Ep #38: Cultivating Extraordinary Art with Ashley Longshore

“I’m brave enough to be who I am in a society where there’s a lot of pressure to be perfect.  I can only be me, and I encourage you to be you.” That quote is from today’s fabulous podcast guest, Ashley Longshore.

So, she is an artist who needs to no introduction, but if for some reason you have not yet had the pleasure of encountering Ashley and her art, here is a little background. Ashley is a New Orleans-based mixed-media artist. She’s been compared to a young feminist Andy Warhol for her obsession with pop culture figures and brands as well as her relationships with celebrities and billionaire entrepreneurs.

From George Washington in a Supreme hoodie to Jesus surrounded in Louis Vuitton, to Kate Moss as a nun, Longshore’s paintings focusing on pop culture, Hollywood glamour and American Consumerism are never shy of daring. Her art makes noise. Dubbed by the New York Times as fashion’s latest art darling, she has emblazoned the path for pop art and fashion to coexist.

Longshore was recently celebrated by Bergdorf Goodman as its first female artist solo exhibit in its 100-year-plus history and designed the newly opened Palatte at BG. Curated by Diane Von Furstenberg for an exclusive art experience at her flagship location, Ashley painted a collection of 40 iconic women who have changed the course of history.

And so I’m so excited today to introduce you to Ashley and to let her speak to you, more than anything, because I do think she is a woman in our contemporary society who is changing the course of history as we watch. She is such an example of what is possible and I mostly just wanted to get out of her way during this conversation because I knew, if I could just get the ball rolling, that she was going to give you so much inspiration and so many takeaways. And there are various times when I really try to highlight that.

But it’s an interview that’s only 30 minutes long but jam packed and worth listening to over and over again because the things that she says that sometimes go so quickly and seem like they might be missed in the speed of her conversation and the force of her conversation  and the way she talks, definitely go back and grab them, because there are gems that if you take and make your own and apply it to your own life, will definitely change the course of your creative life, your creative career, and life in general.

In that New York Times article where she was called fashion’s latest darling, there’s a really fascinating quote from here where she’s recounting, reflecting, about the opening at Bergdorf and how it was just slammed with so many people who came to see her, especially so many women and young women.

So she remarked to the reporter in this interview piece, “Boy, did I freaking bring it,” she said. Her ardor, she knows, is infectious. She goes on to say, “All those girls at the opening, I want them to feel, this could happen to me too,” she said, adding, with no trace of irony, “My greatest legacy is not my painting, but sharing with them that feeling of endless possibility every day.”

And for all the reasons I wanted to have Ashley on the podcast, that right there nails it. So much of my work, what I want my legacy to be, is about sharing with you that feeling of endless possibility every day that you wake up in the morning and you’re not dreading, you’re not thinking it’s going to be the same thing it was yesterday, but you have found a place within yourself from which to live where every day does have that sense of endless possibility.

And I really believe that she is living her legacy and she’s nowhere near done. You’re going to hear her talk more specifically about what she wants her legacy to be. Ashley is most definitely an extraordinary example of what I call creativity with a capital C. That means taking full responsibility for your life and deciding ahead of time that your destiny is what you decide it to be if you commit to that and commit every day and make yourself unavailable for anything else, make yourself unavailable for the naysayers, the people who think that they are gatekeepers and tell you no, but every day, waking up and creating that dream brick by brick.

This conversation too came at a perfect time. And I’ll have another podcast episode later where I tell you the story of how this conversation came to be because it’s definitely relevant to everything else we talk about in this podcast.

But suffice it to say, for now, while it wasn’t the planned timing, it is the perfect timing because last week’s episode was all about prosperity consciousness, which, for me, prosperity consciousness, wealth consciousness is all about assuming full responsibility for your life and claiming the power that is innate within you to create your dream on your terms. So, full empowerment.

And since one of my core missions is to change the paradigm of the starving artist – well, to disrupt that and instead create one of thriving, flourishing, and wealthy artists – I use that term even though I know it’s a trigger for many people, but you’ll hear me discuss it in this conversation – because I really believe that creatives are needed in this world and empowered creatives are needed to fulfill their own life and their own destiny and dream of that and their families, but also because it’s fulfilling a longing of the world and it moves the world forward.

One last note – this is an adult conversation and there is adult language. So if you are like me and often do listen to podcasts with your small children around, this is not the time for that. You’ll want to wear Airpods, or if you’re at work, this is not the time for turning up the volume. Instead, put on your headphones, put on your Airpods and again, there is adult language in this episode.

So, without further ado, it is my honor and my great pleasure to share with you this conversation with the extraordinary Ashley Longshore.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Leah: I’m just going to dive into I think one of my favorite lines I’ve heard of yours from a podcast you did.  I think it was the Jealous Curator. And I played it over and over again because it was not so much what you said, but the energy with which you said it. And you said, “I love me and I love painting.”

Ashley: Are you sure I didn’t say, “I love me some me some mother fucking me?

Leah: Yeah, that’s even better. Do you want to say that for this one?

Ashley: I mean, is this for kids? What is this for?

Leah: No, and I will put a disclaimer on the frontend, like, for adult listening only.

Ashley: You know, if we have to put a disclaimer for profanity in today’s age when people turn on the news and we see how horrific things are, I don’t know what kind of worlds we’re living in.

Leah: Yeah, no, I know, I just let my…

Ashley: I find a group of white privileged people screaming, “Send her back,” with our president standing there far more offensive than any curse word I could possibly think of or say.

Leah: I agree, I agree. So…

Ashley: Well good. If I know I can cuss then let’s get right to it. I love me some mother fucking me and I love painting.

Leah: Thank you. So, a lot of the work I do with my clients, and sort of my own evolution of art has been one where you can leave behind a paradigm where you’re endlessly hard on yourself and people-pleasing and that that is the way to achieve your goals and dreams. And my philosophy is, if that’s the way then that’s not the dream, like doing things on your terms, and that that doesn’t mean settling, that achieving your dream if it comes at your own expense is too expensive and not your dream. So that’s – really, I wanted to hear about your evolution with your process because I know you work hard and I know you’ve got a great work ethic. So could you speak to how you do that, like how you create your dreams and then in a way that doesn’t tear you down?

Ashley: I mean, look, I live in a country that gives me endless opportunities as a women and entrepreneur, so it would be really fucked up for me to sit around scratching a broke ass wondering who’s going to give me my dreams. In America, we work for what we want. Also, when you feel that burn, when you know how hard it is, when it’s your baby, when it’s your vision, that’s how you become really smart. That’s how you become someone that can inspire people, because you figured it out.

For me, that motivates me. I mean, the hotter the fire, the stronger the steel. There is no glamour or great story about somebody whose daddy writes them a check. It isn’t innovative or exciting to know that a woman sucked a dick to go out buy a Birkin bag, you know. It isn’t all that interesting when somebody marries some rich old fart and then the old fart buys them a shop where they can sell furniture and then they call themselves a fucking designer. I find these things to be, I don’t know, they’re just not inspiring.

What’s inspiring is somebody who has an idea and they go after it and they fail and it’s hard and they struggle and they’re trying to make money and they’re trying to figure out how to make it work and then they make it work and then they have employees and the employees become successful and they buy houses and they have cars and they fucking start families. To me, that is the root of America is the improbability and the hard work that you put into something that creates the American dream.

Leah: So can you, like, go back to your own story, the places where it felt like, in that time, a failure and you were struggling?

Ashley: Oh my god, of course. I mean, look, in the beginning of any career, the first thing is, do you see me? How can I get out there? How can I put myself out there? How do people know that I’m here? How can I have a voice loud enough that people know that I exist? I mean, that is a very hard part of being an entrepreneur; a very, very hard part. That’s the part where it’s real easy to give up because there is no instant gratification in that part of the journey at all.  You are broke. You want to pay your rent. You’re trying to figure out who your audience is.

You’re trying to get your product out there, whether you’re an artist or not. And it’s the most important time when your foundation must be self-love. You must know who you are. You must be able to tell yourself, “Girl, you did a great fucking job today. You’re getting there one little day at a time.” You can’t go, “Oh no, I didn’t sell anything today.” You have to go, you know, “How much art did I produce today? How many things did I create that I will be able to sell? Who did I email today? Who did I cold call? Who did I meet when I was at Starbucks that I started a conversation with that I said, by the way I’m a fucking artist?”

Leah: I so agree that the foundation has to be built on self-love. And so…

Ashley: God damn right it does. If I don’t know who I am and I don’t like myself and other people are telling me I’m never going to make it and they don’t like my artwork and I’m broke as hell, how am I supposed to move forward?

Leah: Right, and conversely, what happens when you don’t love yourself and somehow you do manage to become successful but you don’t love yourself and everyone else does?

Ashley: I mean, that’s a whole ‘nother shit storm and that’s a whole ‘nother interview.

Leah: Yeah, right, so my clients, it’s all across the board, people who want to even claim that they are artists and people who are selling their work and making a living as artists and everyone in between. But I think the most common obstacle is when it seems like there’s been years of struggling with that, like, pay the rent, and then there’s the thoughts of, who do I think I am?  And so can you speak to that and tell us what is some of the self-talk you had and how did you become that Ashley Longshore before everybody knew who you were, that you knew who you were?

Ashley: I mean, look, the hotter the fire, the stronger the steel. Again, how am I going to get ahead, how am I going to make it if I can’t have a relationship with myself and say, “I know that I can do this.” I mean, what was the little book you read when you were in kindergarten, The Little Engine that Could.

He’s trying to get up that hill. He didn’t have the same engine that all those other big speed trains do. What did he do? I think I can. I think I fucking can. This is about living at an optimistic frequency. I can sit here and tell you the reasons that this week has fucking sucked. I can tell you all the fucking bullshit crap I’ve had to deal with this week, Leah. I could tell you all of that. Or I can also tell you why this week was a huge fucking success.

Now, I have the conscious decision to be able to go down either one of those roads. I’m going to tell you why it was awesome. This is about optimism. This is about belief. Although that being said, don’t think for a minute there are not snot bubbles and sleepless nights and, you know, there’s times when I feel like I could fucking vomit, you know, that I’ve got anxiety, I’ve got stress, I’ve got a lot of responsibility and it’s bigger than just me now.

I have a team. Then I’ve got to manage the fucking team, you know. I’ve got huge corporate sponsorships that I’m dealing with where I’ve got deadlines. I’ve got meetings about fucking meetings. I’ve never felt this kind of stress before. So even now, compared to the beginning of my career, there’s still unbelievable challenges where the root of all this is, “Ashley, I know you can do this.  I know you can do this.”

Leah: So that’s like that positive self-relationship and super strong self-relationship. And then are there other things now too, like ways that you’ve learned that you need to support and, like, set up things to take care of yourself?

Ashley: Let me tell you what I know cures everything. If I’m feeling sad, if I’m feeling down, if I’m feeling worried, do you know what helps? Work. Do you know what else? Painting a painting, creating something tangible, putting my thoughts out there in front of me. Even if I don’t have a buyer on that particular day, at least I’m producing something. I have something to show for my life. I have something to show for my time. Productivity is the key and the core to most things that I think bother us.

I’m not talking about clinical depression. I’m not talking about people that struggle with depression and that sort of thing. That is a whole ‘nother conversation. I’m just talking about being able to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, getting your ass in front of your easel and making something happen.

Leah: Yeah, so do you have any beliefs about – do you believe you were born to do this? Are there any beliefs like that that motivate you? Or you just know you came alive when you started to paint?

Ashley: I mean, I don’t wake up and go, “I was born to be an artist.” The same way a gazelle doesn’t wake up and go, “I was born to eat grass.” It’s genetically, irreversibly designed to do what it does. My brain operates in the way that I need to function at my highest capacity. I am most happy when I’m being productive and I’m working. This is my life. This career is my baby.

Leah: Yeah, and it doesn’t sound like you tolerate much getting in the way of that, which seems like it…

Ashley: You know what, I’m surrounded by mothers all the time. I’m a mom too and this fucking career of mine is a baby and I can be a fucking scary-ass mom if you fuck with my baby. This is my livelihood. This is my life. I will nurture it. I will take care of it. I will rock this baby to sleep. This is my life. Yeah, no I don’t tolerate any bullshit.

Leah: So, along that same line, another one of my visions is that we normalize really amazing ambition and wealth and power and all the freedom that that comes with for creatives and artists and visionaries and eventually bust open that myth of, well, it’s only 1% that make it, or…

Ashley: I don’t listen to that bullshit.

Leah: Yeah, no, I agree, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you as a guest because I want to have a more robust paradigm for artists who are thriving and wealthy and ambitious.

Ashley: I mean, I think when you say the word wealthy, that is very relative. It’s extremely relative. I mean, I can tell you, throughout the course of my career, I have always celebrated every little bit of success I’ve had.  If I didn’t have two nickels to rub together and I sold a painting and had enough money to spend $600 on my rent, I felt so successful and wealthy.

So I think when we’re talking about what defines somebody, it is not stuff and it’s not private jets, it’s not all that crap. What is success is being able to thrive, being able to pay your rent, knowing that you’re saving money for your future, knowing that if you’re a little squirrel, the cold wind will blow and winter is around the corner. You never know when it’s coming. There will be dry spells, you know. You have to save for that.

Being able to take care of yourself and self-reliance is success at whatever level you want it to be. The rest of it is just shit, you know; going out and buying luxury shit, flying around in a private jet, staying in fucking big hotel suites. Yes, that’s fun, but that does not define you and that is not success.

Leah: I agree. I mean, the wealth I’m talking about is that you have the resources at your disposal that you need to focus on what you care about most in the world, so you’re not worried about, “Well, can I paint or can I save for my kids’ college education, or do I have to stay in this…” It’s that material support and the stable foundation so that you’re free to focus on…

Ashley: Again, you know, opportunity is a fickle mistress. You have to be as creative with your marketing and putting yourself out there as you are with your artwork. Saving for your kids’ education and also being able to afford art supplies, you know, if you can only afford to get smaller canvasses for a month then you paint small canvasses and you sell them and then you save money for your kids. This is all about balance. Most of this stuff is very self-explanatory.

Leah: Well, and then in terms of – because you seem to not have the same sort of limiting mindset around business being a different sort of creation than art. I mean, they’re two different mediums, entrepreneurship and business and painting are different.

Ashley: Who told you that? Who started this fucking myth, that you can’t be a businessperson and an artist?

Leah: No, I don’t subscribe to that. I’m saying you don’t seem to have that.

Ashley: Of course I don’t because you know what, the first time I gave a gallery 50% I thought this is fucking bullshit. Yeah.

Leah: Right, so then do you think your creative process for business, is it exactly the way you approach painting, or do you carry a lot over and do some things differently?

Ashley: You know, I think for me personally, I am a very full force passionate in your face no apologies I’m going to do this at 5^th gear every fucking time. And when I get ready to sell art to make money, that’s how I roll. When I get ready to make art, that is also how I roll. I mean, I’m a wild woman like that. I don’t know any other speed.

I also am very aware of the fact that I’m going to be dead one day and I want to leave a damn legacy. All of the things that I paint, they’re part of my spirit. The harder I work on the business side of it, the more big global collaborations I have, the bigger microphones I have, the more I can inspire people.

It isn’t just about the money side of it. Because then, the thing about being an artist and making a lot of money is the bigger ideas that I have, I’ve got the money to do it. That’s why artists need money, you know what I mean.

Leah: There’s a Mary Oliver quote that says, “Artists might not make the world go around, but we do make the world move forward.” And that sounds like the legacy that you’re talking about and I love that.

Ashley: I mean, I love the idea that I’m putting myself out there and I have my own experience in the world. And by being an artist, I can connect with people and their own vision in the world. And you find your own tribe. You find your people.

This is why I don’t like to criticize other artists. I don’t have anything negative to say about anyone that’s willing to put themselves out there creatively. It’s a hard thing to do. There is a lot of vulnerability in that. I don’t have a lot of abstract art in my personal collection. That doesn’t mean that abstract art isn’t good. It just means that I relate more to big large figurative in your face things because that’s my personality.

I just think we have to find our people, collect our people, and put ourselves out there and know that there is a shared interest in life out there. That’s how you find your collectors, you know.

Leah: And speaking of your tribe, I mean, who are some of the artists, and they don’t have to be artists, but other visionaries and leaders who inspire your work and your mission around your legacy or that you’re inspired by?

Ashley: I mean, a lot of artists that I collect, Bradley Hart, Ivan Alifan, Ellie Smallwood… here in New Orleans. I mean, there’s countless people that I have in my own collection that I live with, I wake up with, I’m surrounded by their energy every single day. And that inspires me to go out there and continue being brave. When I see other creative people that are just fucking going for it, it just helps build the scene, you know.

Leah: Yeah, and that’s clear through your social media posts. You’ve had a lot of posts about the art that surrounds you and you’ve posted about the importance of surrounding yourself with things that inspire you and people that give you fuel and that you can contribute to as well. So is that pretty intentional or does that just come to you naturally?

Ashley: I mean, is it intentional for me to collect art and have that spirit around me? I mean, I feel like instinctual to do what feels good. How do parrots know to go clip crape myrtle branches when they build their nest, you know? It’s what they do. It makes the best nest. It’s the best thing so they continue growing. And I think I’m extremely instinctual in both my artwork and my business.

Leah: Right, that seems to be second-nature. So would it be fair to say that your advice to other people – because I’ve talked to a lot of people who feel like their instincts and their intuition has been, like, clipped. And I totally believe you can reconnect. But what would be your advice for people who feel like, well, actually, I’m not out there, and they admire you because you are so out there?

Ashley: I mean, I feel like, you know. You reach out to other people. Like, this is amazing that you have this platform to inspire other artists.  I feel like through learning and knowledge, you can gain what you need to know. I also, at the same time, feel like a little tabby housecat ain’t going to have the same instincts as a fucking lion roaming the planes of the Maasai Mara. I mean, you know what I’m saying? That would be like me being upset because I don’t look like fucking Kendall Jenner.

I love Kendall Jenner, okay. I love fucking fashion. Guess what, honey, I ain’t never going to look like mother fucking Kendall Jenner. I look like Ashley fucking Longshore so I have to celebrate that but also celebrate Kendall. She’s great. She looks amazing. But I’m not that same creature. So I have to relate that same sort of mindset to people in the art industry and your goals and whatnot.

The other thing though is the human spirit can be broken. If you really are out for something and you work for it, you can accomplish anything. I mean, my god, I’m so inspired by some of the stories that I’ve seen that aren’t necessarily in the art world that – I mean, my god, have you ever watched the fucking Special Olympics? Jesus Christ, I mean, you know, there’s just no time for sitting around scratching your ass having a damn pity party, you know. Don’t sit around wondering about what you don’t know. What do you know? Take what you fucking know and go out there and do something with it, damn it.

Leah: So you’re so inspiring and that definitely feels like an important part of your legacy. Are there other aspects of that though too, your legacy, like, what’s your vision for that?

Ashley: I mean, I want to have a career like Andy Warhol and leave a legacy like Peggy Guggenheim. I want to celebrate the arts. I want to have a massive building full of my art collection and my own art so that, when I’m dead, people can come in and see what I love, what made me thrive, what inspired me. I’m going to continue that artistic spirit. I want people to know that you don’t have to sit around and compare yourself to other people.

I mean, look what I just said, I’m never going to be Kendall Jenner, but I’m Ashley fucking Longshore. There’s only one of me. Put yourself out there and go for it. Love yourself. I’m not a size zero, six-foot tall, stick-thin 43-year-old woman with fake tits and big blown up lips, hell no. I’m me, god damn it, I’m me and I love me. And I want to put that energy out there that I started with nothing. I didn’t have two nickels to rub together. And I truly believe that being an American citizen, you can go out there and get what you fucking want because that dream is still fucking alive. And I want people to feel that energy in my work. I want people to feel that energy in my fucking legacy.

Leah: Yeah, well that’s national treasure type of energy.

Ashley: I mean, I don’t know about all that. I’m just a woman living in a country. I’ve got good soil. I’m going to fucking grow. I’m going to fucking grow, you know.

Leah: So then when you, like today, like you’re painting right now…

Ashley: I’m painting right the fuck now.

Leah: So, like, that’s the energy you’re in. You know what your vision is, you know your legacy, and then today you show up at the canvass, you already had an idea, something’s already a work in progress, or what’s that, like the day to day?

Ashley: I’m working on the new series, I mean, look, I’m not always like on fire with these unbelievable ideas. There’s time in between those moments of a-ha. So what you do is you paint. You have an idea, you go for it. You have a collection that you think, you pick up the paper and just do something.

If I just sat around scratching my ass going, “I don’t know what to paint,” I’m going to get depressed. I mean, that’s what I was telling you earlier; productivity, working, get your fucking ass out there doing something, make something happen, send an email, pick up the phone, do the fucking painting, start a fucking idea, just something. Don’t just sit around scratching your ass with thought. You need thought and motion.

Leah: You said thought and motion, that is a great line because – so I know you’re human and humans…

Ashley: Yes, I am human.

Leah: And humans have, like – not all of them, but people take it personally and they make it personal when they have perfectionist thoughts or self-doubting thoughts…

Ashley: I get my feelings hurt. I get sad.

Leah: Yes, so then is it the motion – because I’m trying to pull out specific things in your psychology to highlight for the listeners so that they can be like, “Oh, that’s how she does it. Now I get it. She uses both motion and self-talk. She’s not immune. She’s not a unicorn.  She does have, like, times when she feels rotten.”  So is it that combination of motion and that self-love talk and foundation?

Ashley: Yes, and also the idea that, god damn it, I’ve got a lot to learn still. I’ve got so much to learn. I mean, I love myself enough to know that I’m not perfect. I don’t always make the fucking right decisions. I need for people to guide me too. So there can’t just be this egotistical snowball effect. You have to be open and willing to learn new things and to know that you make mistakes and sometimes you say the wrong thing and sometimes you don’t do the right thing and that is part of life, part of learning. And you say, “Oh my god, that’s right, I didn’t think about that in that way.” And it makes you smarter, it makes you more empathetic, and hopefully that also will make you more inspiring down the road.

Leah: Yeah, I think it does, and so inspiring too that it doesn’t let it stop you.

Ashley: Well, listen, who has the pleasure of just stopping something because you make a mistake or because you’re wrong? Again, back to where we initially started in the beginning of this conversation, if my daddy wrote me a check and I had a huge trust fund, there’s probably a lot of things I wouldn’t have done because it’s hard. It’s fucking hard, you know. It’s easy to quit when you have backup. But when all I have to rely on is myself, I would never let myself fucking stop, ever.

Leah: I love that. I love that. So not being available for anything else…

Ashley: What’s that?

Leah: It’s like, that word decide, I talk a lot about what it really means to make a decision and to commit to something. It means to say, “No, this is happening and I’m not available for anything else.” So that’s kind of what I hear you saying, is it’s not an option for me not to do it, I’m not going to quit.

Ashley: I mean, I don’t have an option. I mean, I worked with Diane Von Furstenberg a lot and like what she says, “Fear is not an option.” I don’t have that option. To be afraid to move to the next level. I don’t have the option to sit around scratching my ass not doing anything.

Leah: So, what is that like, when you’re masterminding, you’re friends with other creative powerhouses? Do you just feel like, oh my god, I love my life right now?

Ashley: No, there’s no time for that.

Leah: Nope, you’re just working…

Ashley: Does a flower have time to smile at the sun? Hell no. It’s getting as much sun as it can and it’s fucking growing. I mean, there’s some incredible moments when I meet incredible inspiring people, like when I met Gloria Steinem. My god, it was unbelievable. There are moments where I go, “Look at this other person who has overcome hard things, who has continued to push herself forward.”

When you look at the stories of people who are mentored and who have been extremely successful, it isn’t the glamour and the money that inspires us. It’s the story of how they got over hurdles and hardships and pulled themselves up, you know. That’s what the relatability is. It isn’t in all the good shit. It’s in the bad shit, you know.

Leah: So that’s, like, a great place and I want to thank you so much for your time and respect your time. So on that note, if someone is listening and they’ve got like this seed of creative beauty, genius, meaning, goodness, healing to bring into the world but they’re on a part of their journey where right now it just looks like one failure after another or one credit card bill after another and with no promise in sight outside of them currently, what would you say to them?

Ashley: Those are the moments that really test the foundations of what we’ve talked about that really make you successful and that’s if you can give yourself that pep-talk and keep on going down the highway. I mean, it’s easy when everything is great, you know, when the money is falling from the sky like from heaven and everything seems to be going great, yeah, that’s easy. Your true test of human nature and your resilience is when the shit hits the fan. And those are the moments where you need to be really fucking smart. And then you appreciate those good moments even more.

Look, we have seasons on this planet. A career is the exact same way. Our life is the exact same way, you know. You just can’t give up on yourself. You don’t have that option. You just don’t have that option. So figure out a way to suit yourself to make yourself feel good in a positive way. Give yourself that pep-talk and get your fucking ass to work.

Leah: That’s perfect, giving up on yourself is not an option and get your ass to work.

Ashley: That’s right.

Leah: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much. I’ll let you get yourself back to work. I appreciate it so much.

Ashley: Okay have a good one.

Leah: You too, bye-bye.

Ashley: Okay, bye.

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Thank you for listening to this very special episode of The Art School Podcast. And again, I want to thank Ashley Longshore and her team for the months that it took for us to get together and have this date and for this very special conversation. I am deeply grateful and I’m so glad that I got to share it with all of you.

If you are looking to curate more Ashley Longshore-like energy in your life, whatever that looks like for you – for me, one translation of that is it’s being unapologetically you and being a creative force of nature. And that looks many different ways for many people. But it’s about owning your dream and going for it relentlessly, and along the way enjoying the ride. There’s another quote of hers that I just love that I wanted to share where she says, “I want to live in a world of laughter, color, sparkle, and shine.  Life is too short not to spend most of the day without a smile.”

And that is a philosophy that definitely resonates with me and what I believe about the creative process – that yes, it is about that big beautiful dream and it’s also about enjoying the journey along the way, and along the way strengthening your way of being, cultivating a way of being that is as beautiful and strong and fulfilling as that ultimate vision.

So there are many different ways that I go about creating that in my own life and one of them is with this podcast. Like I said, I want to inspire you to open yourself up to the endless possibilities that are available to you and to also connect with that place in yourself that knows you are sufficient. You have everything that you need within you to go after those endless possibilities and to make them your reality.

So again, this podcast is one way that I accomplish that mission of mine. My private coaching, my work with private clients, is another because, for many people that I work with in my private practice, they are extremely successful and sometimes they have challenges, and other times, they just want another person who really gets them and understands them, sees them, knows them, sometimes it seems before they even open their mouth.

So someone who is an ideal sounding board but also co-creator, collaborator, brainstormer who can take their creativity and their career and their fulfillment to all new levels, and someone also who’s there to help edify them through times when they’re growing their own capacity and taking on maybe what seems initially like a lot more pressure or a lot more stress. Or maybe they’ve come to a point where it looks, to the outside world, like they’re on top of the world, they’re beautiful, they’re successful, that they have it all, but inside, they’re not feeling that way.

So some of my private clients, it’s all over the place the reasons that people come to me for that and I do love that work and I also love doing this work through The Art School, which starts up again this fall. And with The Art School, I wanted to create a program that is unlike any program really in the world because I’ve looked. So it is less about taking a course.

There is a curriculum, but it is more about being in a community where you are training yourself to be the kind of person who has an extraordinarily strong and beautiful ingenious mind, body, and spirit, who has an expanded capacity for creativity and emotional mastery and creating an even greater impact but without burning themselves out and exhausting themselves in the process.

It’s about normalizing extraordinary ways of being that inevitably lead to extraordinary results. So it’s like an Olympic training program and facility for creatives, for artists, and for those people who have done success the old way, which was great and worked fine, and now they’ve reached a plateau and they want to tap into their creativity and something is telling them, you know, I have dreams left in my life, I don’t want to go through the suffering, torturous route again. I think there’s a better way.

So that’s what I looked for and could not find in one place, so that is what I have created, really the program I always dreamed to have, the premier creativity coaching program for creatives, for artists, for visionaries, and leaders. And again, we’re starting in just six weeks, September 3^rd. So I would love to have you join us.

Since today’s podcast was an interview and we didn’t get to do the coach with me part, I thought I would do that here at the end where I usually leave you with a closing inspiration.

You’ve heard now Ashley talk about motion being a great key component to her creative process in both her art and her business. Sometimes, motion means moving, like literal physical movement. Sometimes it means taking an action.

So what I want to invite you to today is that you don’t put your head down on the pillow tonight without taking some action, engaging in some motion that creates a forward momentum and beautiful creative energy in your life. And here’s some extra credit for you overachievers, or just those of you who are hell-bent on this being the year when you really do it, when you fully commit to that destiny and you burn the boats; take some kind of action, some kind of action that might feel scary, that to you signals and commits you to your dream, ties you to the mast of that dream, burns all the other boats. And then ultimately what that does is it aligns you with that destiny. You’re not available for anything else.

Thank you all so much for listening. I dearly appreciate you. I love you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Have a great rest of your week and I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye-bye.