A few years ago I was conflicted about my creative direction. I had several artistic passions: landscape painting, cartooning, writing, and photography.
I shared the fruit of all these passions on one website but often wondered if my eclectic website was hurting me more than helping. I read the advice of several gurus, but opinions differed.
At one point, I booked an hour-long Zoom call with a popular blogger. The blogger billed himself as a kind of life coach, and since he had a decent following online, I felt he’d be a good resource.
“Fine art collectors are there to collect art, not to read essays,” he told me, adding, “Fine art collectors might not take you seriously if you have cartoons on your website.”
The advice made a lot of sense, and when you pay for advice, you often feel obligated to take it. But I hedged my bets and sought the advice of a former fine art gallery owner. Surprisingly, he felt I should share all my creative work on one website.
“Collectors will likely be fascinated by your diversity of creative talents,” he told me. “If they come to your site for the fine art, they might just fall in love with your cartoons and writing, too.”
What do you do? How do you decide which advice is best?
Be the funeral director of your life
There are advisors today for everything. Financial, career, political, leadership, fashion, creative, etc. Some come with degrees, certifications, testimonials, and years of professional training.
Others call themselves “life coaches,” with virtually no credentials beyond a spiffy website. And whether they’re highly credentialed or winging it, beware of agendas. Everyone has agendas, and they don’t always line up with what’s best for you.
We pay professionals for advice because, if we’ve done our homework, the professionals have the education, credentials, and background to help us. Friends and strangers with free advice aren’t always qualified to give it. But then, even the pros can give bad advice.
When we seek someone’s advice, we immediately empower them. Their advice might be bad, but we risk following it because we gave them the power. They’re the expert, not us.
Or are they?
We’ve all heard stories of people who sought second medical opinions, and found the first diagnosis was wrong. The lesson here is that it’s good to do your homework.
Don’t let any one person decide. Educate yourself, evaluate the pattern of opinions, experiment, and then make a decision. But along the way, never forget that you have your own biases. Try to remain objective.
Also, don’t fall into the trap of analysis paralysis. Sometimes we take our research and decision-making too far. Or we fail to let go of a decision, allowing it to haunt us forever.
The more you talk about it, rehash it, rethink it, cross analyze it, debate it, respond to it, get paranoid about it, compete with it, complain about it, immortalize it, cry over it, kick it, defame it, stalk it, gossip about it, pray over it, put it down or dissect its motives it continues to rot in your brain. It is dead. It is over. It is gone. It is done. It is time to bury it because it is smelling up your life and no one wants to be near your rotted corpse of memories and decaying attitude. Be the funeral director of your life and bury that thing! — Shannon L. Alder
In the end, I did a bit of experimentation. I created one website for my cartoons, one for my writing, and one for my fine art/photography.
You can guess what happened. It was a disaster. My original, all-in-one website was already established online with tons of links.
Readers and followers of my work found multiple sites confusing. So, I stuck with my current website and branded myself as an artist, writer, and photographer.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
If I were to start over again from scratch, I’d probably establish one website for each creative discipline. Why? Because it’s easier to grow a following around one thing than many.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. -Clare Boothe Luce
Most of the branding gurus seem to support this view. Pick a niche, they say, and build around that rather than something general.
It’s easier to attract photographers, for example, to a photography site. It’s harder to attract photographers to a fine art/writing/cartooning/photography site all wrapped up into one.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know this when I started with my website. And now that my website has been established for years, it doesn’t make sense to part it out into individual sites (after all, I tried that and it didn’t work).
Whether it’s website design, medical options, or relationship struggles, sooner or later you’ll be faced with problems and decisions to make. Remember that advice is worth the price you pay for it. And even when you pay for it, the advice may be wrong or may be biased.
Experiment, weigh the results, get as many facts as you can, check your own biases, and then listen to your heart.
It’s amazing how often our hearts show us the way.
Before you go
I’m John P. Weiss. I draw cartoons, paint, shoot photography, and write elegant stories and essays about life. To follow along, check out my free Saturday Newsletter here.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Artworks by John P. Weiss
Re: The more you talk about it, rehash it, …, it continues to rot in your brain. It is dead. It is over.
Absolutely! Every word is true, include those omitted and following. And even though I understand how true it is, implementation is so incredibly difficult. With the help of a professional therapist, following said advice is requires heroic effort, yet so often falls short.