You can’t please everyone, so why are you trying?

It all began with art festivals.

The first few years I lived in Florida back in the early 90s I discovered the outdoor art festival circuit. One of the big reasons I realized I needed to leave my home state of Pennsylvania and migrate south was because I’d fallen in love with oil painting on canvas (read my bio to get more deets on that). Plus, the subject matter was all about tropical and ocean scenes, whales, dolphins, sea turtles and the like.

As I learned what and how I needed to show, it became my weekend hobby-slash-adventure during the winter months where Florida’s population doubled and the show circuit made its rounds. I built a 10’x10’ booth, framed my canvases, rigged a unique system for hanging my paintings in the booth, and all of the trappings I needed to have a simple but effective show.

Now that I am painting again after a double-decade hiatus away from the easel, if you asked me today if I’d show in outdoor art festivals again I’d say, “HELL NO.”

Toughening the skin

Being in an outdoor art festival is quite degrading, honestly. I don’t know how artists do it, but they do. Aside from the horrible weather, being held captive if you’re a solo artist at your booth all day, port-o-potties, and a sea of odd crafts, jewelry, sculpture and 2D art, the comments from the crowd is what got to me after a while.

“Oh, lookie at the turtle, mom!” a kid tugging at his distracted parent’s shirt.

“Jacob would love that wave painting he’s such a big surfer,” one woman commented as she walked by. No sale.

“Look at that dolphin. Oh, I could do that,” and so on.

The commentary of passersby triggered a roller coaster of emotions in me. One comment would feel demeaning to me. Another got me excited for a sale, but never came to be. Others made me feel like a Kielbasa hanging in a Polish meat market window. Often it felt as though I was invisible as I sat or stood at the opening of my booth and smiled all day. It wore me out. (I’ll save you the story of coming back to a show on Sunday morning to find my entire booth in a pile of twisted metal and white plastic tarp in the middle of the road from a pretty wicked overnight thunderstorm.)

But hey, I was in my 20s, single, had a full-time job at a printing plant in Orlando, and I loved that I had a hobby that put my artwork in front of the world.

Limiting beliefs strike again

Now that I’m back in front of the easel, those triggers are resurfacing. Thoughts of not good enough and why would anyone care swim around the back of my mind. They keep me from more boldly putting myself out there to showcase what I’m doing. To talk about it. To have real fun with it. To exhale my passion to sweeten the air all around me and for others.

Why? Likely because I want to please everyone. I want everyone who encounters my creations to be inspired to their creative flow. To feel the success, positivity, possibility and inspiration that oozes from my paintings.

But here’s the deal. Artwork is 100% subjective and will not appeal to everyone. There a millions of artists in the world creating and presenting their work to the world. Not everyone is going to love it, buy it, and enjoy it wherever they display it.

I think that’s part of the trigger for me. My desire to please everyone with my work is keeping me from promoting it and celebrating what I’m doing. I need to do my art and put myself out there and feel the good that comes from it knowing full well it won’t please everyone.

Living from your passion

As an artist, or anyone who creates something from the heart with passion, my sensitive nature is very much tied to my creations. And of course I want my art to always have a positive takeaway for people. I want to feel good, and I want others to feel good. That’s just who I am. I want to have happy happen all around me and be the cause of joy or the promoter of it.

The exercise here for you and me is to stop and ask why are we trying so hard to please everyone? Especially when we are swimming in a smarmy sea of social media where there are no barriers to quality of audience.

We have to leave it up to the attraction factors of the universe to bring us who we need to serve and connect with and the way we do that is by living our fullest passion and not giving a [insert favorite expletive here] about what the naysayers think. If they love it, great. If they don’t, that’s great too. The key is can you be great while they take a pass? Of course you can. You’re living your passion. That’s what I plan to do, too.

Now. Watch this Story of Wonder and you tell me if you think I’m not living my biggest passion: