I’ve enrolled! Yes, I’m going back to school, online. Starting on March 11, I will be undertaking an eight week course to transform my practice…
I have always believed in continual learning, which is why I went back to university in 1999, where I completed my Honours in Fine Art at Monash University in Melbourne. It had been ten years since I graduated from Queensland College of Art in Brisbane with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and I decided it was time to reinvest in my practice with the dedicated focus and support that full-time study allows. I then received a two-year scholarship from Monash to complete my Masters in Fine Art and this was truly transformative for my work.
Now, I don’t believe that you need to enrol in a formal course or sit within the walls of an institution in order to learn and progress, but I do believe it is important as professionals in any industry to continue to learn and grow and push ourselves further within our work to achieve milestones, which are important to us.
It can be a challenge for artists and free-lance designers to work within their practice full-time simply due to the demand for their work, their suitability for projects, right-timing and client budgets, without needing to offset their income through other paid work. Working as an artist for over 20 years, I know this all too well. You need to be adaptable, agile, flexible and think laterally a lot! With all the introspection into my practice over the past couple of months, I have a tiny seed of an idea for a new direction for my practice, which I want to help germinate and grow and to do this I need some serious business mentoring.
Rather than take a dry, overpriced and drawn out business course, I’ve decided to enrol in B-School. Marie Forleo created B-School to help female entrepreneurs make their businesses truly satisfying and profitable, particularly online. I know I’ve needed a mentor for a while now – a mentor in business and marketing and right now, this feels perfect.
If you’d like to learn more about B-School and the work that Marie Forleo does, visit her website. Enrolments for B-School for 2013 close tomorrow and the course won’t run again until next year.
I’ve always loved learning new things. Whether it’s a new skill, technique, ideology or thought process. And the part I find the most fun, the most challenging, the most rewarding, is putting it into practice…
Image: Flash back! In my studio 2008, by Troy Hansen