How Artists Can Make Steady Income From Their Art | Kristy Gordon |

Timestamp	Summary
0:00	Intro and Guest Introduction
1:02	Guest Background and Path to Art Career
3:20	Evolution into Managing Art and Business
4:27	Creative Block and Finding Artistic Voice
7:01	Social Media and Business Strategies
8:57	Establishing Multiple Income Streams
12:49	Technical Difficulties and Regaining Connection
14:26	Importance of Proactive Approach
19:50	Increasing Art Sales and Recommendations
24:22	Managing Time and Content Creation
27:45	Utilizing Help for Social Media
29:51	Guest’s Current Projects and Closing

00:00.86
Charuka Arora
Welcome to the podcast, Christia. I’m very excited to have you today.

00:04.57
Kristy Gordon,
ah, Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.

00:07.98
Charuka Arora
I am so grateful. And you know today, I have you for a very specific reason. you know This is generally not how you know um I’m looking at guests. But with you, it was a different case. With Ask Two Hearts, we were following your work. And while Alison, who is also our podcast PR coordinator, um reached out for your profile, I was like, I would really love to ask Alison a lot of questions. as an artist myself, but also for so many people who I know, you know, how is she doing what she’s doing? Like, you know, specifically the business side of her business, um the business side of being an artist. So you I have brought you specifically so that you can tell us what’s going on and how are you doing what you’re doing. But before that, let’s get to know you first. Right.

01:02.19
Kristy Gordon
Excellent. Yeah. Well, I’ve always wanted to be an artist. Ever since I was a kid, I’m sure a lot of people listening can relate to that just always having like a passion for art, but I didn’t always know that it was an art art career option. So growing up as a child, I was told that it was a good decision to become an artist. You know, one couldn’t really do that. So I went into animation instead initially because it seemed like a path where I could like be creative but still have a paycheck. And that ended up kind of leading me into becoming a full-time artist actually because one of the studio owners was actually the first artist that I had ever met.

01:38.67
Kristy Gordon
He was ah an oil painter like showing in galleries and it was the first time I’d ever met an artist who was mobile

01:39.09
Charuka Arora
so

01:43.42
Charuka Arora
How old were you by then?

01:45.33
Kristy Gordon
I was 24 at the time and it like blew my mind to actually realize that it was an actual possibility.

01:46.91
Charuka Arora
How old were you?

01:52.20
Kristy Gordon
So pretty soon after meeting just man Philip Craig, i um yeah became ah I sort of just dove right into it and started doing oil paintings and selling them in galleries and left my animation job.

01:52.97
charukaarora
couldn

02:04.07
Kristy Gordon
And so I always say I found my way in through the back door to becoming an artist, a fine artist.

02:11.24
charuka Arora
wonderful so okay did you always think you you would be um you were a creative child did you always imagine that way

02:20.78
Kristy Gordon
Definitely. Yeah, I everything like all I ever wanted for my birthday or Christmas was art supplies. All of my fun things to do involved art. So I always wanted to be an artist and my mom had been artistic. So I grew up in an artistic family. aen So it was yeah, it was definitely my passion, but I just didn’t know that you could make a living off of it. And that’s why I’m so excited about our call.

02:40.84
Charuka Arora
out of it.

02:42.97
Kristy Gordon
You know what what we’re going to be talking about today is how to make a career out of it and make it, you know, be something that we can actually do.

02:49.72
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

02:50.78
Kristy Gordon
yeah

02:51.22
Charuka Arora
Yeah. But before I ask you that, did you have like a lot of artists say, Oh, uh, a lot of people who think who are creative also have this misconception specifically before that, Oh, if I’m creative, I don’t know how to run a business. Um, or I don’t know how to monetize things, or I’m not good with numbers, or like those things. Were you someone who was, yeah you know since the beginning, you were you know you were interested in both ends of the spectrum, or has that evolved for you?

03:20.93
Kristy Gordon
it’s evolved. And really naturally, I don’t think I think if we think about everything that we might have to do as artists, we might get totally overwhelmed. But if you just do it one step at a time, and, you know, you create a body of work, and then maybe you make a website, and then maybe you make, you start sending out emails about what you’re up to, and you know, and then maybe you start submitting to galleries. And once you get into a gallery, you learn how to make a consignment to agreement. And, and so it’s just one baby little step at a time. And all of a sudden you realize you’re like running an entire business.

03:47.38
Charuka Arora
Oh my goodness.

03:51.40
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

03:52.94
Charuka Arora
Okay, as you tell me something, um is there a turning point for you? One um turning point for you where you found like, you know, a lot of artists struggle, like anything, like, you know, it’s like, you’re working on a maths problem, and you’re working at it, at it, at it, and suddenly you hit a point and you feel if you you feel like, oh Now I know how this works or what I need to do next or what the concept of this thing is. oh Was there any time in your own creative career in business where you were struggling um like and it changed for you?

04:27.06
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

04:30.69
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, there was a really big turning point. It was more on the creative aspect of things.

04:35.13
Charuka Arora
Okay.

04:36.26
Kristy Gordon
I felt really blocked for like a number of years and I just I didn’t feel like I had found my artistic voice and I had seen other people like find their voice easily and you know, get into top galleries and just have your art career take off. But it just wasn’t like happening for me. And I knew I always wanted to be an artist so I couldn’t understand why. So I wasn’t painting like months would go by and I like couldn’t work. And I mean, honestly, years went by and I was barely working. It was like a struggle for years. And then one day I kind of got this like resolve that I was going to like figure this thing out and like find my voice. And I almost feel like it was like,

05:14.24
Kristy Gordon
You know, some other, some like higher power like came to me and kind of guided me and I wrote down like a list of five things that I would do every day that would like, um I just knew as I did it that they would help me find my voice.

05:24.75
Charuka Arora
Help you.

05:27.74
Kristy Gordon
So it’s actually things that I teach in my visionary artist master program and that’s written about in my upcoming book that’s available for pre-order, but I’ll talk about that later. But so there was like five, five things that I did every day

05:35.89
Charuka Arora
Let me do.

05:40.81
Kristy Gordon
One was daily brainstorm like brain brainstorming with thumbnails where I would just do like a little scribble practically of an idea for a painting in my sketchbook. And then the other, and you know, I also started to do brain dream writing is what I call it, but it’s basically what Julia Cameron talks about morning pages where you just write three free flowing pages.

05:56.49
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

05:59.94
Kristy Gordon
And I started to do intuitive paintings where you just kind of follow your first gut impulse. You kind of let go of making a ah good painting and just I talk about I have some YouTube videos about intuitive painting, but it’s really powerful. And I started to read an article about art every day, like an art in America or something to kind of keep my knowledge up about what’s happening in the art world. And then the most important actually was painting for twenty five minutes a day. And that’s what broke me out of the creative block. I started to paint every single day for just twenty five minutes.

06:28.41
Charuka Arora
Okay.

06:31.47
Kristy Gordon
And it sounds like a ridiculously small amount of time, um but it actually like it was it was small enough that I could like do it because painting was almost like torture at the time.

06:35.00
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

06:43.39
Kristy Gordon
And then at the end of the day, I would sit back and realize that it was actually starting to look better.

06:43.58
charukaarora
yeah

06:47.55
Kristy Gordon
And it started to build momentum. And then with that five step framework, I finally found my voice broke out of the creative block. And and yeah, that was about 10 years ago. And that leads me to where I am now.

06:56.57
charukaarora
I love how simply you’ve broken that down.

06:59.32
Kristy Gordon
Aw, thank you. Yeah.

07:01.82
Charuka Arora
But that means something. um I got this part. ah ah What happened next? um you know When I look at you today, a lot of people have questions. like you know um I am being consistent with social media, but I don’t know. I’m not making progress. I’m making work regularly, but I’m not having sales. I don’t have the time to start a YouTube channel or I’m very tired of creating content or I don’t think I can write a book or like, you know, i I don’t know what to teach or I don’t know how to make money as an artist, let alone create several different income streams.

07:29.12
Kristy Gordon
Mm

07:45.57
Charuka Arora
How let’s let’s talk about this aspect of the business.

07:49.82
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, well, I think my main theory is just doing things in these little baby steps, like the 25 minutes a day of painting kind of became a whole way of thinking about everything so you know in terms of like creating content say for Instagram or YouTube which right now I’m practically doing both at the same time I just post a reel on both of them you know yeah I just you can post short content videos now on on YouTube and that kind of can get that algorithm very slowly going it’s actually a very difficult algorithm for some reason I find but anyways um but just these teeny little baby steps so and just daily you know well I post on Instagram like three times a week so having

08:29.86
Kristy Gordon
specific goals, but broken down into baby, baby little steps so that it’s like really manageable. And then, um you know, investigating like what needs to happen to really like optimize these things. So with Instagram, there’s some like concrete things that we can do as artists that will help you you know you know the Instagram algorithm. And one of the things that I would really suggest to everyone is actually to take a course from this girl, Dina Brodsky. She is the Instagram wizard, and she’s the one who taught me everything that I know.

08:57.01
Charuka Arora
Yes.

09:01.33
Kristy Gordon
And it was after taking her class and applying everything.

09:01.42
Charuka Arora
Oh, wow. We’ve had been a lovely, lovely friend and she does something she’s on the podcast.

09:06.41
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, she’s amazing.

09:07.89
Charuka Arora
She’s been on here.

09:09.59
Kristy Gordon
Yes, she is absolutely amazing. And it was once I learned from her, like exactly what we need to do, you know, in terms of the algorithm and following her emails, because sometimes the algorithm changes and then she’ll tell us like what um so that we’re kind of working efficiently so that we can just make like a little bit of effort on a regular basis, but that it’s like um really focused effort.

09:20.54
charukaarora
Yes.

09:32.65
Kristy Gordon
So Yeah, making reels that are like have something really exciting happen in the first one second, you know, keeping the real short to like, say 15 seconds or even less 10 seconds, just like concrete things that are like proven to work and have a payoff at the end, maybe a reveal of the full painting or whatever.

09:38.42
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

09:50.16
Kristy Gordon
um Yeah, and then and then it kind of goes the same with the other things like it could be overwhelming to think of all the stuff that we need to do. But if we just make I like to have a list of like three things to do each day and Yeah, so like sending out an art email like an email or an update is a really useful thing to do where you know have a ah base of people that you email anyone who’s ever been interested in your work and just keeping them updated about your work.

10:08.89
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

10:17.48
Kristy Gordon
um It’s amazing how um this act of like kind of showing people the successes you’re having will actually like pull them to you and you’ll find after sending out an email or an update, you might get a request for a commission or like someone interested in buying a painting and um yeah that those those sort of things. I think there was actually quite a few questions in there. I think I’ve like left, I’ve forgotten a bunch of them. Was there anything else that you had mentioned about in there that I haven’t touched on?

11:04.48
Kristy Gordon
Can you hear me?

11:13.72
Kristy Gordon
um Can you still hear me?

11:47.96
Kristy Gordon
That’s weird. I’m frozen? Huh. Really? arms Um… I’m not sure why.

00:00.90
Kristy Gordon
Hey, can you hear me now? Oh, that’s strange.

12:49.34
Charuka Arora,
we would finally go

00:05.67
Kristy Gordon
Okay, so I don’t know when it cut.

12:53.29
Charuka Arora
um sorry i took right

00:09.52
Kristy Gordon
Oh, that’s okay. I don’t know when um it cut out.

13:02.94
Charuka Arora
I didn’t start again.

00:18.34
Kristy Gordon
Okay.

13:07.25
Charuka Arora
Okay, it’s, it’s recording.

00:24.80
Kristy Gordon
Okay.

13:11.00
Charuka Arora
Okay, since I didn’t drop, it’s recording. Perfect. So we did drop in between. You were saying that it was also the little steps that you took, ah the 25 minutes that helped you.

00:35.88
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

13:24.76
Charuka Arora
like And you were also speaking about Dina Brodky’s Instagram

00:42.82
Kristy Gordon
Right. Right. Yeah. So with the business aspect, I still apply the same thing that I apply to my creative career where I really like to do 25 minutes a day. Well, or just baby steps basically of like little teeny doable increments that’ll move you towards your goals. So With Instagram, I just post like three times a week. And it doesn’t take that much effort. And I also do like research yeah into um the best ways to make it most optimized. So I would really like suggest to everyone, actually, there’s this amazing woman, Dina Brodsky, who teaches classes on Instagram.

14:01.23
Charuka Arora
Oh.

01:17.56
Kristy Gordon
And she’s like the the wizard of Instagram. And I took classes from her and learned from her how to do the best. Is that a phone?

14:11.75
Charuka Arora
the

14:14.35
Charuka Arora
Can you hear me?

01:29.42
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, I can hear you.

14:17.14
Charuka Arora
Sorry. Sorry. Yes.

01:32.45
Kristy Gordon
Okay.

14:19.17
Charuka Arora
Okay, but also something, tell me something. What about, um

14:26.24
Charuka Arora
there’s one thing about, there’s so many artists I still know, have millions of followers, but still fail to make a money making career out of it, right? There’s a whole hamster wheel of content creation. um And also artists struggle with, you know, a lot of time it feels like an unpaid job where you’re constantly creating content, but don’t know how to monetize that. um what are your um What is your experience with that?

02:07.93
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, it takes being really proactive with these things and having multiple streams of income is really the best way to go. So for me, for example, I have like income from commissions and come from painting sales and galleries and then like teaching classes and what else? um I’m trying to think if there’s any, there’s various streams within that like of of the classes. Yeah, there’s different classes that I teach in some with companies and some privately taught. um And so I think as artists having multiple streams and different, there’s different ways to go. Some people will have like an Etsy store or will sell prints of their work. I haven’t actually gone that way, but that can

02:46.26
Kristy Gordon
you know, be really good. There’s also Patreon. So there’s it’s there’s so many options of different streams of income that we can have, and it’s good to have a few so that when, you know, say the painting sales go down for a little bit, you still have other sales like, you know, other income coming in in other ways. um And then, yeah, just being, like I say, really proactive, like with the painting sales, one thing that can actually help a lot is actually to send out email art updates. So add everyone who’s ever been interested in your art to your email list. And every month or two months, or you know, every now and then, maybe even four times a year, send an email to all of your people and just let them know everything that you’ve been up to. So if you’ve been like in any shows or if you’ve

03:29.40
Kristy Gordon
you know if you’ve had like won any awards or anything like that obviously like send out that information but even if you have no concrete news like that you could send an email that’s like oh I just finished this painting here’s a little bit of what’s it about what it’s about um and I find that the

16:27.01
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

03:44.78
Kristy Gordon
there’s a way that by doing that it’s actually sort of sharing our successes with people and the more it looks like we’re kind of successful as an artist the more things will come to us so you’ll find after sending out an email like that it’s like not uncommon to get someone you know inquiring about a commission or interested in buying a piece of art um And yeah, and then with then, you know, of course, teaching classes is a great way a lot of artists like make one of their streams of income by teaching classes and having a good social media account can really help like, you know, help people find you and connect with your work and, and you can start to share information like I do these color mixing videos on Instagram that I find to help like people sort of understand color and then they

17:12.77
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

04:30.72
Kristy Gordon
they can relate to the way that I teach and then they’re interested in like taking my classes. There’s this idea out there which is really true that like it’s good to give first so if you want to like yeah sort of receive like in terms of making money off of classes to give content. And we have such a good opportunity to do that with all the social media these days. Yeah, so it’s good. It’s so it’s so worth it for us as artists to actually put the time into the social media. I’m glad you asked about that because it’s such an opportunity for us to like grow opportunities actually for for ourselves.

17:44.68
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

05:05.68
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

17:53.78
Charuka Arora
what What would you say has been apart from I’m not going to talk about painting sales, because we will talk about that separately.

05:14.40
Kristy Gordon
Yep.

18:00.58
Charuka Arora
What do you think? What are the top three other revenue streams that you would recommend for artists to build a more sustainable and profitable or something?

05:22.22
Kristy Gordon
Yep. Totally. well i was what What was the last thing you said?

18:15.90
Charuka Arora
or what’s your own favorite and what has worked for you.

05:33.46
Kristy Gordon
Definitely. Yeah. Well, I think that it’s um like teaching classes is a really good way to go so ah you’ll find that most artists like teach some form of classes and I know early on I started to just even rent like a room, you know it and just start to put up posters at coffee shops and stuff like that and of course like email my email list and And very early on, a you know although I had had some training and stuff, so I had something to teach, but you can start to get people you know interested in coming and taking a class with you. And you also actually learn a lot from teaching. like You learn, of course, how to teach and you learn

06:11.17
Kristy Gordon
It kind of helps embed your own theories into your mind. like you know I remember at people always asking me, how do you mix a shadow color?

19:00.61
charukaarora
Yeah.

06:17.96
Kristy Gordon
And eventually, I was like, that’s actually a good question. I should really like find a good answer for this. And it helped my work get better, because now I know for sure how I would mix a shadow color.

19:08.58
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

19:11.27
Charuka Arora
How to do it.

06:26.80
Kristy Gordon
you know yeah ah so you know And you can also like teach um like you know more of an intuitive approach if yeah if a person is like feels like they don’t have and enough skill sometimes someone who actually has quite a bit of skill but is just starting out as an artist feels like they don’t have enough skill to teach and you can there’s always something you can teach like a person could teach more of an intuitive painting approach or they could teach one of these drink and draw type of things or you know there’s like so many like There is a way that they could find something to teach.

06:59.12
Kristy Gordon
I really i really think so. So to organize a class and get that going is a really good income stream.

19:50.05
Charuka Arora
Yeah, but one that’ not thing sometimes you can just, you know, also bring together people that also brings a lot of, you know, if you’re someone who’s able to facilitate community or host events or like, um do something like that.

07:15.07
Kristy Gordon
Totally.

20:04.11
Charuka Arora
What is your number one but top three recommendation is somebody wants to increase their art sales, particularly art sales.

07:18.25
Kristy Gordon
Totally.

07:25.10
Kristy Gordon
increase their other audience. Other art sales, I definitely actually like it can’t be overstated how important the email art updates are. I find a lot of people that I work with are afraid to like send out an email.

20:23.93
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

07:41.10
Kristy Gordon
They are afraid to pester people. But people can always unsubscribe or just ignore the email.

20:31.75
Charuka Arora
yeah

07:46.34
Kristy Gordon
It’s really not a problem. But sending out those email art updates is actually, I would say, the number one way to like increase your art sales.

20:34.32
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

07:54.90
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

20:41.17
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

07:55.93
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

20:42.71
Charuka Arora
and Okay.

07:57.63
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

20:44.90
Charuka Arora
Now, um how do you deal with managing so many things as an artist. There’s something that a lot of artists struggle with, and they feel like, I do not have the time to manage YouTube, to creating content. And how do you deal with creating content? how What’s your outlook with that?

08:17.30
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, I definitely think it would be overwhelming if we like overthink about all the things we need to do, but every single day I just try to do a little bit on my business and a little bit on my actual art. um Just a teeny little bit normally I’ll write down like three things that I want to do each day You know ah three small things three doable things and I just make sure to do that and it’s amazing how much Momentum these things can build like it might feel so small But the little things all put together end up creating like a really big impact on how much we’re actually getting done So that’s really how I deal with how I do it just these little teeny doable baby steps but every single day so that there’s always a some movement forward.

21:38.33
Charuka Arora
yeah

08:59.78
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

21:46.73
Charuka Arora
What has been something particularly challenging that you feel challenged by or that you struggle with and still do?

09:08.43
Kristy Gordon
Well, it is hard to create like enough content sometimes. And I actually like re share the same content quite a bit because it’s like, sort of a lot to have to like, create new content. But I know the algorithms like would prefer that I create new content. So that’s a little bit of a struggle.

22:09.42
Charuka Arora
yeah Yeah.

09:25.07
Kristy Gordon
And for me, I’ve opted. it’s like I know the algorithm also likes if we just post regularly. So it still appreciates, even if I’m just reposting stuff. And that kind of makes it you know it kind of fills in the gap so that the algorithm doesn’t start hating me, like Instagram and YouTube, I mean, and TikTok too. And yet I can still have enough time for my own creative practice and all the other things, ah like the business side of art as well. Yeah.

22:39.02
charukaarora
I love that. What is that one piece of advice you would like to give for anyone who is struggling with creating income streams from their art, making money from their art, or selling their work?

10:05.13
Kristy Gordon
Well, what I always basically tell the artists that I work with is a lot of the time, like our fears are actually standing in our way too. So a lot of the time, like just taking the steps, make a list of all the things that you can do and just like do them and just know that you’ve you can get your mental check mark for having done them and sort of release the worry that like whatever you hope the outcome will be like one way or the other even if it doesn’t turn out to be what you want like instead of basing success on the outcome based success on you took the actions that you need to take and so you know you’ve done your part and the rest is up to the universe because I find that so often there’s some level of fear that’s actually stopping us especially from things like submitting to art shows or art competitions

10:51.30
Kristy Gordon
You know, we’ll just be so scared.

23:37.47
Charuka Arora
How has that helped you in your video?

10:54.36
Kristy Gordon
Well, for me, I early on started to submit to galleries and I always had this approach where I would just send out 10 submissions all at once and just give myself that mental checkmark like, yes, success, I did it.

23:52.79
Charuka Arora
Done.

11:07.88
Kristy Gordon
And then, you know, what happens is you normally get about nine rejection letters.

23:57.79
Charuka Arora
Yes, yes.

11:12.06
Kristy Gordon
for every 10 that you send out. So I would just like receive those rejections with glee, you know, like, check, check, check. And then one out of the 10 would be like a success. um Yeah.

24:09.28
Charuka Arora
Yeah, yeah.

11:25.34
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

24:12.62
Charuka Arora
And okay, do you have any, a lot of time, another big part of running a business is budgeting our business.

24:22.10
Charuka Arora
Knowing where to put money, how to manage your money, how to know how to plan my finance, even, how would you say about that?

11:45.77
Kristy Gordon
Well, I think since it’s so integrated with my life for me, it’s not, I don’t necessarily think of it. It is a business. It truly is, but it also is just like my life. So I don’t know. I just, I actually don’t put too much thought into that. If I’m like low on money, I’ll probably. spend less, but if there’s not a big constraint, then I’ll just, i I mean, one thing I won’t do is like pay for these like exhibitions that cost like $1,000 or something. Like I would never suggest to anyone the vanity galleries yet.

24:58.91
Charuka Arora
and do highal

12:15.48
Kristy Gordon
So I wouldn’t suggest that, you know, normally I would only spend like $45 or $50 for an entry fee.

25:03.24
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

12:21.94
Kristy Gordon
um

25:08.49
Charuka Arora
yeah

12:22.70
Kristy Gordon
But other than that, I don’t, I don’t really like how too many like limits on, I mean, I just don’t go overboard and I don’t actually know.

25:11.77
Charuka Arora
Yeah. Yeah.

12:30.37
Kristy Gordon
I kind of stay within the middle line for all of it. Yeah. yeah

25:21.13
Charuka Arora
I feel like there’s also someone who’s like um tuning into your rhythm as much as you can and see how it goes.

12:41.71
Kristy Gordon
Totally. Yeah, totally. Yeah, exactly. Kind of following your intuition is a big part of it.

25:32.57
Charuka Arora
Oh, what is your mantra? You know, you do YouTube videos. You also have a great Instagram following. What is your own mantra when it comes to creating content? And what is ah what is the most comfortable brand? A platform that you would suggest if someone’s starting out and aiming to grow.

13:03.97
Kristy Gordon
Well, right now, actually, I would probably say Instagram. I don’t always follow all the changes in Instagram as well as Dina does, so Dina would be able to tell us for sure. But as far as I can tell right now, it’s easier to grow ah with a small account on Instagram than it used to be. um

26:07.13
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

13:21.34
Kristy Gordon
And it’s actually making it a bit harder for some of us with larger accounts but to grow. but But I think right now it’s actually a good time to to be able to grow on Instagram. Yeah, TikTok, it used to be really easy to grow. I’m not so sure anymore. where that’s at. But Instagram is a really good one. I would say Instagram is the most important one for artists too, just in terms of it having this purpose of bringing in opportunities for ourselves, whether it’s like art shows, you know, I’ve had art galleries reach out to me, I’ve had lots of commissions and painting sales, and um I got like a big commission from Doritos.

26:43.16
Charuka Arora
Oh wow.

13:57.87
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, so so so many things that can come to us and mostly from Instagram, I would say. And then the other ones, you know, what I do right now is I just post the same reel on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, like, because why not?

26:49.10
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

26:54.29
Charuka Arora
You too.

14:09.49
Kristy Gordon
So you can just actually do the same content on all three and get them going.

26:56.90
Charuka Arora
Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Absolutely why not?

14:15.20
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, why not? I have I have someone who helps me post on all three, so it doesn’t take me too long.

27:06.79
Charuka Arora
Really, that’s an important part that we often don’t speak about is that you can can help.

14:20.89
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

14:25.00
Kristy Gordon
Yeah.

27:12.53
Charuka Arora
That somebody can help you.

14:27.16
Kristy Gordon
Totally. Yeah, totally.

27:14.95
Charuka Arora
um all of these how’s your How’s your experience been with that?

14:31.89
Kristy Gordon
Totally. Amazing, actually, when it was actually, um I was like, realizing that I should just post the same reel on Instagram, TikTok on and YouTube, and actually Facebook too. And then I was like, this is taking so long to just repost the same thing. Like what I need is some teenager who can like do this for me. And my friend had a teenager who wanted to get her first job. And she is doing it for me now. And so I hired her and I pay her, you know, weekly raid or whatever.

27:45.62
Charuka Arora
Then

14:59.89
Kristy Gordon
And she posts on all of the three other platforms. I post on Instagram and then send her the link so that she can duplicate sort of the content like in the others.

27:48.78
charukaarora
she reposted.

15:10.55
Kristy Gordon
um And she’s amazing.

27:57.05
charukaarora
Yeah.

15:12.09
Kristy Gordon
And the other thing is she’ll like, like teenagers really understand algorithms. Like they know these things.

28:02.66
Charuka Arora
Yeah, social media.

15:18.26
Kristy Gordon
So she’ll look around on TikTok and send me some really good like content that’s like trending, you know, and be like, oh this could be like something you could try and oh, and she’s really good at choosing music on TikTok like I’m a bit too old for TikTok so I might think it’s a good mut song, but it might not really be what TikTok thinks is a good song but she’ll find really good music and yeah she’s good yeah sometimes people are better than we could be at it like she’s better at you know yeah yeah yeah

28:08.18
Charuka Arora
References. Yeah. Yeah. Yes,

28:30.25
Charuka Arora
yes absolutely. and You know, this is, I think this is an amazing insight because you know, a lot of times we feel like we have to do everything. There’s nobody who can do this meal rather than me versus if you find out a way how you can keep your voice as an artist, but find someone who can multiply that for you.

16:02.50
Kristy Gordon
Definitely.

28:48.63
Charuka Arora
That could actually be a great formula.

16:05.54
Kristy Gordon
Definitely, yeah, I think that’s ideal when we can do it. At first, it was hard for me to let go of that control since I had been doing everything myself for so long.

28:58.94
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

16:14.54
Kristy Gordon
But having hired Mackenzie for this, I realized she’s definitely doing better than I ever could have.

29:00.51
Charuka Arora
Yeah.

16:19.30
Kristy Gordon
So yeah.

29:08.29
Charuka Arora
Oh my god, Chrissy, this was so fun.

16:25.10
Kristy Gordon
Aw.

29:11.10
Charuka Arora
You were so real and true, and I really did enjoy it. But we’ll keep it short and crisp. I hope a lot of people have taken away some amazing insights. But can you also let me know about a few of your projects? You know, we know your book, and you have a YouTube channel and anything else that you want to share with us, and we’d love to support you with it.

16:44.67
Kristy Gordon
Hmm, definitely. Yeah, so I just finished writing a book last year, and it’s available for pre-order now. It’ll be coming out November 5th. Before it’s actually published, if people order a copy of my book, which is about $20, they’ll also get access to a free online course on color and composition, which is worth $160. And people can sign up.

29:51.36
Charuka Arora
wow, that’s the steal for everyone and

17:06.24
Kristy Gordon
Yeah, so it’s a good discount. And so they can sign up at KristiGordonCourses.com. So it’s just K-R-I-S-D-Y-G-O-R-D-O-N. courses dot.com. And if you just scroll down to the book, there’s a link there where you can pre-order the book and get free access to the class. And yeah, and then I regularly teach workshops on, like, painting the eyes, the nose, the mouth, so you could always sign up for my email, you know, list through ChristiGordonCourses.com to get information about that.

30:16.12
charuka Arora
Wow, that’s a steal for everyone.

17:34.32
Kristy Gordon
And once a year, I teach the Visionary Artist Master Program, which is such an amazing program. It’s the one that walks people through the Five Step Framework that helped me find my artistic voice, and it’s such a powerful program. It’s been so amazing to see the transformation and the people and the artists that I’ve worked with in their work and in their careers after it. Right now, on ChristiGordonCourses.com, you can sign up for the waiting list to be notified when Vamp 2025 opens.

30:47.28
Charuka Arora
Perfect.

18:02.47
Kristy Gordon
Yes.

30:48.96
Charuka Arora
I will make sure all the links Christi has mentioned are mentioned in the show notes in the article on our website. We’ll add Christi’s amazing work and links and everything. So make sure you go to the website and visit it and check out Christi’s work and all the links. Thank you so much, Christi. It was so nice talking to you. I really appreciate this.

18:26.37
Kristy Gordon
Thank you so much for having me. It was so good to talk to you too.

31:16.24
Charuka Arora
Same here.

18:31.55
Kristy Gordon
Me too.

31:17.58
Charuka Arora
I hope to see you soon again.

18:33.87
Kristy Gordon
Talk to you soon. Bye.

31:21.20
Charuka Arora
You have to stay home.

About the Guest(s):

Kristy Gordon is a Canadian-born artist based in New York City, known for her enigmatic and thought-provoking paintings that explore power dynamics and envision new futures. She earned her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design in 2011 and her MFA from The New York Academy of Art in 2013, where she is now an adjunct professor. Gordon’s work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, the U.S., Europe, and China, including prestigious venues like the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona and the National Academy Museum in NYC. A three-time Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant recipient, she has also been awarded residencies and apprenticed with renowned artists. Her paintings are in over 600 collections worldwide, and she is represented by Grenning Gallery, Garvey|Simon, and Studio Sixty-Six.

Episode Summary:

In this episode, artist Kristy Gordon talks about the business side of being an artist. Kristy shares her practical tips for creating a steady income through various channels like commissions, painting sales, teaching, and selling prints. She emphasizes the importance of smart budgeting and avoiding expensive exhibitions that don’t offer much value. Kristy also dives into how social media, especially Instagram, can help artists grow their audience and attract new opportunities. By understanding social media trends and repurposing content across platforms, artists can maximize their reach. Finally, Kristy talks about the importance of continuous improvement, staying inspired, and giving back to the artistic community. Her insights offer valuable advice for both new and experienced artists looking to balance creativity with business success.

Key Takeaways

• Success as an artist comes from taking small, consistent steps.
• Building multiple income streams is key to financial stability.
• Social media platforms like Instagram can greatly increase exposure and opportunities.

Notable Quotes:

• “I always wanted to be an artist, and my mom was an artist, so I grew up in an artistic family.”
• “I would just do a little scribble practically of an idea for a painting in my sketchbook, and I would just brainstorm daily with thumbnails.”
• “I started to paint every single day for just twenty-five minutes.”

Charuka Arora is the founder of the Arts to Hearts Project and Host of the Arts to Hearts Podcast. She is also an acclaimed Indian artist known for her contemporary embellished paintings. Her unique blend of gouache, collage, embroidery, painting, and drawing explores the intersection of art, culture, heritage, and womanhood. Through her work, she tells stories of female strength and encapsulates them in pieces that can be treasured for generations.

Charuka’s work draws inspiration from Hindu mythology, recognizing women as vessels of Shakti, the cosmic energy. She beautifully portrays powerful goddesses like Durga Maa riding a tiger or lion, symbolizing their unlimited power to protect virtue and combat evil.

Through her art, Charuka invites us into the world of women, showcasing their beauty, strength, and resilience. Her creations not only exhibit exceptional talent but also serve as an inspiration and a symbol of hope for those challenging societal norms.

Arts to Hearts Podcast is a show delving into the lives and passions of renowned artists. From running creative businesses and studio art practices to cultivating a successful mindset, Charuka Arora engages in heartfelt conversations with her guests. Experience your personal happy hour with your favorite artists right in your studio.

Through candid discussions, Charuka and her guests reveal the joys and challenges of a vibrant creative life, both within and beyond our studios. Get ready to be inspired and uplifted as you tune in.

Kristy Gordon

Kristy Gordon is a Canadian-born artist based in New York City, known for her enigmatic and thought-provoking paintings that explore power dynamics and envision new futures. She earned her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design in 2011 and her MFA from The New York Academy of Art in 2013, where she is now an adjunct professor. Gordon’s work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, the U.S., Europe, and China, including prestigious venues like the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona and the National Academy Museum in NYC. A three-time Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant recipient, she has also been awarded residencies and apprenticed with renowned artists. Her paintings are in over 600 collections worldwide, and she is represented by Grenning Gallery, Garvey|Simon, and Studio Sixty-Six.