susy pilgrim waters : artists who blog

Originally from England, artist/illustrator/designer Susy Pilgrim Waters now lives in Boston with her husband, two children, a dog, two cats, and two bunnies. Sounds like a fun and very full house. I hope you enjoy Susy's lovely sense of humor and her beautiful artwork today!

Susy's website: www.pilgrimwaters.com

Susy's blog: www.pilgrimwaters.blogspot.com

Susy's shop: www.shop.pilgrimwaters.com

Why did you decide to become an artist and could you imagine doing anything else? If so, what?

I have always drawn since I could hold a pencil…I am what I do! If it was anything else, it might be my dog. She has a good life!!

Do you still believe “do what you love and the money will come“?

Sort of, you have to make compromises and be open to requests.

I do a lot of what I love and quite a lot I don’t!  I have had to be open and listen make odd compromises, maybe 80% so the client has to put their mark on the project…20% I am un-encumbered.

How has blogging and the Internet influenced your work as an artist?

It’s a bit of a wild fire with stops and starts. Being able to google and find my work in magazine pieces has been great! That’s how I got into Crate and Barrel.

Please name 3 of your favorite blogs and tell us why these blogs are special.

Angela Ligouri has an incredible eye; she is so talented and LOVELY.

Julie Baine is so mindful and careful about what she purveys…. I am a huge fan.

I really don’t have time to read many blogs…but I DO look at this one…. It’s my son Jasper's. He is going into his 2^nd year at Pratt, it’s a keyhole to him evolving…BLESS!!!

What is your greatest fear and what do you do to overcome it?

There is a lot to fear, so let it go… You just have to carry on and keep perspective. We are so tiny and so transient…I wish the world contained nicer people! MORE harmonious and KIND.

Who would you like to trade places with for one day? Why?

I’d like to be Louise Bourgeois on the day she built her abstract tall sculptures; I would like to feel what it is like to make them. I am rather partial to trading places with Michele Obama too. She is having an amazing time!

What are your secrets for managing your time wisely?

NO secrets, and I don’t always succeed. Having and MAKING deadlines. Answering emails as soon as possible.

If you could live anywhere in the world – all expenses paid – for one year, where would that be? Why?

YIKES! I have to choose between Barcelona, Copenhagen, or Amsterdam, and possibly somewhere in Estonia? Not forgetting Japan….

Where ever it would be it would be to explore my creative process and grow my tentacles longer and with abundance.

How do you maintain a healthy balance between your professional and private life?

I’m not sure that I do. I work hard and play/party hard. Yoga is essential (I have scoliosis). But I only manage that twice a week!!! We have lots of fab friends and we like to play! We do eat very healthily - our “Englishness” means we may imbibe a bit more frequently than some! (my husband Keith and I are Brits)

What are your top goals that you’d like to accomplish within the next 5 years?

To be able to design more for companies like Crate, but also more edgy stuff…a line of ceramics….

A line of accessories…stay tuned, I am working on some plum personal projects.

Possibly a shoe and bags line.

Making Gracie Finn, which is a stationary line I am launching with my friend Martha Field, super successful.

Hey I will stop there…there is too much to say!

What is your advice for someone who would like to turn his or her creative dreams into reality?

BE realistic, be practical… Work hard, do stuff pro-bono, keep experimenting. Be open. BE flexible in your mind; take on stuff you might not like. It’s a good way to grow…process and keep playing.

Thanks Susy! Your artwork is lovely :)

artists who blog : a quick update

A quick "artists who blog" update! Two brand new artist interviews are on their way, and both will appear very soon on my "a studio with a view" blog! I was planning to start posting today, and then I realized that it is Friday the 13th and that didn't sound all too welcoming to begin the first day of my new interview series. I have created a fun new set of questions which I hope you will love!

Please join me on "a studio with a view" where I will be posting all upcoming artist interviews!

I appreciate your many comments and submission suggestions. I haven't had time to visit all of the blogs you've mentioned yet, but consider it my main resource for finding new artist blogs to feature in the future.

Have a great weekend, and thanks so much for keeping in touch :)

artists who blog : nominate your favorite artist

Hello all and happy July! I hope you are having a lovely summer so far :)
I just wanted to give you an update as to what is happening with "artists who blog." I am very grateful and excited to see so many new followers joining us every week, and I appreciate your interest and all of your wonderful comments!

Right now, I am in the process of creating a new set of questions, and there will be lots of new artist interviews coming up very soon :) I appreciate your patience as I'm working to make "artists who blog" interview series even better.

I also wanted to ask for your suggestions as to who you would like to see interviewed during the next several months. I receive so many submissions each week - and I'm sorry if I haven't responded to your email yet - I have been a bit overwhelmed by my inbox lately!

Do you have a favorite artist or illustrator who you would like to see interviewed here? Are there any special questions topics you'd like me to cover? You can also submit your own blog or website - just leave me a link in the comments section, and I will do my best to review as many as possible.

Thanks for your help and encouragement, and I will be posting new artist interviews very soon :)

xoxo
Stephanie

p.s. - I appreciate your patience and your many comments. It will take some time for me to check out everyone's blog, but I promise I will do my best!

In the meantime, please join me at my "a studio with a view" blog, where I am already posting brand new weekly artist interviews. Thank you!!

karin kramer : artists who blog

Karin's blog: www.eddyandedwina.typepad.com
Karin's shop: www.eddyandedwina.bigcartel.com

Why did you decide to start a blog?

Well, that's now almost three years ago, when I came across a ceramic artist in a magazin who had a "blog". The word was new to me. (!) We were a little behind with that in Germany I think. That was Karin Eriksson.
I was browsing the address in the web. What I found there left me quite speechless. Such tons of inspiration, links, beauty. Overload!
Quickly I came to Camilla's and Elisabeth's blog. I was imediately sure, that this was what I've been looking for: a wonderful possibility to communicate with other artists, a way to build up your own little universe all by yourself and a possibilty to have a place to sell my work. I guess everybody has less or more similar thoughts about the possibilities of blogging.



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

Eddy and Edwina are the mid names of my elder kids, Oskar and Agnes. There is also little Emil, my one and a half year old youngest. But I've decided not to add his second name Charly, because I find the sound of the two names more "round".



How has blogging affected your work as an artist/designer?

Browsing through the tons of inspiration you get in the blogs or in the web general is absorbed into my consciousness - that's the way my artistic process in general works. It's like this: It has a lot do with a subconscious process. I use to have something like a creative thunderstorm just right before I fall asleep. One idea and image hunts the next. And now these thunderstorms are pretty much things I've seen in the net. It's like you pump up your head with this information and see what cristallizes out of it. But it still can be that I have a shower and a water drop on the shower curtain has the shape of a face or monster, which I draw afterwards.



What are some of your favorite artist/designer blogs? Why?

I like the style of Jessica Williams a lot. And a long time favourite is Liivian Talossa. It makes me always feel comfortable to visit her photos.



Do you have any advice for keeping a blog interesting for readers?

Yes: keep it interesting for yourself. And try to stay true. That sounds a little bit religious. I mean don't jump on every trend when the "big" ones start, cause that's simply boring. But that's also sometimes hard. I think I didn't manage that myself either every time. But here we come very fast to the basic questions of blogging.



What have been the most positive aspects of publishing a blog for you?

To dive into the world of creativity that is generated by all the other bloggers.



What do you find to be the greatest challenges and rewards of having a creative profession?

It's always a challenge and a reward at the same time to find my own topics and materials that bring a lot of surprises while working. I think the process of making that leads you to something you can't know in the start and will be very satisfied with in the end.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your artwork and reach new customers and clients?

Local markets. Advertising in some highly frequented blogs.



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

Not easy at all. With my three wild little kids there are periods with less blogging and producing to make time for playing and walking or meeting friends.



What would you most like to accomplish in the upcoming year?

It is still my long year wish to make a children's book. Writing in general.



What are your some of your main goals for 2010?

Spending lots of time with the kids. And having a good economic year :)





Thank you Karin!

amanda blake : artists who blog

Amanda's blog: www.amandablakeart.blogspot.com
Amanda's website: www.amandablakeart.com
Amanda's shop: www.thisisalliknow.etsy.com

Why did you decide to start a blog?

I mistakenly deleted my website and needed a quick temporary solution while I made a new site. It ended up taking me three years to finally make a new website so in that time the blog took on a bit of a life of its own.



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

Rather boring - Amanda Blake is a pretty common name so it can be difficult to claim its use and when I first made my website years ago "Amanda Blake Art" was what I chose without much thought when I couldn't simply use my own name. Years later when I really thought about it I chose "this is all i know" as my store name and name for twitter and all that other stuff, I wanted a name I could use for my shop no matter what I decided to sell and "this is all i know" will always apply, I'm always toying with the idea of just redirecting everything to "this is all i know" and abandoning the "Amanda Blake Art" name.



How has blogging affected your work as an artist/designer?

The most clear change is that having a blog led me to read other artists blogs which led me to etsy and etsy really has changed everything for me. In a more meaningful way personally the act of writing about my work and the what and why of what I do forces me to really think about more work in more depth which as a working artist it can sometimes be so frightfully easy to forget to do. Working on painting day to day it can be so tempting to just produce but to really make something good it must have thought and the blog helps to hold me responsible in that way rather than just painting mindlessly.



What are your favorite artist/designer blogs? Why?

The Small Object, Posie Gets Cosy, This Artist's Life and Angry Chicken - great writing, great art and crafts, they are all just rather perfect blogs that make me wish I really wrote enough to really consider myself a blogger.



Do you have any advice for artists/designers who are starting a blog?

Think a bit before you just jump in to it - I wish I'd thought it out more before I started so I wouldn't be stuck with a name I don't like and wish I hadn't started on blogger, I really would rather the look of a typepad or wordpress blog but at this point I don't really want to make the switch.



What has been the most positive and inspirational aspect of having a blog for you?

I've met a lot of great people through my blog and through comments left on the blog and people linking to it you get this wonderfully tangible way of seeing how your work affects people and that's really rewarding.



What do you find the most difficult/most rewarding part of having a creative profession?

I'm beyond horrid with bookkeeping, I absolutely hate it and have gone through so many different systems to try to make it work for me but just can't find a way to make it really work for me so it's always a struggle.

I couldn't really say there is any one thing that is the most rewarding - I'm so lucky to do what I do.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your art/design?

I've done plenty of things like facebook and twitter and newsletters because I feel like I'm supposed to promote but really what brings the most traffic and the most sales is when I stop thinking about promoting and just focus on making work, the more paintings I make the more chance that I'll create something that people connect with and choose to show on their own blogs which is worth so much more than any time spent trying to bring people to an empty shop.



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

Still trying to figure that one out.



What would you like to accomplish by the end of 2010?

I'd like to get back to doing some large work, I miss it. And as always I'm toying with about a million different ideas of new projects I want to start, including a new blog - just need to come up with a title.

Thank you Amanda!

olivia jeffries : artists who blog

Olivia's blog: www.sweet-loon-bird.blogspot.com
Olivia's website: www.oliviajeffries.com
Olivia's shop: www.restlessthings.etsy.com



Why did you decide to start a blog?

I started my blog late in 2006. Six years after graduating from art school I still hadn't found my creative niche and was feeling very lost. I was really looking for a way to bring all of my ideas together and help me develop my style as a creative individual. Before starting my blog I had only ever looked at music blogs but after spending some time online one afternoon doing some research I had come across some artists' blogs (i think it was port2port!) which completely fascinated me and by going through all of their favorite reads I uncovered this amazing network of creative bloggers. This completely inspired me and although it still took me many months to finally get to a stage where I had anything interesting to write about I knew it was something that could help me bring all of my ideas and inspirations together.



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

It was some kind of mash up of my partners pet names for me, 'sweets' and 'loon', a loon is a kind of a bird and bird is slang for woman and I can be a bit of a loon so it's some kind of combo of those things!



How has blogging affected your work as an artist/designer?

Blogging has really helped me to keep track of my ideas and themes as they develop and also to go back in time and see what I was thinking about at a particular time. Getting feedback from other people who find my work of interest has been fantastically useful and has helped me to make connections with similar minded people. My blog also really helps to fuel me along through those times when I feel like I'm stuck in the mud creatively.



What are your favorite artist/designer blogs? Why?

all the mountains
an ambitious project collapsing
claire loder
my love for you is a stampede of horses
grass doe
to name but a few.

I like these blogs because they have something raw about them.



Do you have any advice for artists/designers who are starting a blog?

It can take a lot of time to develop a space that really comes across as being a visual/virtual version of yourself but eventually you find yourself at home in your little blog space - keep at it!



What has been the most positive and inspirational aspect of having a blog for you?

It has to be communicating with other people. I practically work in a vacuum so it's great to be able to finish something and get it straight out there and for people to be able to share their thoughts on it.



What do you find the most difficult/most rewarding part of having a creative profession?

I find working in isolation is a double edged sword. On the one hand I'm the type of person who really enjoys her own company and can spend many an hour/day pottering around drawing, writing, photographing, resting, eating on my own. There are some times however when it can be overwhelming and I want nothing more than a restorative coffee and chat with someone to take my brain out of the work zone.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your art/design?

Promoting my work is something I'm still working at and I don't think there are any cut and dry methods to getting good promotion - it will be different for everyone. I have paid for promotional slots and have found them to be inefficient. The best kind of promotions are those that happen by word of mouth. I try and provide really great customer service to those who buy my work who in turn leave great feedback which makes other potential customers feel confident that I am a professional artist to do business with. Also, keeping other others up to date with what you're working on with a newsletter can be useful. I've recently started a facebook fan page too because I keep reading about how amazing they are for business. We shall see!



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

I don't as I work at home but I try and sneak in a lazy day with my partner where I can and try and have a good holiday at least once a year.



What would you like to accomplish by the end of 2010?

I would like to be able to take part in some shows around the uk, it's proven a tough market to break. I would also like to find the perfect studio and work towards separating my life from work.

Thank you Olivia!