Accomplishing goals

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Beginning the Mentor Program: WARM Update

February 11, 2013 in Accomplishing goals, In the Studio, Kate Renee, Minnesota State Arts Board, Painting, Vision Boards, Women's Resources of Minnesota (WARM) | 1 comment

It has been about a month since I have begun the WARM mentor program and I have already accomplished  a lot. Part of the program is journaling, sketching and generally documenting what you do during the two years. I figured it would be great to have multiple outlets for recording my experience (much like I blogged during my residency at Prairie Center). I hope to share and showcase my current projects, successes, events and more during my participation in the program.

On my year recap blog post, I shared my personal goals and work plan for the next two years. I have already accomplished a lot during January. I have a list of 25 tasks I want to accomplish during the program and I will refer to each of my tasks as I work towards them.

Number 20. Spend time creating a vision board(s) and a work(s) of art that fully embodies my spirituality, dreams and goals

One of my program goals is to create artwork for myself, artwork I do not intend to exhibit. My first project was to make vision boards. I created three vision boards, one for my inner self, one for my art career, and one for my life adventures. I have blogged a few times detailing the project. Now that I have created them, they are sitting in my studio so I can view them as I work on making art. I hope to work on a fourth vision board about my accomplishments and successes and a 5th vision board that is more pin board style where I can constantly move and re-position objects and images. 

Number 6. Experiment: try new things (both art and non-art) and Number 23. Hang up my perfectionist coat

My first big work I made during the program was my pug painting titled, “What The Pug Are You Looking At?” It is my first painting on wood. I also flipped the negative and positive space and I painted the background and left the pugs the color of the wood.

In my pursuit of trying new things, I poured resin over the piece after I completed it. Resin is anything but a perfect medium but it turned out good. For my first crack at trying resin, I think it was a success and I would love to find more ways to incorporate resin into my pieces. 

Number 1. Work on positive self-talk and self-care, locate my saboteur and practice affirmations and Number 9 Build a creative practice and studio rituals that will sustain me as a lifetime artist

I also have been working on some artistic and studio processes. I made a studio altar and a ritual and I am now working on locating and controlling my inner critic. I have a fun new inner critic project that I began working on and will share it when it is completed! But my studio altar is a small little space that I placed a few special items in including a plant, a card, a few books, a poem I wrote and a gift I got from my vessel.

Affirmations are my February project!

Number 12. Be thankful and share my gratitude

This January, I received the Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board! I am very excited and very thankful for this experience! I will be working on my Beauties Behaving Badly Series and executing a solo exhibition.

My experience in the WARM program has begun! I hope to continue posting my projects and updates each month!

 

Setting Your Intention: Using Power Words to Stay Focused

January 28, 2013 in Accomplishing goals, Kate Renee, Shoes, Strategic Planning | No comments

Princess Lasertron is one of my most favorite bloggers. She is a bridal designer like me, but while I create custom painted shoes, she makes custom bouquets! I love reading her blog because she not only has a wide range of beautiful work, she has some great blog posts and ideas for creative people. For 2013, she created a short list of power words to focus on during the year to help guide her.

I decided to try the activity and here is what I came up with!

1. Play: I am a very serious and focused artist. And, while this is great for maintaining professional demeanor with others, it hardly reflected my quirky, bright and fun paintings. I am intending to rediscover my inner child and artist soul by bringing play back into my life. 

2. Gratitude: From gratitude comes happiness. It appears that the more giving and thankful I am, the more I receive. I am intending to be thankful for all of the opportunities, people, resources, gifts, changes and events that happen this year.

3. Transformation: During the next two years, I am working with the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) and working with a mentor, Jill Waterhouse, to guide me. I have set aside these two years to determine what I really want and allow for it to manifest. I am learning to say NO!….so I can say yes to other opportunities, I am setting boundaries, and I am allowing myself to grow and change. Just in the first few weeks of the program and of this year, I have had numerous changes, both small and large. The transformation has begun (insert evil laugh)!

4. Imperfection: I am a perfectionist. The first step is admitting to it! So I am practicing being an imperfectionist. I am learning to take a step back, put perfection aside and not expect certain outcomes.

5. Pace: If you have been following me and my arts career, you know that I am always busy, always doing something, always having a side project. I have been on hyper-drive for a long time now. I am changing pace and taking it down a notch. If I stay on hyper drive too long I will burn out. So 2013, marks a more consistent and doable pace for me. Slow and steady wins the race!

While we tend to focus on a resolution, how about trying to focus on power words, setting intentions and guiding principles to make changes in our lives? This sort of method is a lot less rigid than “I am going to walk the dog every day” or “I am going to lose 20 lbs by March.” Power words and intention setting give you wiggle room to explore, they don’t set a bar or a standard for success or failure. If goal setting and resolutions are difficult for you try thinking up your own power words list and use it like a guiding principle.

Extra Extra Read All About It: Beauties Behaving Badly Receives MN State Funding

January 21, 2013 in Accomplishing goals, Altered Esthetics, Bloomington Theatre and Art Center, Gamut Gallery, Imaginarium, Kate Renee, Local Artist Interview, Painting, Prairie Center of the Arts, Press and Promotions, Solo Exhibition Program | No comments

Below is the official press release announcing funding for Beauties Behaving Badly. Feel free to share, print or publish the material below as you wish.

Bloomington, Minnesota, January 9th 2013-The Minnesota State Arts Board posted their Artist Initiative Grant recipients and included emerging artist, Kate Renee. Kate plans to continue her acrylic series titled, “Beauties Behaving Badly,” which explores new views on the roles of traditional female characters.

These large graphic works interpret classic characters from childhood movies and literature in a misbehaving and non-conventional light. The paintings will challenge the comfortable views of classic youth and children’s media. While including a serious and feminist note, these works are large, bright and are also humorous in the visual manner they are created. One of Kate Renee’s finished works, created during her 2011 artist residency at the Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria, Illinois, demonstrates her humor through a large chested Ariel from the Little Mermaid. With her small shell swimsuit and silicone implanted breasts, the title simply states, “They Help Me Float.”

Kate Renee will begin creating eleven new “Beauties Behaving Badly” paintings to complete her series and will be exhibiting them in a solo exhibition in the Twin Cities. In addition, she will be printing an exhibition specific catalogue to accompany the show. The grant funded project will begin on March 1st 2013 and conclude February 28th 2014.

Kate Renee has been a professional artist since 2008 and has focused on acrylics. She creates lowbrow paintings that feature characters, people, pop icons, and animals with big eyes and bright colors. She adds touches of humor through her sarcastic and ironic titles. Through her work, Kate seeks to explore character development and storytelling through art. She was recently seen exhibiting in the metro alongside artist, Brett Early at Gamut Gallery in November 2012. Both illustrative painters, the pair showed a variety of characters and creatures in the show, Imaginarium. Gamut comments, “Renee [and Early] represents a bourgeoning esthetic that is transitioning from books, media, pop iconography into the realm of galleries. [She] remains true to the wonderment and jovial perspective drawn from childhood…as well as bold use of color and line, trading texture and detail for contemporary design and eye grabbing imagery.”

Currently, Kate Renee is a protégé in the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) Mentor Program. She is working alongside artist and mentor Jill Waterhouse for two consecutive years to develop her arts career. Kate has worked with Altered Esthetics since 2010 and developed the Solo Exhibitions Program during her internship. For the following two years, she mentored and taught sixteen artists professional and business skills needed for the arts world. Kate has also worked for Michael McGraw’s blog, Local Artist Interviews. This blog site seeks to allow artists to promote their work through artist written interviews. Kate has worked alongside Local Artist Interviews to build gallery relationships. She has also written numerous blog articles on the site to further assist artists with promotional skills.

Kate Renee has been a volunteer for the American Swedish Institute, and has worked at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Larson Gallery and taught workshops at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center.

Pictures include, “They Help Me Float,” and Kate’s recent exhibition, photographed by Marc James Imagery, at the Fine Line Music Café December 2012 for the Holiday RAWk! event. There she exhibited the six completed “Beauties Behaving Badly” works.

High resolution images available upon request. For more information, please contact Kate Renee at katerenee(at)katerenee.com

-END-

 

Kate Renee is a fiscal year 2013 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Vision Boards: Manifesting my Life Adventures, Artist Soul and Creative Passions through Play

January 14, 2013 in Accomplishing goals, Kate Renee, Strategic Planning | No comments

This past July, I began an intense seven day strategic planning session where I began to explore the idea of vision boards. I originally had the idea from the movie, The Secret. It was about how to manifest and attract what you want in your life. During my seven days of strategic planning, I did not have time to create vision boards while I was working on setting my goals but I began to research how vision boards are made, what you put on them and how they assist your desired endeavors. So, this December and January, I began with collecting magazine images, business cards, quotes, and small objects that I was drawn too to begin my own vision board project.

Passion, Kate Renee 2013

I began by making my own batch of modge podge by mixing Elmers Glue and a bit of water.  I had collected and saved many images and decided to sort them based on common threads. Eventually I decided I would make three boards: one for my arts career, one for my artist soul and one for my life activities.

Soul, Kate Renee, 2013

After layering all of the flat images, I painted the edges of each board a different color. I used color theory to help support my visioning. Blue is for my art career which symbolizes success. I titled the piece, Passion. Red is for my inner self and my artist soul which symbolizes passion and fire. I titled it, Soul. And yellow is for my activities and life adventures which symbolizes happiness. It titled this piece, Adventure. 

Adventure, Kate Renee, 2013

I reinforced my goals by hand writing them along the spines of the canvas and I also glued small charms and beads on each board.

Ideas and uses for these? Yep, these are right smack in the center of my studio. I have them propped up on my desk so I can take a look at them often. After meeting and discussing them with my mentor, Jill Waterhouse, I decided to make a fourth vision board. This vision board celebrates my achieved goals, celebrations and attempted successes. It will be a visual reminder to myself all that I have accomplished. My plan for this one is to be green to signify the “wealth” I have in the numerous goals and successes I have accumulated.

Have more questions about my vision boards? Comment below! Or share your own personal vision boards with me too!

Seven Days of Strategic Planning: Recap

July 9, 2012 in Accomplishing goals, Business Planning, Kate Renee, Strategic Planning, Tips | No comments

If you haven’t had a chance to read my blog post series called, Seven Days of Strategic Planning, then take a look at the tools, tips, and experiences I have blogged about for the past week. I have been busy strategically planning my art career this week and have balanced personal insight with tips for acheiving your own goals.

I talk about my process of brainstorming in Day 1. I share some of my proudest moments from the past year with my accomplished goals in Day 2. On Day 3, I share my list of categories for goals to help you make your own list of brainstormed goals be applicable to all aspects of your career. I have been interested in learning more about creative visualization and making a vision board in Day 4. I also teach how you can make your own goals more effective and achievable in Day 5 with specifying. I have photos of my time management tools and calendar tips in Day 6 for scheduling and accomplishing goals. And last but not least, Day 7 I share with you my major goals I and going to work towards in 2012-2013 and encourage you to share your goals with me!

Start with Day 1 and work through the next 6 blog posts to walk yourself through your own version of strategic planning.

Day 1: Brainstorming

Day 2: Reflecting

Day 3: Categorizing

Day 4: Visioning

Day 5: Specifying

Day 6: Scheduling

Day 7: Sharing

Seven Days of Strategic Planning: Day 7 Sharing

July 7, 2012 in Accomplishing goals, Business Planning, Kate Renee, Strategic Planning, Tips | No comments

Day 7 of Strategic Planning.

Share your goals with other people. People genuinely care about you and your career so why not keep them update on what you are doing with your career? Sharing your goals is also a great way to help keep you accountable. During this week, I have had a great time both blogging about my experience and sharing tools and tips to help other artists succeed at strategic planning. This year I have three major goals which I wish to share.

These are my three large and long terms goals for July 2012 – July 2013

1. Secure and implement a solo exhibition for my Naughty Disney Princess series during the 2012 and 2013 in an established art gallery in Minnesota.

2. Find a new studio space to work at that has space to paint, have an office area, and to store my art in a building that has additional artists in Minneapolis or St. Paul.

3. Draft news releases and send portfolios to bridal magazines about my wedding shoe projects for press and publication before January 2013.

I would love for you to share with me the goals you are working towards this year. Feel free to comment on this post below and throw in a few of your own career planning or goal setting tips too!

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