are not totally worked out. So, my SEO is TBD.  


Problem 2: Uninspired Creation
       I think my focus was on production, not on "making something great." I wanted to make a lot of little things that I could easily reproduce, in the event it sold like hotcakes. I like the jewels- they are cute and fun-- but there are 1.5 million other items just like them out on the etsy universe. I've been super busy between working and moving, and I felt pressure to put out a lot of items out in time for the holiday season, but I didn't have the time to work on anything especially time consuming.


And, I really love the perspective that Stephen Elliott shares in that writing. Its a good reminder to take a take a breath, take a moment, take a step back and make improvements, in every aspect of life. Some people naturally do this. My friend Lindsay (graphic designer) is an example. She adds flourish without thought. I, on the other hand, have to force myself to take the time to make something a little bit more awesome. It's always worth the extra time.