Meet Art of you Founder Maria-Katharina Richter’s from Hamburg, Germany. Maria and her company Art of you specializes in bringing the art within people to the surface (whether you believe you have it or not, you do have art within you, Maria says), unleashing their full Creative Potential and thriving holistically (mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually) by bringing their creations into the world.
Maria revealed in an Interview recently she has battled ADHD, bullying, mental abuse, and more. The many events that uncovered her vast creativity and assisting in the healing process of unfortunate events. Her company Art of you helps those who feel dried out by life explore their creativity and playfulness, exploring new ways of living and approaching life to live with joy, confidence and energy again.
Not only this, but artists and creatives of all kinds – at any stage of their journey, who want to harness the power of purpose and creativity to create a financially viable business with their art, so here’s 5 tips in the words of Maria-Katharina Richter’s if you’re an aspiring full time visual artist or simply would like to explore your creativity and playfulness:
1. Learn to trust your intuition and take charge of your direction in life
The things you are passionate, excited and curious about are all part of your calling. Our mind lies to us daily. Start noticing your thoughts, register with yourself if they’re fear based or negative? If they’re this is a sign you’re believing your mind’s untruthful thoughts. These thoughts are untrue, but soon become true the more we cave into them. The more you pinder in them, the stronger and more of a reality they become. When you start on your journey of art creation and exploring your own creativity, you will be confronted with internal chatter that tells you, “you can’t do it”, “you are not good enough”, “your art doesn’t matter”, “nobody will buy from you”, and any smallest hint of rejection will be confirmed by your mind telling you, “you knew this was going to happen” and so on. This is your mind spurring lies to protect you from the possibility of failure. You can choose to believe them or you can choose to train yourself to think thoughts that create reality rather than hinder you from creating.
If you ever or currently are starting your own art based business and notice such thoughts, sit with them, confront them until you replace them with the truth. You are more than enough!
2. Your triggers are your most important messengers
Setting up an art business or living your purpose will require you to raise your standards, stepping outside of the comfort zone and current state of consciousness to elevate us into a more trusting, heart-centered space, where we are not reliving our pain bodies over and over again. Therefore our triggers will be our key to growth. Especially when you are confronted with becoming visible with your art, the most vulnerable part of you, your creativity is out for display, so it is normal that triggers, such as fear of being judged or criticized will show. If you get excited about something and have fear attached to it at the same time, it is your greatest shift you will create for you and your business.
3. The consciousness of every action we take, determines the outcome we create
Artists often fear selling their art and decide to not go down that route, so they end up struggling or even losing touch with their creativity because of it. The consciousness of every action we take determines the outcome we create. Like planting a seed and reaping its fruit. Becoming comfortable with selling happens by changing our mindset and perception of it. Make money to make art, not art to make money, a simple shift to this mindset can help drastically.
4. Swap your desire for instant gratification for a desire of long term fulfilment!
I have gotten myself into all kinds of trouble by chasing short-term instant gratification. It is easy to find yourself stuck in a habit that keeps you from shining. Creating anything in life, whether that is a blossoming relationship or setting up a business, requires a long-term fulfillment mindset, where you build on your vision even if it doesn’t show instant results. People that set up businesses find themselves slipping from their “WHY” after the first few hurdles, falling into instant gratification activities too quickly. It is a matter of self-belief and desire, how much do you want it? How much are you able to resist the desire to just chill tonight and not do something for your vision? You never know what is around the corner and if you keep being consistent you are building an unshakable foundation – like bamboo trees that take years building their roots for them to sprout out tall and strong within 5 short weeks. Short-term discomfort for long-term success.
5. Creating a framework is everything!
Sometimes it is not you being lazy or committed enough, sometimes it is just a matter of a nonexisting framework that pulls us back into not doing the things we wanted to do, forgetting things, becoming overwhelmed, procrastinating, and so on.
Give yourself a framework to make it easy for you on the days that feel hard to implement anything. For example, give yourself weekly schedules with different days for different themes. I find it helpful to spend one day for one thing, whether that’s a filming day, scheduling day, content day, painting day, outreach day. I may also use the Pomodoro technique and time myself for certain tasks, you will be surprised what you can get done in a short period of time.
You want to have to think less and automate certain tasks, which includes having certain apps to help you schedule efficiently, and templates for your posts. Some of these frameworks and tools are all part of a Video Course Maria just launched to help visual artists kickstart their Art Business with some powerful mindset hacks and tools to set the foundations and the structure needed to succeed in the long term.
You can find the video course here. The link will take you to a no-cost ebook here followed by the introduction to the course.
To speak with Maria you can do so at the below links.