Earlier tonight I captured video of myself painting on Ustream.tv as part of my 30in30 project. The video is an hour and a half, so it’s probably a bit boring since I left the audio off (I don’t talk much when I’m painting) but my college friend Phil was watching and asking questions via the site’s chat function. I figured it was easier to answer him verbally rather than with written answers (plus I didn’t want to get paint on my laptop’s keyboard!)
At any rate, I worked on a small 5-by-7-inch piece in oil in the tiny area I’m using as a makeshift studio in a corner of a room in the basement. It was fun to actually paint for a change, and even more fun to have a live Internet audience! (Thanks to both of you!) Read the rest of this entry »
True entrepreneurship involves the creation of processes, not just the creation of work. If you’ve created a project that requires continual inputs from you and relies on your own work to keep all the plates in the air, congratulations! You have just built a job for yourself. Yes, you have built a job, and maybe even a better job than most people have—but it’s a job, not a business.
A business earns money while you sleep and while you are on vacation. A business is an asset that can be bought and sold. A true business is largely independent of its owner, although of course this is a matter of degree and only rarely is 100% independent. Therefore, entrepreneurs pay close attention to the creation of processes that will eventually allow themselves to focus on what they’re best at, or perhaps even leave the operation entirely.
It got me thinking about art as a business. Reading this, it seems that the goal of creating an entrepreneurship is to create an entity that will run and function without your help. With this sort of definition for entrepreneurship, how does art-making fit into things?
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My ten-and-a-half-month-old was so excited when I came home the other night, and she came right up to the baby gate at the top of the stairs. Fortunately I happened to be carrying my camera. Sure, there’s a little bit of fisheye effect since she’s so close to the lens, but her eyes really are that big and intense.
If you work in Metro Center, you probably at least see the Tennessee Titans practice field, “The Bubble,” which is in this white inflatable dome. Every time I see it, it makes me think of Bibendum, the Michelin Man.
