Art does not have to come at the expense of mental wellness. This entrepreneur is teaching young ... [+]
“Art is not reliant on our lives being erratic,” begins one of Abiola Ogunbiyi’s latest Instagram posts. “You are not supposed to make ten years’ worth of artistic progress in one afternoon,” says another.
Formerly an actress who performed in musicals on the West End and then internationally, Abiola now coaches female artists from around the world on how to tap into the full extent of their creative potential while focusing on holistic wellness.
Her mission is to prove to young female artists that sacrificing their mental health for the sake of their art is not necessary.
Interestingly enough, Abiola’s own awakening moment came in through an unexpected setback: a debilitating knee injury.
While out of work, Abiola took the opportunity to study the art of creativity, researching the careers and lives of artists in different fields, their daily routines, educations, mentors, where they went on holidays, and more. “The more I read, the more options I saw through which to pursue an artistic life,” she shared. “Maya Angelou was a particular inspiration as she had worked as a performer before her own writing career. This research helped support my stubbornness in shifting and merging art-forms.”
Today, Abiola coaches clients across the world, and shares snippets of her wisdom on her deeply moving Instagram page.
“[In my posts], I address a different aspect of working as an artist in the present-day, speaking about fear, authenticity, balance, and a rotation of things that my clients and people who message me privately comment on experiencing,” she says.
Some of the most common themes? First, Abiola says that creativity is a field that should be celebrated more broadly than just looking at the bestsellers. “If those are the only markers that artists see, there is danger that they feel that anything less than that isn’t significant,” she says.
Abiola also thinks success as a whole needs to be redefined. “Each artist needs to be encouraged to seek out their own definition,” she says.
That new version of success can be created in an unprecedented way thanks to the Internet, Abiola shares. “For example, there’s the idea that an artist has to get their work in a gallery to earn an income... with the creation of the internet, and the fact that one can earn a full-time income with a smaller community of extremely loyal patrons, an artist can sell their art themselves online.”
However, the pressure to create, and sell, at an unprecedented pace has lead Abiola to define the seven aspects of a working artist that must be honored: voice, vision, product, platform, routine, network, and structure.
“I think that it starts with the voice, the message that one expresses as an artist, and the way in which they express it,” she says. “The degree to which we believe our voice is worthy of occupying space is born out of our self-concept, the beliefs we have about ourselves. If this self-concept isn’t strong, we cannot holistically put the other aspects in place to support our growth.”
“I think by the very nature of the profession, the artist’s self-concept is at constant risk of attack. The artist has to understand this without putting up a wall so thick that they are immediately resistant to any external forces, but also without letting the impact of those forces perforate themselves so deeply they cannot thrive. This is really not easy. For the most part, I encourage my followers and clients to approach things in two ways: to explore, understand, and challenge the experiences and beliefs that their self-concept has been formed from, and to apply the practices that will support the growth and sustenance of a self-concept that a flourishing career can be born out of.”
As for building a business on Instagram and the Internet — which so many people are going to continue to lean into in the coming years — Abiola shares the following advice.
- Stay true to your voice, and to the audience resonating with that voice rather than thinking you need to just accumulate followers of any kind.
- The network takes time to create, but it can be created.
- No particular time or day of the week is more successful than another, positing as frequently as is sustainable is best.
- Stayed very engaged and build loyalty by showing that you are listening and that you are attentive.
“Only look at how many likes your posts have gotten in order to understand what people want to hear more of,” she says. “But also, monitor what people share and save, rather than just like. I have a few posts that have been shared more than they’ve been liked, and those are the ones I really pay attention to because that’s the material that people want to have access to for themselves for later.”
In the future, Abiola predicts that there will be more communities and safe spaces carved out for artists to connect, share and coexist. “I think the more of these that exist, the more information can be passed on to women through the generations (in both directions), and this can help emphasize the sense of community amongst female artists,” she says. “I hope that we will have structures that support female artists who seek to be artists over a long period of time, to prevent the feeling that one can progress as an artist as they enter new dimensions of their personal life.”
As for her own career, Abiola continues to work on reaching a wider audience and clientele. For her own art, she looks forward to continuing to explore the human condition.
“I’m definitely entering a new phase as an artist that is focused on marrying betterment and balance, and so each post is a means through which to communicate a new discovery,” she says. “I hope to continue putting those discoveries to use helping others. Whatever I’m doing, you can trust there’ll be a lot of food metaphors.”
