A new chapter in expanding the impact of creativity on the world

Hello fellow creators,

Today marks a new horizon in my artistic journey, and I am thrilled to share it with each one of you. As artists, we revel in the act of creation, in the joy of bringing to life visions that once resided only in our imaginations. Yet, the journey from the studio to the marketplace can often feel like navigating an entirely different canvas—one that is less familiar and, at times, intimidating.

This is why I am stepping into the world of creative business coaching. It's more than a new service offering; it's a passion project born from my own experiences and challenges in the art world. Having traversed the path from uncertainty to financial stability and artistic recognition, I've amassed a wealth of knowledge that I'm eager to pass on.

Why Business Coaching for Artists?

Artists are not just creators; we are innovators, thinkers, and entrepreneurs. We possess the unique ability to see the world not just for what it is, but for what it could be. However, the reality of turning our art into a sustainable business can dampen even the most vibrant of spirits.

I've lived through the struggle of pricing artwork, of finding the right audience, and of mastering the elusive art of self-promotion. These experiences have shaped me, and now I want to use them to empower you. I want to help bridge the gap between your creative passion and your entrepreneurial aspirations.

What's Driving Me?

At its core, my motivation stems from a profound belief in the transformative power of art—not just as a vehicle for personal expression but as a means to shape and enrich our lives and communities. I've seen too many brilliant artists shy away from their potential, not for lack of talent, but for want of guidance in the business realm.

My goal is to demystify the business of art. I aim to provide you with the tools, strategies, and confidence needed to make your mark in the art world while securing the value you rightfully deserve for your work.

The Excitement of Sharing Knowledge

There's an indescribable excitement that comes with sharing knowledge. Just as we share our art with the world, I am eager to share the lessons I've learned. It's not just about strategies and tactics; it's about fostering a community where artists support artists, where your growth is our collective success.

This coaching service is my way of saying, "Let's grow together." Whether you're taking your first steps into selling your work or looking to expand your existing business, I'm here to guide you, to celebrate your victories, and to navigate the challenges alongside you.

The Journey Ahead

As we embark on this new chapter together, I invite you to join me. Reach out for a coaching session, follow along for tips and insights, and let's make the art business a landscape of abundant opportunities.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of your artistic journey. Here's to our collective growth, to the successes we will achieve, and to the art that will change the world.

Keep creating, keep dreaming, and let's get down to business.

To a future where we all thrive,
Join in the journey over at moonacle.com

Psychedelic Animated Music Video collab with Papa K out of Berlin.

I collaborated with the Aussie producer based in Berlin Dylan aka Papa K. He took some of my timelapses and created a clip to accompany his track release.

And here it is our twentieth free track goes from Papa K follow him and support his work. Support the artists: www.soundcloud.com/papakmusic Visuals were taken from two mandala paintings, created live in front of an audience by Sam Shennan then put together to create these psychedelic visuals to go along with this minimal house track flavoured with glitched out sunlight tones and bouncy bass. https://www.samshennan.com/
https://www.instagram.com/samshennan/
You can follow along with the Audio Mutz crew on Facebook www.facebook.com/audiomutz or join in the discussion on the Facebook Group www.facebook.com/groups/AUDIOmutz/.

NYC day 4

We head back to the Paley Center again for an old-timey radio play. We split into teams to act out an old version of The Shadow. This was a great experience! We got to voice act, play with the foley stuff too.
I’ve seen foley being used for movies in behind-the-scenes documentaries but it was so awesome being able to hold and see the sound effects in action gave me even more respect for the craft. I love to learn about hidden creators, where their work is not seen but felt in the final product.

Paley centre

Radio play 

The morning tour through Central Park was such a film buff moment, getting to see so many places I’ve seen in movies over the years. We had some stupid lunch at the Gin mill where we attempted to eat 50 wings. An architectural feat for enjoyment and free entertainment was the new High line in the south of manhattan.

NYC Day 8

This was our final day in NYC, first up we filmed our own home studio talk show with the group. Based on all we learned this trip I think we did an ok job fumbling through it together. After wrapping the shoot we shot out for a Mexican breakfast Maya Fusion Cafe and a last hurrah drink at Father Knows Best bar. Then the journey back to Belgium began, busses and trams and trains to get to Antwerp before the lockdown sealed us all at home for a few months.

Our home set for the filming of the talk show.

NYC Day 6

Today was a bit more of chilled out day, as usual, we kicked it off with a bagel before heading down to the Beat the bomb 💣 escape room. This was the first time I’ve been in a digital escape room, I loved it. The group we went with was a big challenge to communicate and team build in there.

We checked out the delicious and tiny Mexican Pedro's before scoping out the Brooklyn roasting company.

Brooklyn bridge. On our travel we hunted out an overpriced Luke's lobster .

For some entertaining retail experiences we checked out the stylish Burton store

before we sought out the magnificent Supreme store . They had an app in store that you can use a QR code to price check the shoes. Then… I was so stoked to see an instore Supreme branded pinball machine to play, for free!

NYC Day 3

Day 3

Monday! The morning after Superbowl, we shook off our hangovers with a ginormous American coffee and bagel for brekky then shot out onto the subway to meet the gang at Paley Centre for Media for today’s activity. We had to swing via the ridiculous Lego retail space in Rockafella Plaza. As a childhood lego enthusiast, this was a nostalgia trip for me.

When we arrived at the Paley centre we were treated to an introduction to their deep archive of shows from the 70s. We were shown how TV shows were influenced by the Vietnam war with series like All in the family . The episode we watched included a pretty tense argument over war and what it meant to different generations in America at the time. Our host introduced us to Norman Leer and the The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The episode we saw was one where Mary was struggling not to laugh at a funeral. There was a massive difference in the group between people who didn’t understand the gag. I was cracking up, and the Belgian and Polish students didn’t really get the jokes. We also checked out the original series of Charlie's Angels.

The Paley Center has a seriously deep archive of tv shows and I watched a classic, which I knew nothing of, The Jeffersons. The theme of the show talked about race differences, and in the protests surrounding George Floyd killing, the episodes feel as relevant today as they did nearly 50 years ago. We also saw some clips from Saturday Night Live, an asian stereotype dig at Samurais in the samurai hotel gag on Saturday Night Live. I was treated to my first stand up comedy session by Richard Pryor, that was a discovery I can’t wait to find more of his stuff online.

I had a short visit to the post office and encountered an amazing self service counter where you enter your information and weigh the parcel yourself. Then you stick on a printing label and send it off, all from the self service machine. Maybe this wasn’t entertainment, but it was definitely entertaining compared to the old way of doing things. 

We roamed over to find the underground food court which hosted the highly recommended Roberta’s pizzas within the bustling indoor food market at Urbanspace. After some hearty NY pizzas we hit the open skies on the Roosevelt Island sky tram to the once closed to the public Roosevelt Island. Once back on Manhattan we swung by The Jeffery Small bar for a quick brew before the highlight of the day.

Ala and I watch The Daily Show with Trevor Noah all the time in between work and travel. So getting to see him live was such a dense experience. This is the episode we were there for the filming of. Drinks at Mexican Cantina rooftop then a greasy feed for dinner at Luckys famous burgers.

NYC Day 2

This was our first morning in NYC, we struggled with the machines trying to get out Metro card, our foreign cards kicking up a stink in the machines. Once we got up onto the tracks it was worth it, what a view.

First stop today was the epic Museum of moving image I didn’t have high hopes for this place. I had been tainted by the Museum of Moving Image in Melbourne back in Australia.

Incredible old preroll ads for early cinemas.

How did this get made?

The Tyrell corporation building miniature from the Blade Runner film. A model from the Exorcist sits next to this model.

We took a guided tour of the museum including the -Jim Henson exhibit this was great to see the craftsmanship that goes into these characters, and the modelling was amazing. I was really interested in this exhibit after seeing the Netflix doco Being Elmo which followed the puppeteer behind the wildly popular Sesame Street character. Another treat from my youth was the new exhibit showing some of the puppets from Netfix’s prequel series based on the -Dark Crystal. The exhibition showed us some of the detailed costumes, animatronic puppets, props, sketches, costumes and production design from the show. The real feat was using puppets in a 2019 production to recreate the feel of the older movie from the 90s.

I was really impressed at the collection of toys and merchandise from film like Star Wars, Muppets and tons of other shows. You can see a bizarre C-3P0 tape dispenser above.

The two last parts of the tour were interesting to see such a dense collection of items from screen history, in the exhibit - Behind the Screen. Featured cameras from early tv and film were on display which gave you a real sense of the miniaturisation of the camera technology of today compare to the pioneers over 100 years ago.

The museum also had several interactive stop-motion activities and a really incredible zoetrope rotating strobe light installation. I love a zoetrope, they’re one of my favourite optical illusions. The last interactive session we undertook was The Living Room Candidate - Political ad campaign advertising workshop. We learned about political ads in America and started cutting and stitching audio and video together to build our own ads.

Political campaign ad editing workshop.

After the tour, we ventured off into the surrounding Brooklyn area to explore the foods and venues before Superbowl thisevening. We stumbled across the famous Brooklyn Brewery and took a spin in their tour.

Retrofitted 90s game consoles turned into DIY arcade machines at the Brookyln Brewery.

Seeing as it was Superbowl Sunday, we caught up with an Aussie friend for some German beers at the Spitzenhaus in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There we joined 100 million other fans to watch the Superbowl.
I was especially happy to tune in to the ads, the Superbowl of advertising. For each of the 77 slots, a 30-second ad spot comes with a fee of $5.6 million to be aired, not to mention this is on top of the cost to make the ads themselves.
I was really curious to try and find out how the heck Walmart got all the licences to use famous intellectual property for their ‘Visitors’ Walmart ad. The curiosity came from last years famous cars Walmart ad, where there was a whole bunch of ads from other famous car properties from popular culture.
Entertainment wise the amazing half time show is mindboggling in its scale, but even more, so that the whole stage is picked up and placed within 15 minutes for the show then removed again for the second half without a trace. The floor graphic on the halftime show caught my attention but so did the costumes. Why the ladies get to wear sexy clothes and the guys are in pyjamas? I guess that’s the way of the media in America.
I noticed the number of celebrity cameos and crossover ads this year was really high. I can’t imagine what the spending on celebrity appearances must have been for all ads this year. Licensing of Intellectual Properties during the ads is big business too, all those Celebrity appearances, cameos, cartoon characters must have cost a pretty penny.
To check out Superbowl ads, go check out https://superbowl-ads.com/ to watch and review the ads yourself.

I have to say the food for dinner at the Mexican Calexico’s was next level, thanks to our guide for the night for recommending the spot.

NYC Day 1

NYC DAY 1
This will be a short blog series about the media experience I had in New York City. I was on a uni excursion with some of my student peers from Thomas More. We took place in a 9-day immersive media trip to explore the differences between Belgian and American media. I say we, there was my girlfriend and about 30 other students from Thomas More for my degree course in International Media and Entertainment Business.

We were extremely lucky, the trip took place two weeks before the national lockdowns in Belgium and right before the city of New York exploded with Covid-19 infections in early March. During our visit to NYC, there were only three cases.

The first day, Saturday, Feb 1 2020,  we began our grand adventure from Antwerp to New York City. The media interactive trip was organised by The morning started with the first leg of our journey down to Brussels delayed by a cancelled train, this is all too common in Belgium. I hate that the train system is unreliable, but it’s the same for everyone I guess so we all just deal with it here. 

Entertainment media on flight was really nice, I love that the newer planes have Touch screen french media alongside Hollywood films. French films galore.

I noticed less Bollywood and Asian films in the roster compared to Emirates, Qantas or Etihad.

The interactive flight path map was great on the plane. I spent over an hour whizing around the planet using the google earth style flight system.

Finally I got around to watching a classic film, not just the latest B grade action flicks. I watched The Great Dictator, the famous Charlie Chaplain film. Despite the age of the film, I really enjoyed being transported back in time. The speech at the end still is still so powerful and relevant in 2020. 

We also watched the amazing, funny tense thriller Parasite film. Four days later the movie took home four Oscars.

While I’m writing about the media experience, I have to mention the amazingly terrible movies playing at US customs when we arrived. There was at least a two hour line to get out of the airport, so we got to see the films that loooked like 90’s films, or they were intentionally made to look dated.
Either way, we were most definitely not allowed to film in that space, so sadly I have nothing to show for these.