The Studio Source.com

Sunday, 7:00 p.m. A post needs to be written for Monday morning. It’s not happening.

“Forget it,” I say, “I’m going to welding school.”

“Okay,” the fella replies, in that unmistakable tone. He’s humouring me.

Truth be told, I didn’t use the word “forget.” I used another word, one I don’t throw around in polite company.

I couldn’t do it. The well was dry. I was convinced if I tried to utter one more syllable about marketing, or creativity, I would implode.

Here’s a question you don’t want to ask at the dinner table: what is art? If you’re brave enough to throw that one into the soup, follow it up with this: who gets to be called an artist?

Yesterday Clint Watson began that discusson on his blog Fine Art Views. Clint wrote a thoughtful article about the potential impact of marketing guru Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, and the way he’s used the word “artist.”

I just spent three very long days selling the work I design and create. The crowd was smaller this year, possibly due to poor weather, flu fear, recession, all or none of the above. Some people did well, some people did not.

This morning I got Seth Godin’s daily blog post in my In box, as I do every morning. His closing statement is this:

“Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one.”

On Monday I wrote a post about the hazards of comparing yourself to others and how to define your own success. I had a clever little idea to link it to today’s post, where I talked about looking to your competition to see how they do their marketing, so you can make yours great. An elegant paradox, no?

There’s a wrinkle.