Artist as Introvert: Your Personal Style

My friend owns a comedy club in which she sometimes performs. I occasionally go there to see shows. One night, she was pulling audience members on stage as part of her act. This is generally the funniest part of her show. That night, thinking I’d be a “shoe-in” for funny, she chose me. Had she known my secret (that I’m an extroverted-introvert) she probably would have reconsidered.

What does it mean to be an extroverted-introvert? Consider this.  If you watch me perform one of my hour long solo shows on stage, you’d be likely consider me confident, passionate, articulate and extroverted. Yet, pull me up on stage as myself and the extrovert completely disappears.  I clam up, feel stupid, turn red, sweat profusely, and sometimes stutter. Needless to say, pulling me up on stage that night was possibly one of the least funny moments in theater history. 

This dichotomy is something I’ve struggled with through the years and it’s been confusing to explain to others. There is a distinct difference in the social situations where I thrive and the social situations where I’d rather run in a hole and hide. 

For example, most formal networking environments send me into a panic because I’m horrible when it comes to making small talk - I second guess myself, censor my ideas, and feel self conscious. 

I’ve heard from others that this insecurity can make me seem shy, unsocial or pretentious. Yikes! Yet, put me in one-on-one conversation at a trade show booth or at a coffee shop and I can talk until the cows come home.  In an environment where I’ve got a specific role to play, I come across as self-assured and communicative.  Like many artists, I’m considered borderline on the Myers Briggs test. Have a similar experience?

Artist as Introvert: Your Personal Style

Obviously, you’ll find that some tasks related to your art and business will make you feel more comfortable than others. These are your marketing comfort zones. For instance, I really enjoy one-on-one conversations and so I do my most effective networking in coffee shops, not by handing out 150 business cards each day as most business book recommend.

Other topics will bring up a sense of hesitation. You may find yourself putting them off. If this is the case, remember, you get to choose how you do it. If you find yourself hesitating, try to find the place within the task that will help you stand in your comfort zone, even if it takes you outside the box.  

The truth is, until you reach a certain level with your career and can hire others to do the things you don’t want to do, each of the things you’re not exactly proficient at will, with practice, become nothing more than a strong weakness.

That’s ok, they’ll never be your favorite tasks to do or your strong points, but you will get better at them. The important thing to do is to give yourself permission to tell the world about your art in a way that fits your personality type, which even if it changes daily, is ok too.

Artist Speak: Introverts

“Half of me is completely introverted and half of me is completely extroverted. This can be a big problem when you’re an artist who makes art to sell. It means others are going to be making money off of you.”

Noah Scalin is a blogger, musician, visual artist, author, graphic designer and founder of ALR Designs. Noah’s work at ALR has gained international exposure in over two-dozen books and is frequently featured in design publications which led to the development of a course on socially conscious design for Virginia Commonwealth University. Noah also founded, SPROUT, a long running community supported agriculture group. Skulls, a book based on his award-winning blog Skull-A-Day, was published in October 2008 by Lark Books. skulladay.blogspot.com

Artist as Introvert: Chuck Palahniuk

As a professional storyteller, I know there is a huge swing between the time I spend alone and the time I spend in the public eye. Creating my stories requires a great deal of time staring at my laptop screen whilst locked away in my room. On the other hand, when I tour stages with my work, it’s rare to find a moment when I’m not surrounded by people.

Author, Chuck Palahniuk, in his prologue to “Stranger than Fiction,” writes about the swings in an artist’s social time, saying, “You spend time alone, building this lovely world where you control, control, control everything. You let the phone ring. The emails pile up. You stay in your story world until you destroy it. Then, you come back to be with other people. If your story sells well enough, you get to go on a book tour. Do interviews. Really be with people. A lot of people. People until you’re sick of people. Until you crave the idea of escaping, getting away to a…” 

The truth is, despite that I straddle the fence as both an introvert and an extrovert, sometimes I need time my alone time and sometimes I love being in front of people. This is an important consideration with art and business. There are portions that are so secluded that it has all the makings of an introvert’s dream and others that require you to muster the strength of an extremely gregarious extrovert. 


Considering that introverts make up 25-40% of the general population and 60% of the gifted population, (Jonathan Rauch “The Habits and Needs of a Little-Understood Group,” Atlantic.com) chances are, you fall into the same category as I do – someone who leans a bit toward the introverted side. As it stands, many of the suggestions I make in my blog are geared refreshingly toward the introvert. Given this fact, if at any time you feel a business recommendation is outside your comfort zone, find a way to individualize it further so it works for you.

Artist as Introvert

To tell you the truth, I consider myself to be an introverted-extrovert. Do you fall into this category? Artists in this category make up a growing majority. 

We thrive in many social situations, but find ourselves wanting to hide in others.  The information in most business books and classes for artists tends to have an extremely dis-empowering effect on art-related fear, especially for introverts and introverted-extroverts. 

If you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down, I'd love to hear about how you deal with your own introversion? Got a good tip?