If you feel like your artist statement or your web copy is not ever done – it isn’t. Writing is a process and very rarely a product. Text can always be reworked and improved. Set goals, but be reasonable. Be fair to yourself and ask for help along the way.
It’s great to not feel any restriction with what I create. I’m enjoying going with the flow with my creativity. I had quite a large amount of it in storage, and it’s been great to get it out and work it into some interesting sculptures – sculptures that I’ve not ever seen before.
This can help with future directions and can also act as a signpost for yourself about important and pivotal times in your career, times which you may want to elaborate about clearly in lectures or in your own writings about your work.
As a result of standing up for myself I set a precedent for other local artists but at some cost to my relationships. I am pleased to report that these relationships healed with time.
I am enjoying my role as a mediator between nature and humans, expressing universal truths in my work and inspiring viewers as much as I am able.
I’m passionate about the messages that the work conveys through the use of recycled material and I love without exception, the simple inspiration that it gives to people when they see this kind of work.
It never ceases to amaze me how many ways that we can recycle and it’s a great thing that recycling has become so topical nowadays. I remember when I first started working with the found plastics that I discovered when I was walking the beaches collecting driftwood, to make my furniture. Given the fact that I wanted to use recycled driftwood to make my furniture, it was indicative that I had it in my system to want to reuse objects. It began for me with driftwood, well before it became fashionable to make furniture from this material.
I have often been asked what my definition of success is and whether or not I consider myself successful. The parameters by which I define success are particularly wide. I don’t feel that it’s confined to financial success or necessarily aligned to fame, though it may be the case that someone is financially rewarded for what they do or receive generous accolades along the way.
Artists have varying degrees of success at different points in their lives. These moments when experienced can test you in many ways, which can both increase that achievement or dilute its effect on your career. It depends often on how you respond to the success that comes your way.
Do you respond to success or do you react to success? It is exceptionally easy to undermine anything, but undermining success can be the simplest thing to do. Most people crave for positive achievements and accolades as much as they fear it and it is in both the craving and the fearing of success that the problems germinate and the possibility of undermining your achievements of success begin.
Many galleries I’ve worked with have asked me to create smaller works, or works ‘like the one that sold’ etc. In the meantime I have continued to make whatever has been my whim. I have one of the most varied outputs in style of all the artists I know.
I think this includes aspects of my career as an artist. In my own eyes, and in the eyes of those I have successfully convinced through my relentless media releases and PR campaigns, I am highly successful on most levels. In the meantime life goes on and different things become important in a career; sometimes this can mean total shifts in emphasis and direction.
There are also times where we as artists feel we may have undermined our success by standing in the way of opportunities in some way, or that on reflection we may have preferred to approach one process or another in a vastly different way. Whatever the case, we experience challenges in our art careers for one reason only and that is to learn, develop and grow not only as an artist but also as a person.
You will find through reading this it will become clear why when you walk through that door the first time, whether it be a gallery, an agent or a potential client, plan to walk through that door twelve times. This will develop your character to the point that after you hear a years worth of no’s you will still stay inspired because you have learnt from them by remembering it’s how you end something how it begins.
Although one of my favourite places to exhibit is in New York, I also love to show in many places on the international stage. I’ve been accustomed to exhibiting my art in many places other than my home country Australia, because of a number of reasons. I believe the primary reason is because of my work being different from standard practice.
Research the gallery, find out who is the director, and write a letter of introduction with details about your website, if you have one, and include a CD, though these days I think it’s preferable to send some good quality photographs as well.
One of the first things that I’d recommend for an artist when they’re contacting a gallery for the first time is to never do it cold.
There is a fine line between pestering and simply being professional and following up. In my experience some of the best media coverage that I have had has come about through my providing a professional and detailed media release. That’s the first step. Following up on this is crucial, even just to find out whether the editor has received the press release that you have prepared.
In identifying Environmental Art, a crucial distinction lies between environmental artists who do not consider the damage to the environment their artwork may incur, and those who intend to cause no harm to nature. Indeed, their work might involve restoring the immediate landscape to a natural state.
I have found it a great thing to see an artist who I have recommended to enter for a major competition, being actually hung. Sometimes it can be the launch pad for their whole career by being seen in a prominent museum or nationally recognized gallery as part of one of these prizes. The fact is you have to enter in order to have the possibility of being hung all of even possibly winning.
Sometimes you may wonder whether it’s worth the expense especially if you are producing 1000 or more postcards, in my experience it’s worth the expense simply because it becomes a postcard that people are more likely to hold onto or pass on.
