This interview was originally published in The Simplifier #63.

Interview:  Louis Buchetto—Visualizing an Artful Life

By Shawn Tuttle

The following is an interview with artist Louis Buchetto. He’s the owner of A Loving Home Gallery in Nevada City, California. There he collaborates with his spunky 8-year old daughter Tirza. This inspiring father/daughter project creates art that is playful, colorful, vibrant, and tugs at the heart strings. Louis has only been in Nevada County for 14 months, but he jumps right into his surroundings. In fact, we met through our work in the local downtown association. 

He’s had incredible things happen in his business, and he gives credit to the power of visualizing. With visualization being one of the core concepts of Project Simplify, Buchetto provides an inspiring example of how it works for the small business. Remembering that you are in the driver’s seat in ways not commonly talked about in business books is an incredibly powerful growth tool. “Experiencing” a situation before it happens, all the way down to minute details, actually increases the possibility of it happening—in a way that can seem like magic.

I only wanted to be successful if it was in line with my highest ideals. I’ve actually blocked financial opportunities because I knew they’d lead me down a dead-end road and I didn’t want to go there. So I worked that visualization between my frustration and despair for a year. About once every three weeks I’d remind myself what I wanted and I’d just run it through my head.

ST: Tell me more about your process of the visualization. Would you do it in any particular way?

Buchetto: I had a sense of who this person was, an older gentleman and I would watch him come into the gallery and approach me in a very matter of fact way, very astutely. So I’d get a feel of the person and then I’d be me and it would just unfold. And that’s what happened.

The day before I found out I was going to be a dad, I was doing an art show in Sedona, AZ. I was conversing with a Buddhist nun, who was totally dialed in to my highest ideals. She loved what I do and why I do it.  It was great, I was vibrating. A gentleman came in to the room and basically buys $26,000 worth of art. He came to my studio about a week later and commissioned me to do art for the next two years at a minimum $3,000 a month.

If I had known going into that show that I had a daughter on the way, I probably would have been in a panic. Would the situation still have unfolded as it did with the gentleman? Probably. But it reminds me that no matter how challenging the situation or whatever the funk is, keep going!  

ST: What did he do with all the art?

Buchetto: He opened a gallery in Phoenix and all the profits were to go to charity. He was attached to a little village in Mexico that he had visited—he had $ from being a builder and now wanted to get his heart into his life.

PS: When you did the visualizations - what was your experience?

Buchetto: Every time we try to grow, there’s always this struggle. While I’m visualizing, I’m actually certain it’s going to happen but there’s this chatter, this battle of the mind:
“Oh crap, here’s where I’m stuck; how’s this going to happen?”
     ”Shut up Louis and enjoy this vision.”  
“Yeah, right, this is nuts, it’s wasting your time.”
     ”No. It’s going to happen.”

Another example was when I committed to come to Nevada County with my daughter and extended family. I had until December 16 to tell the landlady what I was going to do—keep the gallery in Flagstaff, or give it up. I was totally certain that I was going to be able to sell my gallery in time and avoid having to shut it down. On December 14th, a couple form England came in and bought $1500 worth of art. Just in passing I mentioned the gallery was for sale. They called me back the next day and said they wanted to buy it.

Even after seven months of the gallery being for sale, and having only 24-48 hours till my deadline, I was confident it would sell. I guess it gets inside you, it’s like gravity in a way—you know if you drop something out of your hand it’s going to fall. You begin to know this is going to work.

But the conviction is not always present. The last 6 months here in Nevada City have been a huge challenge to that. I think it’s because I’m out of my element. I’m new to the community. I want to grow and evolve as a person and all my inner challenges are getting in the way of the mystical or invisible abilities. I’m just getting my footing now. And part of that evolution has been giving more to community—serving if you will.

ST: Tell me about creating the visualization. Are you consciously designing the visualization that plays out?  Or are you going into a meditative -type space for visualizing and interpreting what you see and feel there?

Buchetto: What works best for me is that in my everyday reality there has to be a certain amount of preparation. I can’t be living this haphazard, off-the-cuff life and go into my mind to create Nirvana, and expect that it will just happen. I have to be absolutely committed to what I’m doing day to day. When I’m working in my studio I have to feel that I’m reaching my highest degree of integrity—the quality of my art, how I treat customers, getting orders out on time, and so on. I try to work those with a sense of lightness, too. These are things I know I need to master to succeed.

When I do all the basics, I’ll come to a point when I think, “Now it’s time to create something magical out of this.” Then I go inside and ask, “There’s a new direction, what is it?” And then it starts to come to me.

I look at everything in life as artistic—from cooking…really, any job you can think of. If you do it in a way that is thoughtful, efficient and valuing life, as well as your time and energy, then the right things happen at the right time.  

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.