Stay ConnectedArtists! Need some support? Strategies for navigating your life and your work? Accountability and deadlines? We all do! Here is a podcast for you.
Beth Pickens is an arts consultant in Los Angeles, California. She’s the author of two self-help books for artists, and for over 12 years has helped clients navigate the complexities of being an artist in the modern world.
Copyright: © 2020 Mind Your Practice
Ep 8. Yes, You’re An Artist
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I am here to tell you that yes, you’re an artist. And yes, absolutely, you ought to keep making your work.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
EP 7: Do Take It Easy
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will make a case for resting, which will only help your creative work.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Ep. 6 Your Greatest Resource
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will talk about your greatest resource as an artist: your creative community.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
EP 5: Adventures in Rejection
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will talk and talk and talk about rejection and how to make friends with it.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Ep. 4 Not a Ladder but a Continuum
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, we turn a ladder on its side.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Ep. 3 It Was Perfcet...
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will talk about the illusion of perfection.
******
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I surmise that it’s easier for artists to get success than to enjoy it. As usual, I've included homework!
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will consider the lies we are told about aging.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Beth's new book, Make Your Art No Matter What enters the world on this special day! The book is a Love Letter to artists, and so is this bonus episode!
---
Looking for strategies and support to build your projects and practice?
Join Join Homework Club at www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $15/month.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
__________________
Mind Your Practice is produced by artist and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
_________________
Our show image is by artist Jess Cuevas!
A *very special* crossover episode with Nicole J. Georges and her podcast Sagittarian Matters! Questions asked and answered! Foot Stuff! Beth makes a disturbing confession! And a reminder to pick up Beth's upcoming book, Make Your Art No Matter What (available April 6!).
NICOLE LINKS:
Listen to her new podcast, RELATIVE FICTION: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relative-fiction/id1557300926
Sagittarian Matters: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sagittarian-matters/id1084188765
---------
Looking for strategies and support to build your projects and practice?
Join Join Homework Club at www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $15/month.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
__________________
Mind Your Practice is produced by artist and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
_________________
Our show image is by artist Jess Cuevas!
Beth shares 3 lessons she learned while writing her upcoming book, Make Your Art No Matter What (available April 6!).
Looking for strategies and support to build your projects and practice?
Join Join Homework Club at www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $15/month.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
__________________
Mind Your Practice is produced by artist and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
_________________
Our show image is by artist Jess Cuevas!
Beth shares a Love Letter to Artists.
Looking for strategies and support to build your projects and practice?
Join Join Homework Club at www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $15/month.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
__________________
Mind Your Practice is produced by artist and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
_________________
Our show image is by artist Jess Cuevas!
Beth shares a Valentine's Day Love Letter to Artists.
Looking for strategies and support to build your projects and practice?
Join Join Homework Club at www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $15/month.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
__________________
Mind Your Practice is produced by artist and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
_________________
Our show image is by artist Jess Cuevas!
Welcome to a new year. It probably doesn’t feel much different than the last one and that’s ok. Let’s not put a ton of pressure there. You can have lots of new years, this is just one.
I don’t suggest resolutions but I do love all things lists. So here is my list for 2021: my Top Five Reminders to Strengthen Your Practice in a New Year.
Looking for strategies and support to build your projects and practice?Join Join Homework Club at www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $12/month through January 6, 2021.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
__________________
Mind Your Practice is produced by artist and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
_________________
Our show image is by artist Jess Cuevas!
To celebrate the end of endless 2020, we share an "extra credit" episode made for our beloved Homework Club Members in early December.
Homework Club offers creative people a framework for keeping their projects and practices a priority.
All for $12/month for those who sign up before January 6th!
For more information on Homework Club, visit MindYourPractice.com.
This month, your extra credit creative prompt comes from Mind Your Practice producer, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
For your vacation extra credit, you are invited to revisit, and possibly put to rest, the ghost of a previous project. I’m talking about ideas you briefly toyed with, or even obsessed over, and then - for whatever reason - didn’t complete. Often these projects were too overwhelming, too abstract, or too involved. You didn’t have the time. Or energy. Or budget. Or some combination of these factors.
I like to revisit these so-called ghosts in the Winter, here in the Northern hemisphere. It feels cozy and introspective, and is a low stakes way to exercise those creative muscles during a time of potential stagnation.
Your extra credit creative prompt is to consider an unresolved idea, and make the easiest possible homage to it.
For example: perhaps you choose to return to the novel you couldn’t finish (or didn’t even start?) - could you write a short story or essay based on the book idea? How about a poem?
Feel free to switch mediums, as well. For example, the performance that was never staged - could it find expression as an ink drawing? Or be distilled into a short choreographic phrase… how about a single gesture? Could the former concept album concept become one song, or jingle, or a simple, but satisfying beat?
Keep in mind, this is just an “extra credit” exercise - you don’t have to visit anything fraught or stress-inducing. You don’t have to share it with anyone. And it’s fine to feel a little sheepish at first when returning to unfinished business (I always do).
But I also find that the seed of the idea is often eager to express itself, even if it isn’t the epic (and daunting) form I initially imagined.
*SOMETIMES something magical happens - allowing these ideas to “do their thing” opens up psychic space, and I’ll get a surprising breakthrough in a completely different project.*
This is super bonus, not the goal. The goal is simply to keep your creative muscles flexing in a zero stakes context.
Good luck artists, or, rather, break a nail! We’re rooting for you!
With Love,
Carolyn
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Each month you’ll get:
Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Let yourself off the hook.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Our show icon is made by Jess Cuevas.
Announcing Your Practice in Perilous Times:
This Election Day is going to be stressful, to say the least. No matter how that day goes, I know this - you, artist, have to keep making your work. And that’s going to be weird and hard. I know this from the 2016 election. I wrote a whole book about it.
So, to help you stay focused and maybe take your mind off our grim presidential candidates, I’m offering an Election Day workshop for artists. It’s called “Your Practice in Perilous Times”, it’s on zoom at 4pm PST, 7pm EST - right during the sweet spot of the evening when you’re toggling between the news and 8 different social media platforms.
In this two hour workshop, I will lead you through a series of exercises to consider how 2020 intersects with your life and your art practice. Through a holistic approach that encounters all parts of your life, we'll find a concrete path forward through the rest of 2020 and make an intentional framework for 2021.
“Your Practice in Perilous Times” is free for members of my Home Work Club. To join, just go to mindyourpractice.com. It’s really easy to sign up.
If you don’t want to join Homework Club but you’d like to come to the workshop, it’s just $25. For more information, to sign up, and to learn about Homework Club, go to mindyourpractice.com
And if you can’t make that time on Election Day, you can still sign up and get a link to the recorded workshop. I hope you’ll join me! We’ll get through this together.
You can join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club here: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Ok, let’s talk about your homework. Complicated times call for uncomplicated solutions so it’s a pretty simple two part process.
Part 1, spend the next two weeks in a daily body practice of your choice. Mix it up. Try new things. Keep it low pressure. Just choose something every day that gets you into your body. See if you can connect to yourself from the neck down. Make a note or tell someone what kinds of embodiment and body-based decisions seem to help and which you don’t like at all.
Then Part II is some writing. Whether you use the questions I provided or do your own free writing, try to locate what is true for you right now. Not six months ago and not a year from today - right now.
Notice what is revealed and follow that.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Our show icon is made by Jess Cuevas.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Ok, let’s talk about your homework. Whether you need a break from some of your feelings or want a little help accessing any emotion at all, I think there are some simple strategies.
First, what’s up with you specifically? These days, how much pain and grief do you feel or not feel? Are you able to access pain and continue your day? It’s important to know how you’re doing and whether you are in touch with your individual grief and to what extent.
If you want a little respite from your real time pain and grief, I think regular opportunities for levity and joy are in order. For you, I recommend investing more in relationships that bring lightness and laughter to your life these days. You may benefit from a daily practice of a written gratitude list; maybe you share that list with a few of those loved ones who bring lightness to your life.
If you are feeling numb and emotionally void lately, then emotionally powerful art may be a helpful tool for dislodging what is stuck. Music, film, books, podcasts, art, movement, anything that has, in the past, facilitated grief for you may be worth revisiting now. Just to open the grief valve, and let some pain move through.
Finally, talking to other people in your life about how they are or are not feeling and processing their own pain is enormously valuable. When we can’t locate an answer within ourselves, often a loved one will bring it to us.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Ok, let’s talk about your homework. First, honestly assess your relationship to asking for help, receiving it, and giving it out. Where is there imbalance? Do you ask but reject offers? Do you only give and refuse to ask? Do you tend to ask but are unwilling to offer? What do you do to avoid asking for help? Just simply notice what’s true for you these days.
Next, is my favorite kind of homework - making a list. Create an epic list of all the ways you can help another artist. Maybe you have some highly technical skills using equipment or software. Or you can listen deeply. Or you can proofread other artist's applications. Maybe you’re good at the internet. Start this list and keep adding to it all the ways you can help other artists in your world.
Next, another list, my favorite! Start a list of what you need help with. Get really specific where you can. Keep it vague where you need to. Keep adding to it every day.
Now, the hard part. Today, yes the very day on which you are listening to my voice, ask three people for three different things on your list. Ask them what they need from you. Start the energy exchange of giving and receiving support.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
This episode’s homework is about living the principle that your art matters.
In the next week, I want you to write a letter to your creative practice as a whole, all of the work you’ve ever made and all the work you will make. I want you, in the letter, to express your gratitude for what your practice has done for your life and the way it’s helped you. You can make a list. You can send a gushing email. You can make a drawing. You can write a proper Victorian love letter with a fountain pen.
Next, I want you to clear out one more hour than you would usually commit to art making. Give yourself one more hour. If you’ve been giving yourself zero hours in recent weeks, then you can use this as an opportunity to go from zero to 1.
Finally, I want you to make a list of at least 20 artists who have made work that has been deeply meaningful to you. Any discipline, living and dead, anywhere across place and time. Celebrities, anonymous artists, someone you know and love. List all their names. Pick one of these and write them a love letter for their art. Tell them all about what you loved and why and what their work has meant to you. If you can and the person is living, send the letter to them.
And, please, tell me how it goes.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Our show icon is made by Jess Cuevas.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Ok, let’s talk about your homework. This episode’s homework sounds paradoxical but conflicting ideas can coexist at the same time.
First, I want you to think about your 40% capacity. What could you do in a day or a week in 2019? What does that look like if it’s reduced down to 40% right now - not forever, just right now? What can you let go of? What can become imperfect? Where can you have some help? What can be tabled until later?
Next, I want you to write a list of what you intuitively know helps you rest and recover and what you intuitively know is numbing out. Make two distinct lists.
Ok, now I want you to commit, in the next week, to a 24 hour period of no screens. If that’s not possible for some logistical reason, how long can you go? Try it.
Finally, I want you to build some creative practice space into your week, every week for the next month. Put it into your calendar, protect it in the shape of your week. Jealously guard it.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Ok, let’s talk about your homework. First, think about yourself in terms of showing yourself and sharing your work. Is this something you avoid? Do you want to do it differently, on new terms? Is there work you want to show more of? Is there anything you want to share less of?
Next, consider some recent work, any discipline, in which you connected to vulnerability and the willingness of the artist to share themselves. I just read the new novel Life Events by Karolina Waclawiak, which I loved, and vulnerability came up for me again and again in this story of death and disconnection. How does another artist’s vulnerability connect inside of you?
Then, imagine yourself as a conduit for connection through your work. What in your practice makes you feel vulnerable? Which projects? Sharing it where and how? Why do you decide to share or not share? Have this conversation and answer these questions with another artist that you trust.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
This episode’s homework is about living the principle that your art matters.
In the next week, I want you to write a letter to your creative practice as a whole, all of the work you’ve ever made and all the work you will make. I want you, in the letter, to express your gratitude for what your practice has done for your life and the way it’s helped you. You can make a list. You can send a gushing email. You can make a drawing. You can write a proper Victorian love letter with a fountain pen.
Next, I want you to clear out one more hour than you would usually commit to art making. Give yourself one more hour. If you’ve been giving yourself zero hours in recent weeks, then you can use this as an opportunity to go from zero to 1.
Finally, I want you to make a list of at least 20 artists who have made work that has been deeply meaningful to you. Any discipline, living and dead, anywhere across place and time. Celebrities, anonymous artists, someone you know and love. List all their names. Pick one of these and write them a love letter for their art. Tell them all about what you loved and why and what their work has meant to you. If you can and the person is living, send the letter to them.
And, please, tell me how it goes.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Our show icon is made by Jess Cuevas.
Get more advice on IG: @bethpickensconsulting
Join the Mind Your Practice Homework Club: www.mindyourpractice.com
Homework Club is for every creative person who wants deadlines and accountability! I mean, who doesn’t want that? Each month you’ll get: homework handouts, bonus audio content, access to a private members-only IG account, and a webinar led by author and arts consultant Beth Pickens. Just $12/month through 2020.
THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
Ok, let’s talk about your homework. I want you to think about these three basic needs for artists in your own life. How is your practice? How about your creative community? How full are your coffers? Where can you identify that a little tending is needed and how can you invite in what you need? If you think one or more of these needs are found wanting, make a plan for the next week. What is one simple action you can take? How much time can you reasonably commit to tending to these three basic needs?
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Mind Your Practice is a podcast for artists navigating the complexities of the modern world, hosted by professional arts consultant Beth Pickens. This season we'll tackle the question: Does my art even matter? We'll discuss strategies for focus and productivity, how to ask for help, why and how to show up and share your art, and so much more.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
