As an artist, I speak the language of Artists. We sometimes speak little; sometimes in long flowery phrases of description, that translate into color and brush strokes. As a Journalist and Writer, I speak the language of a reporter, asking too many questions and trying to build pictures in my head of details and minutia, that I can share through the written word. As a business person, I understand a growing vocabulary each day; however. I still have conceptual trouble trying to think outside of my emotions and into practical successful business practices. When I translate business language into a picture its easier to understand.
This is where I think we artist’s always run into trouble. We are conditioned to solitude, with extreme explosions of creativity, that demands focus in order to do our best work. If we work totally alone we actually develop a language set that only we understand. If we are lucky, we also have an assistant who understands it too.
The small amount of time we have outside of the studio requires, at least for me, direct concise answers to our questions so that we can let the information process in our brains. Then we can come back into the conversation at a later time and correct the problem or adapt to a business process we didn’t understand before.
Convincing some business people to give us the non-idioms, strait talk version of a concept in “every day people” language is sometimes very difficult. Especially, if the person talking expects us to understand what they are saying the first time and dismisses the us if we don’t understand. It can be even worse if the business person is trying to impose their preferences on a very creative person who’s skills sets run to non-conformity, especially if it seems to be conformity for conformity’s sake. Artist's often understand the nuances of business but have little knowledge of the lingo.
This is one reason I think that mentorship is really important. A good mentor realizes the creativity, out of the box thinking and exuberance of the artist . A good mentor speaks in direct simple terms that answers each question while still being factual and tactful at the same time. A good mentor is going to recognize the process the artist uses and help them translate good business practices into it. A good mentor will not only give practical help, they will also learn from the person they are mentoring.
Understanding that creative emotion can translate into good successful business, can have a healthy out come, without the frustration of communication breakdown, because people don’t understand one another. All that it really takes is the desire to make it happen and a mentor with the ability and willingness to view things from a new perspective he or she had not thought of before. (Artist tend to be trained that way already)
My thoughts and prayers are with all of those in the North East today who are still without power after the snow.
Blessings,
~L
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