Have you ever heard an artist say they simply cannot sell a painting because it feels like selling one of their children? Is this deep emotional attachment genuine, or is it secretly a mask for the fear of rejection?
In episode four of Art Crush, professional artists Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn tackle one of the biggest emotional roadblocks to running a successful art business: letting go of your work. Art is fundamentally about communication—like a book meant to be read or music meant to be heard, your art is meant to be seen. Fi and Paula discuss the vital difference between the artist’s journey (the creation) and the artwork’s journey (connecting with a buyer), and how holding onto your pieces out of fear can sabotage your creative career.
If you’ve ever struggled with imposter syndrome, feared the judgment of the public, or wondered if you need to “sell out” to make a living, this candid conversation will help you shift your mindset and build true artistic resilience.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The Danger of Cookie-Cutter Art: Why creating soulless, “bread and butter” pieces just to make a sale will actually hurt your business, and why authenticity is your best marketing tool.
The Art of Letting Go: Why your emotional connection to a piece is meant for the creation phase, and how to peacefully send your finished work out into the world.
Fear vs. Attachment: How to recognize when the “it’s my baby” excuse is actually just the fear of putting yourself out there and facing rejection.
The “Art Bus” Analogy: A brilliant framework for figuring out what you actually want from your art—whether it’s purely for personal well-being or a full-scale professional business.
Friends and Family Aren’t Your Clients: Why relying on your inner circle for sales and validation is a trap, and why you must actively seek out a community of peers who truly “get it.”
00:00:00 Speaker 1: This is Art Crush with artist Fi Marks and myself, artist Paula Telizyn, and we are talking about various topics in the art world, art, businesses and creativity. But today we’ve got a really interesting topic that we started before I hit record. So I figure this is a good one to talk about in this podcast.
00:00:33 Speaker 2: Indeed it is. So what we were talking about is who do you create art for? Which sounds like quite a broad spectrum, but both Paula and I have heard many artists saying, oh, I don’t want to sell my art because I’m so attached to it. I want to keep it for myself. So we would decided to open this up because it made me wonder, is it that they are so attached they want their house full of their own art? Or is it that they are scared or don’t want to or whatever, market it and take that route to turn it into a business? Because art is all about communication. All the arts are about communication. So it’s like if you composed a piece of music that nobody heard, or you wrote a book that nobody read to create a piece of artwork that nobody sees, is that really what people want to do?
00:01:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s it’s interesting because I worked with an artist a few years ago, um, several years ago, who was so in love with her pieces selling each one she said felt like selling her children. And then she struggled. She wanted an art business and struggled to actually have an art business. Um, and she couldn’t get that communication Aspect, right? That art for her. Um, I think was communication with herself or understanding herself or, or taking her thoughts and putting them out of herself, but she didn’t want to share them with people. Right. Um, I think it’s, it’s important for artists to be super clear when they want to start an art business, what’s involved and what they’re hoping to get from it. So when we were talking before I hit record, you were talking about how you were in theater before, um, and your performances were designed to be seen and appreciated by other people. And I had a lot of the same sort of feelings with my own art that these intense feelings that I was painting and portraying through all the portraits I was doing, I wanted other people to feel those feelings too. Like that was that was part of the joy is. Yes, I had my experiences, my art, but I want other wanted other people to have that experience as well. So even the pieces I loved with maybe two or three exceptions, I sold them. And I have no regrets. Right. I just went on to make more pieces.
00:03:04 Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I think what I was saying, because somebody had said in a meeting earlier in this week, um. Oh, but I’m not like fee, I don’t want to sell my work. And I just explained it was like second nature. And maybe it was because I used to be an actress. And so the performance. So being involved in the theatre world, there was no. You wanted people to come to pay to see the plays you were in. And I knew the huge buzz that you get, not just from performing, but from having an audience. And whether that impacted me, and I never even thought twice about it. Um, and that’s why I am an artist who wants their work to be spread all over the world. Um, and also I feel that I’m so intensely involved with the painting while it’s being created. I am totally immersed in it. But when it’s finished. That’s my job done. That is now ready for it to be seen and loved by somebody else. I don’t need to keep looking at it and my love then gets channeled. If we’re talking about them using the personification of them being a children, I go and create another child because I know I can. And this child I might even like even more. It’s not that the connection, although it is strongly there in the creation, it is not there in the aftermath.
00:04:38 Speaker 1: Yeah. Which absolutely makes sense. So I think, I think one of the things that is important, if you’re an artist listening to this and you want to be, um, a professional artist, you need to come to grips with your journey with the art. Your journey is in the making of it. In taking this idea, you’ve come up with, um, and bringing it into the real world in whatever medium you use, and then allowing it to have its own journey with whoever ends up buying it, or with your audience or whatever, that you you don’t have to be there for the rest. You know, you your important part is in the making of it, in critiquing it and making sure it’s the best iteration of the vision that you had, and then you let it go.
00:05:23 Speaker 2: And just as when your children get older, you don’t want them living at home with you for the rest of your life.
00:05:31 Speaker 1: No.
00:05:32 Speaker 2: So you want them to go and explore the world and have their own lives. And I, you know, so when people talk about it as their children, you have to remember they’re not babies forever.
00:05:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. We have we have our place. And that’s, I think a really important thing. You can save some of your pieces, your favorites, and hang them in your house. You can hang them in your house or whatever until you’re done being emotionally attached and then sell them like it’s okay to change your mind. But I think that if you want to, I know that if you want to create a successful art business, you need to be able to separate yourself emotionally from your piece. Once you’ve completed your journey with it, that you need to be able to let it go because otherwise you will block every sale intentionally or unintentionally.
00:06:23 Speaker 2: Yeah. And I, and I do think there is that question which I mentioned earlier about, you know, if you are an artist that is reluctant to sell your art and you always say it’s because it’s like selling my children, well, actually think a bit deeper about that is what what is that? It could be because I am pretty sure that there is some fear entrenched in that either a exposing your work to the world or B, um, not selling it. You know that there are a lot of other things. I’m sure there’s much more to it than meets the eye. And and I was talking to an artist earlier on, um, today, and she was saying about how she was frustrated because her, her art art sales this year had not been brilliant. And we talked about that. And there are a lot of things that are going on around that. But, you know, she was sort of saying, do I need to change what I’m painting? You know, and, and I think that’s another thing is sometimes people think, well, I’m going to paint this because that seems to be what sells. And yet we know the people who do that don’t sell.
00:07:45 Speaker 1: Generally. They don’t know that’s that’s absolutely true. Because the whole point of art is to communicate, as we started out saying in the beginning of this, um, something deep within us. Right. Um, my job when I work with artists is to help artists figure out what the hell it is they’re trying to say, so they can say it more clearly and intentionally. Um, and so when you make something that becomes cookie cutter or, um, I’ve heard bread and butter as a term used, but it becomes, it becomes something that is just mechanically produced. Essentially, you don’t have that connection with people and people feel it like we, we have so much unspoken communication and, and, and, um, I’m going to sound like I’m off my rocker, but we have so much, um, energetic connection as well. We pick up on, on the intensity in creating art and like every piece you’ve created fee, as you’ve said, you are intensely connected to, and that comes out when you see your work in person. I have a whole wall full of art. Um, not because I like you as an art, as a person and as an artist. I like your work because I can feel that intensity coming through, right? If you produce art designed just to sell, you’re missing the point of art as it is, you might as well just be stamping out table legs and light switches and whatever.
00:09:04 Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, I, I know that some artists as well almost like have two businesses. They, they think that they, they have their own work, which they want to do. And they create another set of work which they think will sell. And it to me that, that makes no sense because extra work. Yeah. It’s it’s. And I think you must be spreading yourself so thinly that you end up being frustrated in so many ways. Um, you know, so, so it is, but I do know that there are people who strongly believe if you want to, to, to make a successful art business, that’s almost what you need to do, which I don’t, I don’t buy into.
00:09:51 Speaker 1: No, you have to find the audience for your work. And there’s we’re so diverse as people in terms of our likes and dislikes and all that. There’s always an audience for anything. You just have to find your audience and, uh, and then show up in front of them. I mean, that’s the basics of marketing, but you also have to be able to let go of your work. And I think the point you made earlier, that it’s complicated when people are reluctant to sell because they love their work so much. I think there’s a lot of fear of rejection in that. When you put yourself out there for sale. Yeah, you well, you know that, right? When you put your work up for sale, you are putting it out in the world and saying, hey, look at this now judge it. And if you judge it worthy, buy it, right? That kind of thing. So there’s a constant rejection, but you become, um, I used to use the word anti-fragile and it’s still relevant here. You become anti-fragile when it comes to facing that rejection. I mean, I’ve watched you over the years, fee and you’ve put your work out a lot. You’ve put yourself forward a lot and, and rejection goes hand in hand. Do you find it easier now or was it always easy from the get go.
00:10:54 Speaker 2: To be honest, and I and I, I cannot explain this. um, but from the time I started working with you and, um, you know, really set my business up. I have had such a strong belief in what I am doing and faith in my work and knowing that it’s different and knowing that the authenticity of it and the message that even when and, you know, we all, every artist will have known you’re at an art show or whatever, and people think you’re almost invisible, even though you’re standing there and they can be very, very rude. Um, and I’ve never taken that personally. It’s like, okay, you’re rude, but yeah, maybe my work isn’t for you, but you don’t need to make a comment right in front of my face because I know there are many, many other people who love it. And so yeah, and, and I know, I remember, you know, working with you and you talked a lot about, um, that sort of like, uh, forgotten the name of the word. You know, when you, you, you don’t believe you’re good enough. Imposter syndrome. That’s it. Imposter syndrome. And I’ve never felt it. And it’s really, really weird. Of course, I get my down days and frustration and all that, but I never feel like I’m an imposter. I feel that I’ve always got something to say.
00:12:34 Speaker 1: That’s really amazing because a lot of people go through that. And I remember when I shared my art for the first time, um, publicly before I even kicked my business into gear. So I was, I was sort of working my way up for over a course of years. And I had a friend who was egging me on. Like she was just like, just share it, just share it, just share it. And I was shaking the first time I shared my very first piece on Facebook, it wasn’t my first piece of art, but it was just the first time I shared, and thirteen people saw it and liked it and they all knew me. So it was very safe sort of space to share in. But I had to become antifragile because I was so vulnerable in. What if somebody didn’t like it? Would I stop making art? What if. What if somebody looked at it and went, that’s not real art and all that. Like, it was just it was there was a lot of stuff I had to work through. So I have a lot of empathy for people who struggle with rejection. Um, rejection. Dysphoria, I think is a, is the term who struggle with, with even just, you know, putting themselves out there, but you become as you are fee um, fearless you become let me.
00:13:36 Speaker 3: And let me and let me just.
00:13:38 Speaker 2: Clarify it is only to do with my artwork in case anybody thinks what in other aspects of my world, I definitely have imposter syndrome, but it’s only my artwork. And I’ve never known that before because when I was a performer, I was full of self-doubt. Hence, I didn’t carry on in that career. But yeah, it it, it is only that. So, you know, imposter syndrome is still alive and kicking as a human trait in me, but it’s just been a very strange phenomena.
00:14:13 Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and you approached your art from the beginning, knowing you wanted to sell it, which I think helped your, your connection to it. Um, and, and just the, the knowledge that you’re painting, you want people to have these pieces in, in their homes and in their offices and spaces. So there was a already a purpose, but it doesn’t mean you had any less connection to your art. You just had this expectation that this is my journey with it for this long. And then after that, it needs to be in somebody else’s hands.
00:14:45 Speaker 2: And I think at this point, I don’t think we’ve mentioned it on Artcrush before, but so it might be the time to mention the art bus analogy. Um, because I’ve always thought that everybody. And I don’t want anybody to think that we’re saying this is the only way to have your art journey, because I do think every artist has a different journey. And they also have different destinations and stops. So everybody gets on that art bus, but they might get off at bus stop number one, which is where I like doing art as relaxation. It’s great for my well-being. I’ve got no interest in selling it whatsoever, but this is fulfilling a need in myself. So that might be bus, bus stop number one. And then along the route, people get off at different stops. Now they might get back on again at a different part in their life. You know, they don’t have to stay where you get off, but everybody will get off at a different place. All I think we’re saying today is if you think you’re, you know, act where you want to be. Just question it. And if you answer all the questions of are you totally happy? Would you like things to be better? Would you like your art to be more out there? Is it just fear? Then you can start addressing it.
00:16:15 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Because a lot of times we, we think we’re stopping because we’re happy. And it is just fear. The beautiful thing about fear is when you gather up your courage and do the thing in spite of being afraid, that rush of, of accomplishment and pride and just like feeling amazing, like actually I’m stronger than I thought. Is so powerful and so addictive that that’s what powered my art career. Once I decided to kick it into gear was just literally I learned to do the things I would have normally said no to. I said yes to radio interviews. I said yes to gallery shows and pop up shows. I said yes to all the stuff and when I came out the other end, I had an incredibly successful business. So and, and I felt really good about myself. So you can, you know, like pay attention to, as he said, question, pay attention to what’s going on. And if it’s fear. Fear is not going to kill you. There aren’t people standing to the side with swords waiting to run you through. Right.
00:17:18 Speaker 2: Thank goodness.
00:17:21 Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:21 Speaker 2: And also, and I think something else that we’ve talked about before, um, is not to surround yourself by naysayers and also not to believe that your family and friends are your biggest supporters. They are not your clients. They are. They might not even like your artwork, but that’s okay because it’s your business. It is not part of your family dynamic. And we know a lot of people who are not involved in the arts, you know, have a huge fear and don’t understand. And so, you know, and I remember, you know, when we started the social media journey and people saying, yeah, but, you know, my, my friends aren’t liking my posts. And it’s like, it doesn’t matter. That is fine. You’re looking for clients, not friends. And I think also having people you know, around you, be it online, be it a local art club, be it an arts trail or whatever, but finding those people who get it. They will be your support network far more than who you know, your family and friends who you’ve known forever. You need to have that. It is really important. Otherwise you can become isolated. And that’s when the demons will start saying to you, you’re not good enough. You know this is never going to work. There’s no point. People aren’t buying art. All those, you know, negative because you haven’t got that support of other people going, how about trying this? Hey, have you heard this? Galleries looking for people. You need to have that support network. And if you haven’t got it, you need to go and find it.
00:19:08 Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. And you’ll also learn coping mechanisms too, because every artist grapples with how do I sell something that I put so much heart and energy and soul into? Right. And so, I mean, whether you learn from how PHE set herself up to let go of pieces she loves, or whether you learn from somebody else what they do. Um, if you want to sell your art and you want to create that connection, that human to human connection that we, we use our art as a vehicle for, you have to learn how to let your pieces go and, and still put your heart and soul into them and not just stamp out table legs and light switch covers and all of that.
00:19:47 Speaker 2: And it’s, and it’s not good enough. If you want a business to say, oh, I, you know, I, I haven’t got time to mess around on social media or I haven’t got, you know, I haven’t got time to ring around the galleries. There’s no point. You know, all those are stopping your business growing. And, you know, if you want your business to grow, if that’s fundamentally what you want, you have to face those things that your fears as, as we said earlier.
00:20:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I think that wraps up this episode of Art crush, where we talk about love, fear, and running an art business. Thank you very much for your insights, as always. Fee. And if you want to see fee art, head on over to her website fee dash no dash art dot co dot UK. I’ll get it. I’ll be fine. Um, and in the meantime, watch out for the next episode of Art crush, where fee and I will talk about more art, thoughts, creativity, and other things. Thank you so much for listening.
