We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jane Bellante. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jane below.
Jane, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I’ve been a mixed media artist for over 30 years, and I’ve done everything when it comes to having a creative business. I’ve sold jewelry out of the back of my trunk at a flea market, and I’ve been in juried shows where 100,000s of thousands of people attend. I’ve owned three retail brick and mortar stores, sold online on an ETSY shop, my open website, and I currently run a collaborative coop website like ETSY with artists and makers. If I can impart any knowledge what so ever from these experiences, it’s that you’ve got to build a solid foundation for your business.
Social media is the “thing” right now. And the mistake I see so many people making is that they are relying solely on social media to grow the foundation of the businesses, and time and time again I am seeing pages get hacked or taken down, and then that person is immediately out of business. It’s heartbreaking, especially if they are monetized through all of these different platforms.
To successfully earn a full-time living from your creative work, you need to use traditional marketing tactics to build an actual business machine. The first step is to have a professional website. This is where you drive all of your traffic to. Everything you promote goes back to your website, again and again.
Next- you’ve got to start building an email list. This is the one thing I can’t stress enough. You can have 100,000 followers on Facebook or Instagram, but they are not seeing everything you put out, and most of those followers are not buying from you either. You don’t own social media. Social media can tell you how to promote, what you can and can’t do, etc. You do own your email list, however. You can communicate with your email list however you want, whenever you want. Want to do a contest on social media? UGH, make sure you follow the rules and watch out for hackers taking that post over and telling everyone who comments that they are the winner. Want to run a contest in your email? Go right ahead! Run it how you want and when you want. Want to introduce a new product on social media? Amazing! How many people are heading over to your website to buy it? Check your analytics and measure this data. Want to introduce a product through your email? You can segment and cultivate your list to send that email to the exact people who will want that product and get more sales again and again. It’s a rinse and repeat method.
As you continue to grow your email list, you can start to ask questions to your list that will help you solve more of the problems they are experiencing. So you can take them by the hand up your marketing funnel to serve them over and over, and over. If you sell your art, jewelry, crafts, etc. you can start to offer custom design services, commissions and beyond. If you are an artist or maker that teachers, you can start to understand what types of issues your customer is struggling with, and you can begin to create classes and courses that will help them shrink time, and solve their problems quickly and efficiently.
Collaborations are really hot right now, but they really help you to get in front of other peoples audiences so that you can begin to build more know, like, and trust. Also, consider attending industry events to network with other creators, join a business group or mastermind program to really deep dive into new (and really strong) relationships. You never know where these relationships will take you.
Another amazing idea that you can leverage again and again is to get your work published. This immediately enhances your business machine because it helps to establish you as an expert. You can use this to enhance your visibility, and ultimately the traffic to your website.
Social media can enhance these efforts, but it is crucial to prioritize direct communication through email and traditional channels for a robust business base. Then, the monetization that comes from social media is extra. And if it is taken away, you have an amazing foundation to keep building upon.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’ve been a mixed media artist for 33 years. I started making altered art jewelry when I was about 19. My love for mixed media grew from there. Because I love every art supply in the world equally, I like to play in my art journal. I am so passionate about exploration and I like to push my art supplies to their limits in my art journal. I really think that this is the very best way to learn about who you are as an artist. When you play with zero expectations, you learn what you love, and what you don’t love. What you’ll do again, and what you’ll never touch again. I think detaching from the outcome is the most important thing you can do. I never know what I’ll create, but I always learn something amazing.
I have a 5 day challenge that I run a few times a year called Letting Go. This challenge helps creators/makers/artists let go of limiting beliefs so they can create with joy and ease. It’s a ton of fun- we use an art journal the entire 5 days, but it’s also mind-blowing how much it helps you identify what you are actually telling yourself about you art the way you create, or the way you stop yourself from creating, the way you tell yourself “I can’t do this unless it’s going to turn out perfectly”, or how you buy all of those art supplies because you saw a project with them, but now they are sitting unopened on your shelf. I’ve now helped 100’s of people with this 5 day challenge, and the shifts they have in just 5 days are nothing short of amazing.
Because creative business coaching is the main part of my business, I find that I really need time just to create for me. I got into a bad habit of creating just to produce, and it kind of sucked the life right out of me. The surest way to burn out is to create for everyone else but yourself. I’m on two creative teams for two amazing national brands and some of my best work for them comes from pure play and just being in that zone.
When I’m creating, I’m in that zone of flow. This is when I am able to be absolutely silent and present, and I find that this is where I get most of my ideas from. I run a collaborative website where I sell my art and jewelry called Little Sparrow. I love it so much because I am creating for myself, and I find that people buy more of my art (the things that really light me up) rather than producing cookie cutter items that happen to be popular in the moment. Right now I’m really geeking out on polymer clay. I am obsessed with it!
I am also obsessed with book making and journal making. I love to make books in shapes that are uncommon, and I like to bind in papers in unusual ways. One of my favorite classes I teach is called “Telling Your Story”. It’s taking a form of blackout poetry and creating that into visual form in a concertina style (but I have done many other styles as well) book. The variations are endless, and I go down a different rabbit hole every time I teach it.
My newest big project is a podcast that aires every Friday called the ArtFusion Podcast. It’s an intersection of art, mindset and creative business practices. And I really feel like anyone who is an artist that is trying to make money from their art (however that looks for you), will relate to everything I talk about. It’s all kinds of topics from imposter syndrome, to goal planning like you’ve never goal planned before, to big mindset topics (like money ugh- we don’t need to be starving artists) to introspective modalities like human design. I dive deep into what keeps us stuck as business owners and how these ideas really translate into our entire lives.
My business coaching is not the ordinary style of “well you need to be everywhere all at once”, and “you need to learn to do all of the things by yourself”. I’m asking you to connect with your true self and to take the steps to uncover what your limiting beliefs are that are stopping you from thriving in your business and your life. Yes- I have masterclasses and tutorials that help you on your path, but the main part of what I teach is to connect with your purpose, and lean into that so that you can attract the people who resonate with what you do. You get what you give- so if you are always worrying, if you are living in fear, doubt, anxiety and lack- that is what you will always get back. It’s the actual law of attraction. If you lean into joy, trust, possibility, abundance and love- that is what you will get back. The universe has no choice but to return to you what you give. It’s our choice.
You create the game of what your business looks like. How much do you make? How often do you work? Who do you work with? How often do you get to create just for you? How many days/months do you take off? It’s your game. You get to build it, so you can win at that game over and over. When we are playing the game of business and we do not have any rules or boundaries in place (or ay idea when we have actually won the game), we will never stop spinning 100 plates at a time. And believe me, this just leads to burnout. I’ve been there, done that. There is a much better ad much more fun way to craft your business and in turn, your life.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In January of 2021, I found out that my left coronary artery was 99% blocked. At the age of 49, I had to get a stent, and go on blood thinners for a full year. At the same time, I had multiple fibroids causing me to bleed heavily. Add in the blood thinners and I had the perfect storm. I went from bleeding once a month to bleeding every day. It was like a murder scene. I lost so much blood in 2021, I had to have a transfusion in June, and was so low I almost needed another one before I could finally stop taking the blood thinners in February of 2022. What I learned over the course of that very long year was one thing: life is not guaranteed, and if I didn’t immediately stop what I was doing and change directions, I may never get the chance to do it again. I was a small shop owner selling painted furniture and mixed media art, along with home decor and some other fun items. Because I was so weak from all of the blood loss, I began to notice that I didn’t really have the motivation to paint the big furniture pieces anymore. I also began to notice that I was just going through the motions of owning the store. Even though all of my pretty furniture was on the floor and my art was on the walls, it just seemed different. I really and truly thought that this was the dream. I had my own shop, and my own creative space, so why wasn’t I happy?
Because I was losing so much blood all the time, I had no energy for anything, and I was still in shock to be honest. Learning that my body actually grew new veins for the blood to flow through my heart to genuinely keep me alive was a lot to process- on top of 2 kids graduating from high school during COVID (2 consecutive years), running a business, being a not so great wife. I was soooo burned out. Like recycle me cause I’m done kind of burned out.
I started having really vivid dreams with imagery (I never remember my dreams, so this was kind of amazing). Brown bears, black panthers, kittens. I was very curious as to why I was all of a sudden remembering my dreams, and what this could possibly mean. So I Googled. Every single one of these images stood for re-birth, and transformation. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
So you know that saying “God first gives you a pebble, then a rock then a boulder”? This was my boulder. All of the things that I had been experiencing (yes- I’m saying the stent in my heart wasn’t even the boulder), were clues that I needed to change- but I wasn’t listening. I was lost in the doing, because I wanted no part of the being. It was all way too much. So when I started having these images in my dreams and actually remembering them, I finally started to take notice. The universe was going to the extreme to get my attention. And it worked.
In mid-November of 2021, I took action to close my store. I didn’t even care about upcoming holiday sales. I was so burned out and once I realized that- I was finished. It was the most liberating thing I had ever done for myself.
I have been a mixed media artist for 30 years. I just wanted to make things, and teach people how to make things. So I changed my business name from Morning Dew Creations to Jane Bellante Art and I started to let myself be seen. I had always kept my art journals a bit secret. They were mine, not to be seen by anyone else. But what I started to realize was that the art journal was the actual thing that would not only change my life, but the lives of so many others.
We tend to run on auto pilot much of the time. When this auto pilot is driving, we are nowhere near being present in the moment. And that is where so much negative self talk emerges. We stop ourselves cold from creating anything. We compare ourselves to others saying “well mine will never look like hers so why even bother”, or we buy a whole bunch of cool new art supplies only to be too afraid to use them and never open them, much less take them off the shelf. We have some sort of idea of perfection that is never, ever defined, yet we tell ourselves we can’t create unless we know it will come out perfect. Will we ever reach that undefined measure of “perfect”?
These stories that we are telling ourselves are just that- stories. And when we bring them to the light, it is very hard to push them back into the darkness. We need a stop sign. Right in front of our faces. That shows through all of the veils we create for ourselves so we don’t have to feel, be seen, or allow anything or anyone to penetrate.
We need to create space and time for ourselves to be completely quiet. To literally detach from everything. Because it is in all of this detaching that we can begin to listen. When we are running on auto pilot all the time our brains never stop. It’s the reason we are never, ever present. It’s the reason we can’t sleep at night. It’s why we are stuck in a holding pattern of negativity, lack, and distrust. Connection is non-existent because we do not even allow it.
So actually scheduling time to breathe, to be quiet and to be detached allows you to listen. It allows you to receive the signs that the universe is screaming at you if you only give yourself a chance to receive it. You can’t just keep giving and giving to everyone else all the time. I wasn’t hearing these messages when I got my stent. I wasn’t hearing them when I was living through COVID with my family trying to help them navigate life, high school, and graduating, while I was trying to keep my retail business alive and suffering so much medically as a female human person. I was just doing. I never detached. I never let myself feel, or cry, or lose my sanity because everything was unraveling all at once.
I went back to my art journal and decided to honor these messages for re-birth and change. My art journal is everything to me. All thought, all emotion. Pure flow state. It doesn’t matter what I put down on the page. It’s me and some color, some marks, some forms, and pure potentiality. Every message the universe wants to tell me is heard. There is no perfectionism, there is no competition, THERE IS NO FEAR. I put my phone on do not disturb for two hours EVERY DAY. Sometimes what I create is freaking amazing, and sometimes its pure trash. But I am giving myself the space to stop, listen and breathe. And not just the super shallow breaths we allow ourselves to have in any given moment of our day, but real, full, life-giving breaths that allow reception and expansion.
I invite you to do the same. Whether its an art journal, a journal for writing, a yoga mat, a bike, etc. Let go. Let yourself feel. Stop. Listen. Breathe. Then receive.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I just really want people to know that they don’t need to fit in. We really get tied up in comparing ourselves to everyone else on social media. You know your art is amazing, yet someone else who doesn’t have your skills, experience etc. is getting more “likes” and comments. This tends to send us into a tailspin, and causes massive imposter syndrome and massive anxiety inside our heads. The thing is, society creates these rules for us, and we get so anxious and stressed out because we don’t fit in, but we aren’t supposed to fit in. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t mean we are meant to. Even being everywhere on social media, creating live videos, or participating in endless live events just to be seen. Some of us are disruptors, some if us are educators, some of us empower, and the light inside us is so bright, and the power we hold is so great.
I am passionate about helping creatives build a real business, that is sustainable and focused on using social media as a tool, not as the foundation of everything.
We build the business the way we want it to be, not based upon societies rules, cliques, or boundaries. We create the rules and we call in the customers and followers that are attracted to us. Because we are us, not because we are pretending to be someone we aren’t.
We can have it all- the art we make, the furniture we paint, the crafts we create- and the sales to allow us to live the lives we want- on our terms.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.janebellanteart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janebellanteart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janebellanteart
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/janebellanteart
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/janebellanteart