WEARING TOO MANY HATS

Wednesday, Jun 1, 2016



Being a full time artist means wearing lots of different hats. There’s the artist hat obviously. But then you’ve got the marketing hat, salesman hat, office manager hat, CEO, COO, EIEIO hats, the social networking digital media shmoozy shmooz hey look at me hat, among other things. It can be overwhelming at times – especially for guys like me who don’t generally wear hats.
 
It took me 25 years, but this summer I found temporary chapeau help in the form of an intern. Yep, I’m Big Stuff now – I have an intern. Actually, I’m just fortunate that Jenna needed an internship as she finishes her studies at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. You can see a painting she’s working on in the photo here, and I’ll link you to more of her work in the near future, but right now we are talking about hats.
 
What having an intern has meant for me is that some of the neglected hats have been dusted off. For most of us we ignore the hats that don’t fit the best, and for me those are digital hats. But having a smart twenty-something intern means I’m now on twitter (@joelschoontanis). It also means I’m getting my next Kickstarter campaign ready to launch (stay tuned for the Big Announcement). And finally, it means my website just got a few long needed updates (head on over to www.joelschoontanisart.com and check it out).
 
What’s the general take-away here? If you want to do it well, you can’t do it alone. Your head will get too hot.