04 January 2017
It 'started in 2017 !! The much-hated 2016 is over and it is time to take stock and intentions, as every year.
In the last months of the year I have been overwhelmed by commitments and I left the blog into the background. As a first post of 2017 I wanted to talk about what was my main theme in 2016: the relationship between the creative and the world of work.
A dilemma has troubled me for many months:
find a safe job or invest in my talent?
These two options battled in my mind for the whole 2016. In the end, I am convinced that you need to invest in ourselves , our talents, what we love to do. The job security no longer exists , has been discharged. Even the illusion that we work on our "talent will ensure" security is not productive. Safety is a feeling that does not come from a job, but by ourselves, by giving us confidence day after day. If we are sure that what we do has a value, then we must strive to communicate and this is right in line with the times we are living!
People like me who is at the beginning of its activities, must make peace with the fact of having to patiently build his credibility , to present their work and that, to keep, you must also do jobs that have nothing to do with art , at least for a while ' . The artistic professions have a complex environment, especially in Italy .
"What do you do for work?"
"I'm an illustrator!"
"Ah ok ... But there fields or is it just a hobby?"
Our target , though, is not the average Italian, but are the companies, publishers, professionals, people who need someone who can translate ideas, news, stories in pictures . Today's world, globalized and connected, offers us the opportunity to let us know at zero cost or almost , enhancing our skills. Indeed, this is what the labor market wants : to show what we can do, what makes us unique . There are statistics that confirm this trend. I will quote an excerpt from the book Personal Branding , Louis and Thomas Centenaro Sorchiotti, published by Hoepli:
In February 2012, Forbes cited research that shows that, by 2020, half of American workers will be configured as "self-employed": more than 70 million people.
The research, by analyzing the current independent workers defined the pioneers of this trend, shows that 55% of these have voluntarily chosen to leave their jobs, 80% would go back no further back, while nearly 30 million employees says he wants to leave the work within two years. [...]
In all this freedom of action, people, companies and potential customers are increasingly seeking to use the Internet to find new opportunities, suppliers and potential partners.
According to a survey conducted by 71% GIDP / HRDA, the Association of Directors of Human Resources, the Italian companies exploit the internet to acquire information about the candidates. The main instruments are two: Facebook and Google.
In Italy we are halfway between a state welfarism and a state of American-style, in which you must arrange privately to health care, retirement, etc.
They ask us flexibility, say business hours is an outdated concept , which with a minimum income of € 320 a family can live in dignity , and lots of other nonsense. In this context I believe that the only hope is the work on their own , especially for the creative. This is not to get rich, but to be able to provide for themselves. The future is on our side , the whole world goes in that direction.
(I read some books and blogs on how to do business with little budget, on how to promote and use the internet to work.
The watchword is "emergence" , release its uniqueness.
This scared me and scares me a bit 'even now. I tend to be introverted and prefer to stay locked in a hut to draw all day! However, we are in the digital age, in the globalized world of the company . You may not like but you have to come to terms. We can look at it in two ways: reject the reality or use it as a stimulus to evolve. Each species evolves thanks to the environmental difficulties involved. If we want to live our creative talent, we have to evolve and develop the skills necessary to insert ourselves and establish ourselves in the labor market.
(In the rest of the creative world they are better recognized than in Italy, but oh well ... It will mean that seeing the highly hostile environment, we will develop more skills pussies!)
For me, the topic "What will I do in my life" was very urgent this year.
It took me a while 'to convince me of all the things I said above you.
In 2016 I turned 30! Yeah!
Exceeded the threshold of "enta" I acquired an awareness that was a vague thought: "I'm getting old !!" . I realized that if I did not go back to the Vendor (the only "normal" job in which I have some experience), I had to start to throw me to do my real job: the creative.
I fished out from the past some old ideas and tried to monetize during the first six months of 2016. I took an art project that had been part of my thesis at the Academy of Brera: Talking to Painting . It is a painting workshop for pairs that I conceived as a tool to unlock the creativity and experience the visual communication instead of the verbal. I have also decided to invest in my love for drawing live and I organized a series of evenings of "caricatures" .
Around June I realized that laboratories were not working , although obtained much attention members were very few! The caricatures rather liked them a lot, and every evening I was doing came home with good income! So I decided: Freeze the laboratories and investing in the design!
So I spent the summer in rework the site, the blog, presence on social and so on. I studied the sites of other illustrators and tried to better define my profession, to distinguish myself from them . You can not be an Illustrator period. It must be a Fantasy Illustrator, or Cartoonist ... well .. you have to define exactly what to do, find a niche of our own , or at least thin, as long as there is a market . Nothing prevents the performance of other jobs usually necessary!
My reasoning was " I like the fantasy genre, drawing elves and warriors all my life, it's what I do !". I have invested much time and energy into this. At dawn of October, however,
Then came a turning point. I found a job as Art Educator , a professional figure that required knowledge of art, ability to conduct art workshops, interpersonal skills and enthusiasm towards culture and its spread. The goal was to present the Art as an educational tool, as a means to enhance learning and personal development of children. "Perfect!" I said to myself "I found the job of my life!".
(For the record, if you catch yourself thinking something like that, in any field, well BEWARE !!)
When I went to the group interview, the rapporteur explained that we would be working for UTET, publisher bicentennial whose mission had always been the spread of the culture at all. The work of Art Educator consisted of more tasks: to make contact with primary schools and Medium, organize workshops in the classes, take the contacts of parents and call them to give a free book and if they wanted to, try to sell a series of books d ' art. It seemed the culmination of all my past experiences! I conducted workshops, even with children; I did the seller; I am prepared at the university level in the field of Art . I got caught by the enthusiasm and I threw myself wholeheartedly in this work (and so have virtually disappeared from the blog and social).
Now, the work of Art Educator, in fact, is already finished.
Bureaucratically I am still dancing and that's why I can not go into details. I will just say that, regardless of the many disappointments I had from UTET, thanks to them in two months I have been able to achieve 20 laboratories with more than 400 children aged 6 to 13 years . I put to the test as a few other times, I received and gave many stimuli to both children and their teachers, and they all thoroughly enjoyed the encounter with art . Through this work I entered the world of the school, which I could never do it alone, and I enriched my curriculum .
The organization of workshops still remains in the background for me,
Despite the many positive aspects of the last period, however, at Christmas they returned to the office all doubt "What will I do with my life?".
And suddenly, just as I was discouraging new, it received a commission as Illustrator!
One day I came out of school, after the last workshop as Art Educator. I see a missed call on the phone and call. Answer me one that says "I saw your website, I really like how you work and I think you do right for me for an art project ...". These are satisfactions!!
I am always astonished when the circumstances of life come together in unexpected scenarios.
I have tried to contact publishers, realize caricatures evenings, finding the right job, send resume here and there, and then the opportunity presented itself without invitation and through the web site that I did not care for over a month !! This made me realize one thing: We have no control over our lives, we can not know or determine with certainty what will happen. And 'an illusion. The only thing we can do is take care of ourselves, to be the person and / or the professional you want to be and show the world . Even if we send a thousand portfolio, it may be that the work will come from the only person / business that we do not mandate that will have discovered us through the back door! This does not mean that we should not send curriculum,
I hope you enjoyed this article!
Happy 2017 everyone!
In the last months of the year I have been overwhelmed by commitments and I left the blog into the background. As a first post of 2017 I wanted to talk about what was my main theme in 2016: the relationship between the creative and the world of work.
A dilemma has troubled me for many months:
find a safe job or invest in my talent?
These two options battled in my mind for the whole 2016. In the end, I am convinced that you need to invest in ourselves , our talents, what we love to do. The job security no longer exists , has been discharged. Even the illusion that we work on our "talent will ensure" security is not productive. Safety is a feeling that does not come from a job, but by ourselves, by giving us confidence day after day. If we are sure that what we do has a value, then we must strive to communicate and this is right in line with the times we are living!
People like me who is at the beginning of its activities, must make peace with the fact of having to patiently build his credibility , to present their work and that, to keep, you must also do jobs that have nothing to do with art , at least for a while ' . The artistic professions have a complex environment, especially in Italy .
"What do you do for work?"
"I'm an illustrator!"
"Ah ok ... But there fields or is it just a hobby?"
Our target , though, is not the average Italian, but are the companies, publishers, professionals, people who need someone who can translate ideas, news, stories in pictures . Today's world, globalized and connected, offers us the opportunity to let us know at zero cost or almost , enhancing our skills. Indeed, this is what the labor market wants : to show what we can do, what makes us unique . There are statistics that confirm this trend. I will quote an excerpt from the book Personal Branding , Louis and Thomas Centenaro Sorchiotti, published by Hoepli:
In February 2012, Forbes cited research that shows that, by 2020, half of American workers will be configured as "self-employed": more than 70 million people.
The research, by analyzing the current independent workers defined the pioneers of this trend, shows that 55% of these have voluntarily chosen to leave their jobs, 80% would go back no further back, while nearly 30 million employees says he wants to leave the work within two years. [...]
In all this freedom of action, people, companies and potential customers are increasingly seeking to use the Internet to find new opportunities, suppliers and potential partners.
According to a survey conducted by 71% GIDP / HRDA, the Association of Directors of Human Resources, the Italian companies exploit the internet to acquire information about the candidates. The main instruments are two: Facebook and Google.
In Italy we are halfway between a state welfarism and a state of American-style, in which you must arrange privately to health care, retirement, etc.
They ask us flexibility, say business hours is an outdated concept , which with a minimum income of € 320 a family can live in dignity , and lots of other nonsense. In this context I believe that the only hope is the work on their own , especially for the creative. This is not to get rich, but to be able to provide for themselves. The future is on our side , the whole world goes in that direction.
(I read some books and blogs on how to do business with little budget, on how to promote and use the internet to work.
The watchword is "emergence" , release its uniqueness.
This scared me and scares me a bit 'even now. I tend to be introverted and prefer to stay locked in a hut to draw all day! However, we are in the digital age, in the globalized world of the company . You may not like but you have to come to terms. We can look at it in two ways: reject the reality or use it as a stimulus to evolve. Each species evolves thanks to the environmental difficulties involved. If we want to live our creative talent, we have to evolve and develop the skills necessary to insert ourselves and establish ourselves in the labor market.
(In the rest of the creative world they are better recognized than in Italy, but oh well ... It will mean that seeing the highly hostile environment, we will develop more skills pussies!)
For me, the topic "What will I do in my life" was very urgent this year.
It took me a while 'to convince me of all the things I said above you.
In 2016 I turned 30! Yeah!
Exceeded the threshold of "enta" I acquired an awareness that was a vague thought: "I'm getting old !!" . I realized that if I did not go back to the Vendor (the only "normal" job in which I have some experience), I had to start to throw me to do my real job: the creative.
I fished out from the past some old ideas and tried to monetize during the first six months of 2016. I took an art project that had been part of my thesis at the Academy of Brera: Talking to Painting . It is a painting workshop for pairs that I conceived as a tool to unlock the creativity and experience the visual communication instead of the verbal. I have also decided to invest in my love for drawing live and I organized a series of evenings of "caricatures" .
Around June I realized that laboratories were not working , although obtained much attention members were very few! The caricatures rather liked them a lot, and every evening I was doing came home with good income! So I decided: Freeze the laboratories and investing in the design!
So I spent the summer in rework the site, the blog, presence on social and so on. I studied the sites of other illustrators and tried to better define my profession, to distinguish myself from them . You can not be an Illustrator period. It must be a Fantasy Illustrator, or Cartoonist ... well .. you have to define exactly what to do, find a niche of our own , or at least thin, as long as there is a market . Nothing prevents the performance of other jobs usually necessary!
My reasoning was " I like the fantasy genre, drawing elves and warriors all my life, it's what I do !". I have invested much time and energy into this. At dawn of October, however,
Then came a turning point. I found a job as Art Educator , a professional figure that required knowledge of art, ability to conduct art workshops, interpersonal skills and enthusiasm towards culture and its spread. The goal was to present the Art as an educational tool, as a means to enhance learning and personal development of children. "Perfect!" I said to myself "I found the job of my life!".
(For the record, if you catch yourself thinking something like that, in any field, well BEWARE !!)
When I went to the group interview, the rapporteur explained that we would be working for UTET, publisher bicentennial whose mission had always been the spread of the culture at all. The work of Art Educator consisted of more tasks: to make contact with primary schools and Medium, organize workshops in the classes, take the contacts of parents and call them to give a free book and if they wanted to, try to sell a series of books d ' art. It seemed the culmination of all my past experiences! I conducted workshops, even with children; I did the seller; I am prepared at the university level in the field of Art . I got caught by the enthusiasm and I threw myself wholeheartedly in this work (and so have virtually disappeared from the blog and social).
Now, the work of Art Educator, in fact, is already finished.
Bureaucratically I am still dancing and that's why I can not go into details. I will just say that, regardless of the many disappointments I had from UTET, thanks to them in two months I have been able to achieve 20 laboratories with more than 400 children aged 6 to 13 years . I put to the test as a few other times, I received and gave many stimuli to both children and their teachers, and they all thoroughly enjoyed the encounter with art . Through this work I entered the world of the school, which I could never do it alone, and I enriched my curriculum .
The organization of workshops still remains in the background for me,
Despite the many positive aspects of the last period, however, at Christmas they returned to the office all doubt "What will I do with my life?".
And suddenly, just as I was discouraging new, it received a commission as Illustrator!
One day I came out of school, after the last workshop as Art Educator. I see a missed call on the phone and call. Answer me one that says "I saw your website, I really like how you work and I think you do right for me for an art project ...". These are satisfactions!!
I am always astonished when the circumstances of life come together in unexpected scenarios.
I have tried to contact publishers, realize caricatures evenings, finding the right job, send resume here and there, and then the opportunity presented itself without invitation and through the web site that I did not care for over a month !! This made me realize one thing: We have no control over our lives, we can not know or determine with certainty what will happen. And 'an illusion. The only thing we can do is take care of ourselves, to be the person and / or the professional you want to be and show the world . Even if we send a thousand portfolio, it may be that the work will come from the only person / business that we do not mandate that will have discovered us through the back door! This does not mean that we should not send curriculum,
I hope you enjoyed this article!
Happy 2017 everyone!
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