Sometimes it’s good to keep creative projects secret.  I’ve been working for the past several months on something I call my secret art project.

Protecting the creative space is a process.  For years, I had a studio that was open to the public.  This was interesting, on some levels, and led to amazing friendships, relationships, and my marriage. So it was worth it. ♥️  But on others levels it was extremely stressful.  It led me to create work in the public eye, which meant a constant stream of self-censorship.  I began to long for privacy, for the ability to shut the door and have nobody knock on it.

Thus, we reworked the business.  We closed the open studio storefront, and focused on web.  Sales quadrupled within eighteen months.  Closing the storefront felt like a failure, unless I looked at it financially. By respecting my genuine creative desires I was able to improve my business.

Another genuine creative desire: I don’t like to manage people.  I don’t enjoy telling other people what to do, and want to work with contractors- not employees- who don’t need management or even oversight.

Once again, respecting this desire- finding contractors who were already doing work aligned with the work we needed to do- resulted in vast improvements in the business and the bottom line.

Now I have a studio to which nobody knows the address, has no sign on the door, and no listing in the building.  It’s perfect. And it is giving me the creative space to actually work creatively again.