John Bishop Fine Art : Podcast

I was finally able to finish all 20 of the paintings, and I’m busy now getting them varnished, wired, and framed.  But now the event really gets cute.  I’ve had a couple of engraved stamps made, one about 3 inches in diameter and the other only 1 inch around.  I’m stamping the back of each painting with the red series logo, and will stamp the certificates of authenticity with a logo in sealing wax...

Let me attempt to tell you about my solo exhibition, as it stands so far.      I’m calling the exhibition Panca Marga, which is a Buddhist concept that recognizes that when one reaches the level of Bodhisattva, like a Buddhist saint, instead of being the end of a journey, attaining that level of perfection is rather a new beginning.  I’ll be creating 20 paintings, every 5 years, for the next 20 ye...

     Graphic Design is a lot more than just pretty pictures, it’s a communication tool between us and our customers.  First impressions matter, and quality, consistent design can not only make you look more professional, it can also make you look more credible to a prospective buyer.  The stronger your design, the more people trust you.  We’ve all experienced clicking on a website, and thinking to...

 We’ve discussed before that some people distinguish between advertising and publicity by saying that advertising you pay for, and publicity is free.  While I’m not certain that’s always true, there does seem to me that advertising is looking inward, while publicity is looking out.  I can plan and coordinate my advertising campaigns tightly, but it seems to me that publicity is just blind luck.  Y...

We have to wear so many hats when running a small business, it’s a little wonder we feel overwhelmed for a good portion of the time.  One of the most important jobs we have to coordinate is that of office manager.  Think about the places you’ve worked in the past.  There is a whole separate job description, a full-time employee, who plays the role of office manager.  Guess who it is in our art bus...

    How many times have you been told that the secret to success in business is marketing?  If you’re like me, I was sold on the need for marketing early in my business career, and have made it core to the growth of my art business.  So why then is my business growing so slowly?  Does it just mean that I suck at marketing after all?  What if I were to suggest to you that marketing is not “the” sec...

As small businessmen and women, whether we like it or not, we have to be incredibly organized to do our jobs.  As creatives, that may or may not be our biggest strength, but we have to find strategies to be as professionally organized as we possibly can in our entrepreneurial careers. We wear so many hats as small creative business owners that it can sometimes feel completely overwhelming, exhaust...

Honesty… that may be the most difficult bit of running a creative business.  Consider for a moment that you’ve done all the things we’ve talked about.  You’ve set up your art business seriously, you’ve created strong goals and objectives, you’ve committed to your vision and mission, you’ve faced the fear of failure, and live and breathe your small business every day.  You have faced your secret fe...

We’ve been talking a lot about the skills and traits we all need to run a creative business.  We’ve talked about planning, setting goals, and courting our ideal collectors.  We’ve talked about the entrepreneurial spirit, what it takes to be a freelancer, and how to keep ourselves motivated and productive while often working alone.  But what we haven’t addressed, is the elephant in the room.  At th...

Following our conversations about all the hats we must wear as small creative business men and women is the necessity for each of us to be a self starter.  We’ve talked about planning your business, setting goals and seeing your business strategically.  We’ve even talked about how to stay motivated.  But how can we, who often are working alone, self motivate and create productive work ethics that...

There are three elements to risk management: risk perception, risk assessment, and risk management.  As small business owners, how can we identify the risks we face, and find practical ways of diminishing the risks to our creative businesses?  In the search for those answers, we cannot forget that no all risks are bad.  Risks can also be opportunities, and we as artists must determine how much ris...

Risk taking is a part of our everyday lives.  We take risks when we climb the stairs, or drive a car.  We take risks when we buy online, or invest in the stock market.  As small business owners, we take even more risks to our finances, our livelihood and our work/life balance.  The trick is not to avoid risks but to identify them, and manage their impact.  Not all risks are bad, many are actually...

In order to be successful as a freelance creative entrepreneur, we must be able to think like a boss, not like an employee.  We must drag ourselves out of the operational management of our businesses, if only for a while each day.  We must find some time to think strategically about our business' vision, long term goals, and how to steer the business to reach those goals.  We have to be able...

As small business owners, we’ve taken the time to plan our strategic overarching Vision statements, build good solid goals, objectives and activities to make it all happen.  We should be really proud of ourselves.  Pat yourself on the back for that.   We can get so involved, so busy doing the day-to-day activities, and putting out fires, that we can easily forget to see our Vision in the minutia o...

The more I read about entrepreneurship, the more people seem to conflate it with small business in general. While it makes sense to me that many small businesses can be entrepreneurial, I don't think they all are. There seems to be something more specific, or maybe more uncertain, about what makes an entrepreneur tick. The research seems to attempt to identify the characteristics of an entrep...

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the New Year, resolutions, and how to position my creative business for results in 2021. Every year, I create goals & objectives that I think are clear, achievable, measurable, and will help me stay focused month after month even when the initial new year high has worn off.  But what I have learned as an artist is that my small business is unique, and t...