Success in the art world isn’t a solo sport. Join Fi Marks, Paula Telizyn, and special guests Jela Prancic and Susan Gardner as they discuss the launch of The Fifty-One Percent.
In this episode, we break down the professional side of being an artist, from finding your people to the feminist roots of collective action. Discover how working together can amplify your voice, increase your visibility, and help you achieve long-term success in a challenging industry.
Check out Jela Prancic’s website here https://jelaprancic.com/
Check out Susan Gardner’s website here https://susangardnerfineartoriginals.com/
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00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Art crush, the podcast with artist Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn, where we talk about art. Being an artist, feminism, the art world, having an art business, and more.
00:00:24 Speaker 1: Today we are talking with the fifty one percent. If you have been following our last five episodes or maybe more of this podcast, you’ll know that fee and I have been talking about having a collective. We’ve talked about the fifty one percent. We’ve talked about it as we were forming it together. and we are delighted to bring on the other two members of the fifty one percent. So we have from the UK artist Susan Gardner and from Toronto, Canada, we have artist Jela Prancic. so welcome everybody. And of course, fee is here too.
00:01:02 Speaker 2: Hi.
00:01:04 Speaker 4: Hi. Hello.
00:01:07 Speaker 1: So we wanted to sort of start by, I think before we even dive into what the fifty one percent is. I think we want to introduce Yella and Susan as artists, so that they’re not just talking about the fifty one percent. You’re going, well, what the heck do they do? We are talking about artists now that you’ve had a chance to get to know. So I want to start with yella with this, Yella. You and I have known each other for a very, very long time because we went to elementary school together. I think you joined in what, grade seven or grade eight?
00:01:41 Speaker 4: My school o grade eight. Yes.
00:01:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Way, way back in the beginning of time, uh, you showed up in the classroom and we became friends, I think almost instantly. And we’ve been friends for since then. Yeah. Really? but you went off and did Art University and I went off and did art in college. So I don’t want to go that in that direction necessarily. But what are you doing now with your art? You’ve had a whole long career. what’s your art about and anything you care to share?
00:02:14 Speaker 4: Wow. It’s a big introduction. So I have been an artist basically my whole life. visual communication is my strength of just pulling together stories and meaning from, found objects as well as creating my own from my own imagination. And that’s led me to a place where for twenty years I was collecting a lot of different magazines and publications and books that fascinated me that I had every intention of using to create a whole new body of work. And about seven years ago, I dove in and did something I never thought I would. It was to actually cut out pages from these said publications and books to save. You know, the best of the best. And that finally gave me, the confidence to say, I could use these materials and create collages that are very exciting, where it’s not about manipulating them into something new without using them, but actually using them sort of in the vein of, one of the World War two artists from Germany, Hannah Höch, that used publications of that time to draw attention to Nazism and the impact on art and the impact on society, of highlighting what was beautiful and grotesque, and how to create really powerful, totemic images. So that stood with me and all of my art in using these materials is about empowering women, sharing different and unique stories that combine aspects of technology, of space science, and also including animals, sort of to show a coexistence between women animals. Male characters are featured, but they tend to be passive. And I understand that’s my feminist roots coming out in that storytelling. You know, that they’re there in the background. We’re up front.
00:04:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. Centering women is, a really good thing in my opinion. so one of my favorite pieces of yours is the go breathe fire piece. Uh, because it just, it really struck me as almost giving permission for the viewer to follow what your piece was suggesting, showing a strong woman going to do big things that might make that woman be a little bit afraid or sort of wonder if she’s good enough to do it. But the piece is encouraging and inspiring so that that piece is really stuck with me. What were you thinking about? Oh, actually, let’s start back. Can you sort of describe the piece a little bit for our listeners? and I’ll put Jealous and Susan’s, websites in the show notes so everybody can see it, but can you sort of describe the piece for our listeners and maybe talk a little bit about what was going on when you were creating it, What you were thinking about?
00:05:46 Speaker 4: a lot of the times creating these pieces is, uh, it’s like a ritual experience. So the dates are important to me. And I believe that that piece was sort of like a call to action for a new year, starting and wanting to have and something that symbolizes my ambition and that my ambition is not just an act that will, give me a charge of energy to create, but to inspire others to create alongside me Sort of like this intuitive nature that a thought that I can have right here in the present in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Someone in Uganda can have the exact same thought. We don’t know each other, but our thoughts can be that powerful. So that came about where fire is an energy that a lot of people fear because it’s destructive, but it’s also something that gives us life and energy. Meals, you know, and the image also includes a woman with a queen bee, the bumblebee, which everyone in, you know, the bees work for the queen bee. So that is part of that collage. And a collective spirit is what it’s about. Yeah.
00:07:23 Speaker 1: It’s really fantastic. A lot of your pieces are empowering or enlightening, or require the viewer to do a little bit of work to, to participate in. the act of understanding of what you’re expressing, but they are overwhelmingly empowering and powerful. I’m going to bounce over to Susan just to ask her some questions as well. And we get to know Susan Gardner, who’s an artist in the UK, and she paints really incredible, stunning animal portraits. so Susan, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your art? And then I’m going to pick on you for to learn more about a piece.
00:08:02 Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to say again, your work is absolutely amazing. I’ve been following you now for quite a while, but some of this new stuff is just. Yeah, I’ve picked out two favorites too. Oh, yeah. Definitely the Stardust one, the Stardust one, and then the latest one that you posted, um, about the, the, the pull of attraction, really amazing because I’ve never had anything to do with that kind of art before. So it’s really kind of blown me away. Um, anyway, sorry, I’m digressing a bit, but I just had to say that, um, yeah, so my work, I’m painting animals, animals and birds. but I’m painting them in such a way as it’s more about the mood and the soul and the spirit of the animal. and really the way I talk about my art has, evolved and is still evolving. working with, with you guys, has made me. Been able to think about my art a lot more deeply and think about why I’m really doing it. because it’s always been quite instinctive and I never really stopped to think why it was important before. but currently, I would say, that I’m aiming to allow the viewer to connect with, part of themselves that’s sort of almost childlike and, sort of akin to a while sort of a wildness and a spirituality, that’s inside you. and the animals will, will, help you connect with your inner self and you’re in a child and you’re in a wildness. So, currently that’s how I feel about my artwork.
00:09:40 Speaker 1: You are very, very well known for your Scottish cow paintings and for all the people that copy you, you are the originator of that style of painting. so if you’ve ever seen the the Scottish cow paintings with the cow staring at you from a very colorful background with the horns and the hair and everything else, Susan Gardner was the one who styled that first. That is a, a thing that you should be proud of to own. But clearly you have a deep connection with Scottish cows as well. So do you have a favorite Scottish cow painting or Scottish cow? itself that you want to talk about?
00:10:16 Speaker 3: well, the very first one I did, I think is potentially not my favorite because I can’t have favorites, but definitely, one that stands out because it was an accident, really. It was just such an instinctive painting. I, my very first Highland cow I ever painted. And it was just something that was just something arresting about those upswept horns. In fact, it’s a, it’s a girl cow because the upswept horns are the ones, that the girls have. And the bulls have a very different sort of headset and horn carriage, but so the ones with the big wide spread horns are the ones I tend to paint. There’s just something very uplifting about that image. it’s almost like, the branches of a tree or upheld arms. Just a very, very sort of powerful, composition really. So I painted that, in one sitting and at some point I got quite frustrated with it and I was thinking, well, these colours aren’t, I don’t know whether this is going to translate very well. And I was getting my fingers in there and putting and finger painting, and being really very, quite messy because I didn’t think it was working. and then I went away and came back and absolutely fell in love with it. and then I sold it that same day. and it was just, just one of those magical things. It just it just happened. And yes, I have got routes. I did used to live in Scotland. so there is something there as well about that. But there was also a lot about bringing the colours of the Scottish landscape and all the stormy feel of the mountain landscapes and the weather that you get all sort of came in together in one big sort of swirl for that painting and I’ve been, yes, I’ve been requested to do quite a few Highland cows since then. Yes. That’s, I always enjoy it. I always enjoy doing them.
00:12:02 Speaker 1: So yeah. Scotland is absolutely beautiful. I’ve been there once, but mainly in the cities. I can’t even imagine how incredible it would be to go up into the Highlands. okay, so we haven’t heard from PHE yet. She’s been she’s been here the whole time and listening and everything else.
00:12:18 Speaker 2: But never known me so quiet. Have you?
00:12:21 Speaker 1: I it’s shocking.
00:12:24 Speaker 2: Well, I’m very mindful that I don’t want to be into trying to interrupt anybody.
00:12:29 Speaker 1: That’s fair, that’s fair. But we, we created this podcast last year, last August. We’re recording this episode on March seventh. So the day before International Women’s Day, it will be released next week. and this group that we have created, this collective, this fifty one percent that we’ve created, all four of us together came together and said, actually, we all really like each other, respect each other and appreciate the community that we have. but I think it came out of the podcast itself and fee and I have talked about this in past episodes that the things we talk about and, and hash out in our podcast end up being things we start creating, like the show that the four of us are about to do together.
00:13:11 Speaker 2: I’ll tell you what I was thinking while I was listening to everybody talk. And, it is quite extraordinary, the link between all of our work and what we are aiming to do. We’ve talked about being empowered that we can learn from each other, learning from animals, the instinctiveness. And I think this is our instincts have led us to create the fifty one percent. And it’s because we see the. Well, we’ve all lived the, trying to make our way in the art world and feeling that we don’t quite fit in. And yet when we met each other, we, we felt that sense of belonging and I think I can’t remember Paula, but it might have even been on one of our podcasts, that we discussed. what has happened to those groups of artists when they lived together? I mean, we are talking mainly men or we don’t know about the women. Um, but, uh, who all lived together, drank together, were debauched together, inspired each other, traveled together to different parts of the world. I mean, what an exciting life they must have led. You know, despite us thinking that they were these poor, impoverished, mad men. I think that they they were living in a time where people didn’t travel and didn’t talk in the with the same freedom. They, they created that, uh, space for them. and I think that’s what we said that we were lacking. And then just it’s not by chance, it’s it’s serendipity. But you know, we all met up. We realized that we had similar ethos, similar view on the art world. And, not only do we want to improve our ability to share our messages, our stories with the world, we want other women to feel empowered by what we’re doing. And who knows, the fifty one percent could just, you know, easily just grow and grow over the next few years. And more and more women feel empowered to tell their stories through the medium of art.
00:15:44 Speaker 1: I think it’s, it’s important to acknowledge that we chose the name fifty one percent as a group because we were looking for a name that wasn’t just women who paint or, um, fun girls with graphics or whatever. we wanted to represent what we actually understand. Fifty one percent reflects who we are. Women are fifty one percent of the population. So that’s why we picked the name. And it took us a while to pick the name. It was an important part of defining who we are. we have seen collectives online. There have been a lot of collectives, but they don’t appear to have the same connections that we have. We deliberately and intentionally foster a deep connection through meeting up weekly, through supporting each other when we’re not meeting on Zoom. we, intentionally strengthen our bonds and we also ask each other the tough questions, not, um, questions like, who do you think you are? But more like, where are you going with this piece? What do you want from your career? What are you thinking when you’re doing this? Not to make somebody defend themselves, but to think deeper? I think a fundamentally us as a group also know that we have each other’s backs. That was that was part of the most important foundation of coming together was to understand that this is the one place you can go where you can say, actually, I’m going to chuck it all in, I give up. And then the other three will come back and say, you know, you’re being an idiot in a nice way. this is a group where you could say, okay, I’m thinking about trying this. Can you give me some feedback before it goes out in the public? This is the kind of thing we want where we have that ability to bolster each other up when we wobble, when we’re thriving, because we recognize that success is not pie. There aren’t just a few slices and then everybody else doesn’t get any. Sucks to be you. Oh, well, we we have this whole desire that we know that together we’ve created something larger than ourselves individually and together we can go higher, faster, farther, because we all have our own connections that we can all leverage. We all have our own viewpoints that we can all then get to know. and we can all come together and see what we build. Um, so I want to, I think.
00:17:55 Speaker 2: I actually think, um, you know, for women, it’s, they, they prefer to work in supportive groups. I mean, I might be making a huge generalization, but I know when we’ve talked in previous years about doing pop up shows, the idea of doing it by yourself is very, very daunting, particularly for women. And once we started saying, well, we will do this, it became so much easier because you weren’t on your own. And all of us are communicators. And when you’re painting or creating your artwork, you tend to be very insular and wrapped up with your work. And so that develops. But what I’ve discovered since being part of the fifty one percent is the impact of each other. Working together, talking things through has had an even more powerful impact on my artwork and my way of thinking. We’ve I think we’ve said in the past, Paula, about how we’re continually evolving. Well, it’s suddenly gone into like, rocket mode, whereas we’ve seen ourselves develop over the years, it’s been much slower. And that’s because I think for a lot of us, we’ve been sort of evolving by ourselves and that there are more barriers for us than there is when we are saying, yeah, go try that. Go on, do that. Oh, that sounds amazing. And, and also, we aren’t just yes people. We all have moments where we’re like, oh my God, you know, feel a bit like, oh, I’m getting it all wrong. I’m getting it. You know, it’s not going right for me at the moment. But We don’t take it as criticism because we know we are in that supportive environment. I mean, it makes absolute sense when you say it out loud why we didn’t do it years ago. I don’t know, but I think, and I sincerely hope that all the listeners and artists out there would be like, yeah, that’s what I’m missing. That’s what I need. I was talking to to a art student this morning who came to work with me at one of my workshops. And it was an absolute pleasure and privilege. And obviously I pointed her in the direction of Artcrush and our exhibition. But I was like, you know, this might be bits that you’re missing in your education in university. Um, conversations that aren’t being had for various reasons and it will enhance you all as as learners and to go on and see successful female artists making a living.
00:20:43 Speaker 1: Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about where we, we’ve talked a little bit about what the fifty one percent does for each of us and what we’re hoping for, what it can do for other women who are in the art world. The art world is a big place. It isn’t just one giant thing. You have to follow these steps and you’ll make success or whatever. Each of us travels a path, whether it’s going through galleries or doing shows or creating a business or doing commissions, figuring out how we can turn our Ah! Uh. I don’t want to say passion for art. Our need to create art and be artists into something that can sustain us in, and unfortunately, capitalist society that requires us to have an income. so I want to talk about what we’re hoping the fifty one percent can do for us beyond being this nurturing collective of support. And I think one of the biggest things, especially when I talk to artists as I go networking around London and area here in Canada, is that artists don’t realize that there are other options. Like we as a collective have decided that we are not going through galleries. We’re not going to ask permission from the institutions. Uh, please, can you hang my art on your walls? We are picking places, venues that we pay for to go and put our show up and then run our show ourselves. Take it down ourselves, advertise ourselves and and promoted ourselves. So I’m going to start with yellow, but then I’ll go to Susan. But you can jump in, if you want. I want to talk about you’ve had a career as an artist with showing in group shows and things like that. Has this attitude of just being like, you know what? Fuck everything. We’re just going to do our own, our own direction. Has this changed how you approach your art or how you approach selling your art, or, or even seeing what the possibilities are for you at this stage?
00:22:35 Speaker 4: okay, I have to go back on that thought because I have participated primarily in group shows and a lot of, various punk collectives that I’ve been a part of. So what’s different now is it’s the same art making. It’s the same mentality of putting, gender bending, whatever feminism, creating art that is meaningful to us as individuals. But for, a wider range of people, larger population and having a do it yourself, don’t give a fuck attitude, like, where do you fit in? Doesn’t matter. Where do you show? Does it matter? The one thing that has changed in what needed to change is to be unapologetic about earning money from this art, because that was lacking before. We sort of had a collective spirit, but there were a handful of artists who were making money, who had their artwork even printed on products, and people from these collectives felt that they were sellouts, felt that they were no longer part of the collective, but they revered them. They hated them. I’m not going to drop any names because I’m proud of them, and I think they deserve the respect they earned and the money they earned, and I’d like to be there. So this is the first collective where I feel that there’s a consensus that we have a right to those goals as women. As artists.
00:24:25 Speaker 1: Yeah. Because art is a skilled, I don’t want to say trade. Trade is the wrong thing, but art is definitely a skill that you have to learn and hone and work on. And for somebody.
00:24:36 Speaker 2: It’s a skilled profession, skilled profession.
00:24:39 Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. It’s funny because I just edited last night, the episode that’s out right now, and I stumbled on that in that episode too. So skilled profession is, is the term. Yes. we don’t make fun of other people who learn a skill and dare to earn money from it. Doctors. Plumbers. Welders. Uh. Who else has skills? Landscapers. Graphic designers. Graphic design is like an acceptable form of using your art skill. Like it just it’s, it’s absolutely ludicrous that there is that. And I had a client years ago and he came to me for mentoring and all that. And she had put out a few pieces for sale on, on the internet. And she said, here’s this painting, it’s five hundred euros, And people were calling her out for daring to charge for her painting, for daring to charge five hundred euros for her painting and, and telling her she was a sellout. Like, this is a very common thing that I think a lot of people have to unlearn. So it’s really interesting that you you brought that up because we I don’t think fee and I have actually addressed that idea deeply, that there is this attitude that art somehow has to be pure and academic and, I don’t know, separate from money.
00:25:56 Speaker 4: Yeah. A movement, you know?
00:26:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And that, that kind of ties in, with this idea too, that artists have to almost be pure. Like if, if an artist is using AI, for example, not to create their art or anything, but maybe to put their art in a room and then other artists tear them down for doing that, because the artists are supposed to be these pure people who don’t do anything that’s perceived as negative. that can be challenging as well. Like we, we are almost held on to the standard of leading the pack when the reality is that we are diverse people with diverse viewpoints and experiences and values. We’re not a homogenous lump, so to say like, oh my God, you’ve sullied your art because you’ve sold it. It’s a load of crap. For some people, that’s their goal, right? Make art and make it so that it draws from within or whatever they’re experiencing. And it’s not they’re not worried about is this going to sell or should I share it or whatever? It removes that sort of idea. But I think that that’s unfair to art and artists.
00:27:08 Speaker 2: So what’s really interesting, Paula, is that other people who have their profession in the arts, be they musicians, be they actors, it hasn’t got the same stigma. People don’t go to actors. Oh, you should be giving your skills for free. You know, it’s dirty. It’s sullied now because you’re being paid to do it. No, it’s just the art world. And I. I think it might even stem back to the fact that it used to be people who were very, very rich, who were the only people who could be artists because they had a private income. It wasn’t about, oh, they were just starving away. It was actually because they didn’t need it. And I think I think I mentioned before finding out about, the Bloomsbury set that they looked down their noses at people who earned money from the arts because they thought of it, but they were all flipping rich. They already had loads of money. So they thought that they were they were more worthy. I tell you, it put me off the Bloomsbury set completely. And then what happened? Was it that sort of stigma carried on, but people didn’t have the money anymore and that’s where starving artists came from.
00:28:38 Speaker 1: Okay, so on the topic of money and art and selling your art and all of that. Susan, you’ve sold a lot of paintings, especially over the last five years. I think you’re well over three hundred and fifty paintings sold to your account. Yeah. so obviously you don’t have any issues with selling your art or art, mixing with money and all, but have you encountered pushback from anybody in your audience or whatever, or have you felt pushback like, am I doing the right thing by selling my art? Or is that just a non thing for you?
00:29:08 Speaker 3: I have encountered pushback, especially at the beginning. Um, when I was quite, quite seemed to be quite suddenly successful, I think to certain people, although I had been painting for a long time and I painted, painted daily, the first sort of well, for the last ten years I’ve pretty much painted daily. But I did encounter pushback from certain other artists, which I was quite surprised about because I was selling, and, came in for some really heavy criticism, that I was perhaps diluting the art world, the local art scene, by selling when and taking all the sales from other people, which I found very surprising. And it’s, there wasn’t much of it, but there was just enough to leave quite a bad taste. I don’t think the pushback should be coming from other artists. I feel like it’s so self-defeating. If I’ve seen artists being criticized on social media in different places, sort of slyly criticized, not full on like I got when I first started selling, people sort of intimating that they shouldn’t be asking for as much money as they’re asking for. And that’s an absolute cheek, which really makes me so annoyed because I think, well, you’re an artist. Don’t you want to be there? If I see somebody selling a painting for a lot of money or well, any, any painting, but if it’s for a lot of money, I think. Yes. Go you. I wish I was doing that. Let me try and do it. Let’s go, I don’t think. Oh, that’s so how naughty you know. How dare they ask for that? And it’s sullying their artistic reputation. No, of course not. I think that people artists should be fully on board with people. You know, like themselves making money. And then hopefully they will too. Why not? You know, you’ve got to live. And also if you’re um, painting, you can’t be doing another job at the same time can you? You can’t, you haven’t got time to do full time job and do painting as well. You do need to ask a fair price for it. So yeah, a long winded answer, but yeah, definitely, definitely got the pushback and definitely it affected me, but it doesn’t anymore.
00:31:08 Speaker 1: It is really interesting, that the pushback does come from artists. I know when I kicked my art career into high gear years and years ago that I looked around at the Facebook groups, the art Facebook groups, and saw the jealousy in there and the, how dare you do this or that. And I just sort of went, yeah, I’m not going in there anymore. I’m just not participating because it felt like it was almost encouraging this negativity. You almost get like a few bad people who are loud enough that they they ruin the whole group. So understanding that if you want to do this full time and reach a larger audience, you have to sell. And as Susan said, sell for a good price for a skilled profession. I will hopefully remember that term. Uh, but a skilled profession, that it should be unapologetic. And I certainly know that women as artists get that pushback a lot more than men, because there’s this idea of, oh, look at her. She’s being cute. She’s trying a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know, but don’t take her seriously because she’s just playing. And so we end up with this double pushback as artists who are daring to charge reasonably for our work and as women daring to show up confidently and charging for our work and speaking boldly about it without asking permission to be there. Fee and I have talked about the the asking permission bit a lot, because we’ve seen artists who have been at their shows and they’ll take photos where they’re, like look at my art and their heads tipped and they’re sort of hunched a little bit and just their body language is very, very like, I’m proud of myself, but don’t judge me. So I’m not going to be too proud. I’m going to stand a little bit like, I’m not crazy. I’m, I’m just here with my art. Don’t judge me kind of thing. And we want to turn that around. So with the fifty one percent, we don’t allow for apologizing for showing up from any of us. we will bolster each other up because we have to unlearn a hell of a lot of stuff. But we don’t allow for, that kind of attitude. We also expect and freely give. I mean, we didn’t even have to say it. We freely give kudos to anybody who has created success. Just because yellow has sold something doesn’t mean she’s stolen all of the art collectors in the world. I’m not going to drive to Toronto and be like, what the hell? That person would have bought my totally, completely different art that I made, right? Like, I’m not going to go and do that. it’s absolutely ludicrous to think that a lot of the issue do does come from the fact that artists follow each other. So it can feel like there’s a lot of artists in the world. I have one foot outside of the art world because I also engage with, coaches and mentors and course creators and other entrepreneurs like that. And I can see that artists are maybe twenty percent of the entrepreneurs around, mainly because a lot of them never get out of the hobby stage. but generally it’s because they don’t know how to market and show up. So the school or scope of artists, professional artists who are making a full time living from their work is really, really small. So when you’re in the middle of it as an artist, you’re looking around everywhere and you can’t swing a cat without hitting an artist. But when you’re outside of it, you see that there is a lot more. So artists don’t have the perspective that there are so many buyers out there. There are so many buyers out there that even if you have the Canada has forty one million people at this point and, maybe half of them are adults or whatever. You know, there’s a huge amount of people. If we just stuck in Canada, millions upon millions upon millions of people who could buy art and Artists don’t seem to understand that that that audience is huge. It’s absolutely huge. so there’s no need for somebody to sort of get down and say, well, you stole all the clients. I’m going to, be mad at you or, or try to take you down a peg. But there is this idea that when somebody dares to be different, the group collectively pulls them back. It’s it’s crabs in a bucket. It’s not my original idea. I did put it in my first book, but it’s this idea that when you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket because you’ve caught them out of the ocean or wherever they come from, it shows you how much I know about crabs. You put them in a bucket and and when one decides it’s going to escape and get sort of near the top, the others will pull it back down. And humans do that. Primates do that as well, because we don’t want to see somebody creating success. It requires us as the people watching that success, being created to feel bad about ourselves instead of doing something to improve our own lot, we would rather take down the person who’s creating success. So, Susan, selling Highland cows hand over fist, is a threat to artists who aren’t selling at all or aren’t selling enough. And I think we need to change that attitude because It’s not us versus each other. We need to understand that if we are angry at somebody for doing something, that maybe we need to look within ourselves to figure out what we’re doing, what we’re feeling, what we’re not doing, where we fall short, like I always ask myself when I don’t like somebody, what is it about them that reflects my own view of myself? I may still not like them and put pins in their effigy anyway, but I do take that moment to think about why they rub me the wrong way. And am I falling short of my own goals? Because we do have a lot of knee jerk reactions, and the most important thing for us to do as thinking creative people, is to stop and pause and ask ourselves these questions. So I’m going to wrap up this episode with the introduction to Ella and Susan Gardner and the fifty one percent we are going to hop into, or we’re going to record another episode so you get a chance to hear from them more deeply. But I want to just go around the circle. The virtual circle. Actually, it’s a square because we’re in Zoom to get final thoughts from each person. And, I want to start maybe with fee because you’ve been so quiet. It’s very strange.
00:37:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, um, well, the final what? The final few words on the fifty one percent and about us working together. Yeah, I think well, I think the fact that we’ve got two artists from Canada and two from the UK and we meet up, I mean, we meet up more than once a week, we see more of each other than we do probably our next door neighbors, because we make that time and it’s, it’s this idea, it really feels that this is an international movement. not only are we spreading the word here through the podcast, but our first show is at the end of May in Derby. We’re hoping to do another one in the UK towards the end of the year, and then we’re hoping to do one over in Toronto or near Toronto in Canada. And we just want this movement to grow and for people to just readdress some of the things that maybe have been holding them back, or some of those views that you thought, yes, that’s what the art world is all about. And it’s actually no, it’s a blank, blank canvas, quite literally. And we are painting a new way.
00:38:24 Speaker 3: It’s really hard work being an artist. there’s a lot, a lot of work, not just painting that goes into it. So much stuff. It’s. It could be overwhelming if you’re on your own. it has been overwhelming to me in the past. until I joined this collective, I always kind of felt like I was sort of almost floundering in the ether really, and not sure where, which path to go, where, where I belonged. where to start with all the work. all the admin work and the work that isn’t involved in being at the easel. The easel part is the easy, easy bit. just being in this collective has been an absolute lifesaver so far. It’s been absolutely fantastic. And this week I have had a real week, as you ladies all know. lots of other things going on and I had a wonderful kick up the bum. When we had our zoom, and really got a bit of a shake, a bit of a rattle. very kindly done rattle, but very, very helpful. And now I feel like I’m back. Motivated and really seeing what I’m doing clearly. Again, clarity. That wouldn’t have happened if I was just muddling through on my own. I would have just had a rubbish week and that would be the end of it. So, yeah, so thank you. But also just to say it’s, it is a very, very valuable thing to be a part of. I highly recommend other artists out there who think that they’d like to perhaps just start a collective if you haven’t, can’t find one or don’t know anybody, if you, if you know people that are of like mind. Yeah. Why not? It’s, it’s really good. So yeah, that’s my thoughts on it.
00:39:59 Speaker 1: And yeah.
00:40:00 Speaker 4: I agree completely with Susan, because being part of a collective means that it not only, you know, holds you accountable to yourself and your own goals, but to each other. And that, oftentimes will sacrifice ourselves in what we’re doing. if we prioritize other people. But being part of this collective means as soon as we put ourselves forward, we put each other forward as well, because we are motivated to achieve our goals as a collective, and we can’t achieve those without achieving our own artistic goals.
00:40:46 Speaker 1: That’s really important actually, that that point you made too about, as women, we tend to put our art last and put other people first. we’ve been schooled to do that. So having that responsibility to each other is really, really helpful. And it’s also good practice to schedule time with your art making and your art business and make that non-negotiable because that has to be done. If you want to create the success that you want, you can’t just want it. You have to actually make changes. And sometimes those are uncomfortable. So for all four of us working together towards a common goal, this makes all the difference in the world. So we will be back again in another episode of Art crush with Susan and Jayla and PHE and myself. So make sure that if you are listening to us, subscribe on the channel that you’re listening to, we are available on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, audible, Amazon, and wherever your favorite podcast platform is. And be sure to check us out at our various websites. They will be listed in the show notes and, we will see you in the next episode.
00:41:52 Speaker 7: Bye.
