We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shane Guffogg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shane below.

Shane, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Being an artist or someone in the creative field is equal to being a risk-taker because there are never any guarantees.
Having a need to express yourself is half the process. The second is finding a way to do it. Time and money are usually two of the most important components. Once the creative project is complete, the next step is to find an audience. It may be one person or one million people but that doesn’t change the need for expression. Once it has been given to an audience, there is always the risk of being rejected or criticized. Most great art is slightly ahead of the curve or is so new that it makes people uncomfortable, and often, in the beginning, is rejected. I read about the premiere of The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, which was performed in Paris in 1913, and was so shocking to the audience that they walked out after booing and heckling. Stravinsky took a huge risk, but his ideas about music changed the course of what classical music was to become. That is what real artists do – take risks. It is part of the process of discovery, not only for the artists but also for the audience. My first solo exhibition got a horrible review in the LA Times. I didn’t see that kind of rejection coming and it hadn’t occurred to me that an art critic could be so offended by my abstract paintings. But after reading the review many times I realized the review wasn’t about my work, but about how my work made the art critic feel. It was a risk to show those paintings at that time as my art was completely out of step with what was being shown and championed. But it was my truth and the only way to allow my truth to have a voice in the world was and still is to risk rejection. The only way to achieve success is to risk failing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an artist and I make my living by exhibiting and selling my art. But for me, the definition of artist means more than making a painting. I have also been the President of a non-profit art gallery, and I have my own TV series, called The art of Art — I’m the host and go to creative people’s studios and homes to have informal conversations about who they are and what inspires them. My goal for this series is to encourage people to explore their creativity.
My latest project is a boutique winery called Prairie Center Press. When the world shut down during coved, I planted 350 grape vines of Cabernet Sauvignon and planted three varieties of olive trees to make a wonderful blend of olive oil. Now I am producing around 3000 bottles of wine a year and 30 gallons of olive oil. I think of every aspect of my life as a part of my creativity. And I make art daily. I currently have exhibitions up in Paris and Venice Italy.

I graduated from Cal Arts in 1986 and realized I didn’t have a clue how to make a living or what I wanted to say with my art. And like all things, it takes time — time to become your authentic self, which is not easy as each day is dotted with questions and doubts. In the beginning, the doubt was crippling, but over time I began to realize that doubt is an important part of creating. Nothing should be taken for granted, especially natural talent. Doubt is a way of checking myself, questioning, and then finding inner stillness to allow the answer to come. I approach everything in my life in this way.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

All art is not for all people. Being an artist means having the inner strength to take a leap of faith and follow your inner voice that is saying, follow your dreams. If you don’t, nobody will do it for you. I never know how people will respond to my art and I get comments ranging from my grandchild could do that to people being brought to tears. Recently I was having an opening in Paris at the Vanities Gallery and a bearded man, in his early 70s came up to me and introduced himself as a quantum physicist. He said he was writing a book that would show Einstein had made a few miscalculations which was why he could never come up with the final general theory of relativity. Then he said, you are painting what I am writing about. We had a great conversation which led him to ask if he could use images of my work in his book. I agreed and am waiting for his publisher to send me an agreement.
in 2009, I began a series of paintings that visually explored the poem of TS Eliot, Four Quartets, and what came out of them was something that far surpassed anything I could have imagined. It is inspiring to know that my work is reaching people far and wide in fields that go beyond art.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

In my formative years, two books gave me the inner strength to keep moving toward my dream. The first was Zen and the Art of Archery and the second was Letters to a Young Poet. The book about Zen and archery was a great example of mind over matter and how easy it is to get caught up with the notion of hitting the target, without first learning how to pull back the string of a bow, and then learning when it is the perfect moment to release the string, and finally, to become one with the target. If success is the only goal, then failure is inevitable because even if success is achieved, it won’t have any real value because it’s the journey and the process of becoming that is the reward. Success is a by-product. I came to my own conclusion many years ago, that success is not about fame or fortune. It is about creating the opportunity to live up to the fullest potential. If the daily practice is done, such as showing up daily to tap into my inner world to paint, then the result is my truth. If I am only trying to make a painting that I think will bring success, there is no real meaning behind it and even if the art world applauds the painting, it is a failure because it is merely an illustration of an idea instead of it being the idea itself, which, in my opinion, is what great art is.
The second book is about learning to trust yourself and look within for the answers instead of basing your ideas of happiness and success on what other people say. This is a very hard thing to do because we are all so manipulated by social media and media in general, where an ad in a glossy magazine is really a belief system that informs us, that if we buy the product that is being presented, we too might have that same satisfaction as the model in the add. We want these ideas of beauty, perfection, and of course wealth, But that is outside of ourselves, and when people base their identities on this make-believe world, it often creates a feeling of emptiness and worthlessness. The answers to our questions are within each of us — we are the answer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shaneguffogg.com
• Instagram: @shaneguffogg and @guffogg_shane
• Facebook: Shane Guffogg
• Linkedin: none
• Twitter: none
• Youtube: @shaneguffogg4792
• Yelp: none
• Soundcloud: none
• Other: blog http://shaneguffogg.wordpress.com/blog/

Image Credits

Portrait with blue shirt Sonia Huckabay. first 2 closeup paintings, Jessie Lee Cederblom, other pics of my painting, Jennifer Madland, vineyard shot, me. I designed the labels for my wine and olive oil