Let’s get right into this post with a short introduction to Marcus Aurelius and his great book, Meditations. All you need to know is that he was a philosopher and one of the best emperors of the Roman empire. For the time being, I’ll be breaking down his masterpiece for the sake of helping all who seek a peaceful and prosperous life. It helps me out on a daily basis and I hope you find it does the same for you. Here’s a thought from book three, passage 12 of Meditations.
“Do not waste the remaining part of your life in thoughts about other people, when you are not thinking with reference to some aspect of the common good. Why deprive yourself of the time for some other task? I mean, thinking about what so-and-so is doing, and why, what he is saying or contemplating or plotting, and all that line of thought, makes you stray from the close watch on your own directing mind.”
Does this seem like a crazy idea? Hell no! At least not to me it doesn’t. Spend your time thinking about people or things in a good way. Try to clear your mind of all stress and negativity. I was listening to a podcast on aging last week and It had a pretty amazing fact about centenarians (people who reach the age of 100). The only common factor that research has ever found on centenarians is that they all seem to have lived a relatively stress-free life, or maybe more accurately, they don’t let things get to them emotionally. Some of these people are even smokers and overweight. That should tell you something about stress and the toll it takes on your mind, body, and soul. I think we would all agree that your time and energy would be much better spent on the positive aspects of life, even if you don’t live to be 100.
If you take this as seriously as I have, you will even take steps to remove or limit interactions with individuals who add stress to your life, no matter how hard it is. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll do whatever I can to communicate and resolve issues with people and situations before I take the proper steps to move on. As I write this I realize that it sounds harsh, but I made a decision a long time ago to live a happy life, and being happy is actually a skill. It’s not something that’s easily achievable, especially during trying times. One of the most important things to remember is to be kind, always - whether the individual brings stress or happiness to your life. There are many individuals that bring happiness to my life, and I hope to reciprocate to the best of my abilities.
Alright, now that I’m done with this rant, I find it absolutely necessary to reach out to those of you who I hold in the highest regards, and who have consistently shown me the power of happiness. And if I didn’t reach out to you, try harder . . . kidding.
My brother-in-law, Robert, aka compadre, aka Kool-Aid Rob, paid us a visit from Colorado a few weeks ago with his family. I love this guy and whenever we’re together, like all of my close friends, love to have a few drinks while we hang out . . . Total bro-mance. Anyway, the reason I bring him up is because he’s always up for trying new drinks. I immediately thought of a Whiskey Sour, and it was perfect for more than one reason. First off, I knew he would like it because it's a drink on the sweeter side. Second, I knew he had never tried one before. The third and most important reason was because I make a legit Whiskey Sour, and that means using an egg white in the ingredients. I knew that when he saw me cracking the egg into his drink that he would immediately think I was playing a joke on him. It was perfect because this sum-bitch plays jokes on everyone.
“Who the hell do I look like, Rocky?” - Kool-Aid Rob
Now please don't let the egg white scare you. Its purpose is to add a beautiful frothy cap for the drink and it doesn’t add any weird flavor, whatsoever. The drink just isn’t as good without it. Hell, Kool-Aid Rob even ended up buying all the ingredients to make the drink himself once he went back to Colorado. You might even have some of the ingredients in your very home. A Whiskey Sour takes two parts bourbon, one part lemon juice, simple syrup, and one egg white. All these ingredients are combined in a shaker filled with ice, then shaken well to emulsify that good ol’ egg white. Strain the liquid gold into a rocks glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry, and if you’re feeling extra spunky you can even add half an orange slice! Serve it straight up if you’re a quick drinker or on the rocks if you like to take your time. You can also use rye (my preference) or even different variations of scotch in place of the bourbon. Get the recipe and watch my 60 second Whiskey Sour video by clicking here!
Now, like most cocktails, I recommend you make this yourself at home because most places will serve you an egg-less, syrupy, sweet atrocity, disguised as a Whiskey Sour. Unless of course you go to a legit place that pays close attention to detail and quality. So show your friends a good time and make them one or five of these the next time you have them over. You’ll be the rock star bartender you never thought you’d be and before you know it, you’ll be solving all of your friends’ problems over a night of drinks. Oh and make sure you drink responsibly because these tasty little bastards will sneak up on you. Enjoy!
If you didn't know this about me already, I love jazz. I also love classical, blues, classic rock, metal, old school rap, and even love all sorts of mexican music. Having an eclectic taste in music would be an understatement, but let's get back to jazz. The casual music enthusiast may know a thing or two about the jazz greats, but oftentimes I think people will only refer to Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. If you watched the movie Whiplash, you might even be able to name some others like Charlie Parker, Joe Jones, and of course Buddy Rich. The rest of the people I’ve talked to about jazz mostly say it's not for them, and that’s a nice way of putting it. Maybe it’s because they heard some of the more expressive and wild version’s like Free Jazz, and now they think of all Jazz as being this way. Free Jazz is a way for musicians to improvise and express themselves in a very chaotic and free flowing way. This means things like melody and harmony are thrown out the window. It kind of sounds like a competition between all the musicians to see who can stand out the most while somehow trying not to step on each other’s toes. It's definitely not for everyone, including me! What’s ironic about this is that it was created by my favorite jazz musician of all time, John Coltrane.
I recently posted a video featuring the song, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” The original version of this song was actually composed for Disney’s Snow White in the late 1930’s. Now that song title makes a little more sense, huh? Don't worry, that’s not the version I want you to listen to. I received a lot of messages and comments on how great the prince-less, dwarf-less, version I posted was. I’m glad that I could introduce people to such a beautiful art form that was once in its prime, but is now often overlooked, or even disliked due to the aforementioned circumstances in the first paragraph. The song I’m writing about, which you should definitely check out, is by my favorite jazz pianist . . . Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Dave Brubeck. He’s a brilliant composer and is highly regarded in the world of jazz. When listening to this song, enjoy the intro played by Brubeck and just wait for second 0:37 when Paul Desmond absolutely takes over with his beautiful saxophone skills. Make yourself a nice Whiskey Sour and enjoy this tune. You’ll be happy you did!
You may or may not know that I’ve been working on a huge woodcut of Miles Davis. It’s been taking me quite a long time since I’m carving it with a detail that I’ve never achieved before. It’s been a lot of fun and I learn something new everyday I work on it. You can bet your ass that this will be the only thing I’ll be working on for the next couple of months, unless of course something pressing pops up. Oh wait, something pressing did pop up . . .
I had a solo art show at the historic Murray Baker Mansion in my new hometown of Peoria, Illinois. My neighbor is actually selling the home, so he asked me if I would be interested in having a show there. At first I thought no because of the tight time frame, and I also hadn’t received my artwork back from my show in Saudi Arabia. I didn’t think it was going to happen. Luckily I got my crates delivered, and my team ran with the show! It was a fun night and a great way to meet more of my community, since I only moved here about six months ago. Read more about it in the “Perspective” section.
On Gatekeepers
This is the best possible time to be an artist or creative of any sort, and we have only one thing to thank for this, technology. The human race has never been more connected. You can reach a worldwide audience using something that fits in the palm of your hand, and this has only been the case for the past 12 years or so. It seems like it was such a long time ago, but it’s super recent! You can now easily video call someone and have a face-to-face conversation virtually anywhere on earth. You can post videos, pictures, blogs, memes, and countless other things on the internet, or at the ease of your smartphone, and anyone can see it in a matter of seconds. That’s pretty damn incredible if you ask me.
When I first had serious ideas of becoming an artist for a living I was in high school, and to put this in proper perspective, I graduated in 2005. Let's back up just a little further. I’ve been an obsessive artist my whole life. Like many artists, it’s all I wanted to do. As my skills progressed it was evident that art meant a great deal to me. I started getting my pieces in galleries and museums as early as the fifth grade, so from a very young age I was being indoctrinated into a system that made you rely on these museums and art galleries to sell your art. It all made sense at the time, and after all, world renowned artists showed their works in these places. My whole idea of profiting off of my art was predicated on the galleries . . . the museums . . . the gatekeepers. They decided whether you were good enough to show in their space, and let’s not forget the big chunk they take from your earnings if you do get in.
On average an art gallery will take somewhere between 40-50% of your money once a piece is sold. I know that no one should work for free, so the galleries should make something. They do have to pay for the real estate and all the other overhead costs of owning a brick and mortar operation. I’m definitely not here to tell you that you shouldn’t try getting your work in galleries. What I am telling you is that it's not the only way to make money. It's taken me several months to complete a single woodcut, and there’s something quite unsettling to me when someone says they’re going to take half of the money generated from a piece of art that I alone put hundreds of hours into creating. Why should they get the same amount or in some cases even more than you do? I get it . . . The gallery has the clients . . . The gallery could possibly get you more than you could on your own . . . It could also make you look more legitimate . . . These are all half truths and you need to internalize that, especially since they’re not the only game in town anymore.
So where do you go from here? One of the main reasons I wanted to write about this is because I want you to think outside of the box. Yes, of course you can sell your art at trade shows, art fairs, on the internet, and even social media. Did you know over 90% of my online sales are directly attributed to Instagram? Well, you do now, but that’s a story in and of itself. With the help of technology you have a ton of different options for getting your work in front of potential buyers, but I’m sure you already knew that. So how else can you sell your art? How can you make a positive impression? I happened to have a solo art show this past Saturday night and I want to share with you my crazy way of thinking.
My neighbor Tom is selling his family's historic mansion and he asked me if I wanted to show my work in it. I was reluctant at first because I didn’t know if I would have my pieces back from Saudi Arabia in time for his set date. Luckily enough, the crates arrived at my house with plenty of time to coordinate an art show in a private residence . . . in a town I just moved to just six months ago . . . where I can count all the people I know on both hands. I had a whole 21 days to make this show come together! Okay, now that I’m done being sarcastic, I can tell you this really wasn’t a big undertaking at all. I’m married to a woman who has her shit together and is willing to help me with any crazy idea I put before her. You can bet that she’s been helping me coordinate this every step of the way. We also flew out my Account Manager, Amanda, to help out with the show.
Those who know my wife Chelsea and I, know that we love to entertain. In Colorado we would regularly have parties with over 50 attendees, easily. We love hosting people and this was going to be no different. I knew if I said yes to this then we were going to do it right. We knew the show would have complimentary drinks and appetizers because Chelsea lives for these things. Just say the word cheese, wine, or charcuterie around her and she’ll be as excited as the day our first child was born. Tom also introduced me to a really cool lady that has an amazing voice. Her name is Judy Page and she’s a pretty big deal around here. She’s a jazz singer and has performed with the symphony. Need I say more?
Live entertainment, food, drinks, and art. All under the roof of a historic landmark in a beautiful neighborhood, my only problem now was that I had to find a way to promote it. Remember when I told you I’m new here and I hardly know anyone? Well I did have a few things going for me. Tom knew the Editor-In-Chief for Peoria Magazines and he had him look at my website. This turned into an interview and before I knew it I was in the March issue of the magazine with information about me and my art show. Click here to read the article. To add to that, the Peoria Art Guild and it’s two sister organizations helped me promote it to the art community. The Director of the art guild saw me speak at Bradley University for an art conference a few weeks ago and that’s how we met. I did that speaking engagement for free. I didn’t expect to get anything out of that talk at Bradley. What I mean is that I did it because I genuinely wanted to help the people I was speaking to, and I genuinely want people to find the success and happiness they are after. Like almost everything good that has happened to me in my career, karma handed me a person that could help me, and it all started with unselfish intentions.
There are many more details I could tell you about the things I did to promote this, but that’s not the point. The point of this whole damn thing is to show you how you could do something similar. I was lucky in a lot of ways. The few people I did know helped me out in a big way, but I’ll also attribute that to karma. I always try to do right by people, whether I’m getting something out of it or not. If you read my last post you’ll remember me talking about taking calculated risks and placing a bet on yourself to succeed. Between the food, alcohol, entertainment, framing, flights, and all of the extra miscellaneous costs involved, I spent a lot of money to have people look at my artwork. This was a risk I was willing to take because I knew I did everything I could to ensure people got there and had a good time while they were there. The worst case scenario for me was that I spent some money to give a lot of people a great evening out, even with the potential loss of money. There’s no sense in getting upset when you can’t control the outcome. All I can control is the effort I put into things.
The art show ended up being a triumph. We didn’t exactly keep count of the amount of people who attended, but it was somewhere between 150-200 people. Everyone had a great time! The outcome could not have been better. The spread of food and drinks got just as much praise as the artwork did! Amanda and Chelsea even had to decline multiple catering offers! We met a ton of incredible new friends, and they all expressed how much they loved the event. Chelsea and I told each other before the event that our only goal was to make sure people had a good time. Not only did we succeed in our goal, but we also sold a lot of art and it ended up being a very profitable event for us. Click here to see pictures of the event!
Take this example and start thinking outside the box. Without risk there cannot be reward. Do something new and bold, and above all else, do it to the best of your abilities. The only gatekeeper now is yourself. Don’t get in the way of your own success.
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Much Love To All,
Alex Carmona