Having your dream shouldn’t be hard

Yesterday morning, I read a friend’s social media status which said something along the lines of “Photography is like living the life you dream, it’s never easy but it’s achievable.”  A second friend remarked, “Things worth having are never easy”. This got me to thinking … Shouldn’t it should be easy?

When you are on the right track of living your dream, making a move, or conquering a new career … it should most certainly be easy. The cosmos should align. The path should be marked with promise. Support from friends and family should be vast. Confidence in self should be at an all time high. Progress should be sweeping and complete.

I’m not saying that there should be no effort involved in creating your dream here on earth. Yes, there should. It will require skill, dedication, determination, focus, talent, perseverance, tenacity, problem solving, and time … but yes, god damn it, it should be easy. Absolutely ridiculously easy. This is your chosen path, your life’s work. And the universe should, and will, encourage you. If it’s hard … Just too friggin’ hard, then something is wrong.

Creating an International CV/Resume

For the last few days, I have been working on what I call “My Life Files”. Part of this includes my international CV/resume, a business plan, geographic outreach projections, marketing strategy and materials, and a few other little items. Because I work in the arts, these documents are structured toward a creative and cultural community. I’m excited about this project. After years and years of creating this type of business collateral for my clients, it is really nice to be able to do it for myself.

I thought it might be helpful to share with you what I learned about creating an international CV and how I created my own. The art world is becoming a very small place and I’m seeing it more and more as part of a global community. I think as we move forward, artists will be embracing an expanded culture, and international documents will become a greater part of their outreach arsenal.

The Re-Design

Welcome to the newly designed and updated blog and portfolio for LisaMikulski.com. After days of ripping apart the old design and replacing it with something fresh, here we are, ready to kickass in 2013. I thought long and hard about re-establishing this blog and with all the recent privacy issues surrounding some social media sites, I felt that what I needed, perhaps what we need, is a space where conversation can be had in a safe online environment. Additionally, while I had created 2Sweden4love and believe it to be a very beautiful site, I always felt somewhat fractured writing there . . . and here.

Preparing your images for publication

Artists and galleries, you’ve been working hard. And one day a writer is going to call you. That writer might be someone like me. Someone calling to interview you for a feature article in a newspaper or magazine. That writer will schedule an interview to talk about your art and will take the next day or two to write up a thoughtful intelligent article promoting your work. That writer is also going to ask you for high resolution print ready images. Will you be ready? You had better be, because there is a great chance that you may lose an opportunity to show your best work to a wide audience if you don’t have goods.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve interviewed an artist or gallery and they aren’t prepared with high resolution quality print images to accompany the article. Not only will you need these images in case of fame, but you’ll also need them for advertising, direct mail marketing, postcards, and portfolio and exhibition requirements.

How Photography Saved My Life

My G+ profile description reads: Writer. Photography saved my life. The photography statement sounds rather dramatic doesn’t it? Despite the supposed histrionics, I believe the statement to be quite true and when photographer Helen Sotiriadis suggested I write a post about it, how could I say no?

As is usually the case with big profound statements such as this, it’s hard to put into words exactly how the story and emotions support the premise. But as a word weaver sewing the fabric of tales or a surgeon wielding his blade, I will attempt to share with you how it came to be that the magic of a lens gave me the ability to discover a new life and breathe deeply for the first time in years.