Press Release: Adam Fleming's new play, "A Pebble Among the Rocks," is finally finished and has just been copyrighted.  We're ready to find theaters ready to introduce a great new play to the public.

Set in the fictional town of Harmony, Nebraska, the play tells the story of Emily, a bright high school graduate entering adulthood.  As Emily trys to figure out what to do with her life, Owen and other residents she cares for at Harmony Halcyon Home spend their last days considering the impact their lives have had upon the world.  Mr. Fleming's sense of humor and love of people comes through in this play and leaves the viewer pondering how to make the best of the few years we enjoy on planet Earth.

For those who would like to read this play we'll soon be adding it in its entirety to this website as a pdf file.  Once you've read it, we hope you'll ask your local amateur and professional theaters to consider running it in their next season's fare.  In the meantime, contact us for a copy, and please consider making a donation via Paypal to support the continued success of this project! 

A recession is the time to do it.  Maybe you've been laid off, maybe cut back to part-time, or maybe graduated college and can't find a job.  Time to start up your own arts-related business?  Maybe taking the plunge to start a rock band?  Begin a career as an actor?  There are many ways to do this, and we don't prescribe anything in particular.  For some, nothing but all-out will do, others may chase their dreams while holding down a part- or full-time job.  We can help you figure out how to cover all your bases and still follow your dreams.  After all, why should a recession stop you?  

As for us here at Epic Life Studios, things are moving along.  Our fans will notice we've added a special page for Murals, (on the top toolbar,) and while for the most part we are operating in Northern Indiana (South Bend to Ft. Wayne area) we are willing to go anywhere for the right price, if you like what you see!  Meanwhile we are geared up for Arts Coaching Groups and beginning to craft a syllabus for Art Coach Training I.  We'll be writing a text and beginning the first class in a few months.  Either of these will be a combination of working on your art, and working on learning how to talk to other artists and be an encouragement to them.  So if you look at our Life Coaching section you'll see the four things we deliver as coaches and get an understanding of who they're for!  Enjoy the reinvigorated website! 

Hello friends of Epic Life Studios!  A few things to note that are new in February: We've updated the Life Coaching page to more accurately reflect who we are and what we provide.  Soon we'll have a new Page titled Murals/Interiors, a special place to showcase the great work Megan has been doing.  Meanwhile, we're excited about progress that is being made in the development of a course for art coaches and we're looking ahead to ELS's best month ever!  Stay in touch- we're always a click away!  Don't forget to add us to your fb or twitter accounts.

This is the fourth blog in the series.  Please see below to read blogs 1-3.

How much does it wear you out to gather your Character, Values, Skill and Potential, throw them into the hopper, go through the rigorous Process of Art-Making, then Complete and Exhibit some work?

I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  Sooner or later you're going to hit the next phase: Down Time.  For us to grow as babies we have to sleep.  A lot.  We take naps, and sleep 14 hours a night on top of that.  And we grow like crazy.  Down time is essential.  I don't need to say tons about this because your body and mind will simply stop you if you are not allowing yourself a rest from being an Art Maker.  If you think you're exempt from this and can work tirelessly forever my guess is that there will not be much growth.  Just a factory.  No, we're talking about actually becoming something more than what you currently are, and to get there, you'll have to take some time away.

Secondly, we discuss feedback in this stage of our Cycle.  Now to be fair feedback is happening from somewhere midway through the Process, and flows through the Completion and Exhibition phase and on into Down Time.  So what's really happening here is that if you are truly taking Down Time you aren't taking in new feedback, while you may still be psychologically processing the feedback you've been getting all along.  Therefore, while one could argue that feedback doesn't fit in the Down Time, it just happens to be the point at which I've decided to throw it in, since it spans several phases.

You're not going to go into evaluation for future growth without taking in some specific feedback about your previous work (or work that is stuck in a holding pattern) and without taking some Down Time.  For some this may be a day, for others a month.  For those who hit Down Time and wonder if you'll ever get out, this is a good place to talk to a coach.  You may be mistaking Down Time for some kind of larger Holding Pattern that has you stuck in the Process phase, and since you haven't actually made anything for months, you don't realize it's not Down Time!

Defining Down Time a little more: A major work has been completed.  Maybe your album is done recording and it's in the hands of somebody else for mastering.  Maybe you've just finished a big outdoor sculpture exhibit.  Or maybe it's as simple as you spending the whole week sketching for your next major painting.  In any case, Down Time is a period after successfully completing some work or a stage or portion of work.  The amount of down time you'll need will likely be proportionate to the extent of your physical and mental exertion in Process and Completion.  Allow yourself some down time, let go of the work-and even the feedback- and you'll be ready to hit the next Phase: Evaluation.

News:  This Saturday, 10-12 AM at the Bricolage, 206 S. Main, in Goshen.  Arts Coaching Group!  $5 for 30 minutes of art/life coaching, you can't beat it anywhere and we are guaranteeing it or your money back.

Megan is working on a mural in Niles, and Adam has had a breakthrough in the process of working on his fiction and is into the second half of that rough draft and beginning to think about finding an editor and possibly even a publisher.

Notes:  Today is the third blog in the series on the Artists' Growth Cycle.  See below to read in order.

While we all love to say that making art is about the journey or Process, the reality is that we become increasingly frustrated if we don't actually finish some work at some point.  Some pieces take years, others a matter of hours or minutes, and yet we can't seem to get there.  With some coaching, or as the Beatles said, "I get by with a little help from my friends," eventually we do get there. 

However it is that you decide a piece is done, now is the time to take it to an audience.  Your audience may be the one person the work is created especially for, or it may be millions of filmgoers.

Recently we've been tweaking our target market for our painting business.  I spent some time this morning with Russell in customer service at ServiceMagic.com figuring out the best way to get the most business for the least expense through their advertising.  We cancelled advertising some of the services where we routinely lose bids, (regular house painting,) and increasing advertising for things we're more likely to win: mural jobs and specialty painting.  Really the principle for finding your audience for artwork is no different, even if you aren't selling it! 

There are a lot of issues that go into the Completion phase on the Growth Cycle.  Besides marketing and sales, we also talk about finding the X-Factor, and in fact there is an element of feedback here as well.  We discuss feedback more in the next phase, suffice to say for now that as this is a cycle, feedback is one of those things that could enter the picture somewhere between the beginning of the Process and the period after Completion.

What's the X-Factor?  We have some differing views among friends I think at this point, and we're hashing that out.  But basically, the X-Factor is finding the thing that makes the piece or work really sing.  There is a chance that not every piece you finish will sing for everyone who experiences it, and that's a chance we all have to take when we say the words "it is finished."  One of the biggest fears artists face is the fear that not everyone will "Get it" or "Like it."  Let's just eliminate that from our vocabulary right now because I've done enough work that I considered "good" and enough I considered "Bad" and put it out there enough to know that exciting everyone is impossible and perhaps not even desirable.  Some of my "worst" work still gets positive comments.  (Did you know I once produced an entire album of original music?  Wow.  The recording was terrible, making it impossible to mix or master well, the musicianship was worse than mediocre, and the themes and styles were all over the place.  And yet every once in a while some friend tells me, as I wince, that they listened to it the other day and found something to enjoy in it.  Yeah, I say, I had fun doing that.)

Completion is the phase where I get to coach people on exhibition and marketing, and that's always exciting for me.  But there's more to it.  Some people aren't ready to exhibit publicly or market their work, and yet they do want to know they've finished something, and improved.  You need to know that's okay, and that I still think it is worth doing.  We're halfway through the Growth Cycle because when we've finished a work, we now have something concrete to build upon!