Wonderful artist Yuri Yuan with some straight up wisdom for creative folk.  That is everybody, right?

How do you deal with those experiences when they happen? Are there things you do going into that space to shield yourself creatively?

I usually like to imagine myself having three hats: the artist hat, the business hat, and the philosopher hat. When I’m wearing my artist hat, I’m never thinking about career, shows, gallery. I’m just focusing on, is this shape the right shape? Is this the right color? A lot of the conversations I have as the artist are in the studio. There I can have more meaningful conversation around the work, and that really helps me to grow my practice.

But when I’m wearing the business hat, I understand I’m doing this as a career. I can’t deny that part of this. So when I work with a gallery, I have a professional hat. I know that’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to be at the opening. I’m supposed to talk to people about the work. It is definitely not my favorite thing to do, but I still enjoy the conversations.

And the third hat is the philosopher hat, which I wear when I think deeply about why this work needs to exist in this world. It’s about my emotions and my story, but how is it going to help other people? What can other people get from it? Where does this work exist in this world?