Artists & Money: Interview with Financial Therapist Bari Tessler
I had the pleasure of sitting down for a video chat with dancer, mama, financial therapist and mentor Bari Tessler last week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glWTEwlGpmg?rel=0
Artists and Money – it’s a hot topic.
When I was young, I somehow picked up from the culture that being an artist meant struggling financially.
I was willing to make that sacrifice (at least when I was 23 years old!).
But, I hear time and time again that many creatives were discouraged from pursuing their dream because they were told they would never make any money.
Another cultural myth is the stereotype that artists are flakey in general and specifically with money. We can’t handle it. We spend it too quickly. We don’t keep track. Our heads are in the clouds. We never have enough money. When we do have it we spend it too quickly. We are unrealistic. We aren’t good with numbers.
While these stereotypes are damaging and unfair, they have may have some basis in all those qualities that make us so wonderful. Creativity is centered in the right hemisphere. It accounts for our immense capacity to vision and dream, but it’s the left hemisphere that plans, projects, analyzes, calculates, handles figures and so forth.
The bottom line is many of us – artists or not – have a lot to discover about our relationship to money.
What is our story around it?
What is our family history with money?
What are we neglecting in our financial lives?
What are we very good at?
What do we still need to learn?
What about budgets?
Can we fulfill our dreams on our income?
Where do we have shame around money?
Bari Tessler is a wonderful guide on this journey. I took her Art of Money course in 2013 and was so enthusiastic about it that my sister signed up the very next year and one of my dearest friends has signed up to take it in 2015!
If you are interested in learning more about Bari’s comprehensive holistic approach, please click here.
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New Year Studio Declutter!
This fall I got on a big decluttering kick. Many people have told me how much the videos and tips on organizing and decluttering helped motivate them, so I decided to share my latest strategies and discoveries in a new video.
Let me know what you think and please share your ideas for keeping your space orderly if that is the space you work best in OR if you work best in a more cluttered space, tells us about that, too!
For some, watching a quick video is enough but if you’re like me having someone break thigns down into smaller tasks and assignng them one by one makes all the difference.
I’d like to help those of you who
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My best advisor is myself
When I get caught up on a painting, like I did the other day, not sure where to go –
that’s when I stop, pause and go inward.
I turn off the music if it’s on, sit down, close my eyes, and center myself.
And wait.
Just in that centering, I gain clarity.
The other day, for instance, from that centered place I knew that I needed to focus on one painting at time.
So I let all the others in the series go for a moment and just picked one.
I looked at it, appreciated it, picked off the remnants of blue tape on the edges and declared it done.
I was delighted to find that the piece had different meanings depending on which way I turned it.
We can look outside ourselves for support and advice on our work, but I find the very best advisor is myself.
And not just myself but my Self. That part I connect with in meditation. The guidance I hear in the inner stillness.
What about you? When you are working on something and are not sure which way to proceed, what do you do to figure it out?
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