The Sage Creative

Last week we celebrated World Water Day. So, this past weekend, Nate and I watched the 1995 film Waterworld with Kevin Costner and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Have you seen it? The whole time I was glued to the TV and taken by how the PG-13 movie captured some of my biggest fears for Earth's future. (Learn more about eco-anxiety here .) If you haven't seen it, humanity does something that causes the icecaps to melt and inundate all habitable land and freshwater becomes scarce. As you can imagine, chaos ensues. I won't say anything else other than, this film gets R-E-A-L. You can see the progressive loss of land and then the Earth completely inundated, setting the scene for the Waterworld movie. As a water resources professional in my career, the value of water, especially freshwater, is something I live every day. Water is life. So today we honor the one thing that makes Earth unique in our universe, habitable to life, and astoundingly beautiful from space. Measuring flow on St. Vr...

A fellow friend and environmentalist recently wrote me: " Some of my friends (and me, if I'm being real) have been feeling depressed and hopeless about the state of the world and how badly we and our ancestors are harming Earth and other sentients..." Her words hit home. It's something I've felt for a long time. Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and sometimes, if you don't catch them soon enough, they turn into dangerous apathy.  In psychology, they have a term for it, a term that was never needed until our generation: eco-anxiety .  The American Psychological Association  has defined eco-anxiety (also known as eco distress and climate-anxiety) as "the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations".  Extensive studies have been done on ecological anxiety since 2007. It's no surprise that, while ...

Hey friend, Each winter, we try to take a trip somewhere warm to break up the long cold of winter. Two weeks ago, we were in Panama trying to catch whale sharks and eagle rays on their migration down the Pacific Coast. Unfortunately, they were over 3 weeks late because climate change is altering the timing of warm currents that their food source (krill) travel on. Though we tried, we didn't see them. "Whale Shark Fingerprint" by Jenny McCarty In the delicate dance of life on Earth, humans play a pivotal role as stewards of the environment. Yet, our actions have led to a crisis of unprecedented proportions, with ecosystems unraveling, species disappearing, and climate patterns shifting. Now, more than ever, the planet needs us to embrace sustainability as a guiding principle for our collective future. The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. Our planet is facing a myriad of interconnected environmental challenges, from deforestation and pollution to loss of biodi...

When was the last time you tried something for six months? Did you paint, try a new exercise regimen, diet, or meditate? Today, I want to talk about a game-changer: dedicating yourself wholeheartedly to something creative for a solid six months. Yes, you read that right—six months of committing to your craft can lead to remarkable transformations you never thought possible. Six months ago, I started painting daily. I was completely burnt out and had been told by a career coach that the quickest way to combat burnout is to spend more time in flow. Who knew? I had always been able to find flow easily while painting, so I started painting again after taking nearly 10 years off to grow a science career. I committed to painting daily for 30 days, then 65 to reestablish my creative habit. (Research shows it takes 60-65 days to really establish a new habit). While I don’t paint daily anymore, I paint several times a week, and look back on the last 6 months with wonder. So much has changed s...

Hey there, Today, I want to tackle a topic that's on many artists' minds: does selling art on platforms like Etsy, social media, or a personal website affect one's art career advancement in the eyes of "industry approved" galleries? It's a question that's sparked a lot of discussion, and I think it's worth diving into. First, I want to disclaim here that I am not an expert in this topic. I am an artist, but I don’t have any work in galleries. This is what I’ve learned from my research talking with others. Jason Horejs, Xanadu gallery owner in Arizona, says that "it depends." Horejs believes that while some gallery owners might worry about artists selling merchandise alongside their fine art, in practice, it's often not as big of a deal as we might think. He points out that serious art collectors are usually more interested in original pieces and aren't deterred by the availability of prints or other merchandise. In fact, branching out...

Many artists, maybe even you, grapple with the question "Is selling my art online worth it?"  After opening my online shop last November, someone asked me this very question. At the time, I didn't yet have the words to describe my feelings and what was driving me to sell my art online. I knew in my gut that it was worth it for me, but I didn't know how to answer her question. To be honest, I was too deep in the process, too overwhelmed by other doubting questions in my head like "What are you doing? Is this going to work? Will anyone even buy anything? Is my art even good enough?" to stop and think about the bigger picture and whether or not my efforts were worth it. Three months later and little more perspective between my then-overwhelmed self and today, I can honestly say "it" was worth it for me.  So what is "it"? "It" is your time, money, and peace. You will have to spend time, money, and frankly, forego some peace in the b...

I have always loved to create art, and like many artists, maybe even you, I've long been interested in selling my work. However, art is not my full-time career path and being a part-time artist on top of working a full time job and juggling the rest of life's demands is nearly impossible for most people. Sound familiar to you?  In fact, 10 years ago, I tried selling my art online. I worked three jobs all summer to pay for an art and imaging center to take very expensive digital images of my largest pieces; I paid $3,000 (no joke) at the time for a web designer to setup a website for me to display and sell art prints with cart checkout functionality (because sites like Shopify and Squarespace didn't exist back then); and I bought hundreds of dollars worth of prints to hold an inventory.  After opening up shop, I made a handful of sales, made a few annoying trips to the post office to mail one-off packages, and then I let the business dissolve, never to be profitable. Why? Be...