(Transcription)

All right, everyone. This is Ann Rea coming to live from San Francisco, California. And this is Sherry. Sherry’s one of my students. And she is here today to have a little chat about her experience and she’s going to stay away from the speaker. So we don’t get feedback. We might have some technical issues, everyone. Please forgive us. We are not technical experts. So what I’d love to know Sherry. So real quick, where do you live?

Sherry Beckstead: (00:28)
I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Ann Rea: (00:31)
Okay. And I have a lot of Canadians. Isn’t that interesting? So what I’d like to know is before you joined the program, what were your top two challenges and what is it that you wanted to achieve?

Sherry Beckstead: (00:50)
My top two challenges were, I would say number one was finding my niche market. And number two was really marketing myself. Like, cause I had no idea how to do that.

Ann Rea: (01:08)
And what is it that you wanted to accomplish when you came? Not that you’re marketing yourself, Sherry. Cause you’re not for sale.

Sherry Beckstead: (01:17)
Yes, I guess my other.

Ann Rea: (01:19)
That’s right. Okay. So what, what did you want to accomplish before you joined? You wanted to accomplish something? What was it?

Sherry Beckstead: (01:30)
I think I just, I wanted to put myself out there and be an artist. I just — that’s what I wanted to do other than my full-time job.

Ann Rea: (01:48)
What did it mean? What did that, like, what did you imagine it meant to you to like be? What did it mean to you to be an artist and to be presenting yourself in the world as an artist? Like what did that mean to you? Why was that important to you?

Sherry Beckstead: (02:03)
Because it gave me an escape from being deaf.

Ann Rea: (02:13)
Gave you an escape from being deaf? 

Sherry Beckstead: (02:13)
Yes. It was hard to put into words. It’s– it’s allowing myself to be something more than what I am, because to be deaf is to be self-limited in some capacity. And it’s just, it’s my way of being. I don’t know how to say it.

Ann Rea: (02:43)
Yeah, no, it’s okay. It’s hard to find words, like why do we want to do this in the first place? I mean, oftentimes people around us will think we’re nuts. Like, why are you doing this? Like, why is this such an obsession? Why is this so important? But I get it. I think what you’re saying is like you don’t, when it comes to the visual world, you don’t have any, you don’t have the same barriers that you do in the world of, of hearing, right? Yeah. You’re like free of that for in, in this realm. That’s a good reason. Okay. All right. So, um, I guess my next question is like, let’s just say If nothing changed, like you just kept doing what you were doing,

Ann Rea: (03:31)
You know, and you didn’t make any changes. Well, how do you think that might’ve affected you personally to just continue down the route you were going, not making any investment in yourself or, or learning how to sell your art?

Sherry Beckstead: (03:45)
Um, again, I think it would be just, they would keep me in a place where I couldn’t open up. Yeah. Yeah.

Ann Rea: (04:01)
That’s the, I mean, that’s really, I think the value of art, right. The artist opens up, they open their heart, they open their mind and it’s an invitation for others to do the same.

Sherry Beckstead: (04:13)
Yeah. I want people to see me past my hearing disability. I think that’s

Ann Rea: (04:22)
Which they are right now. Anyway. Sherry’s so, you know, we’re all looking at. Okay. So what’s, I guess the next question is like what, what’s the one part of the program that’s made the biggest difference for you so far?

Sherry Beckstead: (04:45)
Um, meeting people and learning different aspects and different variety and like it’s broadened my horizon gave me a different perspective on how people view things and it’s just, and it’s opened me up. Like it’s almost like therapy,

Ann Rea: (05:09)
Well, artists therapy it’s used for therapy. Of course. Well, you know, as, as I teach, you know, the product is, we’re not selling goods or services or product is actually emotion. So yeah. I can be like, music is therapy and dance is therapy. Right. So why wouldn’t visual? Why wouldn’t fine. Art be therapy. Of course it is.

Sherry Beckstead: (05:33)
Yes. For the,

Ann Rea: (05:35)
For the maker or the viewer. Really. So, um, okay. So what I’d like to know is, all right, so let’s talk about some of the results. So before we go into the story that you shared in our Facebook group, and I want to back up, actually, you were talking about meeting other people. So in the making art, making many program, my students don’t try to have to tough this out by themselves. They have study partners of their, and they can have as many as they like. And so a lot of them learn new things from each other. They gain insights and they make friends because it’s, uh, can be a lonely journey being an artist. And now a lot of artists tend to be introverted. So that’s how we, that’s how we solve that.

Sherry Beckstead: (06:17)
Yep.

Ann Rea: (06:19)
So what’s that like, what’s the one thing that’s made the biggest difference for you before is besides like study partners. What’s another thing that has made a difference for you so far,

Sherry Beckstead: (06:36)
How to put this into a business perspective, because I had no idea how to do that. Right? Right.

Ann Rea: (06:47)
You’re not alone. You’re not alone. So a lot of artists want to sell their art, but they don’t have a business perspective and selling anything automatically. It’s a business. And if you don’t, you don’t believe me, just ask your taxing authority, they’re going to be looking for their share

Sherry Beckstead: (07:02)
Of your sales. Yes.

Ann Rea: (07:05)
You don’t believe me, believe me. That they will inform you that you are, uh, oh, some taxes for those sales. What? I knew this minister here in San Francisco and he always used to say, it’s on his quote, but he always say the two things that are inevitable are death and taxes.

Sherry Beckstead: (07:23)
Yeah.

Ann Rea: (07:24)
That’s going to happen. All right. So let’s talk about like, so you started your prototype project and by the way, if you don’t know what that means. So in my, in my making art making money program, my students, the ultimate goal is to identify your niche. And what I mean by your niche is it’s knowing, it’s not thinking it’s knowing who wants to buy your art. It’s knowing why they want to buy it. And it’s knowing where to go find more people just like them. So in making art, making money program, we have this final project that we call the prototype project. And during that project, my students either sell their art or they don’t sell their art. And either way is actually okay, because for the first time they’ll learn it quite, um, quite more depth, why they have sold their art and why they haven’t. And then they can make adjustments. And then they can understand who wants to buy their art, where to go find them. So that’s that’s so Sherry just started her first prototype project. So tell us what happened, Sherry. You said you met with somebody in the, and then what happened?

Sherry Beckstead: (08:31)
Um, we just started talking, I gave the, told her about my mission and I asked her if it had any value to her conversation that we were in, she yeah. She said, yeah. She says what you intend to do to help people is priceless. So this is amazing. So,

Ann Rea: (08:53)
Okay. So think about that. Like, so you have, you have someone who’s basically said what you’re intending to do with your offer. Okay. Is priceless.

Sherry Beckstead: (09:09)
It was like blown away.

Ann Rea: (09:11)
That’s pretty good feedback. So do you mind if I brag on you and just share what you wrote? Is that okay with you? Yeah. Sure. All right. Let me see if I can find it. Cause that’ll be the challenge. Um, I’m just going to brag. I’m going to brag about Sherry. So Sherry wrote in our private Facebook group, I just finished my prototype project. It was super incredible. We connected on every single level. She loved my mission and said, the added value I was offering was priceless. I have a future commission with her. Once she finishes her studies, I have my verbal agreement and things are set. This was so incredibly awesome. I was super nervous and she helped me through it and was so sweet and understanding. And she also said, if she thinks of anyone, she would definitely refer them, which is important because that’s where you’re going to get your niche developed just through those referrals. And then you said I’m on a cloud, I’m on cloud nine right now, feeling fulfilled and appreciated. Woo-hoo I love, I’m going to read this one out loud. I love you. Analysed with Ray. You wrote that.

Ann Rea: (10:24)
But I, so that, I mean that, does that feel good?

Sherry Beckstead: (10:27)
It feels amazing. Or it was just like, wow, this is working.

Ann Rea: (10:32)
Yeah. So your alternative is to write an artist’s statement and try and beg and plead to show your art inside of a gallery or schlep all your art to a show and pay the expensive fee to get into attend that show and then to set everything up. So like, look, if that’s the way you’re doing it, that’s cool. I just want other artists to know there’s an alternative. That’s easier. That’s breezier that feels better and that where you make more money.

Sherry Beckstead: (11:06)
That’s definitely amazing. Yeah.

Ann Rea: (11:11)
And you’ll probably, you know, get referrals from, if you made her feel that good Sherry at some point you’re, I mean, I would lay money down. You’re going to get some referrals from her.

Sherry Beckstead: (11:20)
Oh, actually today I did another prototype project last night. Yeah. And again, it went amazingly, well, just super we’re both connected again. And it was, I just, it was, I just didn’t know. I felt so alive for the first time in a long time. It was amazing. And anyway, it was a person that I work with actually. And she talked about it with somebody else at work. And I actually got a commission.

Ann Rea: (11:58)
Nice job. Look at you. Wow. All right. So I’m do you want, do you mind, would you like to share your mission? You want to give it a go?

Sherry Beckstead: (12:11)
Oh sure.

Ann Rea: (12:14)
No. Everyone knows. So my, I do, I tell my students not to try to sell themselves because no one’s buying you first of all. And uh, I try what we teach is how to serve a mission. That’s greater than yourself. And if, if you look back over history at the most successful artists, like every like major artists, they all had a personal mission. That was not about their art. Okay. So I just want to be clear. It was not about their art is not about them. So Sherry, what what’s yours.

Sherry Beckstead: (12:45)
So my mission is to remind people who are either physically, mentally, or as myself, sensory impaired, that you are still connected and no matter how disconnected you feel. Wow.

Ann Rea: (13:05)
So I can feel that one and I can feel like I get goosebumps. So I know when my students have landed, I don’t even have to go any further. It’s the goosebumps test. And why is that important? Why is that important? Because as artists, our job is to inspire. And as artists, our product is, we’re not selling goods. We’re not selling services, we’re selling emotion. And so if you’ve studied business or sales or marketing, I want to assure you and you still like, I still don’t get it. I still have trouble. You’re not alone. I’ve had many MBAs come through the program. I’ve even had our Harvard MBA come through the program. And they’re super smart, very well educated. They just didn’t understand their product. So if you imagine, if you don’t understand your project, your product, how well are you going to do selling it? So, so it doesn’t surprise me. You got two commissions go in and it’s just going to go from here. So I guess one last question I’d like to ask you if someone was like sitting on the fence and they weren’t sure about applying to enroll and maybe you were there at some point yourself, maybe you were sitting on the fence. Jerry, I don’t know how long can you sit on the fence?

Sherry Beckstead: (14:19)
A year, way too long,

Ann Rea: (14:25)
Way too long. So what would you, so let’s say someone was sitting on the fence. What would you honestly say to them?

Sherry Beckstead: (14:32)
Don’t wait, like you have to do this because it’s going to change your life. It just is. And so many raves. I like, I did teared up just thinking about it. So

Ann Rea: (14:48)
I’m just so happy to hear that. That means, like, that means a lot.

Sherry Beckstead: (14:56)
Well, you’ve met a lot to me and I keep saying it and put it over there. So yeah.

Ann Rea: (15:03)
Well, thank you, Sherry. I’m really proud of you. I love your mission and I know it’s important and I know it’s real and I know it comes from your life experience and you are going to touch a lot of people with it.

Sherry Beckstead: (15:19)
Yeah. So I’ve heard, so I hope so

Ann Rea: (15:22)
When you’re already doing it. So just keep going. Just keep going. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share. I think this was great. I’m like I said, I’m really proud of you. Just keep going, just keep doing what you’re doing. There’s a reason why you found this program. There is a reason why you experienced what you’ve experienced in your life and that’s so that you can serve this greater mission. That’s what I believe.

Sherry Beckstead: (15:49)
I’m living that too. Cool.

Ann Rea: (15:52)
All right. Take good care. I’ll see you soon.

Sherry Beckstead: (15:55)
Thank you. Bye bye.