Spiritual teacher A.H. Almaas believes that a genuinely creative act is always motivated by generosity. If that’s true, how do you explain all the ego-obsessed “geniuses” who treat everyone like dirt even as they churn out their supposedly brilliant art? In any case, I’m siding with Almaas’ definition, and I advise you to keep it in mind now that you’re in the most imaginative and self-expressive phase of your astrological cycle. To ensure that your creative juices keep flowing in ways that make you feel really good, dedicate them to spreading inspiration and giving gifts. Halloween costume suggestions: a pregnant painter, a flower exuding bursts of pollen, a sexy midwife.
From Rob Brezsny

It totally amazes me how his horoscopes are so dead on.   And this so validates this past weekend and how I feel about my art.  I can’t tell you how many times someone has said to me, “You should sell this stuff!”  At first I would say, “There’s no way I’ll be paid what this is worth as far as time and labor is concerned.”   But they always replied, “You need to market it to the rich.”  And my eyes would glaze over at the word “Market.”  My reply these days is different.  “I only do my work for love.”

GAH!  Market my work?

Back in 2000 at the age of 41 I quit my boring as hell job as an admin asst, moved in with my parents, and went back to school full time to get a two year degree in web design and development.  I had gone to a basic html class 8 months earlier and fell in love.  I geek on the code and the art.  I was totally stoked to be able to be creative and get paid for it.

Blithely I ignored two of the required classes.  Copyright law and marketing.  I come from a long line of legal beagles in my family.  City park named after my grandfather, a superior court judge, uncle a lawyer, father a lawyer. Worked for dad on Saturdays for years.  Dad really wanted me to be lawyer.  But I was into sex, drugs, and rock and roll back when college for his daughter was still a hopeful glimmer in his eye.  Dad also has a degree in Political Science and we still do a lot of talking about law and politics.  But I don’t want to BE one, either of them.

But Marketing?!  Oh my god.  Before I had started school this last time I had visions of making a really good living as a web designer. Six months into my studies the dot com crash happened.  I was not worried about lots of money any more but about there being any jobs at all.  And then I took marketing.  And I knew that no matter how many well paying web jobs there were out there, no way could I work my ass off to sell people things they don’t need and can’t afford.  The manipulations made me ill.  The waste to the MaMa made me ill.  I couldn’t participate in it, I simply don’t believe in it.  I knew that I would have to return to a job at either a charity or an educational institution.

After graduation it took a few years and I did have to take another boring (and abusive it turned out) job but I did get the experience I needed and now I do what I love for people whose work I believe in.  This matters to me a lot.  And I don’t make much more money than I did as an admin. asst.  Well, I guess I do but they take more out now that I’m considered a professional so what I take home is the same.

But I can sleep at night.  And I have a lot of fun on the job most of the time.

My other art, the textiles stuff, that I do outside of work?  I very rarely sell it.  I did try it once with a company, Autumn’s Path, but either their server is down or they have closed up shop.  The work I did for them using their designs was beautiful and she loved it.  But for some reason NONE of it sold.  And then I knew my heart was right.  I can only create art if it’s from the heart to the heart.  I give my stuff away as gifts and as donations for fund raisers. And in this case the fund raisers tend to be spiritually based, pagan based.

I’ve been tempted to make up a bunch of stuff and try to sell it our local pagan events that have merchants.  But something keeps holding me back. 

I get much more pleasure out of just making stuff and seeing what happens.  And usually the work just sings.  As soon as I try to make something with someone else’s parameters in mind, I loose interest and the work becomes blase.  I’m okay with that.

Art for Love’s sake.