by Natasha Wescoat

Many of us are mad working fanatics with OCD tendencies…

The clicking sound of our laptops and it’s artificial glow jarring our loved ones awake from their sound sleep. Piles of papers in “organized chaos” sitting patiently on our tables, are getting in the way of family dinner. Even when we get a little time off, we manage to find something new to do. Vacations are mostly spent checking our blackberries (or iPhones you silly tech junkies!) at the pool, or firing up our comps to do some “quick” work in the hotel room. God forbid if we leave any of our “tools” at home! And when it comes to art, any little inspiration assaults us in the middle of watching a movie or cleaning the house, and we run straight to our working space to do a “quick painting” or whatever it is we do.

It’s business 12-18 hrs per day, maybe 24/7 on the hour, every hour.

I can hear someone telling me, “You don’t know what I GO THROUGH! I have to do EVERYTHING in this business!”

I hear ya. I do. I really do.

On top of creating art, I take the photos, do the editing, web design and graphic design for all of my sites, campaigns, marketing, auction planning, blogging, shipping, customer service, bookkeeping, errands, and so forth. *A good example of some hard-working artists is EC Stewart and her husband. They have an exhaustive list of work they do on their own. And I mean, they do EVERYTHING!

According to the US News, being a small-business owner is one of the most OVERRATED careers. It’s one of the most difficult things in the world to take on. Alot of blood, sweat, tears, and money to get something up and running, in hopes that not only will it work, but that it will be enough just to pay the bills!

So, normally, we artists/art business owners are a one-man show, doing all of the work and on top of that, providing a hand-crafted product/art that has to come from some place within ourselves. In order for that to take place, we must possess great creative, mental, and physical energy and inspiration to do so! It’s not as simple as simply putting together some everyday product to place on the shelf. This is something that has to be high quality, unique, attractive, and sellable. The irony! Art that is not only unique and quality, but something you can SELL! Sometimes great art isn’t meant to be “sellable”.

So here is where we begin our dilemna…