Creative Conversations: How to be an Artist

[Music] my name is Ben Hickey I'm the curator of exhibitions at the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum my varied experiences in arts institutions important form my perspective of how emerging artists to prepare for a successful career in the past I've worked at the albright-knox art gallery the California Museum of Photography the Sweeny Art Gallery Arts Council for Buffalo and Erie County Canisius College the master museum of art Louisiana Tech University and the outside gallery I have a great deal of breadth and depth in terms of seeing you from the other side I'm not an artist myself but I've I love artists and I observe you all the time so this is just my perspective I'm delivering this presentation with emerging into some degree mid-career artists as the primary audience the content covered tonight has little to do with what happens in your studio it reflects all of the drudgery you either do not want to do or don't know you have to do yet as a result of drudgery being central to my presentation I apologize in advance for the lack of dynamic visuals I hope my delivery will keep you engaged there will be a few running jokes about drudgery I hope you enjoy them this B this is a very broad overview and so several topics from this evening may possibly become a more focused event like this in the future so make sure you either write the museum or vocalize what you did or didn't like or what you want more of or less of and so with that in mind I'll run through my presentation pretty quickly as quickly as I can and I hope this turns into a discussion at the end normally when I teach this it's more of a workshop and it's much more discussion based and it goes back and forth and it can be more probing but given it's a lecture and we're short for time because of that I'll tell you everything I know and then we'll talk about it afterwards and then just remember this is only my opinion and you need to carefully consider what my opinions and advice mean to you specifically now I made my description of what I like an artist statement to be in the same format your artist statement should be I feel that's only fair for the curator to have to deliver my message in as an annoying format as you have to but also I think to illustrate that it can be done to some degree and so let me read I I have a 100 word artist statement and a 300 word artists aim and they're essentially it's like an introduction and then of the conclusion to it and you can just continue it if you need a longer version this is what a 100 word artist statement looks like it should convey your overall Sensibility discuss your process or materials and reveal how some of your influences are important to you try recording a spoken version and transcribe it afterwards while speaking you may be more likely to be direct to the point do not be concerned with sounding intelligent or writing using words you are uncomfortable with these don't do that be yourself if you can achieve your intellectual goals using the compositional elements of your art to build deeper meanings you're about a third of the way towards being successful in some degree and note that might seem really cynical but I think it's relatively accurate your artwork is only a third of your practice and I might do I don't know another third of it tonight maybe a little bit more depending on you and then to elaborate make sure that you cover what you did in the first paragraph but do make a list write it so they feed into one another maybe overlap you know thinking and ideas are not linear so your writing doesn't have to be and it might be kind of boring do not plan on more than three paragraphs few people are apt to read it the goal of this is to fill out the main ideas in a sophisticated enough manner to create interesting raise questions leave room for the work to breathe to stand on its own that way others like curators critics customers can see themselves in your work let other people affirm your work or write about it for you potentially to greater length let them write a to greater length you don't do that yourself that is better than an artist statement that really is your goal to be affirmed by others do not go on and on unless you really feel like there's cause to do so it's okay to be the exception to the rule but not that often if you're always the exception to the rule you should probably reconsider what you're doing so that was just under 300 words I added a little bit so maybe I got right up to 300 words and so generally that's what I'm looking for it's relatively cut and dry and I realized that it's difficult in terms of interpretation it's important to understand to some degree your work is not yours it'll be evaluated in many ways often from your perspective with your concerns in mind but that's not always the case many will interpret what you make based on their perspective and art historian may be interested in how your studio practice relates to those who came before you they could also be interested in the social context in which you create your work a Marxist might be interested in your work as a commodity a feminist might be interested in how you portray gender roles a capitalist might be interested in your work as a commodity and they'll be totally different than the Marxist you know it's not necessarily a bad thing when it becomes a bad thing then that's a really bad thing but don't feel too much pressure to know or understand every philosophical concept or you'll become a philosopher you won't be an artist anymore read philosophy and critical theory if you don't know what that is I didn't know what that was until grad school personally so it's fine if you don't read it so you know what others are saying about your work you may find something you can really latch on to but I advise strongly against it being the driving force in your work it should inform larger interpretive issues in the background otherwise it can become really pedantic and boring and pedantic and boring terrible it's awful and with that in mind I'll proceed to the next slide websites so you can see I have an asterisk use social media for marketing that's a great way to get out there and show it but I don't like it when artists tell me just look at my soul just look at my Instagram because your Instagram doesn't have everything I want to see all that once your website is like an archive for you and I can see your progress or lack thereof I can see if you're dedicated to your practice if you've taken a two-year hiatus from your website I might just stop looking at your website because you might be unreliable but what's on there is really pretty inconsequential to me just the fact that something is there and you have a presence and you're building it is what's important to me so your contact information your portfolios with statements of bio and when I say bio this is a nice point of conversation that came up with staff today when they're talking about this not your actual biography your arts biography you know not not anything unruhe don't talk about your childhood but you know in common sense is funny because it's only common sense until someone tells you that that's what's meant by a biography so your biography is an art it's not necessarily as a person your CV or resume your bibliography press things people have written about you and again there's drudgery and here I have four or five websites that I like and so I'm going to escape from this for a moment and I'm gonna pull this up okay so Joaquim nil he's this artist I'm really interested in he makes his own Polaroid large format cameras who really interesting what he does and he's chosen to make his website kind of look like his art to some extent so it's a conceptual take on a website so we can make walking make funny faces depending on where we're going to see look isn't that fun and so it's irreverent and kind of strange and surreal and that describes his work to some extent and so I feel like that's fine however you know like Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun will be hosting an exhibition of their soon here we have a pretty standard exhibition or rather a website where we can slide through look up exhibitions look at portfolios it's pretty straight forward one more quick example is Cory Arcangel and he is fun because he purposely keeps his website about two or three generations and of templating behind what's on trend and so that's another example of artists making their work more integrated into their website and you don't have to at all you know it's fun to talk about but I don't know if that's necessary don't force that on yourself and then like here's Kara walker's website it's got this great splash pad and an enter button and everything's kind of it looks great and it's normal on the inside you know it's just kind of informational it's your archive now in terms of networking you need to attend events don't leave the event until you've introduced yourself to three strangers then you can leave you don't know who those strangers are and that's how people get to know you if no one knows who you are no one can help you no one will want to help you because you're a stranger volunteer you know be a force for good in an organization that's a great way for people to know you get a mailing list and use it make an Excel spreadsheet don't be scared of Excel spreadsheets or you're gonna hate the last little bit of this you know emails and physical addresses so you can send you know send one or two emails to the people who like your work would like but a year it doesn't take a lot and then maybe send one or two mailings a year to Louisiana artists you might know our ami Guidry and Frank Hamrick get on their lists and see what they're doing they're excellent self-promoters you know they do it pretty well they don't harass you with information sometimes it's about an exhibition announcement sometimes it's just an update from their studio or something they've done because then you can linger in people's subconscious you know if you're not sending those things no one will ever think about you be active on social media again that's kind of like marketing find a space and give yourself a show who is complaining about not having a space to show you know have you muttered that to yourself recently we'll find one find a space and give yourself the show it doesn't have to say on your CV how that worked join an organization and participate you can join a committee on I do we have photographers did you go last two weeks ago yeah well I can't remember how long ago it was at LSU the conference yeah afraid of alfredo yaar spoke and it was really cool and that was in that was that LSU but you can join an organization Skype go to meeting you can join an organization in Nebraska or Oregon or wherever and you can remotely participate and build your network that way write handwritten notes to people it's really old timing no one will expect it no one will see you coming write a handwritten note and then most importantly ask other people about themselves because the thing you want the most don't talk about it don't talk about getting a show don't talk about a portfolio review don't you know if there's someone you're interested in romantically the worst thing you can do is talk about yourself the whole time it's not right so do the same thing in terms of professional networking get the other person talking about themselves and they'll have a very positive memory of you even though maybe they spent the whole time talking about themselves drudgery so in terms of contracts and office let offer letters if you have a show or you have some kind of project you're working on get an offer letter because you have expectations and an organization that's probably paying money has expectations so get an offer letter it'll have it's like a pre-contract sometimes and this is an old one from a project of mine at a previous institution a lot of times it'll have dates who's paying for what when you know when it's happening and and then some more specific details that will be important to the project and it's just good to have it in writing so that everyone understands what's happening you're like are you gonna have to pay for a hotel is it you know things like that are really important what are the deadlines etc but it's all about expectations and then put these dates in your phone you have this thing in your pocket put the date in your phone and then once you put that deadline in there give yourself a reminder a month in two weeks out Chris how often do I forget things do I forget things very often no sometimes but that's what I do and generally I don't forget things I don't remember anything but my calendar and my phone keep me on track and so this is what a contract looks like again following very very deep into the drudgery the drudgery category and it's going to have simple things like your contact info your date the dates again it's going to discuss a checklist which you might not know what a checklist or object list is and we'll go over that in a second shipping who's paying for shipping shipping is a single most expensive thing with an exhibition normally you know who's paying for crating is someone gonna pay to make boxes for your work or do you have to do that are you expected to pay for it who's paying for insurance will the work be insured whose printing the labels a lot of emerging artists print their own labels you need to know whether you're printing your labels or the venue's printing your labels a thing like a checklist which will cover will also help with a layout a great deal you know and they'll ask for certain things in the contract here we have condition reports which is another thing we'll deal with in just a little bit the contract lays out all of the pitfalls that you will experience for your show like failure to receive a lot of times it's hard to get young artists to come get their artwork back in a timely fashion and you might be surprised to know you've signed a contract that essentially waives the ownership of your work after a certain period of time if you haven't done a good job following up on that if you don't really if you don't give a condition report all kinds of bad things can happen and requesting a condition report is something a lot of contracts are going to do especially in museums photography there will also be specifications for the timing the number and the quality of the photos you provide I hear all the time artists like well they didn't really promote the show and then as possible they didn't promote the show but most things are two-way streets and a lot of times getting publicity images is really hard and it's one of the things that's complained about first but dealt with last so read that in the contract and know that it's there because the venue wants to help you the venue wants to promote you and so you know be involved in that and ask questions about it you know and the venue could be messing up venues aren't perfect so that's certainly another option and again we'll make this available with the video so you can actually read this it looks like an abstract work of art right now I'm sure and then the last pages of a contract are the most interesting things that could cost you the most amount of money they'll say things like we can modify the contract if we both agree to it in writing so signing a contract entering an agreement you can you can modify it if the money is not right you can see if they can do a little better or if they can change the schedules and things it's a negotiation so don't be scared to ask questions you might want to do it over the phone so you don't have text confusion in terms of tone of voice but you know that's certainly that's certainly a thing we'll ask for a CV and a bio I already touched on the kind of bio we want don't withdraw from an exhibition you've signed for a contract and I'll get to that in a second I have a weird order in my notes so I apologize it'll also determine what a sale will look like for you like the master museum where I worked previously we took no Commission other venues will take a commission and you need to be aware of what they have and it will be towards the back of the contract and then the two most important things most people are apt not to know about one is a force majeure which relates to acts of God nullifying contracts which for Louisiana artists I think that's important for you to know about and so an act of God can nullify a contract and that can be good and bad if usually I think it's just a good thing everyone just kind of walks away but money can be lost on both ends and then governing law and venue if you signed this contract with this past venue of mine you were agreeing to litigate against us if anything went wrong in Washington Parish and so if you withdrew and you were you know you cost us money we could sue you and every time you needed to deal with that you'd have to go to Monroe Louisiana so imagine if you had a show in New York or you lived in New York and we did that and you had to fly in and out for litigation that could cost you a lot of time and money and so it's just important to know that that's even an option I think checklists yay my favorite so a checklist is just an Excel spreadsheet it's gonna have all the label information nationality the year you were born - sometimes of the hardest things to get from an artist title media dimensions notes about installation like see that hot pink stuff it's just notes about installation issues or something specific that's happening some checklists on a PDF I like Excel because we can mail merge and sort things and the data is more malleable but it really helps the layout of an exhibition if I know the dimensions and what the work looks like in advance especially if we're working partially in a remotely and so there's no reason for you to not just have an Excel spreadsheet open on your desktop in your studio you finish a work you take a cruddy cell phone picture of it you drop it into an Excel spreadsheet you make an entry and then the question if I don't remember that series I don't remember what year that happened how big is that one again where is it you could have a location you know it's in the flat file downstairs or yada yada yada it's really important in terms of interfacing with a venue because you will you can do this incrementally so it's not a huge inconvenience to you and then you will gain respectability knowing that these are people want badly and then speaking of respectability a condition report if you are mailing your work have a control condition report and use something you found on the Internet it'll be similar to this they're all more or less the same and you just it's a you can drop an image in or you can make a doodle this is for doodling people do images too and you can talk about if there's an abraded edge or a scuff here or the frame is a little screwy because if you mail it and it gets damaged in shipping and you didn't email me that and you didn't have it with the work the shipper is going to fight you about whether the work was damaged or not even if it has like forklift prints on it you know which has happened that is a not that is a thing and so having this proves what condition it was before I left your studio and then also most artists in a contract are contractually obligated to supply a condition report and they don't and that nullifies certain things in the contract you might be very interested to go back and read if you ever had a contract that you needed a condition report for but first and foremost if a lot of other artists of the kinds of venues that you are showing it don't have this your work will immediately gain respectability and you will be treated with a certain degree of fear because no one want to mess your work up so you'll call attention to yourself in a good way if you if you have these and now so we'll talk a little bit about materials packing and shipping mix so I have a video that I've shot I'm going to narrate it I'll try and move very quickly but then just my one thought about shipping for emerging artists is the United States Postal Service is the most gentle and caring of the big shippers with your work they're the least convenient to work with oftentimes but they are the most gentle I have found everyone has different experiences but time and time again that's been my experience and so Jasmine is going to give y'all some rings with some materials that I'll be talking about to some degree and you can see about how you ship your work let's see if the video works we had a problem earlier here we go great so of course first you're going to begin with art and you want to put a nice smooth durable wrapping around it here you'll see in a second tae Baek it's like fiberglass that's paper if you were to take that sheet you see and do this you can't tear it you can't distort it it's perfectly smooth and has anyone driven through a housing development and see Tyvek all over the outside of it if your sheathing homes and they never want to take it apart again it's going to last a very long time you can buy it at a warehousing supply store and it's pretty archival and then you're building your first vapor barrier as well you're gonna wrap it just like a Christmas present and that nice smooth paper is gonna protect the frame you know like for example if you were to put bubble wrap facing bubble in for some reason on a work of art like it's a matte finish a black frame it's going to get to the venue with a polka dot pattern from where the tops of every single piece of bubble wrap was just burnishing the surface of your frame and then can't really ever get it back the same way again and so that's the reason why you have really nice durable material now I can't afford Tyvek personally I doubt you can but you can use brown craft paper or glassine is less expensive it's less durable but you can do that and then you want to put a second vapor barrier around it here you'll see in a second visqueen and you're trying to make it not perfectly airtight and watertight but you want it to be relatively impermeable because you don't have a like a space-age crate that's going to be treated like that where you do want it perfectly like that you want humidity and temperature to be able to slowly transfer in and out of this you know I've I know some friends that run a gallery space that shipped some work from the north in the winter and it came down here they opened it and they opened it the second they got it and all of the hinges on the photos just the adhesive gave out because if the change in humidity was so intense and they figured something else out for the show and like three days or something and so I think if you've ever received an acoustic guitar in the mail it's it'll say let it sit there for three days that's why because the wood and the glue need time to get used to where it is and then you'll see as I'm taping see how I'm coming all the way past and then down you can get all the wrinkles out as I was running through this with some staff members our registrar misty got most excited about the box building portion we love boxes we love crates we take pictures of them we talk about them Here I am cutting cardboard if you burnish it with a back end of a razor and the straight edge you can make a perfect fold in it but we love love love boxes and crates we talk about it a sculptor friend of mine speaking about another sculptor friend who will remain anonymous he made fantastic crates because he learned early in his career that registrar's and curators love crates and he would put them in his truck and go back to a studio open them take the sculptures and throw them across the room into the corner put his crates in a neat pile in the corner he liked how the damage kind of accrued on the sculptures but you know so to some extent that makes a mockery out of the boxes but I think that's more important to take away how powerful that is it makes you seem really professional Here I am putting rigid architectural sheathing foam in here you get a good r-value from that but then also the way that I put it in it fits in like bricks it's gonna be really really tight and had structure to it and the box that I'm handing around you'll notice that the lid is only about half an inch shorter than the base and they lock over one another if you were to put them back together again it's really hard to pull them apart and that box has been shipped around places there it's held together by hot glue it's easy to work with and then I go around oftentimes with tape you go tape to tape because tape sticks best to tape you know it's always falling off of things it normally sticks to itself the best so you kind of make a belt around the outside of it and so here I am and the architectural foam cuts great I think you may have seen on there I cut it with a with a razor and I pop it apart it cuts so nice and clean and in this box you'll see like a tin or aluminum paper on it you can buy that at Home Depot and that style in particular mimicks this really high-end version that museums have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on crates where they wrap expensive Etha foam in mylar it's like the beer version of that champagne and so you know it hints at something that is really good and then the the interior foam there's a little bit smaller so that it sets right in there and it's perfectly tight now the most expensive part of the box is going to be the soft foam and so use that the most sparingly here I just use two sheets I don't do it like a gun case where it's all the way around is just front and back and I push on it just enough so that it couldn't move and then I tape it closed and so here I am I'm making way better time on this narration than I did in the past so I'll tell a story about condition reports at one point a young artist was involved in a jury competition I was organizing and she had just gotten into a very prestigious grad school and she wanted that to be known and was very proud of herself and she was very nice and we had a nice correspondence and where we were growing a personal relationship but what had happened was her father dropped the painting off and he drove it 200 miles from Texas in an uncovered pickup truck and so when the my staff saw that they're like aw we're not we need to go get a condition report right away and the condition report was brutally honest it wasn't even brutally honest was just objectively honest there were those gravel in the back and there's just all kinds of things wrong with the surface and then when she came to pick it up she was furious and a bit too furious quite honestly and we were able to show her a checklist within three minutes of this event happening and then she was no longer furious with us she was furious with her family and so that's you could do the same thing to a venue if you have condition reports so it's really important to to do those kinds of things because it can really save your bacon as it turns out getting back to a networking slide from earlier said grad school she got into our very good friends with faculty member there and she shouldn't have been speaking to me the way that she was and of course he never found out about this because everyone's allowed to get freaked out for no reason but I mentioned that just to remind you how interconnected the arts community is all the people your teachers know all the people I know and that it's important to do right and be good at all times even when you really really don't want to so here I'm adding an address fragile and up it's really labor intensive and expensive to build a box for one piece and so what I would recommend is make it like a like a footlocker you know you might tend to work in some relatively same sizes and shapes and make a bigger box that you can fit multiple pieces in like you can ship a series somewhere and keep it tight and light and you'll end up saving money those are registration marks that I'm adding it you just match them up because this is a very tight fit and it's not perfectly square so if you were to rotate it it might not fit so those marks those kind of tiger stripes will help you orient it in the correct way that's a box we're done with it now in terms in terms of proposals but I do love them so much so in terms of proposals you'll need the following things a good website a CV a checklist and a proposal you may need an artist statement depending on what they're asking for but the the most difficult part of a proposal is that you don't have it already but if you have everything else ready to go you have relatively low barriers in terms of entering your work for curatorial projects or exhibition projects around and the most important thing you need to prove to the venue is how seeing your work in person and physically arranging it will deepen the experience of the work on a metaphorical level how can you amplify your work and create additional meanings by arranging it in an exhibition otherwise it's just self aggrandizement you just want a solo show because you want a solo show and you aren't necessarily accomplishing anything that I couldn't accomplish by just looking at your website and enjoying an image I saw or seeing one work of art and enjoying that image and so that's why when you're fat when when your teachers are saying you need to learn how to work in a series that's why because you need to understand how they all fit together and are stronger as a whole than as a singular unit and and you need to be able to convey that in 300 words that is harder than an artist statement but you need to use your artist statement as a foundation for that studio visits studio visits are just as uncomfortable for a curator as they are for you because curator is going into your personal space and meeting on your tariff with you and then it's uncomfortable for you because you have a stranger coming in to one of your most intimate places in your life in a studio so just know that the beginnings are almost always awkward and you just have to feel it out on the fly read over your CV in advance and any other materials you have have lots of work that can be seen easily you don't have to clean up your studio if you have a messy studio leave it messy as long as you can sort of walk in there it's okay for it to be messy because it's a reflection of you and your process and you know if you were to clean it up there might be less interesting at least that's what I think if you have even more work that can't be seen easily but someone wants to dig through it that's a very good sign so have more work that people can handle and dig through kind of ready turn off your phone just just turn it off and be in the moment it's good advice for lots of things seating is a plus maybe a beverage but nothing elaborate don't order lunch don't no one likes to eat in front of you each other you know I mean and don't obligate someone with some overly generous gesture because that will make them feel obligated to you just be kind of strange some visitors will want to take the lead others not so much try and figure out what they want to do as quickly as possible if you have a strong personality and you're incapable of that that's fine but you know if you don't see how it's gonna go ask questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no also answer questions and qualify them don't answer yes or no question always lend more give more context a yes or no answer in most cases is terrible that's almost the only thing that can go wrong in a studio visit in my opinion is saying yes or no other than that I really don't care how it goes honestly and then do not invest too much effort at guessing why a question was asked because remember it's an uncomfortable moment for both of you and you know I get kind of stony-faced sometimes if I'm thinking or in an awkward position and I could really be enjoying myself and I could ask a question and I've done this so I'm telling you from personal experience I can ask a question because I'm excited about the work and then the artist rather than answering the question thinks about why I asked the question and tries to answer it based on that and there's so much lost in in body language that my recommendation would be just answer the question and don't think about it because most people are inherently rude and they're not trying to insult you they are curious about your work if they're not asking you a question that's when you're in trouble so that brings me to let's talk does anybody do we need to reset the cameras at all okay well can you turn that on I might do feedback if I go near that okay oh okay turn and put it back into the stand and then so if you have a question or a concern please come up and contribute by speaking into that microphone so we can get you on camera and hear your voice no yeah of course everyone just you know stand in line or you're gonna it's just people are gonna go crazy and you won't be able to answer your question well this is a very very simple question you're talking about dimension the actual artwork are we talking about the dimensions of it since I work in photography I usually have a frame around my in his product sure do we talk about the finished frame piece or do we talk about the actual image size itself I think as long as you deal with it with specificity it doesn't matter doesn't it no I mean it might be nice to know if it's framed or not which is where the specificity comes into play when I would describe it I would say like 16 by 20 frame or unframed yeah that would let me know lots of different things let me know the size if the work might get larger and if it's gonna cost more money okay so let's say let's say I have a print and I've cut a mat to a 16 by 20 okay that's what I would list is the actual size of the art just be specific with this current state because I mean it doesn't once you actually have dimensions for your work and can give it to someone you're lightyears ahead of most other people and so just keep track of that and just be specific and don't worry about the expectations of it just have a system in place thank you thank you my aunt who's an artist pays herself an hourly wage and keeps track that seems reasonable I know another painter that does it by the square inch I don't know to me you're asking the worst person because I don't I pay for art in a different way usually in a temporary way because I'm curious abyssion and so I often am worried about the other costs not necessarily how to price the work but what I can tell you is once you have an established price don't change it according to region because if someone who's buying it at a more expensive price point discovers you're doing it somewhere else then you can cut your nose off despite your face so that's that's as far as I'll go with advice on pricing because I think I'm at Arizona one have a firm opinion on pricing and would like to contribute an online art mentor she has a really good guide and yeah and what's the terrible idea and idea that you pay yourself an hourly rate is idea that I think is a terrible idea okay because art is a business and there's a lot of other cost associated with the business not just my twenty twenty-five thirty dollars an hour you know I mean they're shipping there's you know all the business stuff that comes with it etc so if you just paint yourself like an hourly wage then you're not taking to the fact that you're not employee you're a business owner there's a lot of expenses that go with a business owner well you don't know my aunt very well okay her yeah her hourly rate is very high specifically for that she she has a she has a matrix that she uses specifically for that reason but yeah to pay yourself minimum wage or something's a terrible idea for exactly those reasons or even a good wage that if it doesn't take those into account so like paper for a printmaking project could cost $700 yeah okay I do have a question this is about the bio and you were like okay make it your art bio not your life bio oh my baby's just more just and I was a patient made me to give me some feedback my struggle is I had a whole other career and then I started over mm-hmm and I still feel like a lot of that stuff is valid and if I just kind of ignore all that then it's like I have no background so I don't know you know it depends everything's a case-by-case analysis you know it depends on what that previous life was and how it informs why you're making work or how you're making work now and that is what you need to be concerned with like how is that your art biography and then add it just make it relevant to art you know like if you like catching crickets in a in a dry creek bed as a child and it has nothing to do with your artwork that's where you shouldn't put those things in I don't you know that's just off the top of my head [Music] yeah it could be part of your process exactly that totally makes sense okay part of the process I'm not acknowledging you unless you come up here I think that the important thing about the bio part though is just to keep in mind that it's not about talking about who you are as a person it's about talk about who you are as an artist so that it is should include things like recent shows collections you're in stuff like that when they say bio it's your biography as an artist it can include personal information especially the beginning but it's leading to what you're doing in smartest absolutely you don't have to raise your hands has come up it's an open mic jasmine will cut me off at some point though she'll tell me we have to wrap it up what's your recommendation on artistic insurance you know like when you're shipping your work but you want to you know do you have you found other artists that actually pay insurance for their the the way that from all I from what I understand the way that they're insuring their work is through the shipper there they don't necessarily have an insurance policy just for art but you can contact you know Liberty Mutual or a mica or what-have-you and those are two that I know have fun our coverage for example and you can do find our coverage for just what's in your home or for your business and they'll give you a policy it's just like getting car insurance but if you're using if you're using what FedEx or something my advice to you would be to insure it as a framed picture or a statue don't use art words use business words just because if there's damage to and this is something I've specifically learned if there's damage if it's fine art evaluating its monetary worth becomes extremely difficult because the arts priceless how are we going to do this and you'll have to you'll have to do things like prove you have sold similar work at that price point but if you insure a framed picture people like oh yeah fine pictures are expensive that reminds me of that graduation thought on the frame what $500 and then the printing costs way more than I thought it would and it becomes less of a philosophical debate and more of a business discussion once you enter into talking about the fine art coverage totally different ballgame but you know because then they know they're ensuring fine art they know that there's risk and things are fragile but if you're still just using FedEx or the UUP UPS or USPS that that is my recommendation a few questions I'm just starting out and I do quit sculpture and my stuff's pretty big in trying to awkward one how can I pack that cheaply and - my work takes a little bit longer so a lot of people talk about getting all these shows getting all this shows I feel like I should focus more on making quality work and having less shows how many artists had six shows last year how many raise your hand if you had a yeah how many shows were you in okay and Chris similar number right were those all solo shows so you only needed one two three works of art so you can be in a group show you can figure out how to get into a group show and not have to bear the burden of having everything for a solo show yet it might take several years to get ready for a solo show if an artist was getting one or two shows a year that's in my mind pretty good especially if you are a professor or a student or an accountant or a schoolteacher get one or two shows a year and do that every year and after five years you've had ten or twelve shows and then you're gonna start out stripping people you'll get better at it you'll have more work and it's just something to build to the solo show is really unreasonable for a lot of artists you know sometimes you just don't make the kind of like if you make tiny little work you might never get a solo show it might be difficult and as long as you're happy with the work figure out what kind of shows you can get in or what you can do in terms of the venue so you know don't freak out about 12 shows a year are they all jury competitions you know that in in my mind that's not quite as good a show as something that's been curated or you've been invited to show in it's still crucial to your development at some point you have to enter jury competitions but research the juror and make sure their style aligns with yours don't submit to a juried competition where the gerard loves documentary photography if you don't make documentary photography you know because then when you put that jarred competition on your website on your on your cv or website put the name of the juror are because you're riding their coattails that's where the prestige is it might not be the venue so much as the gerar and it could be both it could be you know it just depends so all right well thank you all very much for coming I appreciate you and feel free to email the website with feedback or tell me or tell Jasmine tell Chris because he's here what you liked what you didn't like Chris raise your hand so everyone else who you aren't there you go so thank you very much I appreciate it [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Hilliardmuseum

Views: 23

Rating: 0 out of 5

Keywords: Art, Professional Practices

Id: CHtAz6YcyTg

Length: 55min 4sec (3304 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019