The Vs. Studio Blog

You don’t always have to be in “maker” mode.

Sometimes, just curating the best of what others have made is where you’re called.

If this is you right now, answer the call. And just like if you made it yourself, curate with excellence and generosity.

Is the reason you make it free or charge very little that you don’t want to be held accountable? That deep down, you don’t really believe in your product or service or offering? Or worse, you don’t believe in yourself?

Like most things, price and money are just stories we tell ourselves. If you want to charge more, first tell yourself a different story. Then tell others.

It’s one thing to set a goal, work hard at achieving it and along the way you see incremental progress. That progress signals you’re on the right track. Your efforts are working, which inspires you to keep going. It’s why losing weight and accumulating wealth are among the dominant topics in personal development. You see the pounds on the scale, the dollars in the bank account. Just like functions in mathematics, for every input of effort, there is a measurable output. Do “X”, get “Y.”

It’s an entirely different thing when you have no idea if the steps you’re taking are actually working. Artists can toil away for years, for decades, without seeing any tangible progress or fruits for their efforts. Monetarily speaking, it will probably never work out.

Jack Lemmon (my all-time favorite actor) was once asked how he knew to stay the course during all his lean acting years.

His response…

“Blind Faith.”

Last night I dreamed that I was a child
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness falls

I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snapping at my heels

I broke through the trees and there in the night
My father’s house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell shaking in his arms

I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each other’s hearts
I got dressed and to that house I did ride
From out on the road I could see its windows shining in light

I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didn’t recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story and who I’d come for
She said “I’m sorry son but no one by that name lives here anymore”

My father’s house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling so cold and alone
Shining ‘cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned–“My Father’s House” by Bruce Springsteen

When’s the last time you put on a favorite album and just listened to it straight through? Without any distractions. Without multitasking. Just giving yourself completely over to the music and the lyrics. Almost like a meditation.

Give it a shot. Especially late at night right before bed.

Try and make it a regular part of your art appreciation practice. You’ll be glad you did.

Naiveté allows you to make your art against all odds and opposition and to stand behind it and be proud.

Humility allows you to look back someday on what you’ve made and cringe because you know how much better it could be.

You need equal measures of both.

Generally speaking, you can’t afford to buy a house without having money for a down payment.

The same holds true if you want to produce a play.

According to TCG’s latest “Theatre Facts” study, intimate theatres (those with budgets less than $500,000) earned less than 50% of their income from individual ticket sales.

That means you have to fundraise AHEAD OF TIME in order to make up the difference.

Otherwise, you’re not ready to produce it.

If you’re having trouble getting key people to commit to your passion project, a good question to ask them is “What would it take for you to say yes?”

After you ask, don’t say anything. Let them think about it and wait for their response. Their answer will inform just how far apart you are.

And whenever you’re having trouble making a decision, you might just want to ask that question of yourself.

“You must not be disheartened or sink into sadness if your actions do not attain the perfection you intended. What do you expect? We are all fragile, we are earth, and not every plot of land produces the fruit intended by the farmer.” -Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, Letter

A paradox…

Often we need the big dream, the big outcome, the big vision in order to set goals and then try to achieve them.

But rarely do we get the outcomes we seek. Or in the same timeframe.

Thus, we may think we failed.

We didn’t.

Thinks of goals as merely direction. As focus so as to not drift aimlessly. Seneca wrote, “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” We need the goal to focus and know which port to sail into.

But the real value is in the attempt.

Because no matter the outcome, merely by the attempt, we grow as human beings. We learn new skills. We practice virtues like discipline and willpower and sacrifice and courage. We adapt. We develop. We stretch.

We went into the arena. We “dared to fail greatly.”

And that helps anything we do going forward.

Set the goal. Go for it.

But remember, the real value is in the attempt.

“The King leaned closer to me. ‘I have only one real applicable piece of advice for you, he said, his perfect diction piercing through the noise of the crowd. ‘Have a boring life and make your art thrilling.’ –A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” -Gustave Flaubert

“Discipline equals freedom.” -Jocko Willink

The more disciplined you can be in your regular life, the more out of control you can be in your art.

You know that feeling when you’re watching a play or any kind of live performance and you just love it so much? Emotions are stirring. You’re moved to your core. You don’t want it to end. You look around at the audience and wonder:

“Is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing?”

You just feel blessed to be there. To witness this little miracle.

Guess what?

When you find something you’re passionate about and decide to produce it and do so with excellence and generosity and put your whole soul into it, you have a chance of giving that exact same feeling to others.

That’s a helluva good reason to go make your art, isn’t it?