“Ignited” Mixed Medium on Canvas 20″ X 23″ – Passion rebuilds the world, it brings dreams and dreamers to life, It makes all things alive and significant, it burns with desire to move forward no matter what the odds are… Passion, true passion is a powerful thing 😀 – http://www.Rafiwashere.com
Being a professional artist can be a discouraging road to take when you are attempting to make a career of it. In fact trying to make a career of anything creative is usually met with a struggle between having what is considered a “Real Job” or being able to live the rest of your life on Ramen soup.
That’s how I used to feel. The truth is that although the concept of a starving artist is popular and somewhat romantic, having that perspective won’t do anything to pay bills. Some people may feel that they need to have hardship in order to be creative… This won’t do anything for your bills either.
The truth is that my discouragement came from viewing myself as some kind of socially awkward creative genius who was misunderstood by society. Although this made sense of why I wasn’t openly sharing my art with the world, it was a lie to excuse myself from doing more as far as creating a career as an artist. The interesting thing is that the more I talked about how hard it was, the more people I found to agree with me on how impossible it was to do what you love.
Honestly, I had to get a few things straight in my mind before I was able to fully apply myself in making a living as an artist.
I needed to view myself as a business person and not a socially awkward misunderstood artist who was being kept down by the system. The only system that could keep me down is my own lack of willingness to expand my business and open myself and my art up for criticism.
Remember, starting a business of any type can be difficult at times, especially during the first year. Most businesses don’t start to turn a profit until the third year. As an artist you are your business, you are the brand so your ability to interact and mingle with all kinds of people is paramount. This doesn’t mean you have to be a social butterfly, just be yourself.
On a side note, my advice on “criticism” of any type is to remember that everyone has different taste and different expectations of what art is. That’s the beauty of art, it is unique to the perspective of the artist and some people will love it and some people will hate it. The trick is to not care either way and appreciate and love whatever it is that you create. I’ve made it a point to say “thank you” to everyone that comments on my art because they are going out of their way to share their opinion, even if it’s negative.
Although running your own business can be difficult, the payoff is immense. First off you make your own hours, you are your own boss, and you get to do something you love all day, every day. You also will share a part of yourself with the world and grow immensely from that experience in talent and confidence.
For a lot of artists, having galleries display and sell their art is a dream come true. Although this is a step forward, it takes time to build a reputation that will allow your art to sell for the kind of money that will allow you to live comfortably. The time it takes to build this reputation is up to you and consists of marketing yourself and your art.
The first and most important marketing strategy is word of mouth. Find events and festivals that you can go to or display your art, the most important element is not selling your art but talking about it and yourself with everyone you meet. Talk about it.
Find ways to market your business, then find some more ways to market your business, then find more. It’s fantastic that you are doing what you love and you are creating art, but remember that this is a business and not a hobby. Find ways to market your business through ads, marketing materials, or other creative ways to create a buzz about you and your work.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in running my art business is that as long as I don’t allow myself to get discouraged and continue striving to get my name out there it is impossible to fail unless I give up. So it’s quite simple for me… If I don’t give up, I could never fail.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RafiwashereUS https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rafi-Was-Here/178839118531 http://www.rafiwashere.com
It’s been about two and a half years since Klee and I packed up the Explorer and hit the road for what has been an adventure of a life time. In this adventure we’ve traveled around the country, started businesses in Pensacola Florida, and are still going strong. We wake up every morning looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.
The road we’ve been on hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. We’ve run into some struggles on the road, We’ve also run into plenty of problems while starting businesses from scratch with no money or real financial backing. There have been times where we had no idea if we could pay our bills or even afford a place to camp for the night… let alone if we could afford our next meal.
So why is the title of my blog “Being Self Employed is easy”? Because it is.
I look at the struggles that we’ve overcome and realize that we are still going strong and moving forward. Even when it looked like we might be down for the count we never allowed ourselves to give up.
It almost seems silly to me that I would worry about something that hadn’t happened yet or might happen back then. It always seemed to work out one way or another.
I think the only thing that could ever stand in your way of doing something that you love to do and making a living from it is you. To be honest, it was the negative and pessimistic thinking in my own mind that would cause stress and problems. Financial Stress is the biggest one to cope with and it is the most harmful to your motivation.
Yet, the only way you can ever really fail at making money in your new business is by quitting. I’m serious, you cannot fail if you don’t quit doing what you love. Even when people tell you that you are crazy, or you can’t do it… it doesn’t matter what they say, it’s your life and only you know what it is you truly want out of life.
What made it easier for us was the ability to be flexible and not stay on a dead horse once the race was over. Being flexible is adapting, growing, learning from what doesn’t work for you and shifting it little by little until you find a temporary formula that works for you and then tweaking it some more… That’s the fun part.
Too many people give up way too soon and most give up before they even start. Start talking yourself into it instead of out.
Klee and I are still on our adventure and still having fun… Ultimately, in my opinion that’s all that really matters.
Reach for the stars, do what you love and take a leap… Who knows, you may just have fun!
http://www.youtube.com/user/RafiwashereUS https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rafi-Was-Here/178839118531 http://www.rafiwashere.com
It’s interesting to me how doing something vs talking about it can make all the difference.
I am an Artist, Filmmaker and Graphic Designer… And that’s how I make my living. I’m not pulling in millions of dollars at the moment, but I do make enough to live comfortably, something I had always deemed impossible.
You see, a few years back I looked at myself through the eyes of a pessimist who believed that you had to be lucky in order to do what you love to do. When I look back I realize I just didn’t believe in myself and in my ability to make it through my own road blocks. There is one thing that all professional creative people have in common, they didn’t give up even when it seemed like they were going nowhere… Even when people added in their two cents and told them they should get a “real” job.
As far as I’m concerned working on a project (art, film or computer graphic design) finishing it and eventually selling it is the best job in the world.
The problem wasn’t what other people were telling me, it was what I was telling myself.
I had fantastic excuses on why I couldn’t start a career in a creative field. My resume showed 10 years of corporate management, I had no proper schooling, it was just a hobby, it’s hard to make it as an artist, There’s a reason why they call them starving artist, I don’t have enough time, I don’t know where to start, I need money to get this started, No one thinks I can do it, I’m not creative enough… Basically I would talk myself out of it before I even attempted to make it.
The fact is, you can do what ever you dream of. In fact I know that if anyone decides they want to do something, there is nothing that can stand in their way other than themselves.
I have free wristbands that I give out at my store that have my website on them, on the other side it reads “You Only Live Once” and on my business card it reads “If you knew you could not fail, what dream would you dare to dream.”
I know now, that failure is impossible unless you give up… If you don’t give up, no matter what the odds, there is no way you can fail… eventually, you would have to get it right.
I have met some amazing people who wish they could do what I’m doing… My answer to them and to you if you are reading this is “you can.” You can do anything!
http://www.youtube.com/user/RafiwashereUS
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rafi-Was-Here/178839118531
http://www.rafiwashere.com
Doing my taxes was always a pain in the ass, but at least back then all I had to deal with was a w-2… I would plug in my numbers and watch my refund grow, submit it, run into a few issues here and there but it was relatively easy.
When you run your own business the game changes into one of tears and confusion. I’ve spent all day organizing spreadsheets, calculating cost, inventory and what ever else I THINK I’m supposed to be calculating… Unfortunately it’s all still a mystery.
Maybe it’s my foul disposition on doing these taxes that is messing me up.
Today was an absolutely beautiful day, yet I feel like I evoked Murphy’s Law from the moment I decided today would be a good day to finally do what I had been putting off for months.
When you run your own business as sole proprietor you are supposed to fill out a 1099-C… The only problem is that when you first look at the 1099-c, it looks like you need to be a genius at code breaking.
Like I said… Foul disposition. I’ll be continuing my battle with numbers tomorrow, but I think I’ll try to have fun and relax while I do it. We’ll see what happens.
Worse comes to worse the Local IRS office does offer to help you with your taxes for free if you make under a certain amount a year… If they can help figure it out, I’m their number one fan!
http://www.youtube.com/user/RafiwashereUS
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rafi-Was-Here/178839118531
http://www.rafiwashere.com
Klee and I had a wonderful day having a photo shoot in which we took several great pictures for some of the new paintings I’ll be working on at in Gulf Breeze. Some of the designs will be for a secret unveiling at Gallery Night in Pensacola on May 18th.
The pictures themselves were amazing and we loved how they came out. You can find some more on my facebook page.
So you are making some videos and sharing them with the world. You want to take it the next level and use special effects to enhance your viewers experience.
What do you do? What program do you use? How do you get it? How do you learn to use it?
I’ve been making videos for a while now and that counts for something but not too much when it comes to the advances in technology in video editing.
I use Sony Vegas for film and Video Sound Editing. I use Adobe After Effects for Special Effects and picture quality rendering (Due to the fact that I use a very cheap camera for the moment) I also use Sony Acid Pro and Audacity for music production and sound effects.
So on a low budget, how do you come across all these programs? Well, Audacity is a free sound and music editing program and you can find it at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
The other program are a bit expensive, I reached out to a lot of people and was constantly on the look out for a bargain. I found the programs I was looking for at the Flea Market in a box of stuff that belonged to a kid who had gone off to college and his parents were cleaning out his room and converting it into an office. The interesting thing was that once I found the programs a bunch of people let me borrow their copies.
The next step was learning the programs, I can only speak for myself but the best way I found for me to learn something is to actually play with it. I spent a month filming and playing around with both programs, when ever I wanted to do something specific I looked it up on Youtube… In fact I still look it up when ever I think something up that I don’t know how to do. I think that is key, stretching your abilities by dreaming something up that might be a stretch for you and then making it happen, either way, it will be a learning experience.
To be honest with you, the key to filming something on a low budget is to just do it… Creative ways of doing it usually pop up in your mind once you’ve already started the process of filming. I spent a long time dreaming things up and not taking action on them because I didn’t have everything I needed. This will make your filming experience dull and you may not enjoy the process… In my opinion, why film unless you enjoy making films.
So, if you are a filmmaker and you have no budget, don’t think to yourself that someday you’ll be able to do it… Just do it. Borrow equipment, find good deals, be creative and stay optimistic… And have fun!
Some of the best films I have seen had virtually no budget but a lot of creativity… You can’t buy that, and sometimes necessity breads ideas that are creative and brilliant simply because you were forced to think outside of the box.
Also, display your work… If you watched it more than once and you enjoyed it, put it out there, you’ve got nothing to lose. So, if you are a filmmaker, then make films, and stop using not having a budget as an excuse to not make films… Happy shooting!
In This skit Klee and I are “parking” and I was totally going to get to second base until we were attacked by aliens.
This was filmed at night, so there was a lot of moving lights around involved and the challenge of keeping the auto-focus from going crazy.
One funny thing about filming this skit is the fact that the alien who is played by my cousin Erik is supposed to be a tiny scary Alien who just sort of appears. Well, the challenge is the fact that Erik is a big dude with wide shoulders.
Erik had to stand on his knees to reach the small alien stature, yet you still see some of the widest shoulders you could ever see on an alien. He was a great sport.
I have to applaud Klee in this skit. Her performance was amazing, and her terrified screams are convincing… When I was editing I had to lower the volume because our dog thought I was killing her every time I played back a scene. It turned out great!
Chances are if you live in Pensacola Florida you’ve seen a crazy looking truck with the words Watch us on Youtube painted all over it, or maybe you ran across one of the videos by Rafi Was Here on Youtube.
Rafi Was Here is a small (Very small) production company that is focusing all it’s efforts on creating fun and original content on Youtube.
Armed with a cheap camera, an old computer and creativity we decided to see how far we can go and how many people we can make laugh.
In 2009 Klee and I (Rafi) left Chicago Illinois and traveled the country in a customized 92 Ford Explorer. We decided to hang out in Pensacola for a while and focus on filming. So far so good. This Blog will be used for production notes and tips Utilized by us during our filming efforts on a shoestring budget… Luckily we can get pretty creative.
