Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
Do you believe that raising awareness necessarily leads to an action? Can you see the impact of your work creating a shift in consciousness?
Absolutely. I receive telephone calls and emails from people week in week out.
I’m constantly receiving enquiries from people – particularly in the United States and also in Europe. These are people using the information I provide on my website for their studies, writing about my work in their theses, newspapers or magazines and the general questioning is along the lines of what you’re asking here.
Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, Start Here
What role do you think art plays in prompting public dialogue about all those things?
I think art can play a significant role in this kind of dialogue. Art really has a place to be an informer. All the way through history, artists have been at the forefront of responding to contemporary issues in society and being a bit like beacons for the general public, for society at large.
Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
Is there any environmental issue in particular that concerns you?
I think I have a very generalised view of what’s going on with the environment at the moment and I guess that has political ramifications as well. I, like most of the people on the planet – unless they’re particularly blind, just see that the planet is in acute ecological crisis at the moment and we as a human race could be going either way with this. It may be just way too late to save this fragile ecology we’ve got.
Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success
Were you picking up plastic with the intention of using it, or was it initially just to get it off the beach?
At the beginning, I was just going to take it to the local recycling centre at the tip. Then after I’d collected maybe five or ten of these jumbo bags I realised I could imagine using this stuff in some way that was artistic.
Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
Did you set out to make environmental art or art that would have a political message?
No I never did. When I moved into this new home and decided to make driftwood furniture, the sole intention was just to make something beautiful for the home I’d just moved into. I went to remote places along the Victorian coast where it was just four-wheel driving and venturing out to islands on boats, where huge logs of driftwood were being washed ashore and parched by the sun and the salt and knocked about on the rocks.
Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
Can you tell me something of your artistic back ground?
I went to the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. I began in 1977 and I was there for three years. During that time I was fortunate enough to have a number of key figures in the Australian art world lecturing there and it was a very free environment. You were just allotted your own studio space and you were pretty much left to our own devices during that whole time, with ongoing really excellent feedback coming from the various lecturers, (in between their games of chess).
Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success
The most important advice: take a deep breath. You are an artist; no one wants you to be anything but that. When it comes to writing about yourself or pitching your work, it’s perfectly normal to feel wildly uncomfortable.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success
A good example of stretching your abilities as an artist can be found by experiencing my life drawing classes. In these classes which I’ve run over many years now, I ask the students to begin to draw for a certain amount of time a still life set up that I put into the centre of the room.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success
It’s amazing how often I have found that the reason why people don’t have confidence is simply because they’re not willing to take the risk to learn something new. And learning something new can come about simply through learning from the most obvious of accidents that are happening in your studio in your normal process of working.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
As such you can never find a simple formula to building confidence in your artwork. You can be aware of being too careful in your approach. Watch how you draw, watch how you apply paint, watch how you choose whatever material it is that you’re working with and how you then go about working with those materials.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
In this post, I’m addressing the (lack of) issue that many artists and aspiring artists have about self-confidence. For without a certain amount of self-confidence you won’t have the required ability to put your self out by marketing your art.
Art Marketing, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
If you have never written out a marketing plan, the task most likely sounds daunting. A sound marketing plan however, is a great way to increase the success of your business and helps you to make informed decisions around purchases, networking, events, and promotions throughout the year.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
You’ve run the numbers, and hopefully removed any lingering fog around your money. Now it’s time to decide if you’re making enough of it. If you think your bank account could use a boost, set aside a few hours to ask yourself some serious questions.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success
No business operates well without a budget. Your budget should be a realistic set of spending parameters. The more control over and security around your finances, the freer you’ll feel when it’s time to be creative.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
Part I: Funding your practice.
Supporting your practice can produce emotional fits. Money is a delicate subject no matter what field you are in.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success
How do artists negotiate deals with corporations?
A corporation wants to me to reproduce one of my paintings as a series of limited edition prints for their various office locations. How do I negotiate this deal?
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
What do I need to know about contracts?
Legal issues will arise during your career. You might face disputes with curators who may have agreed to cover expenses for an installation but who later remembers that conversation differently.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ
Your creative work is immediately copyrighted the moment you make it. Any author of an original work owns the copyright to that work. Only you have the right to derive works, such as prints, from your own work. This right remains with you even after your work is sold. The new owner has bought your work but not its copyright, unless you have transferred it via contract.
Art Business, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ, Selling Your Art
In order to show at notable gallery you and your art have to be a total match. The quality of your art is only one step in the process. There’s also your resume, your reputation, your profile and standing in the art community, how you are to work with, your previous sales history, the quality of critical reviews of your past shows and much more.
Art Business, Art Marketing, Artist Help & Tips, Artist Success, FAQ, Selling Your Art
I just graduated from art school. How do I break into galleries?
As I any profession, you have to begin at the beginning, and in the art world that means showing your art pretty much anywhere anyone will have you.