From Starving Artist To Thriving Artist with Naomi Clement
“Often, in the arts, you’re actually seen as a sell-out if you’re successful financially or commercially.”
- Naomi Clement
The idea of the “starving artist” is romanticized in our culture. This image of the artist who sacrifices material success and lives on passion and creativity alone is a popular one, but you don’t need to embrace the starving artist story in order to be a successful artist!
My guest, Naomi Clement, is an incredibly talented, sought-after, and bad-ass potter and creative entrepreneur who helps artists embrace their power as creators, so they can step into the career of their dreams.
While she had always been drawn to the arts, Naomi resisted becoming a professional artist for a long time, because the starving artist myth led her to believe that she would have to be poor. She worked in sales and marketing until she realized that her 9-to-5 office job was making her miserable and that pottery was her true passion.
Now, Naomi is on a mission to challenge the way that society (and artists) value the arts — and to forever debunk the myth of the starving, depressed artist!
In this episode of the Road to Seven podcast, you’ll discover:
The steps Naomi had to move through before embracing her calling as a professonal artist
How she shifted from making pottery to selling pottery, and built up her customer base and Instagram community
How she is rewriting the script for the artists she works with
About Guest: Naomi Clement is a Canadian artist and educator who explores ideas of home and belonging through the powerful lens of functional ceramics. Naomi believes that handmade pottery enriches our lives — one moment and one mug of coffee at a time!
Highlights:
00:01 Intro
02:49 Meet Naomi Clement
05:43 Shifting to pottery & entrepreneurship
07:00 From making to selling
10:53 Building an Instagram community
12:44 Becoming a teacher
14:42 Starving artist myth
17:35 Pricing & value
24:13 Finding your voice
25:32 Challenges
29:01 What she knows now
34:12 What’s next
Links:
Naomi Clement
https://www.facebook.com/NaomiClementCeramics
Instagram: @naomikclement
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