Ep. 21 - Navigating the Business Side of Art with Tom Neel

He's also a big gear head into cars and bikes and that was a big part of his past , and that is how Tom and I became acquainted is we're both into motorcycles . So , Tom , how are you doing today , buddy ?

I'm doing good Friday , eric's happy and you know , that's all it counts Right , have you had like a hundred mile ride yet today , tom , like you normally do .

In fact , I had this bozo behind me and a brand new Bronco that decided I wasn't going fast enough for him , so I just made him a tiny dot in my mirror in a matter of seconds and I think he was like well , what's this guy doing on this ?

So , anytime people see people on a scooter , they think they're a guy that's lost their license from drunk driving and they can't go over 25 miles an hour , and so I always have to kind of prove them wrong with my scooter .

I moved to California , in Southern California in the late 70s and then again in the mid-80s and one time in Connecticut . But the North Carolina factor was is that my wife and I were looking for something else to do . Or , as she said to me , I want to do something else .

And I knew that I meant I was going to be moving or getting a divorce , and I wasn't getting a divorce . So we looked around , but North Carolina was a place that we had vacationed a lot . So that's how we ended up in North Carolina .

So I could turn it into a longer story than it needs to be , but we moved here in 2019 , about six months before the pandemic happened .

I had the only divorced parents , not like you'd find today right . So it caused a lot of problems and learning things . But the one thing I was never afraid to do was work . So I worked as much as I could and one of those jobs because I love cars and I loved art , but one of those jobs was working with a friend of my brother's on his sea dragster .

So that gave me a taste into racing . And then when I got to 12th grade I probably you know I should say this I got saved at least by one teacher , a teacher named Mrs Heidelberger , because I was just crashing and burning and man , I'll tell you the power of one teacher .

She got a hold of me when I was just dying in English , brought me in and she had a class on journalism and I ended up writing for the school newspaper , had one of the most popular articles and found something of interest in a person that actually cared about me when my parents were yelling at each other and the whole place was self-destructing .

So for me , by the time I graduated from high school which was I would almost classify as barely I was a working guy . I went right to work on . The one thing I thought I could make money with was cars , you know , and so the first 10 years of my working life were all automotive related .

But I kept stumbling into just wonderful things like I started working with a guy on the finest collection of Ferraris there was in the country at the time .

They were owned by the man that owns Silvercraft Furniture Company in High Point , and I can remember things like if you all remember the original Thomas Crown affair with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen , she was driving a very rare 275 GT4 Roadster and I can remember driving that car to North Carolina , and so this collection today would be $100 million worth of cars

, and the guy that I worked for really taught me some work ethic about things . We'd end the day early and you guys remember Varsal , which you can't find anymore , but I would clean all the hoses in the shop and put them in a spiral on the floor and clean tools and stuff . So I learned to work ethic that I'd never really had before .

And at the same time there was a guy there with a funny car . So I started working on funny cars as a mechanic for those and , by and by , just different things that I did in the automotive industry . One day , unless I was going to tell the story a lot longer , I ended up in Southern California .

Number three or four guy at a family owned $35 million automotive suspension company and some people will know it as Rancho Suspension . It's a mere piece of what it is today . But there , all of a sudden , I was really .

Any business that I had learned along the way had sharpened itself right to that point and I'm in 150,000 square foot warehouse with train cars pulling up to the back and it was my job to sell lots of parts and that all worked great .

And so from that point on I said if I'm unhappy , I'm going after something I'm passionate about . I'm not going to die in a ball of stress over something I don't care about . And I decided right there . And then I was going to be a fine artist because I had wanted to be .

I wasn't going to worry about money because I had learned business and I just figured I'd apply myself more into the creative side of things . And there I went . I walked away from that job that paid great money . My boss couldn't believe I was doing it , but I moved back to Maryland and and painted day and night . And here I am today .

It was in a commercial real estate and I started working with him , Um , and through that met a couple other friends , uh , but one guy ended up being a guy named Douglas Jamal , who is still a real estate developer , uh , well known in New York , and he used to have a business called nobody beats the whiz , which was a huge .

I remember that $600 million electronics company .

And you know , the one thing I have to say to everybody is that lessons come along in life and sometimes it can be one person telling you one thing that it can change your life . Like Doug told me .

He said , um , always talk to the horse's head , because if you're not , you're talking to the horse's ass and I said wow , that's a great line , but it was really true . So I made sure that , as I moved through life , that I was talking to people that could make decisions and not people that had to talk to people that had to make decisions .

So as soon as you start intending to do something , it's funny how doors just open up and you're like on a walking along the airport , you're dragging the bags in them , bam , you hit this people mover and you're just moving along and the only thing that really really happened is that you intended to get some place , and so many people I talked to they're going

well , I can't make this happen . I go . Do you really intend for that to happen with this plan ? And they go well , and I go as soon as you're going well , you're not really sure you got to intend for it to happen .

I didn't get any back talk out of it , it was just a good vibe . So when I got to that place in life where life was stressful and for whatever reason , that job just was driving me crazy , it wasn't about people anymore , it was all about just numbers .

I turned back to art and from art that brought me and my wife Linda who has her own very interesting story , but she had built an art gallery ended up being the first person to sell my art From there . You guys will remember 1989 was an incredible year in business . 1990 was most certainly not . It was a little like we have today .

We had the Gulf War , we had the country run out of money and in our particular case , where the gallery was in a town called Leesburg , virginia , they started to build a parking garage as we went into recession and killed all the parking spaces .

But you know , that intention thing stayed with me and the largest fine art publishing company , of which we sold their prints and some originals for them out of the blue , asked us to come work for us , for them .

And so all of a sudden I moved to Connecticut I'm working for this huge publishing company and kind of found myself as an artist liaison where I was going to meet some of the best artists in the country helping them with business , while they were helping me with art .

I mean , again I hit that people mover in the airport and I'm just fired off again like a . I was shot out of a cannon . And so around 1994 , may of 1994 . And actually a bunch of those artists and my wife said you know , it's time for you to come a full time painter .

So that's even though I was painting and selling my paintings through that whole time never lost sight of that . That's when I started painting full time . I went , moved out and back to Virginia .

We had owned a second home there and I I basically told myself at that time you have $15,000 , I gave myself a mental $15,000 alone and I said after one year , if you don't have any of it left , you're going to go get a job and you move on , and that was , you know , a bunch of years ago . So you know , here we are .

I mean , it's sort of conventional wisdom , you know , I think you and I I told you once on one of our calls that my ex-wife and all her family were painters , and you know , the conventional wisdom amongst that group is , oh , you can't make any money as an artist .

What is it that you did that made you successful , you think , aside from being talented , I mean , let's just say that not everybody who's as talented as you are is as successful in the art business as you are . Let's just start with that assumption .

I think artists get a bad rap mostly because they themselves are not acting professional . They artist . Many of them by nature , want to hide under a rock and they want to lift the rock up and stick their hand out and grab this , check that somebody's dropped by the rock and pull it back under the rock .

And you know they're wallflowers and things like that and you know they have to understand that if your intention is to be an artist that's going to make a living , once you take $1 , you're in business . All of the rest of us that are in business or have been in business or help people with business realize as soon as that dollar comes in , that's revenue .

And now what are you going to do with it ? I mean , you know lots of businesses work for a long time before really revenue even happens . So if you're getting some money for your art .

You're in business whether you like it or not , and you better accept it , and I've often told artists especially you're naturally going to gravitate towards classes and education that teach you about art . Just please , for God's sake , take one business class , anything that will help you survive as an artist .

Just understand , and even if you're not good at business , even if you don't want to , then you need to acknowledge that you're going to have to have someone who is , because if not , you're not going to make it or you're going to be taken advantage of right .

So I used to talk to artists and they would be around talking at an art show or something , and I'd walk up and they would go we don't understand how you're successful , so successful . And I would say because I don't hang around you guys , I hang around people that buy art and they would .

They would all look at each other and and go , well , but that's what it was . So what when I turned and you know this wasn't something that happened overnight , but when I , my business was doing as good as it possibly could I invested in nice clothes , in a member of a country club , and the number one thing I created was not art , it was opportunity .

I looked for situations where I would be an environment where , hey , lots of business is done at a country club or find dining , restaurants and places like that have nothing to do with art , but you think of all the deals that go on .

This is where this is where business is done , and so , for me , I could either have a gallery , go and do it while I've owned a couple of galleries and I've directed a very large one To me if I was going to do this myself , I need to put myself out there . I needed to look like somebody that was living in a gutter and and I needed to be responsible .

And so that's the biggest thing , if and I it's I want everybody to know , let's just say anybody out there is a creative type . You can be an animator for Pixar and make a good living . You can be a fine artist , painter , you can be a photographer , you can be a website developer . It's still all going to come down to you .

Better understand how the business that you're in works , and you know or you will . You will fit it's . It's not a mean thing .

If you work for a company any company , any job your number one job when you get inside that company is to understand how revenue comes into that company , because the closer you are to that , the more you are protected and the less chance you're going to get laid off . When things are bad , they go lay off the mail room guy or whatever .

They're not laying off people that are bringing in revenue . At least at least understand how revenue comes into the company and if you're a small business , just a business of one person , never take your site off . How your revenue is coming in Right , it's not just dropping out of the sky .

My brain was on commissions and at times I would have a dozen commissions lined up and my average painting was $6,000 to $10,000 and I was mindful of customer service . That was all important to me .

I remember an artist one time saying to me . She said I've got this commission to do and it's making me a nervous wreck . I said why ? She says I don't know . I took it and I have to wrap my brain around it and everything . I said when did you take this commission ? She said well , it's been almost a year ago . I said you don't have a commission .

That horse is gone , you've already lost it and you've made it harder for people like me that really do follow through . If I did a commission for somebody , I told them when they were going to have it yeah , I made it them important and to understand If they needed something quicker . Then I would turn to my other customers and say this has occurred .

Can I hold you off a little bit to try to finish this project for them ? I did commissions for Lockheed Martin , lots of hospitals and things like that , but those people want follow through . For the most part , 80% of the artists out there couldn't do what I was doing because they really had to focus 80% on business and 20% on art .

I'm amazed we and I don't want to get into a political thing , but I'm amazed we live in a world where somebody that cuts hair , which is an artistic thing , needs to be licensed , but the president of the United States doesn't have to take a class on how to be the president .

You know , it's not a big deal , but we , we go ahead . Well , we artists never get to a place where they are required to think that they need to know anything about business .

artists painting business works , I never really even considered it . Like you know , I'm just you just kind of think of the ones that are famous and whatever that , the galleries , and you know it's just like , oh , there's only one in millions that could ever make a living in art , just like what we were talking about earlier .

Yeah , but I love what you said , though , tom . I mean that's so cool , like because it's it's true , because it's kind of I can kind of identify with that a little bit , because I did have a you were a photographer . A photographer and a creative studio . At one time I was behind a camera and behind the computer all day , design and trying to be creative .

And then one day I sold all that and it's like and I showed up at the country clubs or whatever . It started writing marketing plans and doing and making sales presentations . Yep , but you know , but I mean .

. So a quick question on that , though do you get some joy out of providing that service to the clients ? I mean , is that some way to like ? Does it express your creativity a little bit Like , do you ?

Yeah , I have to tell you , just as an example , I imagine there's a couple and this has happened to me and they've been married for 50 years you think about all the trials and tribulations , up and down , things , that they've had children , this and that and the other thing and they come to you and for their 50th anniversary they want you to paint a painting

to celebrate their marriage . Are you kidding me ? I mean , I'm like I can't believe it that these people went through 50 years of marriage and then they're asking me to paint for them and I've done this , as you know retirement gifts for people that started a company when I was born .

And I'm thinking well , this person started company in 1955 because I'm an old guy . And , and , and , yeah , and here they are years later asking me to paint to celebrate the occasion of their retirement or something like that . So yeah , I get a lot of that .

I never want anybody to think that I ever banged out a painting because of money , because I never did I worked on one at a time and put all my attention and love into it . I never want to think anybody that anybody would think that I never cared about art or didn't have a passion for it .

But I was a one man company and I had a product and the product is you know , you're either got a service or a product , and sometimes my me as a person was a service because people asked me to speak and do all those types of things . I did everything that I could do as a one man company . And now listen , my wife , linda .

She was part of the company too , but she had her own things going on . But it was really me making a product and I've had people . I'll tell you a great art story . We had a gallery and I'm not going to say the artist name in case there's any way I could get back , because I haven't .

I haven't talked to this artist in years , but he was a potter and he did this beautiful pottery with leaves all over and stuff like that . He came to the gallery with 20 new pieces that he was going to be dropping off to us and he put down this platter and then he he would go .

How much is this platter going to be this a long time ago , back in the late 80s . And he goes that'll be $35 . Nobody pulls this other platter out that look guys , I'm talking about pretty identical for a handmade piece of pottery . And I go okay , so two times 35 . And he goes what ? And I said what ? And he goes I can't believe .

He goes don't you see how this glaze move this way and that way ? And this happened and this happened . And I said I said yeah , but nobody that walks through the door is going to think that's 35 . And what do you want for this one ? He goes I want 65 for this one .

I picked up that piece of pottery and I handed it to him and I said I want you to do this . I want you to take this home and love it to death and when you're done loving it to death , bring it back to me and I'll sell it for $35 , like that one right there . And he looked at me dumbfounded but I told him .

I said you have to understand that this is not going to be seen . You're not going to get 100% more for this one over that one . So you know , all of these things are what I would like to tell artists if you really want to have fun with your art , learn about the business of your art . You'll find that it's almost recreational .

You love to paint and everything else , but don't despise business . Just understand that you can't . They're not these pieces you paint . If they're your children , hang them on the wall and enjoy them . You're not going to be a working artist .

But if you want to be a working artist , then all you really need to do is understand that you make in a product and learn everything you can about selling a product or a service Period . There's books , there's classes , there's all kinds of things .

But if you're going to fear it or you're going to be a wallflower to it , you're going to struggle way , way , way more than you need to do . That's all it is .

Aside from learning about business , which I completely agree with , I might have told you this before , but I used to teach a class here at the Fay Jones School of Architecture . The title of it was Everything they Don't Teach you in Architectural School . It was a lot of business stuff , because the architects are just exactly .

Yeah , buy nice clothes , go to a country club , but what else ?

I mean , I've gone to parties , guys , where people are walking around the room and this guy's a dentist and this guy's an artist , and they find out I'm an artist and they're glued to it and very often the thing that they say to me this is an indirect way to your question , mark , but people in general can be this way .

I've had many people smart people , wealthy people say to me I can't draw a straight line with a ruler , and I'll be at a party with them and I'll say all right , so we got to find a ruler . And they go what are you talking about ? I go well , we're going to get you over that tonight , right now . And they go well , you know what I mean .

And I go no , I actually don't know what you mean . I go nobody comes out of the womb . An artist , nobody comes out of the womb . You know a CEO , you learn these things . But if you just say to yourself , I'm not creative and I'm not that good , and you compare yourself , you're not going to apply to yourself what you need to to become good anyway .

So that's , I'd say that's the first thing you got to believe in yourself . Then you stand for something you know .

If you at the very least stand for yourself , I've seen artists at shows where their paintings on the wall and the gallery director wants them to be out , mingling and they're like stuck against the wall and sliding down and you know , not applying themselves . But the customers out there don't want to bite you , they want to love and hug you .

They think you're cool , they think that you , you know . I will remember one time I was at a show and there was a guy that had bought one of my paintings , or two of my paintings . It was up in Vermont and he said to me he goes , god , you know , I , your creativity is just so amazing to me , I , I just wish I had some of that .

And I go , what do you do ? And he said I'm an orthopedic surgeon . And I said whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa . I said so you're the guy like that .

When my mom broke her hip , made a nine inch cut down the side of her leg , cut off something that God or science created , put a new bone in there , realigned it and got her to walk straight again without a broken bone . I go how are you not creative ?

And he looked at me and he said he goes my God , I wish you were in med school with me , because all they teach us is protocol and no one has ever said I was creative . And I said , well , let that be done . Tonight I'm calling you creative and it was like I released this guy from prison . It was amazing .

Like being an artist , you have to work and apply and study it and practice it and go for it .

they actually do .

Yeah , no that's true .

too . It was saying you know , content marketing is the big buzzword today .

Okay , If you were selling truck parts , you'd be putting articles out about how you know performance stats and you know reliability and functionality and and the race , victor , whatever , whatever was related to these parts , and that would be considered content marketing and we use social media for that .

But what this author was saying is really , content marketing is dead . What really matters is the person . People want to get to know you , the person behind the content marketing , which is exactly what you're saying . Okay , and it doesn't matter what the hell you're selling .

But I can maybe predict that if I commissioned you to do a piece of artwork , you went out and you put your love in it and you brought it back to me and I was like man , I'm just not , I just don't , I just don't like it . You know I was wanting , expecting or wanting something else . I can bet you that you're .

You would probably try to find a way to make good and make that client happy because you're , because that's what you do . Am I right on that ?

Go on when people are saying , right , so I'm listening to all this kind of stuff . But I said , yeah , I need to get some answers about this , this and this . And she was always like , oh well , I got to go , I'll call you back . And she wouldn't call me back .

So when the painting finally got done , her husband loved the painting , but she didn't love the painting . And so here I was , I invested all this time , and the husband's like honey , I love this painting . And she's like this is not what I wanted .

And I will tell you , gentlemen , I said you know what you're going to have to figure that out , because every time I tried to talk to you about these things , you went in a different direction . You didn't want to talk to me . So that thing with the customer is always right . Your customer , my customer right now is your husband .

He seems to like the painting . I'm going to have to walk away from this one , right , but those cases were were so incredibly rare that I you know , I just chalked it off that this is the kind of thing that's going to happen . So you know , but for the most part I've been over backwards for people .

Okay , my guess is , knowing you and how meticulous you are with every single thing you have and how serious you are about your commitments to deliver things on time , my guess is that your work area is pretty clean , you're organized and that you have certain times that you work instead of just any time . Am I right about that ?

So writing for me as a battlefield and my brain can be three sentences ahead of where I am trying to fix a word that something comes out S , m , e , t , h and then I'll spell it and then the next time I spell it a completely different way . So for painting , yeah , I kept pretty clean .

I wasn't one of those people that always had paint all over my pants and stuff like that . Part of that also is a health issue . I don't think it's good to have pain around your to the polls and things . So you know , I'm a little like that .

So I might paint for 45 minutes , go look at an email , come back , paint for an hour and a half , go away , look at it . I might be painting at 10 o'clock at night . I might be painting at four o'clock in the morning .

You know I lived on a big piece of property and had to mow a lot of grass and so if I needed to mow the grass on Tuesday , I'm gonna mow the grass on Tuesday and paint . You know I'll do it another time .

So we're flying along and he's talking and doing all this kind of stuff and , and after a while he tells me this story about his father . He says my dad's got a pretty high pressure job and he goes when he can't take it anymore .

He has a helicopter flying to our farm in the end of Rondax and he gets on a bush hog and he bush hogs until he can't push hog anymore . I said , wow , that's amazing . And so I said he got , sounds like he's a mover and a shaker . And I go by the way , we haven't introduced ourselves which your name ? And he goes .

My name is Ed , ed Merrill , and my father is Merrill of Merrill Lynch . My mother is Lynch of Merrill Lynch and I went what ? And I never knew that . The reason the Lynch family , like if you work for Safeway , she is the heir to Safeway and that's why , when you work for Safeway , your retirement is in Merrill Lynch , because of the connection there .

So and he was actually the guy I caught him on the way to was in charge of what they were going to do with Stapleton Airport in Denver when they closed it down to open the new Denver Airport . So we he was just on a business flight , but I was there you go , merrill . I mean Merrill's out there when he can't handle it , he's bush hogging .

I grew up next door to Roger Reini , who's the one who started Scott trade , and my dad gave him books to read , like you know , sloan's book and Deming's book and stuff like that , Because Roger would talk with him when he was young . Of course , now he's a billionaire .

You know he's in poor health right now , but anyway , it is funny how those those people his dad was a lawn cutter , roger senior was always out there on his gravely tractor with the pipe hanging out- of his mouth , and he lived to be 100 years old cutting grass . But anyway , tom . So so where do you go from here ?

I mean , how long are you going to continue doing what you do ? What are your plans at this point ?

I don't want to over plug this book , but I think this book is just a good book for people that have gone through life and they're missing creativity and they want to put creativity back in their life . It's kind of a guide to that . So Live an Artful Life . You can find on Amazon under my name .

You know , and I bet you , there's so many folks that just tell themselves no right out of the gate .

And I said to him I go boy , this is unfair , isn't it ? Sometimes ? And he goes , hey , listen , it's that everybody can't be successful . And I said , well , if they wanted to , maybe they could , but that's just not how it works . So anybody listening to me right now that happens to listen , you could be a successful person .

I have met people like this who paint . But they are . They are very important and successful people and they even go I don't know how to convert it from my retirement into being a painter and like all the stuff that you did to get you to this point . You're going to have to do to get to that point . But don't think you can't .

You just have to intend to do it and care about it . Now , out of that , it might be one in 100 , it might be two in a thousand . Whatever it is , some people will do it and other people , I'm just convinced , are not going to do it . They're going to be actors and actresses that wait tables and it's that's what makes the world go around .

But if your intent were doing it , if you really , really want to make it happen , you can't sit there and put your hands over your face and go . I hate business . You're not going to make it . You're just not going to make it . You're going to have to care about it .

Yeah , like you , can you ?

A lot of people are just afraid to price things . You know , pricing is so critical . I was talking to a guy that's in the music business .

I'm going to say , hey , you want to play at the show ? And if you don't ever bring up to me that you charge , I'm never going to say anything to you ever .

They go and they play at some venue , whatever it is coffee shop , whatever you want to bring up winery , whatever what I'm talking about with understanding revenue , if I'm that person , I'm going to do everything in my power to understand how many people have to come in there for that for me to get paid .

I'm going to understand what makes a good night a bad night for them . I'm going to be part of the solution , not part of the problem , and I'm going to say listen , if I can , if I can bring more people in , will you pay me more money ?

I'm going to ask for it and if the person says , well , you know , $200 is all I can pay you , I go well , listen , I would go out on social media and I would blow this place up if I can do it . But if you don't care about me , I need to find somebody else . It's a give and take , but you have to understand their business . If they're paying you .

It's about vendors and contractors and partnerships , employees , what everything he talks about earlier . Tom . It's all everyone has to be aligned to that vision of creating that and driving that revenue .

And if you can find a way to do that , which just sounds like exactly what you've done over your career , is like you've , you've basically have been able to put yourself in the shoes of your client .

Yeah , which you know , I think when we were talking I was talking about that a little bit at your class the other day Yep , there's an innate ability and I think this might be from a creative mind to visualize the pain points that your clients are going through , or like from the hospitals , like can you visualize what they're saying they need , and see the

hallways and see how all this flows together and what they're trying to accomplish ? You know , maybe at hospitals are trying to let let patients kind of feel this comfort or their families feel right peace and you know , and if you can dream that up and you meet that expectations .

But that means you've gotten in line with their business Right , Exactly With their , with their , vision Sometimes .

I drive to his house , he introduces himself and his significant other and we go in and we're talking about the paintings that he needs . But we're in a big room of a big house and there's a bar sitting there and a little time goes by and then all of a sudden a chink happens in the in the armor and he goes . He goes .

You know , I really want you to do this . He goes . I'm going through this stuff , he goes . I'm going through a bad divorce and my , my son's really mad at me and and all of a sudden he opened up . So by the time it was over , the two of us have been sitting there talking for three hours drinking beer at his bar .

Nobody's plastered , we're just two guys talking . And I said hey , listen , I came from a divorce family before . Most people did . Be honest with your children . They already know something's going on . Just be straight with them . And all of a sudden I wasn't selling art , I was just being a good guy . Right Over the next two months .

This guy did , just over the next two months , $40,000 worth of business with me and that guy , okay , okay . That guy called this summer and said , tom , I'm going to be down here at the low . He's an equestrian too and just sold his companies and and has the big jet and the whole .

Well , he just sold his company for $1.1 billion . Okay , that guy doesn't need Tom Neil in his life , does he Well ? But you know what , when he was down in the dumps , I was a guy that just cared about him , and I still care about him today , more than I'd write him to check back to stay his friend . You know , he's just a great guy .

So sometimes when you're doing business whether you're an artist because it doesn't matter whether you're an artist or whatever you never know when you walk in the door what the opportunity is going to be . But be open to it . Be open that on the other side of that door I'm going to go and they called me and told me to come here .

On the other side of that door is opportunity and I'm I'm be happy about it . Walk in there with the enthusiasm that this is going to be great . I had a customer one time call me and say I want to come by the gallery and some paintings because I have an interest in the commission or something . I said fine .

He came by and he says , well , I like that , I like that , I like that . He picked out seven paintings on the gallery wall and my gal and he said I said well , I'll bring anything to your house just to let you see what you're looking for . He says you'll bring these seven paintings . I said , yeah , I'll bring the seven paintings .

I came home with one painting what ? By the time it was done , we moved that painting from there and this painting from there and took this down off the fireplace . I had one customer that , after buying thousands of dollars worth of artwork , they built a new home and she said you're the only person I trust to hang artwork in my house . I'm good at that .

I made myself good at that . I hung shows for people . People hang it too high .

I provided a service that had nothing to do with being a painter , but the reason they wanted me to do it is just because they liked me and trusted me and believed in me , and I believed in them and all these people just they remain my friends , and so that's how it works . Sometimes I know I don't want everyone to sound easy , but it's all doable .

But you have to apply yourself and intend to be successful .

Now , as far as doing work going forward , I'm still doing some paintings , but I'm doing less and less of it , more and more writing , and I've had a good life and so I'm not . You know , I don't need a gallery or anything like that . I'm okay Financially . I'm I did okay .

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