Andrea Dantas could have ended up poor and broke in Brazil. Her father went bankrupt when she was a child and her mother struggled to feed two kids. Her one saving grace was her love for acting.
Andrea left Brazil to study acting in Australia. While she was able to get a tourist Visa, she had trouble getting a work Visa. So her mother smuggled her money by putting it inside books she sent through the mail. While she survived on a diet of canned beans, she was still happy because she was learning and doing what she loved.
She has been able to build a successful career in acting through years of studying, performing, and working in multiple countries.
In this episode, learn why you should never stop learning, why you should always remember your why, and what it takes to do work that matters to you.
Here are three things you can learn from Andrea:
One thing Andrea made very clear is that you should never stop learning. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing your craft for one year or one hundred years, you are never done learning. “You never stop learning, and if you think that you’ve got it, and a project comes along and it’s just going to kick your butt and prove to you ‘Oh my gosh, I thought I knew everything.’ Hang on a second, but that’s with everything in life I think.”
Andrea also believes your technique matters. You can’t just go through the motions. “Nothing is more important than technique until artistry comes along. It’s the only way that your art is going to come out.”
She also believes that once you’ve discovered and mastered what works for you, the possibilities are endless. “Once you find what really works for you, and you hone into that and you become a master at that, then you can do… pretty much anything.”
Some people get so caught up in trying to be rich or famous that they forget about their craft. They forget the reason they got into art in the first place. They are too caught up with their vision of the future that they forget to live in the present. “I think it’s that ability of not being married to a situation and holding on so tight to it that you don’t see the change right in front of you and also being silent and asking yourself ‘Why am I doing this in the first place? Why do I still love doing this thing?’ It’s important.”
When I asked Andrea why she loves her work, she said it came from a direct answer from the divine. “My reason for doing this is because this was a direct answer to a question I had forgot and I believe that vocation, which is the most important thing in my life, is in total alignment with the divine and I think that I’m answering a calling. And I see how it’s impacting these artists in New York because New York can be a pretty intimidating city and how they found each other and they’re making things together… It’s such a rewarding job. It’s not even a job because it’s so good.”
One thing to remember when you are going through your journey is, it’s hard to do it alone. You need to find people who are going through a journey too so you can help each other out. “Find your tribe. For an actor, for an artist, that’s so important. Find an artistic family, the family that you choose to go through this journey together, to go through this journey with, because it can be pretty lonely out there when you’re an actor.”
When we are starting out on our artistic journeys, we have grand visions of what we can accomplish. We look at those who came before us and think “I can do that too.”
While this may be true, it can also be stifling. Our expectations become unrealistic too quickly. It can stop us dead in our tracks. So, remember to stop being so hard on yourself. Just do the best you can at the moment. The rest will come to you in due time.
Just listen to what Andrea has to say. “Don’t be so hard on yourself thinking it has to be a masterpiece. Chances are, your first movie is not going to be a Martin Scorsese film. It’s not going to be that. So, I say get that idea. Put it on paper. Get people together. Go do it. Give birth to your ugly baby, and then, what do you know, you learn something. And the next one, you learn something else… We live in a day and age where there’s no reason for actors not to be working, for filmmakers not to be working because we have access to technology and things and we can be making our own stuff.”
It all begins with starting. “You have to start somewhere. Start somewhere, don’t stop and do the things you’re passionate about.”
And don’t get too caught up in the future. Live more in the now. “The future is now. No, I stopped thinking about the future a long time ago. I go as I go.”
A recap of episode 58. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Bodlar Deathbringer where he dives more into the challenges you face as an artist, the importance in marketing and networking, and why you need to confront your fears.
Bodlar Deathbringer is a visual artist living in New York City. Since early in his life, it seemed like he was destined to become an artist. His father was a visual artist and his mother was a writer. He also started creating his own paintings when he was eight years old. So it would seem odd that Bodlar went into IT work.
After years of working in the corporate world, he finally decided he had enough. He decided he would move to New York City to pursue his art career full-time. It hasn't always been easy, but Bodlar has been working as an artist ever since.
In this episode, learn about the challenges you face as an artist, the importance in marketing and networking, and why you need to confront your fears.
Here are three things you can learn from Bodlar:
No one has any illusions that life as a full-time artist is easy. Bodlar believes you must want it. ""It's hard. It's really hard, and it's perpetually terrifying. You know, you just always have to be on point. You have to hustle. You have to be self-motivated. You have to really want it."
When you are working a 9-5 job, there's a certain comfort there. But when you are working for yourself, things are different. "The reason it took me so long to get out of IT work is that you get addicted to that level of comfort of having that regular paycheck. It's very hard to look in the face of the world and say 'No, I'm going to do this other thing and go off the beaten path..."
The key is to constantly create. Bodlar creates 600-700 pieces a year, and that's without the comfort of his own studio. While most artists believe talent is enough, he believes in the power of being prolific. "In order to be a successful artist, you really have to be prolific."
As an example he brings up the fact that most famous artists are prolific creators. "Any artist you can name off the top of your head got there because they were prolific and worked and worked and worked their ass off to get there."
Another thing Bodlar believes in deeply is the importance of networking and marketing your art. People won't find you unless you put yourself out there. "As a visual artist, half of your job is marketing and networking and that people aren't going to come to you just because you painted a pretty picture. You have to go out and show it to them and find the right person to buy it. And I've always painted under the auspices of painting what I want to paint and then going to find someone who likes it, that wants to buy it."
You can't just wait for people to come to you. You have to go to them. "You have to get into the scene. You have to figure out who the important players are. Who are the important galleries? Who are the important artists? And just go to as many events as you can and network with as many people as you can."
It's all about being visible. You can't be afraid to share your work with others. "You have to be visible as an artist. You have to go out and figuratively grab people by the collar and say 'Hey look, I did this. This has merit. It's interesting, and really get in people's face about what you're doing.'"
When I asked Bodlar what separates someone who makes the leap from their 9-5 IT job from someone who doesn't he talked about overcoming our fears. If we want to live a life without regret, we have to make that scary leap. "Our life, our society, our world are typically controlled by fear and jumping off of that cliff into the abyss of art is probably one of the most terrifying experiences I've been through in my life and it still terrifies me to this day, but I finally realized that if I don't do this, If I don't take that leap, that it's going to kill me... and I don't want to be one of those people that wakes up when I'm sixty-five and realize I wasted my life doing nothing."
He believes many people never make the leap because they're afraid of discomfort. "I think people are just very afraid of discomfort. We have this evolutionary precept to where we want comfort. We want to be comfortable. We want to have abundance... We want to have all of those things, and so, it's hard to balance those things, because when you're starting out, they're very much at odds with one another."
He also has no illusions that our fears and struggles will ever go away. We just have to be willing to deal with them. "Even if I'm selling tons of work, and making tons of money, I'm still going to be worried about what's next. There's still going to be newer, bigger, struggles to tackle and I think that's one of the other things that a lot of people don't realize that no matter where you're at in life it's going to be a struggle. It's always going to be hard and that if you're afraid of it being hard, then you're never going to get anywhere. You have to be willing to say, 'Okay, this is going to be hard and then go out and do it anyway."
The first recap episode of the show. Let me know what you think of the shortened format.
If you liked this recap, check out Ginger's full episode!