—The art world—
I'm in graduate school working on an MFA. It's a difficult two-year program that is taking me five years to complete. That means five years of constantly being told your art doesn't work. That is complete nonsense, but they do a great job of shaming you and making you feel foolish until you get a thick skin or at least an angry attitude. Or you walk around life in fear like your instructors do.
But what if your art really doesn't work?
This summer, I attended an opening reception with some friends and we stood staring at a sculpture trying to figure out if it was meant to portray an object that might be motorized, or if it was, in fact, mechanical but broken. We finally determined that it was broken and we decided that the motor—it looked like it had been salvaged from an old barn—was probably a bad choice. The fact that it was not working didn't stop the organizers from praising the artist during the award presentation. I saw another mechanical piece break down during the reception, but that artist was able to fix it quickly.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
Time + Money + Resources, Part II
—The art world—
I have made it a goal to limit myself to showing in one competitive group show a year. Once I get in, I'm supposed to stop entering competitions until the next year. I haven't got very far with this goal because, at the moment, I can't afford to enter even one competition, let alone how many entries it will take to get into one show. But the goal gives me some guidance. It's a rule.
Most artists see competitive group exhibitions as opportunities for exposure, not sales. Or sometimes artists say they are showing for experience, which seems to mean another line on the show list. Hopefully, this equates to reputation. If you have a strong show record, then your work is more valuable in a gallery setting.
But how much do these credentials cost? Do you want to be in a half-dozen shows a year? Less? We know that an artist only gets accepted into a fraction of the shows he or she enters. This cost could be offset by sales at the exhibitions, but we know that an artist only sells work in a fraction of the shows he or she is accepted into.
So, let's consider some completely invented odds.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I get into one out of every twenty shows I enter. How realistic this is depends on the kinds of shows I enter, how smart I am about evaluating the jurors, and how conventional and trendy my work is. So this figure is just for illustration. Entry fees seem to range from twenty to forty dollars, so let's just say it costs me thirty dollars to enter a show including postage. Let's also say that it costs me fifty dollars to ship my work to and from the show. And let's say that I sell one piece out of every twenty shows I get into.
Now, let's do the math.
Over the past four years, let's say I entered four hundred shows for a cost of $12,000 in entry fees.
I got into twenty shows
I spent $1000 in shipping.
I sold one piece for $2000.
Total profit or loss before any expenses other than shipping and entry fees:
-$11,000.
I lose over ten grand or $2500 a year to sell one painting in four years. On top of that, I spent 2400 hours entering the shows and mailing the work. I expect the same work will sell eventually through a gallery, so I won't factor in the cost of supplies and overhead.
We might say that it's worth the investment of over $200 a month to get me the exposure and reputation. Some would say it's worth it just to get to show the work.
If you have a good day job, you might justify it. $200 is not that much money for some people. But for some artists, that's the rent.
Is it excessive to put your work in five shows a year or is that a better goal than my one? It would take a considerable degree of discipline to enter a hundred shows a year—that's one entry every few days. Like blogging this blog, it quickly feels like stuffing notes in bottles and casting them into the sea. Many artists use the strategy of only entering regional shows where they can develop a local following and attend the receptions. Plus, they save on shipping (though not delivery). That's a good goal, but doesn't change the other expenses. Some artists get so well-established and their work is so good that they get into more shows than they are rejected from. That makes it far more worth it, but it still doesn't reduce the entry fees. Hopefully their sales increase as they get better at getting into shows, however. But that's not a given.
And, here's another illustration. If I were to sell a painting for around a thousand dollars every couple weeks, my friends would be amazed. Yet the gallery would take half the profits and that would literally leave me with $13,000 in gross sales before the overhead of art supplies and my studio.
I realize that, in our soundbite world, few would want to read a blog that looks so closely at numbers. That's a problem. We should have been required to do math like this in art school. In sociology and linguistics, they generate long equations that are supposed to tell them something and they don't get a degree until they learn to do it. But in art school, we get as far as scaling a canvas and not much further and we never talk money—ever. That parallels the art world rule of never talking money.
So, I'll continue to explore this topic in future posts, if only to work it out for myself.
I have made it a goal to limit myself to showing in one competitive group show a year. Once I get in, I'm supposed to stop entering competitions until the next year. I haven't got very far with this goal because, at the moment, I can't afford to enter even one competition, let alone how many entries it will take to get into one show. But the goal gives me some guidance. It's a rule.
Most artists see competitive group exhibitions as opportunities for exposure, not sales. Or sometimes artists say they are showing for experience, which seems to mean another line on the show list. Hopefully, this equates to reputation. If you have a strong show record, then your work is more valuable in a gallery setting.
But how much do these credentials cost? Do you want to be in a half-dozen shows a year? Less? We know that an artist only gets accepted into a fraction of the shows he or she enters. This cost could be offset by sales at the exhibitions, but we know that an artist only sells work in a fraction of the shows he or she is accepted into.
So, let's consider some completely invented odds.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I get into one out of every twenty shows I enter. How realistic this is depends on the kinds of shows I enter, how smart I am about evaluating the jurors, and how conventional and trendy my work is. So this figure is just for illustration. Entry fees seem to range from twenty to forty dollars, so let's just say it costs me thirty dollars to enter a show including postage. Let's also say that it costs me fifty dollars to ship my work to and from the show. And let's say that I sell one piece out of every twenty shows I get into.
Now, let's do the math.
Over the past four years, let's say I entered four hundred shows for a cost of $12,000 in entry fees.
I got into twenty shows
I spent $1000 in shipping.
I sold one piece for $2000.
Total profit or loss before any expenses other than shipping and entry fees:
-$11,000.
I lose over ten grand or $2500 a year to sell one painting in four years. On top of that, I spent 2400 hours entering the shows and mailing the work. I expect the same work will sell eventually through a gallery, so I won't factor in the cost of supplies and overhead.
We might say that it's worth the investment of over $200 a month to get me the exposure and reputation. Some would say it's worth it just to get to show the work.
If you have a good day job, you might justify it. $200 is not that much money for some people. But for some artists, that's the rent.
Is it excessive to put your work in five shows a year or is that a better goal than my one? It would take a considerable degree of discipline to enter a hundred shows a year—that's one entry every few days. Like blogging this blog, it quickly feels like stuffing notes in bottles and casting them into the sea. Many artists use the strategy of only entering regional shows where they can develop a local following and attend the receptions. Plus, they save on shipping (though not delivery). That's a good goal, but doesn't change the other expenses. Some artists get so well-established and their work is so good that they get into more shows than they are rejected from. That makes it far more worth it, but it still doesn't reduce the entry fees. Hopefully their sales increase as they get better at getting into shows, however. But that's not a given.
And, here's another illustration. If I were to sell a painting for around a thousand dollars every couple weeks, my friends would be amazed. Yet the gallery would take half the profits and that would literally leave me with $13,000 in gross sales before the overhead of art supplies and my studio.
I realize that, in our soundbite world, few would want to read a blog that looks so closely at numbers. That's a problem. We should have been required to do math like this in art school. In sociology and linguistics, they generate long equations that are supposed to tell them something and they don't get a degree until they learn to do it. But in art school, we get as far as scaling a canvas and not much further and we never talk money—ever. That parallels the art world rule of never talking money.
So, I'll continue to explore this topic in future posts, if only to work it out for myself.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Seven-point art curriculum goals
My curriculum is designed to address seven fundamental components of art education. When I develop a lesson plan, I identify which of the following seven areas are represented by the concepts I am teaching, and try to find ways to incorporate something from the remaining areas.
Art Curriculum Goals
Through continuing enrollment, participation in classroom
projects, and personal attention from instructors, students will advance in the following areas:
1) Fundamentals
2) Skill &
Technique
3) Personal
Creativity
4) Art Appreciation
& Art History
5) Art Criticism
& Vocabulary
6) Professional
Practices
7) Interdisciplinary
Fundamentals. The
student will develop an artistic eye and knowledge of design. Lesson objectives
may include color theory, drawing concepts and techniques, drawing from life,
composition skills, the elements and principles of design, 2-d and 3-d design
principles, and an understanding of perspective. Students will be introduced to
a variety of media. Learners will explore the meaningful visual elements within
works of art, and learn to talk about them.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Maximize your creativity
In my first tour of graduate school, I realized that I had to make rules for myself—maxims to guide me in my art career. Artists are rule-breakers by nature, and I realized that my wide-open mind was the very reason I had to prescribe some simple guidelines for myself. So I decided to create a set of maxims.
Having an important and firm maxim is like sticking to the rule for 17 in black jack. If your hand is 17, statistically, you should never hit. But if your hand is an ace and a 6, then you should always hit, because you can always fall back from 17 to 7. The analogy has to do with replacing impulsive thinking with consistent thinking. I developed my maxims because they are outside of my artistic impulses and emotions. They are simply the better thing to do, and I can trust them, many times, better than I can trust my brain. They require faith in the easily forgotten facts that they are founded on.
As I progress with my blog, I will publish my maxims, one by one. Some of them I invented myself and some of them I stole from others. Some I am still formulating. They are scattered on scraps of paper around my studio and files throughout my hard drive. Some are just simple rules that haven't morphed into a clever saying, yet. But as they germinate, this blog will be a great place for me to store them so I can refer to them as my career progresses, adding more as I go. I'll place a quick link to them in the list of categories to the right.
We artists are open-minded by nature, so it isn't that hard to change. For me, the rule-breaking artist, the best way was to make some rules for myself. And then try to follow them.
Having an important and firm maxim is like sticking to the rule for 17 in black jack. If your hand is 17, statistically, you should never hit. But if your hand is an ace and a 6, then you should always hit, because you can always fall back from 17 to 7. The analogy has to do with replacing impulsive thinking with consistent thinking. I developed my maxims because they are outside of my artistic impulses and emotions. They are simply the better thing to do, and I can trust them, many times, better than I can trust my brain. They require faith in the easily forgotten facts that they are founded on.
As I progress with my blog, I will publish my maxims, one by one. Some of them I invented myself and some of them I stole from others. Some I am still formulating. They are scattered on scraps of paper around my studio and files throughout my hard drive. Some are just simple rules that haven't morphed into a clever saying, yet. But as they germinate, this blog will be a great place for me to store them so I can refer to them as my career progresses, adding more as I go. I'll place a quick link to them in the list of categories to the right.
We artists are open-minded by nature, so it isn't that hard to change. For me, the rule-breaking artist, the best way was to make some rules for myself. And then try to follow them.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Originality
—Creativity—
My buddy Dave shared a video animation from the New York Times called Allergy to Originality that plays with the idea that most art has always been derived from previous art. I thought I would share some related thoughts.
For some time, now, I've been keeping journals of ideas about creativity and being an artist. Some of the entries are my own thoughts. And some entries I copy from writings by other artists. I've been collecting journals, essays, letters, and other writing from a variety of creators of the past and present. When I find a passage I like, sometimes I copy it word-for-word, and sometimes I alter the words. My own writing merges with the copied writing until I no longer know for sure what I wrote and what other people wrote. Sometimes I can say it better. Sometimes they can say it better. Sometimes I reiterate the same or similar thoughts with multiple ways of saying it.
In this way, I am compiling and merging a lot of ideas about creativity and art making into a form of writing that is not normal or legal to publish, but is moving in the direction of clarity, for me. There are no quotes and no citations. It's everything I was taught not to do. But, to me, it makes more sense. In a similar way, I've been collecting pictures of other people's art work off the internet and not noting their names. I just want ideas, and I don't care who made it.
My buddy Dave shared a video animation from the New York Times called Allergy to Originality that plays with the idea that most art has always been derived from previous art. I thought I would share some related thoughts.
For some time, now, I've been keeping journals of ideas about creativity and being an artist. Some of the entries are my own thoughts. And some entries I copy from writings by other artists. I've been collecting journals, essays, letters, and other writing from a variety of creators of the past and present. When I find a passage I like, sometimes I copy it word-for-word, and sometimes I alter the words. My own writing merges with the copied writing until I no longer know for sure what I wrote and what other people wrote. Sometimes I can say it better. Sometimes they can say it better. Sometimes I reiterate the same or similar thoughts with multiple ways of saying it.
In this way, I am compiling and merging a lot of ideas about creativity and art making into a form of writing that is not normal or legal to publish, but is moving in the direction of clarity, for me. There are no quotes and no citations. It's everything I was taught not to do. But, to me, it makes more sense. In a similar way, I've been collecting pictures of other people's art work off the internet and not noting their names. I just want ideas, and I don't care who made it.
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