Reality Check – Being an Artist
As a dutiful blogger in the blogsphere, I regularly check out other art blogs. One blog that is especially varied on its topics is Art News Blog. They often talk about issues of being an artist, art reviews, and art news stories, ranging from recent auctions to assasination attempts on Turkish artists (!). It has a great following with each post garnering long, well thought out comments from people around the world. This post was interesting to me simply because its on one of the more popular topics for visual artists: The Business of Being an Artist. Let me know what you think of this list (it seems a little harsh to me!).
From Art News Blog:
Most of the artists I know see reality in different ways to normal people. Their feet don’t seem to touch the ground when they walk and they often bump into real things as their head is usually in the clouds. There are exceptions, but reality usually makes artists uncomfortable.
Sylvia White recently published an interesting article called “5 Facts Artists Have To Face To Succeed In Business”. She calls it her cold water splash in the face for artists. Here’s the 5 points..
- You will not get “discovered.”
- You will not find a gallery that “understands your work” and feels as passionately about it as you do.
- No matter how original you think your work is, it has been done before.
- Just because your work looks just like Jackson Pollock, (or, fill in the blank) doesn’t mean it’s as good, or that you can price it the same.
- You will not be able to make a living off the sale of your work.
Read the full article over at ArtAdvice.com.
I had a go at my own reality check for artists last year and called it the Do or Die List for Artists, which was inspired by a much more optimistic list for artists by Robert Genn.
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Jessica,
Thanks for posting this particular article. I think that sometimes artists think exactly as it is stated in the piece, but sometimes they may be the only one who feels that way about their work. What I love about being an artist is that it happens to be something that has been in my family for a long time. I grew up with it, just as my sisters did. None of us paid any attention to what my dad was doing outside in that art shop. We just knew he was always out there after work, listening to his music and painting something for somebody. We also knew that part of our daily chores, was to clean his paintbrushes, help keep things stay a little neat and sweep out his art shop. He created art because “he could”, it was a natural talent and it was something that he enjoyed and was good at, not to mention, it helped to feed a family of five daughters. I think that’s pretty much how I feel about it. I create it because I enjoy it and it makes me happy when others enjoy it as well, better yet, when they buy it! Making a living at it….no, I don’t think that will happen for me but hopefully it will help subsidize my State retirement:) As for it being the best of it’s type…..absolutely not….I know that…in fact, I am easily intimidated when I go to galleries. I am in awe with some of the work that I see. I love to meet the artists when I see their work because I love to relate them as a person to their art.I do it for the basics. It’s a simple to me….also stay humble. I had an instructor that said something to me one day that I never have forgotten, he said….”don’t fall in love with your own work”. I enjoy my work but I haven’t fallen in love with it…..at least, not yet:-)