58: Bodlar Deathbringer on Being a Prolific Creator, Networking and Marketing Your Art, and Overcoming Your Fears

Bodlar Deathbringer is a visual artist living in New York City. Since early in his life, it seemed like he was destined to become an artist. His father was a visual artist and his mother was a writer. He also started creating his own paintings when he was eight years old. So it would seem odd that Bodlar went into IT work.

After years of working in the corporate world, he finally decided he had enough. He decided he would move to New York City to pursue his art career full-time. It hasn't always been easy, but Bodlar has been working as an artist ever since.

In this episode, learn about the challenges you face as an artist, the importance in marketing and networking, and why you need to confront your fears.

Here are three things you can learn from Bodlar:

Work Hard and be Prolific

No one has any illusions that life as a full-time artist is easy. Bodlar believes you must want it. ""It's hard. It's really hard, and it's perpetually terrifying. You know, you just always have to be on point. You have to hustle. You have to be self-motivated. You have to really want it."

When you are working a 9-5 job, there's a certain comfort there. But when you are working for yourself, things are different. "The reason it took me so long to get out of IT work is that you get addicted to that level of comfort of having that regular paycheck. It's very hard to look in the face of the world and say 'No, I'm going to do this other thing and go off the beaten path..."

The key is to constantly create. Bodlar creates 600-700 pieces a year, and that's without the comfort of his own studio. While most artists believe talent is enough, he believes in the power of being prolific. "In order to be a successful artist, you really have to be prolific."

As an example he brings up the fact that most famous artists are prolific creators. "Any artist you can name off the top of your head got there because they were prolific and worked and worked and worked their ass off to get there."

Network and Market Your Art

Another thing Bodlar believes in deeply is the importance of networking and marketing your art. People won't find you unless you put yourself out there. "As a visual artist, half of your job is marketing and networking and that people aren't going to come to you just because you painted a pretty picture. You have to go out and show it to them and find the right person to buy it. And I've always painted under the auspices of painting what I want to paint and then going to find someone who likes it, that wants to buy it."

You can't just wait for people to come to you. You have to go to them. "You have to get into the scene. You have to figure out who the important players are. Who are the important galleries? Who are the important artists? And just go to as many events as you can and network with as many people as you can."

It's all about being visible. You can't be afraid to share your work with others. "You have to be visible as an artist. You have to go out and figuratively grab people by the collar and say 'Hey look, I did this. This has merit. It's interesting, and really get in people's face about what you're doing.'"

Overcome Your Fears

When I asked Bodlar what separates someone who makes the leap from their 9-5 IT job from someone who doesn't he talked about overcoming our fears. If we want to live a life without regret, we have to make that scary leap. "Our life, our society, our world are typically controlled by fear and jumping off of that cliff into the abyss of art is probably one of the most terrifying experiences I've been through in my life and it still terrifies me to this day, but I finally realized that if I don't do this, If I don't take that leap, that it's going to kill me... and I don't want to be one of those people that wakes up when I'm sixty-five and realize I wasted my life doing nothing."

He believes many people never make the leap because they're afraid of discomfort. "I think people are just very afraid of discomfort. We have this evolutionary precept to where we want comfort. We want to be comfortable. We want to have abundance... We want to have all of those things, and so, it's hard to balance those things, because when you're starting out, they're very much at odds with one another."

He also has no illusions that our fears and struggles will ever go away. We just have to be willing to deal with them. "Even if I'm selling tons of work, and making tons of money, I'm still going to be worried about what's next. There's still going to be newer, bigger, struggles to tackle and I think that's one of the other things that a lot of people don't realize that no matter where you're at in life it's going to be a struggle. It's always going to be hard and that if you're afraid of it being hard, then you're never going to get anywhere. You have to be willing to say, 'Okay, this is going to be hard and then go out and do it anyway."

More shownotes from episode 58 with Bodlar Desathbringer