Name: Mary Daniel Hobson
Company Name: Mary Daniel Hobson
Website: www.marydanielhobson.com
Note from Jenn: Mary Daniel Hobson’s artwork is simply gorgeous with a hint of mystery. Last year “Danny” attended a Right-Brain Business Plan workshop where she created her collaged vision book shown in her spotlight below. Danny shares what keeps her inspired and what helps her move past the frustration of the left-brain details. I think you’ll appreciate hearing about her creative process and how her goals have gracefully unfolded. (All photos courtesy of Mary Daniel Hobson)
What is your business and what makes your business unique?
My business is making and selling fine art. I love to combine objects, texts and images in a way that creates poetic meaning. What really makes my business unique is the artwork itself. My processes are tactile and unusual, such as bottling photographs in mineral oil or creating collages with photographic transparencies. In addition, I am very interested in symbolic meaning and creating art that speaks to the universal experiences of being human – both the challenging and the joyful.
How has the Right-Brain Business Plan helped you? What is different for you and your business after approaching planning in a creative, visual way?
The Right Brain Business Plan has given me the green light to trust my intuition in the midst of very linear processes like marketing and promotion. My favorite part of the RBBP workshop was the visualization and then making the collage about that vision. I felt filled with possibility and new insight. I loved that we made the collages inside an accordion book, because it is then so easy to carry it with me and expand it anywhere I am. It has really helped me integrate my vision into my whole life more easily, because it can be on a ledge in the kitchen while I do dishes and then on my main working table in the studio.
During the visualization at the RBBP workshop I saw a beam of light coming through the center of my studio (which is a little building just across the yard from my house). This light was coming into me and infusing my hands with creative, healing energy that I was using to make new work that touched people deeply. I also saw myself working with people in my studio space and spreading that creative, healing inspiration directly out to others.
I got a little tripped up when we moved to the left brain, detailed work of goals, marketing, target audience, financials, etc. I realized afterward what happened was that as soon as the class shifted to those items, I abandoned my vision and started answering questions from the existing model of my business. I felt immediately constricted and my heart was just not in it. In fact, I came home full of frustration. Then in the middle of the night, I had an epiphany. I realized that I did not need to make conventional, linear goals. I could simply let my collage show me my next steps. I could literally read my collage like a book and cull it for guidance on how to move forward. For example, the first panel of my collage book had a woman doing yoga – so it literally was encouraging me to do more yoga and in fact a month later I began substitute teaching yoga and brainstorming ideas for workshops that might combine yoga and creative process. My collage also had a book cover called Standing in the Light – so I checked that book out of the library. It had a nest with a blue egg – so I used a basket shaped like a nest and bought some little blue eggs and put them in my studio. In this way, I began to read my book like an intuitive map of the next steps for supporting my creative business. In the end, the great gift for me of the RBBP was that it really helped me to trust my intuition more deeply, and to trust in the natural unfolding of my business as it changes and evolves in new ways.
What goals (big or small) on your business plan have you already accomplished or have made progress on?
I think again as I have described already, the big impact of the RBBP for me was encouraging me to trust my intuition and the visual images I assembled in the book collage. It has been a year since I completed this collage and I can see more clearly how certain images in the book relate to how my life has unfolded. For example, the center panel with the light coming into the studio is surrounded by imagery of gardens, three young girls, and a basket full of fall vegetables. I have held two Open Studios in my Muir Beach studio that were wonderful events done in collaboration with my neighbor and master gardener, Wendy Johnson – the first one there were several young girls including my daughter playing the garden. The second one was at harvest time and Wendy even had baskets full of pumpkins and squash. When I made this collage I had not yet even dreamed of doing these events.
How do you use your creative intuition in your work?
Creating artwork is very much an intuitive process that relies on letting go and trusting each step as it unfolds. Often I will have an idea for a piece of art, but once I get my hands into the materials it shifts and grows in new and unexpected ways – and so relaxing and letting my intuition guide me is very important.
Creative Resources
Click here for more information about Mary Daniel Hobson
Click here for Right-Brain Business Plan™ e-Course and the Right-Brain Business Plan e-Book.
