10 Weeks to Improve your Artistic Career – Week 8

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Week 8: Take a class

Whether you are a self-taught artist or have earned a degree in the field, there are countless benefits to enrolling yourself in an art class. There is obviously the distinct possibility that you will learn new skills or methods of working, but there are other benefits to being in a classroom setting, such as:

1. It forces you to work. Expectations and deadlines are great motivators, and taking a class is an excellent way to make your art practice a regular part of your day.

2. You meet other artists. Art can be a solitary endeavor. When you enroll in a class, you will have the opportunity to meet like-minded people and perhaps even collaborate with them. Taking a class also usually gives you an intimate view of how other artists work, which is invaluable information to you as a practicing artist.

3. You discuss your work. If you are lucky, you have lots of people in your life who are regularly willing to discuss your work with you. If not, an art class is an excellent way to engage in discussions about your work. Answering questions about your ideas, working methods, and philosophies can help you solidify your own artistic practice and fine-tune your approach to art.

Week 8 project: Enroll in a class that works for you! In most places, there are numerous options for art classes from private studio workshops to university programs. I have listed below a few options in and around Vancouver, including options for single drop in classes (Basic Inquiry).

Emily Carr University of Art & Design (Vancouver)

The Federation of Canadian Artists (Vancouver)

Nicole Sleeth Fine Art (Vancouver)

Basic Inquiry Life Drawing Society (Vancouver)

The Art Way (Vancouver)

Place des arts (Coquitlam)

If you need to catch up:
Week 7: Seek out and Learn from Critical Feedback
Week 6: Get your Paperwork in Order
Week 5: Fine-tune an Artistic Target
Week 4: Take Advantage of your Resources
Week 3: Create a Structured Project
Week 2: View Art in Person
Week 1: Contact Artists you Admire 

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Image credit 

Application Deadline: Vancouver Art Gallery | Art Rental and Sales Program

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May 31, 2012

The Art Rental and Sales Program at the Vancouver Art Gallery is currently accepting submissions of artwork from Canadian artists. Work accepted into the program is consigned for rental or sale, with partial proceeds going to the artist and partial proceeds benefitting the non-profit Vancouver Art Gallery.

The Art Rental and Sales Program is an excellent opportunity for exposure as well as possible sales. To request an application package, they ask that you email artrentalandsales.submission@gmail.com. General inquiries can be directed to manager@artrentalandsales.com.

Full information on submissions can be found here.

www.artrentalandsales.com

Image credit: Geoff Richardson, http://www.loose-marbles.com

10 Weeks to Improve your Artistic Career- Week 7

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Week 7: Seek out and learn from critical feedback

“The crit.” Are there any more cringe-worthy words for an art student or artist? Though their aim is to help, critiques of artwork have gained a terrible reputation.

Art can be deeply personal, which is why having it critiqued can be very difficult. Many artists just want to hear that their work is good, that what they are doing is validated. But when you think about it, what helps you to grow, improve, and push yourself more: simple praise or thoughtful criticism?

If you aren’t familiar with the typical format of an art critique, you can read an overview here. This describes the “formal” techniques of critiquing artwork, which one doesn’t not neccessarily have to follow. But it’s a good starting point and includes important aspects to think about.

Regardless of the format your artwork is critiqued in, the keys to getting the most out of critiques and assessments of your work are these:

1. Though your work is personal, remember that a critique is not a personal attack.

2. Try to see your work from the perspective of others who are critiquing you. Try to be objective.

3. Take what advice and guidance you think it useful for you from your critiques and leave the rest. It is your work after all!

Week 7 project: Seek out and learn from critical feedback! You could organize a critique with fellow artists, ask art professionals for their opinions, or share your work online. A good online critique forum for formal aesthetic critique can be found on WetCanvas.

If you need to catch up:
Week 6: Get your Paperwork in Order
Week 5: Fine-tune an Artistic Target
Week 4: Take Advantage of your Resources
Week 3: Create a Structured Project
Week 2: View Art in Person
Week 1: Contact Artists you Admire 

Image: Jeremy Bank, jeremybank.com

10 Weeks to Improve your Artistic Career – Week 6

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Week 6: Get your paperwork in order.

If you have ever submitted your artwork to an exhibition, gallery or contest, you probably already know that beyond your artwork, you are also responsible for providing specific paperwork relating to your artistic practice. The most common paperwork requests are for an artist statement, an artist CV, and a short written biography.

If you have these three items prepared in advance, you can update them regularly and save yourself a lot of stress when trying to meet a submission deadline. In general, they are great things to have on hand even if you are not submitting your work, as collectors, curators, or writers could ask to see them at any time.

Artist Statement

Your artist statement is meant to augment and inform others about your artistic practice. A good rule of thumb for the length of an artist statement is one page or less; any longer and you might lose your reading audience. Your artist statement should be clear, concise, and directly address your artistic endeavors. For more information and examples of artist statements, please read Suggestions for Writing your Artist Statement.

Artist CV 

An artist’s CV is essentially a resume that focuses on your artistic career, experience, and achievements. Even if you are an artist with little or no exhibition history, there are still many things you can include on your CV. For detailed instructions, please read How to Write an Artist’s CV in 10 Steps.

A Short Written Bio

When galleries or institutions request a short written bio, they are usually looking for a one paragraph or 100-200 word summary of yourself as an artist. In many cases, the written bio should summarize the most important information in your CV. It can also include where you live and work, although should not get into any other personal details (unless you have specifically been asked to include these.) Often for a press release, the short written bio is tacked onto the end of an artist statement or statement about the show to give the audience a bit more information about the artist’s career. Below are some examples of short artist bios:

Information on the Koto Ezawa show organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery includes a short bio at the end of their write up. 

Windsor Gallery artist Bill Anderson has a short bio included at the end of his artist statement.

An artist bio for Lydia Karpenko is posted on the website of Stride Gallery for her upcoming  exhibition.

Weekly Project: prepare these three key pieces of paperwork for yourself.

If you need to catch up:
Week 5: Fine-tune an Artistic Target
Week 4: Take Advantage of your Resources
Week 3: Create a Structured Project
Week 2: View Art in Person
Week 1: Contact Artists you Admire 

Image: by Nicole N

10 Weeks to Improve your Artistic Career – Week 5

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Week 5: Fine-tune an artistic target, do your research, and act based on your findings.

This week’s project is more open ended than previous ones, but I believe it is very useful method that can work for almost anyone.

It is not uncommon to meet an artist who loves to make art, spends countless hours in the studio, and dreams of one day having their art displayed in a big public gallery. Or maybe to see their work sell in a big commercial gallery. Or perhaps on a beautiful website that gets tons of hits. The only flaw in this plan is that there is no plan.

Unfortunately, artists are not likely to be “discovered” based solely on their private artistic talent. For example, it usually takes many exhibition opportunities before an artist would be considered for a solo exhibition at a public or private gallery, and even then the competition is very stiff. There is no doubt that a monumental amount of effort goes into any artistic career, and thus this week’s project is meant to harness your potential and get maximum rewards for your effort. The project this week is to fine tune your artistic target(s), do some heavy research, and then put that hard work to use for you.

To clarify what I mean by this, let’s use an example. Let’s say you decide that you want very much to have your work shown at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver. Where do you start? What information do you need? Begin by asking yourself as many questions as you can about the Contemporary Art Gallery and what artists they choose to show.

  • Who are the other artists that show at the Contemporary Art Gallery?
  • Where did they go to school?
  • What other shows have they had?
  • Are they represented by a gallery or dealer or are they independent?
  • Where are they from? (Canadian / other?)
  • Does the Contemporary Art Gallery have a mandate?
  • Do they have a curatorial prerogative?
  • Who curates the shows?
  • Do they accept submissions?
Once you ask these questions, you can start gathering answers. Some ideas for getting further information would be:
  • contacting the Contemporary Art Gallery
  • reading all information on their website
  • contacting artists who have shown at the gallery (many artists have email addresses on their websites, or you could try through their galleries)
  • looking at the CVs and exhibition history of artists who have shown at the Contemporary Art Gallery (often available online, or by contacting the artist or their dealer / representative)
  • Looking at past exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Gallery to discern whether they have solo shows, group shows, a combination, and what kind of artists they show
Once you start gathering this information, you should have a clearer idea of what kind of artists are shown at the Contemporary Art Gallery, at what stage in their career they are at, and how the gallery goes about choosing artists for shows. Then you can ask:
  • How does this compare to you and your artistic career?
and most importantly:
  • What steps can you take to make yourself a good candidate for the Contemporary Art Gallery?
This is just one example of choosing a specific target and conducting research so you can formulate a plan for yourself.
Weekly project: choose a target that you want to strive for, do the research, and turn your knowledge into definite steps toward your goal!
We have reached the halfway point of the 10 Week project! How is it working for you?
If you need to catch up:
Image: Ben Earwicker,  www.garrisonphoto.org/sxc

10 Weeks to Improve your Artistic Career – Week 4

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Week 4: Take Advantage of Resources

The amount of free resources available to working artists today is quite staggering. The essentials of what you need to become a professional artist in both the artistic and practical realms are available for free– you just need to take the time to find them! I’ve compiled a list of many different sources in the hopes that this will assist you in your development as an artist.

Artists’ Legal Outreach Website

The Artists’ Legal Outreach is an amazing organization made up of volunteer lawyers and law students who provide legal support for artists working in Canada. They offer workshops, clinics, toolkits (for example, “how do I copyright my work?”), and a library database of numerous PDFs (for example, the City of Vancouver’s “Artist Studio Guidelines” and “Business Practices: How to Sell.”) Browse their content-rich website here.

iTunes University 
If you have an iPhone or an iPad, you can download the iTunes University app for free. Once you have the app, you are able to search through a myriad of audio lectures, course materials, and even full courses on an array of topics. For art, they offer many materials related to art history and art practice. Here are a few I found that look quite promising (and they’re all free!):

  •  MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art / What is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection (a set of 10 audio files)
  • SVA, The School of Visual Arts New York / Lectures from the MFA Art Criticism and Writing program (a set of 37 audio files all over an hour!)
  • Oxford University / History of Art (a set of 14 audio files)
  • Anna Divinsky, Art 010: Introduction to Visual Studies – Art Demonstrations (a set of 12 videos on topics such as Acrylic, Watercolour, Photography, Brainstorming, Value, Shape, etc)
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Medieval Art (a set of 6 videos)
  • Jen Kelly, Art 020: Introduction to Drawing – Art Demonstration (a collection of 27 videos)

There are many many more. I found these by searching “Art” in the iTunes University app. Please share if you have found other ones useful.

The Library

It might be an obvious one, but let me re-iterate for anyone who doesn’t know: the library is amazing! Here in Vancouver the VPL has a large selection of books related to artists, art history, art making, art marketing, as well as a vast assortment of audio books, videos, and digital resources. If you haven’t visited the library in a while, do your artistic self a favour. Even if you go in just to browse, you’ll be sure to find something interesting or useful to you.

Great Art Business Blogs

Luckily for artists, there are many established art marketing professionals who share their knowledge online. Below are a few of the websites I have come across which share pertinent and helpful art marketing information.

Artsy Shark by Carolyn Edlund
Art Biz Blog by Alyson B. Stanfield
Joanne Mattera Art Blog
Chris Tyrell’s Art Marketing Blog 

Free Lectures and Workshops

Opus Framing and Art Supplies hosts free demonstrations in all of their stores which show practical and technical methods for many different artistic mediums. You can check out a schedule of their upcoming demos here.

Emily Carr University of Art and Design hosts lectures from world-renowned artists, and many of them are free and open to the public. Keep an eye on this section of their website for upcoming opportunities. They also post a list of general lectures workshops here.

Instant Coffee is a free weekly email which lists many art openings, lectures, workshops, and other events. You can sign up to receive info on their website here.

Weekly project: Take advantage of these resources!

Bonus weekly project: Seek out some other great resources and share them in the comments below.

Image: Carlo Lazzeri

10 Ways to Improve your Artistic Career – Week 3

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Week 3: create a structured project

One of the best ways to get yourself thinking and working creatively is to do it regularly and frequently, and soon it becomes second-nature.

It can often be difficult to set aside time for creative endeavours, or to become motivated to work on things. A fantastic and simple way to overcome these deterrents is to create structured, time-based creative project for yourself.

In setting up a structured project, you have many different options. The key is to create a project where you’ve already set up specific parameters for what you are going to work on, and also one that it requires you to work regularly. Some examples of a time-based, structured creative project are:

  • Take one self-portrait photograph each day for a month
  •  Draw one building each day for 2 weeks
  • Write one full page each day in your journal, regardless of content
  • Post one item to your blog each day, (photo, drawing, thought, etc)

In setting up a system for yourself, your creative output on a day-to-day basis requires less planning and results in more doing. Having to work within your set up parameters will almost always lead to unexpected results, as you will be working in ways that are different from your regular practice.

As inspiration for your project, here are some time-based artist projects that I have discovered. Of course, you don’t need to publicize your project, but here are some examples online:

One Whole Year of Getting Up at the Crack of Dawn by Jessica

100 Little Portraits by Christine Montague

100 Portraits in 20 Weeks by Scott Hamilton

Onesee by Jessica Bell

100 Logos in 100 Days by Robert Butkovic

Project for the week: start a time-based structured project for yourself. You can set the parameters however you like to suit your schedule. Even if you only have 5 minutes per day, that’s all you need!

If anyone wants to post ideas for projects or share what they are working on, please leave a comment. Have fun!

Want to start the 10 week project from the beginning? Here are the previous two projects:

Week 1
Week 2 

Image: Karl Mooney, http://www.dnadublin.com