Renée Phillips is the Director of Manhattan Arts International, an author of several books and a public speaker. She is known as "The Artrepreneur Coach" and provides empowering life and career strategies for creative individuals.

On May 12, 2006 Renée delivered a keynote speech "Creating Success Your Way" at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was part the conference titled "Power Tools: Essential Business Practice for Artists" presented by the Chicago Artists Coalition, the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Career Development with support from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.
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I am so happy to be here. I have presented workshops and speeches throughout the country and several already in Chicago and every time I come to Chicago I feel like I'm coming back to my second home. It's because you make me feel so welcome. I arrived last night and walked around for a while in the cold rain and I realized why I love Chicago. First of all, you are among the warmest and friendliest people I've ever met. Chicago has the sophistication, arts and culture that I love about New York but without the hectic pace. I look forward to coming back here many more times.

I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I especially want to thank Olga Stefan, Executive Director of Chicago Artists Coalition, who invited me to be the keynote speaker and present the workshop on Goals and Strategies. I thank everyone involved in this outstanding conference from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs for co-sponsoring this event.

I cannot help but recall exactly that one year ago today, on May 12, 2005 I started hospice care (Jacob Perlow) for my mother who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Against the urging of my family members I refused to place her in a nursing home. For 9 years she had her own apartment in the same building as mine and I hired nurse's aides 24/7 so I was able to see her every day. At the end of her life I prepared her and myself for her inevitable transition. With the help of two extraordinary spiritual individuals from the Dula program she made her transformation peacefully and painlessly in my arms on November 8, 12:30 am.

I mourn the loss of my mother and miss her tremendously, especially today, on Mother's Day. However, I want to share with you an unbelievable experience. The moment she passed a tremendous surge of energy entered my body. Then, shortly after her death I started creating art again about which I am totally passionate. I have also been having revelations about how to develop new directions with Manhattan Arts International and my consulting practice. This transformative experience has been so compelling and I feel my mother's presence with every phase of it.

"One cannot consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." -- Hellen Keller

Pay Attention to the Miracles in Our Lives
I share this with you to illuminate a point about my feelings toward "Creating Success Your Way". Our creativity is a reflection of the totality of our experiences and our choices about how we perceive them. Helen Keller reminds us to be receptive to the myriad of miracles in our lives. She said: "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." I suggest you recall Helen Keller's words when the rejection letter arrives, the job offer falls through, the gallery goes bankrupt, or your show gets cancelled.

As a career consultant and coach for over 20 years helping artists to attain success and balance in their life, their creativity and their careers, I've learned that many of us do not live up to our success potential because we are oblivious to the many doors that are open to us. I've seen the difference between artists who are afraid to get out of their comfort zones, take risks and think outside the proverbial box and those who embrace change, exploration and new territory.

If you want to be inspired by some artists who have taken risks please pick up a copy of the current Chicago Artists Coalition News and read an article I wrote titled "The Artist's Vision of Self in the Process of Personal and Professional Growth."

Defining Success Your Way, Your Purpose
Creating Success Your Way starts with knowing your definition of success. It's in knowing your life's mission and purpose and how your role as an artist relates to your higher mission. In the words of Joseph Campbell which has become a mantra of mine: "Follow your bliss."

Before I begin a consultation with a new client I ask them to complete a questionnaire. For many this is the first time they have taken the time to concentrate fully on such questions as "What are your three most important life and career objectives? What actions are you currently taking to achieve them?"

These questions lead to more questions: Your choice to be an artist is part of your life's purpose, but what kind of artist do you want to be? What do you want to do with your art? What kind of impact do you want your art to make? How do you want to be remembered? What values do you want your art to express? How is your art unique?

Having a mission in life gives our life purpose. It is a total manifestation of our unique capabilities and heartfelt desires. Our mission is profoundly more than our role as artist, parent, spouse, teacher or writer. As an artist your art can serve as a catalyst if your mission is to participate in social change. It can provide solace for broken hearts if your mission is to heal. It can be the stimulus for tolerance among different cultures if your mission is to unite.

Joanne Turney is an artist from Washington DC with a mission. When she sells her work what drives her more than financial rewards and ego gratification is the knowledge that the more she earns the more she can donate to worthwhile charites that help the needy and sick. This perspective has helped her and other artists like her to remove feelings of intimidation from the process of selling.

In tomorrow's workshop on "Setting Goals and Strategies" you'll be taking the time to outline your creative, career and financial goals and I'll help you clarify them and develop practical action plans. I'll show you how to embrace those big dreams that seem elusive and integrate them into your daily habits to make them tangible.

Use Professional Power Tools and Fly!
Attaining your highest goals also means taking advantage of the professional Power Tools that are available to you. Without them it's like diving out of a plane without a parachute. This conference is about giving you a parachute, a map and your own wings to fly. It's extremely important to gain insight into creating financial plans, presentation and promotional materials, and navigating the plethora of career avenues. With the help of the expertise of the workshop leaders tomorrow you will become much more savvy in these areas. You will learn the essential building blocks that lay the foundation for your career success. Having access to such knowledge about writing resumes and business plans and building web sites and portfolios will empower you and instill confidence to withstand any competition.

And that's probably what attracted you to this important conference. A desire to gain the essential Power Tools you need either to jump start your career or take your career to the next level. To infuse your career with the fuel to help you achieve the success you rightly deserve and in your own way.

As a firm believer in Power Tools I wrote a book titled Presentation Power Tools for Fine Artists because I realized the need for artists to have access to the right way to prepare resumes, business letters, business plans, artists statements, press releases, websites and other essential documentation. I call these materials members of your sales team. When you put them to use they provide you with more time to spend in your creative pursuits.

Do You Have Passion?
All the tools in the world, however, will not help you if you don't have the passion to create your work. Without passion you will not be able to devote your energy tirelessly to your goals through all the triumphs and pitfalls of your career and in the agony of facing those excruciating deadlines in your studio. Without passion you won't be able to talk about your work with a level of enthusiasm that will elicit interest from those who are in the position to provide you with exposure, income and recognition.

Helen Keller said "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." Imagine yourself soaring high above the clouds - experiencing a feeling of liberation knowing you one striving toward your highest potential without any encumbrances. Knowing you are becoming the best YOU that YOU can be.

Move Out of Your Comfort Zone, Reformat Negative Tapes
Moving out of your comfort zone begins with having the right frame of mind. That includes erasing the old, negative tapes or in today's language "DVDs" in your head that cause self-sabotage and replacing them with new empowering ones. I'm referring to such damaging myths like: "I'm a poor starving artist", or "I'm an artist not a businessperson" or, "That gallery or that person will probably reject me." Instead trust in the unlimited resources and opportunities waiting to be tapped into. I'm sure that when you are either in the process of creating or visualizing yourself in the creative process you cannot be consent to creep. That concept is just not an option. I'm also sure you aren't consent to creep along with any aspect of your career, whether it be the creative side or the business side.

That is why you want to develop and put to use strong, specific business plans. Follow up on potential sales or position leads. Submit the best, polished presentation materials you can create to galleries, juried competitions and prospective employers and grant-givers.

If you have any negative tapes or movies playing in your head it's time to reformat them. Speak to yourself about yourself in glowing terms of power, ability, skill and possibility. Become your best agent - in your thoughts and in your actions. Plan to succeed.

I recommend that you take your passion pulse periodically. If you're no longer inspired by the work or career path you're on, take time out to refocus. Whether your process is creating art, teaching, advocacy, writing, curating, or another avenue, if you aren't sincerely motivated you will fail. You will fail yourself and you will fail at your career. Having spent more than two decades as a career consultant and coach for artists I am reminded of that fact time and time again.

Beware of how you deal with rejection. The fear of rejection often causes us to remain stagnant and complacent and prevents us from moving forward, out of our comfort zone. When I published the first edition of the Complete Guide to New York Art Galleries I made at least a dozen unanswered calls to the book buyer at Barnes & Noble. I refused to give up. When I finally reached him on the phone he flatly asked me why was I bothering to call him when I didn't have a distributor. Instead of feeling hurt and hanging up I remained confident and I told him in an enthusiastic voice that I had a book that would sell very well and I would send him a copy.

A day after he received the copy I received an order through a distributor that he located for me and I had a very successful book signing at B&N a few months later. The other day a friend of mine told me they saw my books prominently displayed on a front table of the large Union Square store. B & N has sold several thousand copies of my books and it all started with my persistent phone calls.

When artists lament about how difficult it is to survive and prosper as an artist I remind them about artists like Chuck Close who paints these large paintings with a brush strapped to his wrist sitting in a wheel chair because an illness left him as a quadriplegic. I think of his words: "One thing that was clear to me early on was how important it was to have something to do - something that you're anxious to get back to. I wanted to get back to work because I enjoy what I do. I love making art… It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist, therefore I have to make art." I also think about an artist I know Michael, from California, who has vision impairment from CMV Retinitis and AIDS, and between eye surgeries when his vision fails and he can no longer paint he creates sculpture. He never stops. When his funding runs low he applies for more grants.

The art world, like any microcosm and frankly any business, comes with its set of rules you need to learn and follow. But as an artist beware of following the herd. This world is no place for the timid, the unimaginative or the insecure. At each turn of your career you will face risk, rejection, and negativity from naysayers who project their own insecurities. They won't deter you if you have the power of passion and enthusiasm.

Georgia O'Keefe said: "I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted, as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself." Frida Kahlo said, "I paint my own reality. I paint because I need to, and I paint always whatever passes through my head, without any other consideration."

For some artists a refusal to follow the herd means not showing in galleries in preference of alternative spaces that they create themselves in abandoned buildings or store windows. Instead of waiting for the art press to recognize them they take action that attracts publicity in the plethora of editorial pages outside the art sections. I recall reading a full page story in the New York Times about an artist who displayed her work in a "For Rent" street level space in SoHo. She had approached the owner of the building asking if she could use the space to draw attention to it. She received more publicity for taking such a chance than the surrounding major galleries.

For Walter Frydrik, a Chicago artist, it means inventing his own paint so he could paint on Plexiglass chairs. For Frank Bruno, an artist from Philadelphia, stepping outside the box meant decorating the gallery like his studio at his opening reception. During the evening he painted a live draped model that posed all evening. This ambiance gave guests an experience they would never forget.

The Importance of Balance
Creating success demands balancing life, creativity and career. It's a challenging juggling act. In my book Success Now! For Artists there is a chapter titled Taking Care of Business and the Role of the Artrepreneur. In it I talk about how your career calls for the rule of thirds - 1/3 time of your time and energy being the creator -- 1/3 being the manager and 1/3 of your time being the administrator. Living our highest potential should not be confused with being busier. Strive to spend more time being the creator and delegating the taks of manager and administrator. We need to simplfy our lives and develop skills in prioritizing and managing time. That means making use of technology to improve efficiency, adding pleasure to our menial tasks by creating a well-organized harmonious workspace, making tomorrow's "To Do" list the day before, setting aside time each day to focus on our career objectives, eliminating our time wasting habits and avoiding procrastination. It also means asking for help and delegating as much as we can to others.

Events like this conference is extremely valuable in that it brings us all together in a spirit of camaraderie to share ideas, exchange information, and establish new friendships and alliances. This kind of support structure is vital to creating success personally and professionally. I urge you to continue to plant seeds in your professional garden and develop nurturing relationships with similar as well as dissimilar individuals. In fact those who appear to have less in common with you may surprise you and become your best advocates. Also, if you feel uncomfortable in groups and are an introvert I encourage you to learn to become a gregarious introvert.

When I arrived in NYC in 1980 as a shy artist I was determined to meet everyone in the NY art world, so I started an arts organization Artopia through which I exhibited my work and fellow artists' work in exhibitions in banks and corporations that I organized at no charge. I wrote art reviews for free in order to meet gallery owners and I sat on the board of New York Artists Equity to bring about advocacy for artists. Before long I outgrew my shyness and became a gregarious introvert and skilled networker. I was motivated by the desire to be a self-sufficient Artrepreneur.

Make your mark the way other great artists made theirs with self-affirmation, determination and perseverance. Chuck Close said that he felt "trapped" in other artists' painting styles, as an abstract expressionist, until he formulated "new ways to make marks that make art." You never want to have your work be called derivative.

Follow Your Instincts, Let Your Creativity Guide You
Creating Success Your Way is about following your instincts. As an artist you are especially endowed with success. Each day is an opportunity to celebrate the gifts that have been bestowed upon you. You have an acute sensitivity to a myriad of stimuli. You have the power to create something that, before you imagined it, did not exist.

With a blank canvas or sheet of paper, a slab of clay, hunk of stone, camera lens, found objects or computer technology, you are capable of bringing inner visions to outer forms. You possess a unique power to elicit a response, alter a person's consciousness and have a major impact on those who see your work and change the course of art history!

That is cause for celebration! You owe it to yourself and to others with every breath you take to use your innate talent to their greatest potential, to claim your voice and to tell your story, to share your gifts and to enrich and deepen our understanding of the human condition.

It's so easy to become distracted by daily routine that we lose sight of our dreams. Misplaced priorities, lack of will, or the fear of failure takes us on a path that is far away from where we planned to be. Statistics prove that most of us harbor dreams about the road not taken. I encourage you to be among the minority -- those who live out their dreams.

Master your craft and then transcend it. Let go of your crutches and fly solo. When you let your unique voice soar you lift the world with you. And always remember the words of Helen Keller that are worth repeating: "One cannot consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."

Read more articles by Renée Phillips