The Risks & Rewards of Collaboration [270]
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I always think when I regret something, yeah, but I might have regretted the alternative worse. The thing about decisions is we never ever know what would have happened if we'd made a different one. Welcome to Art Juice. This is honest, generous and humorous conversations that will feed your creative soul and get you thinking with me, Alice Sheridan. And me, Louise Fletcher.

And if you're new to the podcast, welcome and happy listening. You have got lots of back episodes to go back and listen to.

But the podcast, we bring you each week a variety of sometimes guest interviews, sometimes discussions about what is going on in the life of two working artists in the UK and topics that might be on our listeners' minds. And that is what prompted the discussion this week, because this week we are going to be talking all about collaborations in their different forms. So...

Whether this is something that is a regular part of your practice or something that you have considered, we're going to work this around. There were two key questions that came in and we've got our own thoughts and experiences as well that we would be happy to share with you about how this has been a different part of our working practice for both of us in very different ways. So I hope it's going to be very interesting.

Okay, so I'm going to kick off with Sarah, who asked, how do you weigh the pros and cons of accepting collaborations? For many artists who make a living from their art, opportunities to collaborate with businesses arise that are very appealing, but they ultimately take attention away from other areas of our lives or business. How do you know when an opportunity is worth it? Hmm.

I think there's some really good points in there right at the beginning to kick off with, that this opportunity to collaborate with businesses that are outside your normal sphere can be a really good way to stretch yourself a little bit and maybe to cross paths with people who you might not normally consider. Yeah.

But absolutely right, anything that we do, this is a basic principle, isn't it? Anything we do or choose to do is also going to take away attention from other areas in our lives. And I think that's true in many different aspects of our art. You know, am I going to focus on my studio work, this section, or am I going to focus on launching a print range? Almost every single decision we make as artists is

there is an opportunity cost of something else that we now don't have the time, energy, money, capacity to do, right? So there's always this weighing up whether it's worth it.

I mean, she just goes on to say, I often agonize over accepting a collaboration or not. On the one hand, it can lead to great financial success, but at what cost? Will I regret it saying yes or no? And I understand that you can only spend so many hours working and time is our most precious resource. I'm going to ask you first, Louise, do you agonize over accepting collaborations? No. No.

No, but this is the thing, isn't it? Different decision-making processes. I have a few friends who agonize over decisions. So I watch that process playing out. But better or worse, I don't agonize over decisions. And I do sometimes regret things because I do jump in, make a decision and move forward. But I always think when I regret something, yeah, but I might have regretted the alternative worse. The thing about decisions is,

We never, ever know what would have happened if we'd made a different one. So there's no point even in regretting because you think, yeah, but the other thing that happened might have been worse. So I've done the thing. Now I'm going to move forward with it. So I know I don't, which makes it difficult to answer that part.

For me, it's usually like a instinctive yes or no. And like I say, sometimes that's not being right. Generally, I trust myself, but occasionally I'll leap in. You know, you and I in human design, we have this emotional wave, which is the way we make decisions is we go through a range of emotions. And at some point we're supposed to get calm. And that's the place where we decide. Yeah.

I sometimes make my decision right at the top of that, where it's really exciting. And then it doesn't, it might go down and eventually I realize it wasn't the best thing, but not necessarily about collaborations, but just anything. What about you? What is your decision-making process like about things like this? Are you quite analytical or is it more emotion? Well, I was just thinking it's so interesting, isn't it? The wording is,

And I think this agonizing over a decision is tied up with the sense that there is going to be a right or wrong outcome. And once you accept that there isn't, then there's not so much like the agonizing is about

It's about judging whether you're going to get something right. It's all your concerns about how much time is it going to take? Are you going to enjoy working with the other person? But but to a higher degree, perhaps than it needs to be. I deliberate, but I don't feel I agonize anymore.

Yes, you're right. I think that that oomph of like, oh, here's a thing. This is exciting. Do I want to do this? That can be a very propelling factor to it. And I think and that is probably my natural inclination to go, oh, yeah, that sounds good. There are very few things. And it probably is that it's the ones that I don't remember where something comes in and I just go, no, swipe. Which way? Which way is it? There's a way. Swipe, delete, left, right.

Because those feel also very quick and distinctive. No, they don't take up any time in my head. So I probably don't remember how often I do those. I probably remember more that all yeses or the ones, as you say, where you get a yes. And then you think, but is this really right for me? So let's talk about this deliberation process.

Actually, I was just thinking weirdly when you first suggested this, I said, I don't have anything really. And then I thought of a couple of things, but I just realized that this afternoon I have a phone call scheduled with someone who's made a proposal that I initially I'm like, I don't think so. But also there's a little bit of possible. Maybe it'll be good.

So I've arranged a phone call because what can come? So my first approach is always what's the harm to come from talking and then see what you think after you've talked. So talking, preparing my questions, which I thought I would do once we get off here because I don't want to waste the opportunity. So ask my questions. And my questions will always be designed, I suppose, to find out

Am I going to enjoy this? Is it going to be worthwhile financially, although...

That's not always the, it might be the key consideration, but it's not always like, but is it going to, is it going to cost me money? And if it's going to cost me money, is it going to be worthwhile in some other way? Yeah. That's, that's more interesting, isn't it? Is it going to cost me versus is it going to bring me financial reward in itself? And what is it going to cost me? As she said, time is a valuable resource. Yeah.

So this thing is retreats abroad, like doing a retreat for someone else. Right. And there are certain benefits to that and there are certain costs to that. You know, I'm planning to organize my own retreats in coming years. So...

Do I want to be doing someone else's? On the other hand, a paid holiday where I don't have to do any of the arrangements, that might be nice. And a nice opportunity to experience retreats and what it feels like. Exactly. Without having to do anything.

All of it. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, so then I weigh up and this will come from the conversation. What if it's badly organized? What if the people who come don't have a good experience? What if the places they book are drafty and filled with spiders? You know, I don't know what what if it actually hurts me in some way that I can't foresee. However, think weighing all that up in the end, you're still going to be taking a leap.

yeah or not based on not knowing all of the i'm never going to get it all but i might i might find out for example it's not drafty it's not filled with spiders

But when we get there, it's a floodplain. And this happens to be one of the times that it floods and no one can come to the retreat and I get stuck at an airport and blah, blah, blah. My plane might crash on the way. This might be the thing. This is the thing, isn't it? Right. It's any, we can all sit and write a list of like potential brilliant and potential disastrous outcomes. And it was maybe like taking those to the extreme thing. And if that happened,

Would that be so bad? How would I manage that? You know, would I would I find a way through it? Yeah. You know, so so it's in the end for me, it'll come down to after I've spoken to this person, my gut feeling about how I want to spend my time next year.

And then I'll just decide and then whichever I decide, I'll go with it. Yeah. I tell you what I when I'm thinking about this, what I tend to be reluctant to do is to commit time a long time in advance. Like when everyone was buying Oasis tickets for next summer, I was like, how the hell do you know if you want to go to a concert next summer, if you'll want to trek to Manchester or whatever and go see this thing?

I like to make my decisions quite close to the thing. That's interesting. What's your comfort time scale? Three months? Yeah, it might be three months, two or three months. Any more than that and it's going to loom over me and then I won't know if other brilliant things have come up at that point that I'd rather do. That's a really interesting point actually because I think there is often that.

commitment to anything with others and because of planning it often does have to be quite a considerable amount of time in the future I'm never one of those people you know how I've got a friend and she has her holidays booked like 18 months ahead

I'm like, I can't do it. Like you say, how can you even know what you feel like doing? I mean, when we went away this summer, I think we booked it 10 days before. That's my ideal because now you've got an exciting 10 days looking forward to it. Not like months. Yeah. And we had an idea that we'd go away, but we were like, do we fancy this? Do we fancy this? Have a Google, have a search. So we, you know, so yeah.

Yeah, and flexibility is important for me. However, I do think that sometimes it helps. It helps me anyway to have some key defining structural things in the diary. I suppose this depends on whether this is a big collaboration or a small thing. So let's just think about what this could mean of a collaboration. So she's mentioned collaborating with businesses and.

So the ones that I have done, but it could be all sorts of things, couldn't it? It could be collaborating with other artists. It could be agreeing to do an art fair together. It could be agreeing to loan your work to somebody, running workshops, as you say, maybe even writing a book together, agreeing to do this podcast together, doing short-term projects like blog swaps or painting swaps. I mean,

So collaborations could be anything. It's a very, very broad field and we've got some things to share where we think it's worked and not worked so well for us later. But I think this risk reward thing also comes into it. Do you write pros and cons list or do you just let it all circle in your head?

It's funny, I used to write pros and cons list and I can remember doing this over buying a house when I was quite young. And the pros list for this house I fell in love with was quite short and the cons list was quite long. And I looked at my list and went, well, I want to buy it anyway. So as time's gone on, I've relied on it less and less. And it was a good decision. I love that house. But yeah, I've relied on it less and less because I'm not very analytical in that way.

Not when it comes to decisions about what I want to do. I'm more likely to just listen to what I really feel like doing inside and then to hell with the consequences. I live with them because I know I did what I thought was right for me. And by the way, that makes it quite hard in a relationship, whether it's personal or working relationship, because you're just saying to people, I just know. So you're just going to have to trust me.

Or when they're arguing logic, you're saying, yeah, but I just know. That's not really very convincing. And perhaps that's why I'm not that fond of collaboration because I want to just say, oh, I want to just say, do it my way. And then everyone just do what I say. I think everyone agrees with that. No, no, no. Everybody is going to have a different way of working. And I think,

you're the to have a conversation rather than just do things through email we're very avoidant these days aren't we or can be of doing things through email or written communication I think you can solve so much just by picking up the phone to somebody and this sense of like weighing out where the balance is ultimately is

It does come down, for me a lot, it comes down to trust. And I think that is a very instinctive, am I going to enjoy working with this person? You know, if they're telling me something, can I trust what they say? Is this aligned with like, no.

Knowing what my own personal and business goals are at any one time, I think has been a helpful anchor for me as things have got busier. There are more opportunities for things that come in. And honestly, plenty of ideas that I have for collaborations that would be great fun. I would enjoy, would be helpful.

They would fulfill all of those things. But if it's not supportive of what my personal goals are and what my business goals are right now, then it makes it easier to put it away on a shelf, write it down. Maybe it's an idea that I can come back to at another time, but I don't have to do everything that comes in. And I think this is that that's also an important part of it. It might be a great idea. It might give you financial reward.

you might be doing it just because you would enjoy it. It still doesn't mean you have to do it. Yeah, I was just thinking the two collaborations that came to my mind, neither were financially rewarding. In fact, by collaborating, I was giving away some of the financial reward. So the first was writing a book, which I was going to self-publish. And then the publisher said, oh, we would like to do this with you.

And in exchange for their design experience, production experience, all the things they could give me, I said yes to taking a much smaller part of the profits and

And then when I did a gallery exhibition where it was just me in a solo show, I gave away, I think they only took 30% of the commission, but I gave away 30% of my sales. I brought the customers in, they took 30%, but they were giving me a place to hang my work all at one time, which I really wanted at the time. And they were going to ship. And in thinking about this retreat thing,

The two those two things made me produce something that I'm proud of. So I committed to them, I suppose, because, yes, I'm going to make 40 paintings if I commit to you. I'm going to make a book if I commit to you with the retreat. I'm going to get a free holiday and I'm going to maybe get some fun experience teaching.

But I'm not going to commit to making something. And I suppose now I'm thinking about it. For me, that might be the deciding factor in whether I collaborate with someone. Like doing this with you. I couldn't have done this on my own in the way it's happened. Right.

But we can do it together. So you brought something to it that I didn't have and vice versa. So it was worth doing together. So I think that's it for me. Which we didn't know when we started. No. I knew you would bring something that wouldn't be there if it was just me.

I didn't know which aspect. I think that goes both ways. But what I'm saying is at the beginning, when we started it, we did take a risk. I don't think it felt a risk, but there was a risk of time and effort and energy. And we had no idea where it would go. And that mutually supportive thing is a huge part of it. And thinking about your, it's a painting retreat workshop, is it? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm thinking about the things that I have done mutually with other people. And I think a big part of it for me is that sense of co-creation and supportively building something. And particularly...

When it's been the first time that I've done something. So the in-person event we did in May this year that I did with another artist who was due to fly over from the States. And the idea of having both of us working on the ideas for it and planning it out was brilliant.

That was the thing that kind of tipped us or tipped me anyway over the edge into doing that. And in practice, because it was in the UK and I did quite a lot of all of that sort of planning, organizing work and then ended up posting it. Financially, right, it wasn't a great decision to do that because she took, you know, what we'd agreed would be the share and

But that event wouldn't have happened had we not agreed to collaborate. And I'm so glad it did. It gave the people who came a huge amount. It gave me a huge amount. And then thinking way back to where we first met for the first time when I ran a retreat at home for the weekend, I did that collaboratively with somebody else, with Georgina Noel, who both you and I have gone on to work with a lot more.

But that wouldn't have happened as well. So there are these different threads that you bring in from different people. And I think that's probably a nice way to look at it is what gaps do I have that this other business or person might fill? Yes. You know, where do we mesh like a jigsaw?

And what does that allow me to either do differently, to reach differently, or quite honestly, to experience things differently? Yes. And that has been massive for me. There's got to be a benefit and you must get these a lot. I get a lot of invitations. I'm inviting you to present at my free summit for this, that and the other and to teach at my free event. And I,

Sometimes there's a benefit to that because you might reach a different audience and at a certain time, maybe I would say yes, because I had an objective in mind. But generally, I feel like why on earth would I give up my creative energy time ideas to your thing? Yeah.

Because often these people don't even have a very big audience. So it's like, no, you're trying to build your audience on me and I don't blame them for asking. That's fine. But I'm not going to do it. Whereas right at the beginning, I would have said yes to anything that got my name out to more people. So it's also to do with where you are as to what the advantage is.

But there definitely has to be an advantage. And a lot of times I see artists just feel honored to be asked. So they say, yes, I'm sure I've done that in the past somewhere. Yeah. Or just like, oh, well, they must, they think I'm worth asking. So I'll do it. But you're giving away something.

sometimes they'll say you can't share this anywhere else you've given it to me now and it's like no I've done that I did that at one point um you know somebody asked me to create an online class for something and I did I did it and but even in itself this is fascinating I did it for her because she asked I didn't do it for me I didn't get around to doing it for me and

That sense of working with somebody else and accountability, I think I've got that in our notes as a benefit for it. You know, that's it is an incentive. I know that that's how I work. Right. So can you use that?

But also, I think it's super interesting for me to reflect. Even at the time, I remember thinking, this is really interesting. I've thought about doing this on my own. I've still got to do it, do it, prepare it, film it, edit it, get the videos. I'm still doing the same amount of work. But why does it feel OK for me to say yes to doing it for her and not yes to doing it

for myself, like where is the little gap in that, that that's probably the bit I need to look at. That's interesting. Yeah. I know this, this accountability piece was huge for me with the book and the gallery because I wouldn't have written that book and I certainly wouldn't have done it as well without their help.

The writing part, they didn't really edit or change anything, but the design and the way it was printed and the fact they have a printer over in China they can use and all of that to make a really high quality book, I wouldn't have done that. And the gallery...

I wouldn't have made those paintings on that deadline. The deadline made me have to finish them. And so that was a real benefit to me. And I think I would be interested in doing more books because I really enjoyed the process, but financially, yeah.

the paintings that came out of the book made more money than the book writing a book is not a way to especially a coffee table book is not a way to write riches by any means but it was enjoyable creatively fulfilling and it pushed me to do something difficult which I really enjoyed yeah like you say I had to get up because they had a deadline I had to get up I remember I

at 5.30 or 6 a.m. every day for a few months and sit there half asleep writing my draft and do at least 500 to 1,000 words every day in order to meet the deadline. Wouldn't have done that on my own. Would have stayed in bed. All right, so this is really interesting. I think what we're saying that it's very rarely driven by finance, right?

I think a lot for me driven by learning and experience. So I think it'd be interesting to touch on her example before we move on to the next bit. But just to summarize, then I think we've got so what's the balance of risk and reward and trusting the other person involved that relationship support part? What are your business and personal goals? And how is this going to support them?

And then I think ultimately it comes down to like, what's your current capacity? What's your energy levels? Do you have space for it? And will you enjoy it? As everyone doing it? Will you enjoy it? Okay. Let's have a little look at this actual question then. A company wants me to create a subscription art box, which would require me to create 12 months worth of tutorials.

I don't know if this is a physical, here we go, physical box. Each month the subscriptions would receive a box with the supplies and the tutorial. They've

They've got one other artist who's done this and it was a huge success. My style is completely different. It would reach a different audience. Question, is she going to get access to that audience? And could potentially be a huge success too. This would lead to a lot of passive income down the road. Do we know this for sure? Down the road, why not now? Down the road, yeah. Yeah.

I already collaborated with them to make a product and that was a success, but it didn't require a lot of time. This new collaboration is going to require a huge amount of work up front, take time away from my own projects. I already run a successful Patreon, which requires weekly updates, including two monthly tutorials. And I want to build my own tutorial site, which is a massive undertaking. And I fear I will be spreading myself too thin and putting my energy in the wrong places.

I would have a whole heap of questions on this. I mean, it sounds like they've got a lot of people involved. So potentially there is advantage in getting your name out there to new people. But it sounds like they're not... They are... The subscribers are doing business with that company. So you're relying on the fact that they will come in and find you afterwards. I would want to make sure that I am...

financially compensated for the time that I am delivering now at the risk of developing my own project. Yes. And I think I would want to know if I'm, I'm sure you're not, but if you were allowed to put your own Patreon link in because it could be exposure, but yeah,

It reminds me of something I once heard Ricky Gervais say. Somebody said, why don't you unblock your own toilet or something? And he said, why would I unblock my own toilet when I can make far more money in that 10 minutes doing what I do and pay someone else to unblock my toilet? And you are wanting to build up your own business, your own money coming in from your own skill and

And now you're going to give that time away to someone else and your business is going to suffer because you can't do both at the same time. That might, like Alice said, it might be worthwhile given the income level. If the income level from those people exceeds what you think you could bring in, maybe, or if they're allowing you to promote yourself to an audience that's bigger than you could ever reach, maybe.

But I'd really want to know. That is one instance where I'd want to know the financials of it because you're trying to build a business. And so why would you give that time away unless it's valuable? I wonder if there's a slightly different way of thinking about this, which is at the beginning of a project, we can see the excitement in it. We can see the opportunities in it and we can often very easily see the downsides to it.

And I wonder if we imagine at the end of this year, so rather than the beginning, at the end of this year, so imagine that you have created this work, these tutorials, these creative prompts. You've put the work in, you've done them. What would you be happy to give them away for? Or what else could you do with those? So having done the amount of work that you know that it's going to take,

Does it does it feel different if you imagine yourself having done that? So you're essentially creating an intellectual property asset, right? You're giving away your IP, you're giving it to another company. But what if you committed to doing something on your own? No, this is going to come down to whether you're

perhaps you've got a big enough audience at the moment, but also if you did this regularly on your own platform or on somewhere like YouTube, what could you build from that? I mean, and again, we go back to your thing at the beginning that ultimately whatever we decide, we never know what the alternative is going to be, do we? I don't know. And it also goes back to your idea of the 12 months. I mean, if you can do them regularly,

Super quickly, this is what I would maybe be thinking. How long is it actually going to take me to do 12? If I can sit down and come up with, say you can sit down and come up with 24 ideas, you can give them 12. Could you do 12 on your own so that the people who are receiving those 12 might come off and find you, see that also you're doing something on your own place, and then you sort of build the two things simultaneously. Is there capacity for that?

Because it is true with art teaching that if you find someone who's made a brilliant video that teaches you something, you will go look for them to see if they've got a YouTube channel somewhere else you can watch more things. So there is potential there. So we're saying just making sure that you're making advantage, making the most of this opportunity to also be building something in your own space at the same time.

Also to check, and this might not be in this situation, but for other people, to check any restrictions they might be going to place on you. Yeah. Because that could be a problem and you might not read the small print and see that you're not allowed to share anything similar to that idea anywhere else ever again or something like that. You've really got to check that. And what their expectations are. Yeah. Making sure that you know the facts.

I think I would personally, I would also approach it by, it sounds like you're fairly confident in terms of knowing what it's going to take you time-wise to do the tutorials and put it together. But if, if not, if that is something that's new to you, I would do one, see how it feels at the end, because you're giving yourself more information and,

Knowing that the first one is probably always going to be harder. Yeah. I wonder if now would be a good time to run through what have been quickly good collaborations and then ones that haven't come off for both of us. Okay. To give people an idea. Yeah.

So I've already mentioned kind of smaller retreats that I've run and events. So working with somebody else helped me to get over the sort of bump of making those happen. I've done shared exhibitions and events with other artists going way back, like right when I first started doing shared exhibitions at home and publicizing it in the street, literally with flyers, worked brilliantly.

And I've licensed work to a publisher, which had very little input from me required. I loved their project. They were an education publisher and they were using my paintings on the science book. So I loved that link up. There was no extra financial reward in that. It was just the sales of the paintings. And then I signed over rights for them to use it. Would I do that now?

Possibly not, but also I don't regret it. At the time, it was an exciting project. It was easy. It was fun. I wasn't really that interested in the money side of it. Doing art swaps with other artists can be great fun, but I tend to run out of steam on those. I've not really done that. What about you? What have been your good ones? Honestly, the only two I can think of is...

are the two I've already mentioned for the reasons I said that, that they drove me to produce something I couldn't have produced on my own. Yeah. So that's what I'm always looking for is can this help me do something I cannot do? Yeah. Don't have a great big gallery space. I don't have a graphic designer, you know, I didn't have the things and this podcast, sorry. Yes. This podcast, because I,

I couldn't have maintained 270 episodes on my own. God knows how we've managed to keep droning on for 270 episodes. But also the energy to do it, the accountability to do it, and it wouldn't have been as good. So...

That's another side of it, though, isn't there? I mean, we've talked a little bit about committing yourself to different things at certain points in the future. But there is a difference between a project as well that has a finite end or something that you're working to. And certainly this, it's got...

you know, covers a huge amount of time span, there have been definite points where you've got tired, I've got tired, we've wondered whether we're going to do it, we've talked it through, we've given ourselves a break, we've picked each other up, you know, on a weekly basis and in a broader context as well. Yes, that's true. Sorry, there's one other collaboration I thought of, I should mention, which I really hadn't thought of, but it is an important collaboration, which

Because I don't have employees, I know you don't either. I have people who are freelance people in their own right and work with me. Yeah. I do. That is a collaboration too. Tracy, who runs our tribe community side of things, she contributes an enormous amount to our tribe. And I've had to learn to work with someone else on that side where I tend, like I say, to be very much like, let's just do it my way and,

And I've had to learn to accommodate and I'm still learning that. And she's brilliant. And Jamie, who's been my right-hand person for years now, we collaborate on setting up my courses. And often that collaboration in both those cases looks like me saying, I trust you, go do your thing now and just tell me. And occasionally when you trust other people, occasionally they make a mistake you wouldn't have made.

But they avoid a lot of mistakes you would have made. So you can't, you know, that's just the nature of collaboration. They're both amazing. And the other people in my business, the coaches I collaborate with to teach my course, that's a huge, that's been my biggest lesson probably is learning to accommodate everyone's personalities and opinions and

I still very much, it's still my decision and I think it has to be at the end, but bringing other people in. And I know for you at first delegation was difficult and now you're collaborating in that way. So I don't think we should, I know the question wasn't about that. It was about businesses, but.

those people do have their own business. My people do have their own businesses and they work with me and we have to work around that. And so I'm really grateful for those collaborations.

And it's also a good point as well, because that might be something that is seen not as a collaboration because of the financial setup, because you're paying people and because I'm paying people. But I agree with you. I very much feel so. Joe McCarthy works with me now gradually more and more in the membership area.

And it is a real collaboration. She's a fantastic reflector and she brings elements in that I don't have. And that has been a learning curve for me. And I think we both, it's this mutually beneficial thing that I think ultimately you're looking for in a collaboration. Okay, I just want to, before we go on to ones that haven't come off,

If you're thinking about art collaborations, go back and listen to episode 261 where Claire Hankey and Shilpa Aghash talk about how creatively they've worked together on sketchbooks and exhibitions over quite a long period of time and how that collaboration has really grown. So if this idea is grabbing you from a creative point of view, hop back and listen to that one.

Okay, let's talk about things that haven't come off. So super easy, like a little bit, like I said at the beginning, we get a lot of people coming to our on the podcast coming to ask to come and be a guest on the podcast.

It's not that they're collaborations that haven't come off. They're just things that we're not that interested in doing. So they get a thank you very much right at the moment. We're not looking for podcast guests because we tend to bring on guests who we know through other things. There's a natural, organic or an instinctive reach out. We have had guests on who we don't know. I'm thinking particularly of Christine Coulson and Damien Dibben,

both writers who sent us an email, fairly standard email promoting their book, but there was something in that book or the way the email was or the idea about the book that kind of lit that spark going, oh, actually, that does sound interesting. Let's do that. Complete unknowns until we met them. But quite often, it's a clear no.

I had a funny one the other day, completely typical Instagram. Would I like to collaborate on promoting a line of athleisure wear? Oh, yeah. Why would I? Have you even looked at my account?

Yeah, those are funny. But yes, so and the ones I turn down often are the podcast guests where I'll just click delete because that you're not even they say I really loved your episode on they've picked an episode out of the list. Then they keep emailing. I mean, in case you didn't see this. No, I did see it. I just didn't want to answer you. Those ones and the ones that want me to come and speak for free at their free summit of something or other.

unless it had something in it for me, I just delete those. The one that didn't come off that I don't, wasn't for any bad reason for me was I had an idea to do a workshop with another artist, someone I really admire, someone who's fantastic. And she said she was excited. I was excited. We went, okay, let's do something. Let's, and then

We're just both so busy. And she sent me a few initial ideas and it was way different than my initial ideas. And then we talked about it and said, well, we, yeah, we can do something together. Let's do that. And then we're really busy again. And, um,

The collaborating with someone else creatively like that, I know you really enjoy it. For me, it's more difficult. I'm currently developing a course from scratch on my own and it's just whizzing through. I'm like, oh yeah, then we'll do that. Then we'll do that. Then we'll do that. And there's no one for right, for good or bad. There's no one to say, what about this idea and throw something into the mix that is not part of my, what I've got in my head.

So I find it much easier to just do my thing. The course I had in mind with them would be brilliant. And just like this podcast, it would be so much better than I can do on my own on that topic. So I'm not going to do it without them.

But it's just more work. It's more work, more effort on both people's part. You have to have a lot of time to commit to something like that. You have to have quite a lot of organisation and management and work out what your communication things are going to be and have some systems in place so you know what the other person's thinking. I'm going, oh, I'm getting too much.

But you're right. You're right. Totally. Yeah. But when we started this, we had systems and plans for the, there are folders. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. But now, and now we veered off them, but, um,

Certainly when you're doing something on your own, you can follow your own momentum much more quickly, can't you? That is a good point. And your own clear vision, like this person has a different vision equally. I mean, just brilliant, but different from mine. So now they have to somehow come together. And how do you mesh them together?

And where does one person give way and the other person is totally doable. It's just got to be a full commitment. Like I remember we once talked, another one that didn't come off is we were going to write a book.

at one point or we were very far no we were floating the idea but again I think we both realized that's that's way more work than we're willing to put in to agree imagine agreeing on a chapter list and who's going to write which bit and it just too much yeah our world dominance tour never came off no there was no

Archie's in person yeah I was quite do one day but again so much organization so much coordinating between us just feels like such a burden if someone would come in if anyone's listening tour producer and say yeah I'll organize your tour sort out your venues tell you where you're going tell you where you're staying

the what's talking about bit would be easy yeah and I think this is where finances do come in because I'm thinking of you know events that I have done with other people had I done them solo there would have been profit like yeah we did it between two of us it's quite hard to make the maths math it is so you have to be doing it again to go back to like the book example for some other reason right

and we know we haven't got a good reason and have the opportunity and the time to be able to do that to do a lot of work for free basically um i've got a couple of other things that haven't come off things that i've spent time prepping and responding to people who've asked for art to be licensed in hotels and i've spent time writing a proposal and working out the costs and sending the images and

nothing's come of it um visiting a business spaces who are looking for art alone and free and then nothing's come of it um I probably wouldn't bother doing either of those things again now

You don't know that at the beginning, do you? And it's not to say that it was a bad idea. It's just to say that sometimes there are things that you put time and energy into up front and it doesn't quite work out. And that's a bit part and parcel, isn't it? Right. Let's just move on to this last bit then about.

This was an anonymous question that came in that said how to say no to collaborations or projects. So especially if they seem a good idea at the time, but on reflection, they might not be right for you. They might take you in the wrong direction, take up too much precious time and headspace. Or they might, of course, be fantastic. But you need to put other priorities first, which might be hard to articulate as a reason to the other person.

Maybe you're concerned about sharing the creative decision-making or your ideas with someone else, even if they're a close friend. You might feel concerned that it would be difficult to establish boundaries for the project, e.g. I find it hard to say no to things, especially when the other person is really excited and they want you to bring your ideas, techniques, materials and knowledge to the table. There are some things in there, some of those concerns,

I think could be addressed in a conversation and then they might not be concerned. So you might feel concerned that it will be difficult to establish boundaries for the project. Okay, so you need to discuss what the boundaries are for the project. I wouldn't necessarily use that as a reason to say no to something. Sounds like this person struggles with establishing their own boundaries though. Right.

So it's a good practice. It's really good practice. Yeah. But even I struggle with that. I struggle not so much. I can't think of an example in an art collaboration, but I do struggle with saying no. If it's going to upset someone or if I think I just tend to avoid it until it just goes away. I just tend to not answer until they stop asking.

Or I'm thinking of that Phoebe thing on Friends where somebody asked her to do something. She went, oh, that sounds brilliant. I wish I could, but I don't want to. Yeah.

It's interesting that this thing, but you need to put other priorities first, which might be hard to articulate as a reason. I don't think you have to give people, that's that old thing, you know, no is a complete sentence. Now, I think no is a complete sentence is probably a little bit blunt, particularly if it is a friend or somebody that you are otherwise in touch with. But you don't have to explain all your reasons for why the answer is no right now. I mean, really simple reasons.

I was thinking I have a terrible tendency because I don't want to hurt people's feelings. Again, this is in real life, not art, to make something up rather than just say I don't want to. So I'm busy or something else is happening or, oh, I'd love to, but I just can't today or whatever.

And it's not true. I don't want to. And I just don't want to say I don't want to because I feel like somehow by saying I don't want to go to that exhibition with you, I'm saying I don't like you as a person. And that's not true. So I try and just make some other excuse. It's not good. I wish I was more honest. So I do understand this one. But saying to someone,

it sounds like a brilliant project. I just do not have the bandwidth for that right now. That's, I don't think people can argue with that because you just don't have time or space for it. Does it,

Does it sound like she kind of wants to do it, but because she can't set boundaries within the project, she's worried? Or does it sound like she just wants to say no? There's a bit of people pleasing in here, isn't there? I find it hard to say no, especially when the other person is really excited. Like there's more concern about the other person being upset, which is making it hard for you to stick to what you want.

And what I was going to say is that while I don't think you have to articulate it to everybody else, I think understanding your own reasons for why you're saying no is super, super helpful. And you can learn as much about that

and your own direction and purpose and what you want as when you say yes to things and i mean i i had a situation recently where i was invited to be something who i who i'd worked with before it was um an online thing initially there was a i there was quite a buzz in me that was like oh this could be quite exciting this could be quite fun this could be a different experience

It would be nice to be involved. It would be nice to see a little bit behind the scenes as to what goes into pulling this together. And I know that I have a slight FOMO tendency, like I want to be in things. I like working with other people. And I actually thought, no, no, no. Why do you want to do this? And the questions that I said earlier, does this actually serve what you want to do now? Would you have gone out looking for this? No. No.

And so I built in a little bit of time and I did, I said, I am very tempted to do this because this, this and this, all of which you know about me, but also this year in particular, I've been working really hard at making sure that I give myself space and time and I don't overwork and cram things in. And so regretfully, I'm not going to be able to take part in it. And she said,

Totally get it. That's a really nice way. And it doesn't offend anyone. See, as a recovering people pleaser, and I'm not even that recovered, something you said in there is so crucial for me to think about, which is thinking about why you don't want to do it. Yeah. And giving that, but then...

This is hard for non-people pleasers to understand, but trying to elevate that to the same level as what you've elevated this person's desires. Because in a people pleaser, their desire is way up here and yours is so tiny as to not even be noticeable. And you have to get yours and lift it up and see them as equal.

Because they are equal. And then say, well, those two things are just not compatible. So I need to say no here. And the way you said no was so gracious and truthful. And helpful for me as well. The difference in the way it felt for me to say that was so settling and

Hmm. Because rather than just saying, oh, I'm sorry, I can't fit it in at the moment, which would have made me feel like, oh, I'm too busy and I should have done it, but I can't fit it in. Do you see the difference? Yes. You've made a conscious choice. Yeah. Do something positive. It's a positive decision rather than I can't do that decision. And now I'm missing out.

And the people pleasing thing, I think it's often said as a negative and it is worth saying everybody, like we are all designed to be considerate of other people and to people please. It is an essential function of how as humans we operate in a society. It is just where it is over egged. And as you say, your desires to please other people are trumping your own way to sensibly look after yourself.

One of the things that's really helped me in looking at my people-pleasing tendencies is looking at the men around me

Because they have it far less and they are far more comfortable. And we criticize that sometimes, like women will say, oh, you know. It's a safety thing, right? It's a safety thing for men. Men have that. They have that physical ability to defend themselves. Women inherently are weaker and they need to be more concerned that they're not upsetting people who they're not on.

But if you watch them and you say, look how much space he takes up with his desires. And instead of saying, he's so self-centered. Instead of saying that, go, what can I learn from that? Because actually, in many cases, that man is not doing any, in many cases, they are stepping on other people. But in many cases, they're just setting their own boundaries of what they want.

and everybody else be damned because this is what I've decided is right for me. And I can learn a lot from that because I will, um,

I will bend to other people. And because men will take up space, I will bend to them more because, oh, well, you're asserting yourself and I'm a people pleaser. So I'll just people please the most terrible. And I listened to a podcast with Glennon Doyle where she was saying, I hate people pleasers. She said, I hate it. I don't know where I am with them. I don't know what they actually want. I want, I want them to just say like,

I want this or I want that. It's so exhausting to be around a people pleaser, a true people pleaser, because they won't tell you which wine they want to have with dinner. They won't tell you what to make for dinner. They won't tell you anything they want in life, where to go out for the day. And I thought, oh yeah, many times in my past, I have gone, well, what do you want? You know, just do what you want. What do you want from the takeout? I don't know. You just get what you want. I'll have that.

That is very annoying for other people. So it's good for me. It's also helpful as a people pleaser to realize other people quite like it when you set boundaries and tell them honestly. They don't really like it when you pussyfoot around, even though to you it feels more comfortable, to them it feels less comfortable. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I mean, so on this front, my two practical tips are

Build in some thinking time. You don't have to say yes to things on the spot. And my total, this has been such a conscious decision for me to have to do this because my immediate reaction is to make a decision on the spot based quite instinctively. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah. Oh, that's it. But you can say, oh, that sounds great. Let me have a think about it and I'll get back to you by the end of the week. I just need to go home and check a couple of things and see how my diary is looking today.

And then I'll let you know. Yeah. And just practice saying that. Practice what the words are going to be out loud, not just in your head, out loud, verbally in the mirror so that it becomes a more automatic process because you're not being rude by saying that. You're just checking where you are in the picture. And that's a really important part of it. So that's it. Build in that thinking time and actually practice saying it out loud.

And then my tip is to really follow what you want to do. Like be honest with yourself about what you want. Regardless, take everybody else out of the picture. If you weren't going to hurt anyone's feelings, if you weren't going to let anybody down, if you weren't going to spoil their excitement, what would you want to do at this moment? As you said, is this something I would have gone looking for? Is it a great opportunity? Do I really get excited about it?

Or am I just going along so I don't make any waves? And if it's that one, then you've got to practice that. You go back and listen to the way Alice said no. Write it down and say that. I mean, I think they do have huge potential collaborations. They can be really exciting and fun and take you to places that you couldn't necessarily go on your own.

So it's a good topic. There you go, you see, 270 episodes and we're still coming up with new topics even when we think we've run out. Is that it? That's it. Okay. On with the rest of your day then, everybody listening. Have a lovely rest of your day.

And we will see you next time. I have got a guest coming up. I can't remember exactly what episode it's going to be. So I'm looking forward to that. And we will see you next time. We have something happy and interesting to share with you. Do please keep sharing the podcast. We know that there are a million bajillion podcasts out there and lots to listen to. But it is fabulous when new people are still listening.

exploring and discovering us and sending us messages so anyway thank you for being here thank you for sharing and listening and we will see you next time bye-bye bye and don't we have an episode to send people back to where two artists collaborated together yes it shows that she's not listening to me i said that earlier did you

Yeah, episode two, six, what? But fair enough, that's because you weren't involved. No, no, Alison, people might not have been listening. I was just repeating it.