#etcinnovate

INSPIRED BY THE FUTURE

We may not know what’s there, but we sure want to reach it. That’s why we experiment, lighting up the room of the unknown. It’s innovation we crave at ETC, which is why we’re leaders.

CORE: noun

     1. the central or most important part of something

VALUE: noun

     1. a person’s principals or standard of behavior, one’s judgment of what is important in life

INNOVATE: verb

     1. to do something in a new way : to have new ideas about how something can be done.

    Visit the ETC Innovate Pinterest Board.

At ETC, innovate means:

1. We know what we know. Finding out what we don’t know is how we innovate.

2. To innovate is to experiment and push boundaries. The process is sometimes fun and sometimes uncomfortable.

We discovered the book “ART and FEAR : Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking” many years ago. It was written by the insightful co-authors David Bayles and Ted Orland. It’s an intense and thought provoking on why we become artists, what gets in the way of making art (hint- it’s alway boils down to fear), and how we can get out of our way and keep creating. 

To entice you into reading it in it’s entirety, we highlighted 6 quotes that get us thinking.

“Making art means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next.”

“....those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue- or more precisely, have learned how not to quit.”

“Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be.”

“Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending. The risks are obvious: you may never get to the end of the sentence at all- or having gotten there, you may not have said anything.” 

“Simply put, making art is chancy- it doesn’t mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.”

“In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling panel of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot - and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.”

April is upon us and therefore we have a new core value to explore this month with visuals, interviews and stories. But first, our introduction to FEARLESS. 

CORE: noun

the central or most important part of something.

VALUE: noun

a person’s principals or standard of behavior, one’s judgment of what is important in life.

FEARLESS: adjective

      1.  not afraid. brave.

The definition is quite simple, but being fearless is anything but. We would go so far as to say that it is one of the hardest emotions to muster up. To be fearless is to be free from the fear that holds us back from taking risks and creating. 

To be fearless is to understand that fear exists in human nature and it wears many disguises. Sometimes it cloaks itself in the disguise of confusion, sadness, shame or anger. 

When we are fearless we note those feelings and check in with ourselves and make sure that fear isn’t determining our choices and our actions. 

We recognize that it is our ongoing lifes’ work to stomp fear out so we can create. Creativity and fear cannot coexist. This is a universal law that the truth can’t argue with.

We created a mood board of our artists work to illustrate what #ETCfearless is. Whether it is taking risks with a new lighting technique, photographing athletes who train fearlessly, or photographing a model who seeks to redefine society’s definition of beauty - these are image that inspire us. To see more, visit our Pinterest board.

As a collective, we know the following things are true:

1. There Are No Rewards Without Risk.

2. Creativity and Fear Cannot Coexist.

3. Being determined, gritty, unflinching, adventurous, encouraged,   reassured, undeterred, emboldened, confident, venturesome, hardy, fun,     daring, or gutsy are all in alignment with being fearless. The best part of     being fearless is that you get to choose which synonym to be, when.

4. Be Afraid and Act Anyway.

CORE: kôr/

noun

1. the central or most important part of something.

VALUE:  val·ue

ˈvalyo͞o/

noun

1. a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

Core Values. These two little words have so much meaning to us.  

Our firm uses our core values to attract the type of artists we wish to curate, people we want to talk to, and the business we want to attract.  

They help our agents inspire leadership within our company and illuminate the way forward toward building a successful lifestyle brand.

They drive our priorities and decisions on how we spend our time and resources, and help us to attract and retain talented and well-rounded people in our collective space.  

We use our core values when we need to make difficult decisions, reduce internal conflict and when we need to differentiate our brand from others.  

They are, our DNA, our culture and the fabric of what and how we do. 

And so, one day we had an idea.

We thought if these core values helped us align our group internally, what would happen to our conversations with others if we decided to share our core values with the world? We had a bit of an epiphany while we were developing and refining a new core value in January 2016. We realized that the work of defining who are to the point of absolute clarity is the also the primary pursuit of our clients and the brands they serve.

What possibilities could we create in our industry if we could align our agents and artists to our clients by way of investing everyone in the way we see the world?

We knew that our core values were a set of universally held beliefs and practices that ensure the best outcome for everyone at the table.  We knew that living with them gave us power in the now and created a space for us to be inspired by the future. We also remembered a time when they didn’t exist for us. That time was muddier. When our core values were born and came into being, we were all the better for it. They are nothing, however, if they are not shared.

So, we have chosen to do an experiment, if you will, by changing the every-day conversations we are having with our audience. We are seeking to change the conversations about buying and selling art for advertising, to speaking in every way to the things that make us tick, in the hopes of creating powerful interactions with the people we seek to do business with.  It would be an experiment in finding our tribe, people whom we want to work with and for.

We will introduce and share our core values here in this blog space.

You will see artist interviews, receive printed promotion and view customized libraries across all social media platforms from Instagram to Pinterest. We will seek to define and give life and shape to each core value in the hopes that you or your brand will be in the conversation about it with us. Perhaps you can even share some of your own that we can incorporate into our world.

Each month we will introduce a new core value by defining it, showing how our artists illustrate that core value in their work, and how that specific core value relates to our industry and the world at large. We’re excited to have you join us in the conversation with the hash tag #ETCmovement.

THE CORE VALUES OF THE #ETCMOVEMENT

#ETCLife

#ETCFearless

#ETCBelong

#ETCInspire

#ETCReal

#ETCInnovate

#ETCCurate

#ETCGrow