How to be an artist - can you have rules?

I've often heard it said that you're an artist when you've learned enough about the rules to be able to break them.

The question then becomes "What are the rules for how to be an artist?"

According to Jerry Saltz, there are 33 rules for making art - see How to Be an Artist - 33 rules to take you from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least help you live life a little more creatively).

There are 33 rules — and they really are all you need to know to make a life for yourself in art. Or 34, if you count “Always be nice, generous, and open with others and take good care of your teeth.” And No. 35: “Fake it till you make it.”

Just to be clear, Jerry Saltz is not actually an artist. He wrote an article in 2017 called My Life As a Failed Artist - Decades after giving up the dream for good, an art critic returns to the work he’d devoted his life to, then abandoned — but never really forgot. By Jerry Saltz

Jerry Saltz, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in commentary,

taken at the Pulitzer Prize ceremony in NYC

Wikimedia Creative Commons

Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Nothing so straightforward. He's an art critic.

Specifically, he's the art critic of the New York Magazine - and this is a link to his most recent articles which he writes for Vulture, which is the culture section of that Magazine.

He also won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018 - so not just any old art critic!

Jerry Saltz' 33 rules for 'how to be an artist'

Anyway - here are his 33 rules. The full explanation for each one comes in his article which I recommend you read

Bottom line - it's a good read!  Whether you agree with all of it or not - and the images used for the article are also excellent - not least those where he emulates Cindy Sherman! (see below for his Warhol, Dali and Frida Kahlo impersonations)

Add three of your own for a possible one-day maybe book?? "Jerry Saltz’s 33 Rules for Being an Artist" @Riverhead https://t.co/wBS8Zi3zqB via @vulture

— Jerry Saltz (@jerrysaltz) December 20, 2018

However let's also be clear these are rules stated as Lessons - and some include exercises and most include imperatives.

In fact, I have no problem with the thrust of the article being Lessons. It's the notion that these are "rules" which causes me to pause. I'm left wondering if an Editor thought of a better title for the article?

I found myself nodding in agreement with quite a lot of what he has to say. I think if you've tried being a serious artist or know people who have you'll recognise those truths.

....over the years, I’ve found myself giving the same bits of advice. Most of them were simply gleaned from looking at art, then looking some more. Others from listening to artists talk about their work and their struggles.

Some of it I think has to be said by somebody who is not an artist because sometimes only the truth of 'what is' can be said by somebody who been very close to the art world without being an artist.

Read them as LESSONS and not rules...  Rules are made so you can break them - when you're a real artist.

Step One: You Are a Total Amateur

• Lesson 1: Don’t Be Embarrassed
• Lesson 2: “Tell your own story and you will be interesting.” — Louise Bourgeois
• Lesson 3: Feel Free to Imitate
• Lesson 4: Art Is Not About Understanding. Or Mastery.
• Lesson 5: Work, Work, Work

Step Two: How to Actually Begin - An instruction manual for the studio

• Lesson 6: Start With a Pencil
• Lesson 7: Develop Forms of Practice
• Lesson 8: Now, Redefine Skill
• Lesson 9: “Embed thought in material.” — Roberta Smith
• Lesson 10: Find Your Own Voice
• Lesson 11: Listen to the Crazy Voices in Your Head
• Lesson 12: Know What You Hate
• Lesson 13: Scavenge

Step Three: Learn How to Think Like an Artist - This is the fun part.

• Lesson 14: Compare Cats and Dogs
• Lesson 15: Understand That Art Is Not Just for Looking At
• Lesson 16: Learn the Difference Between Subject Matter and Content
• Lesson 17: See As Much As You Can
• Lesson 18: All Art Is Identity Art!
• Lesson 19: All Art Was Once Contemporary Art

Step Four: Enter the Art World - A guide to the snake pit.

• Lesson 20: Accept That You Will Likely Be Poor
• Lesson 21: Define Success
• Lesson 22: It Takes Only a Few People to Make a Career
• Lesson 23: Learn to Write

Step Five: Survive the Art World - Psychic strategies for dealing with the ugliness (inside and out).

• Lesson 24: Artists Must Be Vampires
• Lesson 25: Learn to Deal With Rejection
• Lesson 26: Make an Enemy of Envy
• Lesson 27: Having a Family Is Fine

Step Six: Attain Galactic Brain

• Lesson 28: What You Don’t Like Is As Important As What You Do Like
• Lesson 29: Art Is a Form of Knowing Yourself
• Lesson 30: “Artists do not own the meaning of their work.” — Roberta Smith
• Lesson 31: All Art Is Subjective
• Lesson 32: You Must Prize Vulnerability
• Lesson 33: Be Delusional

I'll be inserting a link to this article to the soon to the STARTING OUT Tips for an Emerging Artist page of the Practice Section of my Art Business Info for Artists website - not least because it's one of the more realistic articles I've read about the fact being an artists is emphatically NOT all about the art!

What are your "rules" or "lessons" for being an artist? (Answers on my (public) Facebook Page please)

More about Jerry Saltz

His social media sites are worth following....

• Jerry Saltz | Facebook 
• Jerry Saltz | Twitter
• Jerry Saltz | Instagram
• Jerry Saltz | Wikipedia
• Jerry Saltz Archives | Artnet (2000-2005)
• Jerry Saltz Archives | Vulture | New York
• My Jerry Saltz problem by James Panero
• An Art Critic's 33 Rules for Being an Artist | Lifehacker

Work-Life-Artist #2: Linda Blondheim

This is the second in my series of posts about working artists - looking at what they get up to when NOT making art. 

I'm very pleased to have Linda Blondheim talk about the actual reality of being a working artist and coping with the challenges which life throws at you from time to time.

Through her paintings, Linda aims to create a visual record of the rural landscapes and trees of Florida.  See the post I wrote Linda Blondheim paints the Florida landscape and trees when she was hunkering down last September from the hurricane which hit both Florida - and her country studio.  It also contains links to some of the practical tips for artists which she also writes for her Art Notes blog which covers the reality of being a working artist.

If you an active and practising professional artist (i.e. earn most or all of your income through making and selling art and related artistic activities) and would like to participate in the series please read the note the end of this post.

Linda Blondheim - Landscape painter, Florida

Orange Lake by Linda Blondheim 
acrylic on canvas, 18×24 inches

What does the "real life" of being an artist actually involve?

• Wearing multiple hats, including good marketing skill, business knowledge, including forecasting and understanding current economic trends both local, national and international global issues. 
• Flexibility in art and business trends are key to success. 
• Nurturing collectors is key. 
• Painting

Is it like what you expected?

Art school did not prepare me for the realities of being a full time artist. I made many mistakes along the way. It is many more times difficult than I expected.

Where/who did you get your ideas of what "real life as an artist" was going to be like from? Were they right?

I have painted since childhood. In the early years, I had a romanticized notion, which was reinforced by my college professors, who did not have to sell art to pay the bills.

Making a living

How do you actually "make a living" (e.g. keep a roof over your head / pay the bills / have a studio / plan for retirement)?

I have two studios, one in the city which is my retail studio and one behind my home in rural north Florida. I sell paintings from both, as well as Daily Paint Works, Etsy, and my own web site.

What percentage of your income (roughly) do you generate from making art?

100%. I have no other income streams.

What percentage of your income (roughly) derives from being involved with art?

100%

How do you aim to be making a living in future?

I will paint as long as I can hold a brush. One of my dealers gave me some good advice years ago. He said to work at painting and build a huge body of work when you are at the height of your skill. You will have these paintings to live on when you can no longer produce good work. I will have good paintings to sell if I can no longer paint, though I pray that never happens.

Time allocation

What percentage of time do you have each week for actually making art? (Is this more or less than you expected?)

I work seven days a week. Most of my painting is done for about 3 hours a day. I am a very fast painter and produce paintings every week.

How do you typically spend your time each day or week or month?

I am very much a person of routine.

•  I work from 8 to 11 AM each day on marketing, social media marketing, updating my web site, post on my blog, and answering emails each day. 
• At 11AM I go out to my studio to paint until 2 PM. 
• I take a rest from 2 to 3:30. 
• I walk on my nature trails at 3:30 and then paint until 6 PM. 

Upland Florida Palms by Linda Blondheim 
oil on canvas, 20×24 inches, wide gold frame

Challenges and surprises

How difficult is the real life of "being an artist"?

Mostly it is difficult to sell in Florida from June-August. It is brutally hot and I live in a college town, which empties out for the summer.

I have to save for 9 months and live off the savings for three months.

In terms of the reality of working as a professional artist.....

What do you find your biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge is competing with retired painters and beginners. There are droves of retirees going into the art field now and they do not have to make a living from art. They like the idea of making extra money and charge low ball prices.
Many people have no idea that professional artists have to charge for the art education they paid for and the many years of training and name brand they have earned.

What has been your biggest surprise?

I think my biggest surprise has been that I can make a living, doing the job I love and what I was trained for. There were many long years of desperation to achieve this.

What are you much better at doing that you expected to be?

Marketing. I taught myself all of the skill I have.

Improving and succeeding

Do you work on yourself to improve or do you work at your job to improve?

Constantly. I research technique and I force myself to study subjects I am not skilled at.

Beyond the art, what do you think makes an artist successful today?

• A serious work ethic,
• consistency in skill development both in front of the easel and in business.
• Good social skills,
• real care for collectors and friends.
• Honorable behavior toward other artists.

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of becoming a professional artist that nobody told you about?

I would have studied business and marketing as well as art.

What was the best bit of advice that anybody ever gave you about "real life" as a working artist?

Never think about defeat or giving up. I am successful because I know I will survive as a painter, and I'm willing to do the hard work to make it.

and finally......

What do you think of the idea of trying to create a free resource online? 

A marvellous idea. Helpful to all. 

REFERENCE:

• Web Site www.lindablondheim.com 
• You can read her Art Notes Blog, for collectors and artists. 
• Blog www.lindablondheim.com/blog 
• Facebook Page www.facebook.com/BlondheimStudio 
• Pinterest Page www.pinterest.com/blondheimart/
• Etsy Shop (miniature paintings)  https://www.etsy.com/shop/LindaBlondheimArt

Her 'town' studio is located at 1510 NW 13th Street, Gainesville, FL, inside Padddiwhack.

More about the Work Life Balance for Artists

About the reality of working lives of professional artists

If you'd like to participate in a series of interviews with professional artists - to be published on this blog and linked to in a resource page on Art Business Info. for Artists looking at what they're doing when NOT making art, this is what you need to do

1. check out my blog post About the reality of working lives of professional artists.
2. contact me and let me know if you're interested
3. I'll let you know what the waiting list is like and answer any of your queries.

Posts and Pages

• Work-Life-Artist #1: Catherine Ingleby | Making A Mark 
•  COMING SOON: two new pages on Art Business Info. for artists
• Being a Professional Artist: TIPS
• Artists Talking About Being Artists

Work-Life-Artist #1: Catherine Ingleby

This is the first in what I hope will become a series of interviews with professional artists about the reality of their working lives.

The aim is to build up a series of reference points for those who contemplate a career as a professional artist - and need to know more about what life as a professional artist is really like.

I'm developing a page on my Art Business Info. for Artists About the Working Lives of Professional Artists and these interviews will also be listed on that page as a resource.

If you're interested in participating in the exercise see my note at the end about what to do.

Below my questions are in bold and Catherine's answers are not!

About the working life of Catherine Ingleby

Catherine Ingleby in her studio

A really useful exercise to do, I keep being asked similar questions so great to formulate ideas into some form of clarity! Hope this is ok.

You can:

• see Catherine's artwork on her website www.catherineingleby.com and in this post 
• find her on social media at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inglebyart (2,377 people followers)| Twitter @inglebyart | Instagram @inglebyart

What is reality for a working professional artist?

What does the "real life" of being an artist actually involve?

The reality is, and perhaps partly because I have children, that it is a structured job, I have a strict weekly routine and generally take weekends off.

Is it like what you expected?

I have found I spend much more time dealing with business aspect of my art than I perhaps would have predicted. I employ someone to do some of my invoicing, accounts, and liaising with galleries and clients, but at the end of the day probably spend as much time in the office as I do in the studio. I also pay an accountant and lawyer for financial support and advice - something I wish I’d started a lot earlier!

Where/who did you get your ideas of what "real life as an artist" was going to be like from? Were they right?

I envisaged a much more sociable, interactive (fun?!) lifestyle whereas the reality of life as an artist is that is largely quite solitary.

I think that art school created a false impression that working life would be much the same as school studio life, just better funded!

Kwande Quartet by Catherine Ingleby

Making a living

How do you actually "make a living" (e.g. keep a roof over your head / pay the bills / have a studio / plan for retirement)?

I paint full time, and the income divides roughly into thirds between original sales, commissioned work and reproductions sales.

What percentage of your income (roughly) do you generate from making art? 

90%

What percentage of your income (roughly) derives from being involved with art? 

10% from teaching/lecturing

(Catherine lectures at schools and colleges on developing a theme for a series and a career in the arts; and to adults on the business of selling art.)

How do you aim to be making a living in future?

I enjoy the lectures as they provide a break from the solitary studio, and also give me the opportunity to build my client list, but I do not want to do more than I am doing now.

At the moment I am restricted by school age children, however I can see in the future I may wish to expand in that area. I also plan to increase my sales of prints, and related merchandising.

Time allocation

What percentage of time do you have each week for actually making art? (Is this more or less than you expected?)

I work approximately 6-8 hours a day, and occasional weekends when under deadline. It is a lot less than I would like, but I found that having restricted hours makes me far more focused and productive than pre children. I probably spend two or three evenings working too.

How do you typically spend your time each day or week or month?

Sunday Read: Starting out - TIPS for an Emerging Artist

This is the first in an occasional series of "long SUNDAY READS". By which I mean, highlighting topics or web pages which involve reading for more than a minute!

If you are an artist who has developed your skills in making art and worked out what you want to make art about - you might now be wanting to move on to the next stage.

So my first read relates to a page which is trying to answer all those questions that artists have when they want to move on

https://www.artbusinessinfo.com/starting-out-tips-for-artists.html

So.....

• If you're NOT a hobby painter who's happy hanging artwork on your walls or stashing it in cupboards

but rather you're 

• an art student who wants to gear up for your future career
• an established artist whose career has stalled - and you need a refresh
• just an artist who wants to make some progress beyond making art

Try reading STARTING OUT - TIPS ​for an Emerging Artist

This first SUNDAY READ is all about the attitudes, habits, knowledge and practices related to the art business which will help emerging artists develop their careers - and exhibit and sell their art.

Although the page is titled "Starting Out" it's actually as much for more established artists who want to "rev up" their careers

So If you want.....

• to be a success as an artist
• to avoid failing as an artist
• to be successful selling 'daily paintings'
• to sell your art online
• to exhibit your work
• to be more productive
• to develop your career
• to get representation by a gallery

Try my LONG SUNDAY READ #1 for tips about "what you need to know" and practical advice about working as a visual artist.

It's by no means a finished page.  I'm intending this should be a page that I keep adding content to over time - as I develop more of my Art Business Info for Artists website.

Do please take a look. I'm very happy to receive any thoughts, queries or comments you may have via

• EITHER feedback in a private message to my website
• OR leave a comment on this blog post below.

I'm particularly interested in the questions that emerging artists want answered. That will help with the continued development of the page. I already know what quite a few of these are - but am always interested to learn more about what are your BIG issues. 

Plus you never know I may have already written about the topic!

______________________________________________________

Website: Art Business Info - for Artists + Blog + Facebook Page

A Portfolio Career as an Artist

A portfolio career is defined as a career which involves different clients/employers, different activities and income streams.

Thus rather than being just "an artist" you can be:

• an artist and an art teacher (face to face or online or both)
• an artist and an illustrator
• an artist and a curator
• an artist and a gallerist
• an artist and a musician and a boring job which allows you time to be creative
• an artist and an art teacher and another job which pays the rent
• or any combination of your choosing which allows you some time for the activity you really want to pursue

This post explores the notion of a portfolio career and provides some food for thought.

• What is a Portfolio Career?
• Why do people have portfolio careers?
• More (reading) about portfolio careers

The rear of Norman Rockwell's studio
Is this the ideal of every artist - the studio at the bottom of the garden, one major client and blue skies every day?

What is a portfolio career?

I first came across the notion of a portfolio career while studying for my MBA at the London Business School (see references to portfolio careers at the end). I was very fortunate in being taught by Professor Charles Handy, the Irish author/philosopher who specialised in organisational behaviour and management (and even became a global management guru). 

He wanted us to explore and develop our understanding of the cultures and ways of working of different organisations and what sort of people fitted them best. (e.g Handy’s four types of organisational cultures) I've kept my written assignment for him on the topic of portfolio careers - complete with his feedback notes which have had a major influence on my life and ways of working and how this has progressed over time.

He defined “portfolio working” as being a lifestyle in which the individual holds a number of “jobs, clients and types of work” all at the same time. 

For me, having a portfolio career is when you have a positive intent to develop a portfolio of interests, jobs, clients and types of work and ways of working - as the way you live your working life.

For example, I retired from my full-time professional occupation some 11 years ago and yet I've never stopped working at my interests - and don't suppose I will for many years to come.

I find aspiring artists often have an extremely unrealistic idea of how many professional artists actually spend all day making art. 

Very many of the professional artists I've met have recognised the reality of needing to reduce stress in their lives to remain creative - and that sometimes this is best met by introducing some level of certainty into their income streams. Which, in turn, can sometimes be best achieved by having a portfolio of interests with varying degrees of certainty as to the level of income that might be produced eg everything from

• steady and unspectacular eg regular tuition fees from teaching art
• feast or famine - from making art

Some individuals who have been very successful as artists have managed to combine this with having a full time career doing something completely different. 

It's all a question of how you manage your time and what your other personal commitments - for example in relation to the familial such as bringing up children, keeping a partner on happy and on speaking terms and looking after elderly parents. (While she's an author rather than an artist, I'm always reminded of PD James whose husband was in a psychiatric hospital for a long time before he died. She had to take over the role of full time provider for her daughters - became a hospital administrator and then a civil servant - and wrote her books starting at 5am every morning before she went to work for many years. Most of them were written while she was a senior civil servant at the Home Office.)

Why do people have portfolio careers?

People pursue portfolio careers for a number of reasons - the drivers are essentially economic and a blend of psychological and social.

Gender imbalance: Are women artists under-represented in art?

This is a round-up of and commentary on surveys about women artists and gender imbalance in art around the world.

Regular readers will know that I've regularly commented on this blog about the representation of women in artists selected for art competitions, exhibitions in galleries and on the committees running art societies and museums etc. Indeed I have been known to comment also on the "get on and do" approach of a number of societies run by women!

Part of a very effective graphic for the admirable "Countess Report "
- published on a regular basis in Australia. The latest (2016) report draws on 2014 data.

This post started from one recently published survey report in the UK - and then grew and became international!

Representation of Women Artists in the UK

Earlier this year a research report on the Representation of Women Artists in the UK was published. I've summarised its conclusions below.

• The report was commissioned by the Freelands Foundation and the author of the report was Charlotte Bonham-Carter. 
• The report addresses the question "Are female artists under-represented in Britain?"  and seems to have started from the presumption that they are not.

often people think that equality has already been achieved in the arts due to the fact that things have indeed improved. Inspirational figures such as Tracey Emin, who have defied the statistics, exist in the public arena – but the truth is that women are still severely under-represented in the art world.

I don't know if the link to the report I've highlighted above is the complete report or a related presentation. (Does anybody know?)

Context - previous reports

I'm providing the hyperlinks to the resources it built on as these are either missing in the document itself or the links don't work in the online version.

if only we could!

It built on The Great East London Art Audit - conducted by the East London branch of the Fawcett Society in 2013.

• Unfortunately somebody forgot to renew the domain name for the website chosen to publish this report. As a result that links now send you to an Indonesian property company! (Note: Never ever place an online report on a new website unless you intend to maintain the existence of that site - including domain name payments!)
• See this summary of their findings in this Guardian article The London art audit: how well are female artists represented? - whch provides access to download the data spreadsheet
• See this article in the Huffington Post - The London Art Audit: How Well are Female Artists Represented?

This report Cultural Value and Inequality: A Critical Literature Review written by Dr. Dave O’Brien & Prof. Kate Oakley is also cited as an influence. It was commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Cultural Value Project

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary British society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts in the UK

Representation of Women Artists in the UK Conclusions

In summary, the conclusions of the the Representation of Women Artists in the UK report (in the document I've read) are that:

• female art and design graduates outnumber men
• men outnumber women in activities relating to a relevant career for an art graduate eg solo exhibition at a large gallery
• representation of female artists has increased over the years. An audit of female representation at non-commercial artists showed that 42% of shows were by female artists in 2014/15 compared to 31% in 2012/13
• representation of female artists drops outside London (down to 33%)
• gender imbalances persist at and beyond the mid-career stage

So - bottom line. It's very clear that there's a gender gap - but we already knew that didn't we?

My concerns are that the report essentially 

• Fails to rather than formulate and test a hypothesis in statistically robust manner. Consequently it does not demonstrate that its conclusions are statistically valid (speaking as one who crunched data for a good part of her career! See NOTE at the end of this post re. some of my statistical concerns)
• Fails to test other dimensions which ALSO contribute to levels of progression and 
• Describes rather than analyses statistics collected - e.g it does not look for any patterns of correlation with any other relevant factors

For example, many women who choose to combine having a career with motherhood often pursue very different career patterns over the life of their career due to a desire to provide stability for children when they are young.  It's a matter of choice for some - not the dominance of a male sub-culture in the "Art". Not everybody wants to hand over their children to childminders - some are happier to allow a career to take more of a backseat role for a period of time - with a view to pursuing career development and achieving career 'markers' (e.g. get selected for the Venice Biennale; get short-listed for and/or win the Turner Prize) at a later date.

At the same time very few artists (of any gender) are ever going to achieve the 'top level' achievements. The top artists come out of a big pool of those who don't quite make it to the top.
The bigger that pool is, the more women artists will eventually make it to the top - so long as there is fair-dealing and appropriate processes to support career development.

Of much more concern - and I would argue of much more relevance to the expenditure of research funds - is the ability to

• identify those factors that make the biggest difference to how most artists progress their careers - and become part of "the pool" and then climb out of it.
• ensure that the data framework and sampling frame and methodology are statistically valid i.e. if you're going to count do it in the right way.
• identify and track relevant data on a regular and consistent basis - e.g. by ONE project. (See The Countess Report below for a more methodologically sound basis for collecting and analysing relevant data)

The scope and breadth of relevant context

I'd have thought a more thorough-going review would have looked at a wider context e.g.

• the extent to which ALL art graduates (i.e. analysed by gender) remained in full time art-related activity - thus creating a gender-related baseline for measuring engagement and progression
• whether studies of gender imbalance in relation to other vocational degrees (eg medicine and the law) and/or other areas of creative professional activity (drama/music etc) also contribute to understanding better how 'being a woman' impacts on career progression. 

I suspect there are a fair few longitudinal studies out there for other areas where the progress of women in career fields continues to be an area of concern.

See for example the following articles highlighting the even worse gender imbalance at music festivals.

• Only one female headliner: New study reveals gender imbalance at British summer music festivals | The Independent - All-male bands made up 43 per cent of this summer's acts, while all-female bands made up just 3.5
• Music Festivals Have A Glaring Woman Problem. Here's Why - | Huffington Post - this concludes that the issue lies with the male-dominated sub-cultures which actually run the business side of music and music festivals.

Half of music festival attendees are women. But on stage, the numbers tell a different story.

• Where are all the women headlining music festivals? | The Telegraph - which did a survey of all the artists and bands! (see chart below)

from : Where are all the women headlining music festivals? | The Telegraph 08.08.14

Plus here's an interesting observation from one female musician commenting to The Telegraph - suggesting that it's not unusual for those sitting within one area of the arts to not look to closely at what's going on in another area!

"When it comes to mindfully representing women with the right message, music is out of date in comparison to art and literature.

How do gender differences in art vary around the world?

Another consideration is whether the progression of female artists is the same around the world - or whether it varies from place to place. Study of such factors says a lot more about the influence of general culture and attitudes to and support for the progression of women.

For example if we look to the southern hemisphere....

Artists’ Livelihoods Survey in England

Arts Council England has commissioned a new national study into how visual artists in England live and work.

This is a link to the Artists’ Livelihoods survey which forms part of the study.
What makes this study - and survey - serious and different is that it is being conducted within the context of a a broad coalition of partners from across the visual arts which have shaped and support it. These partners include:

• Association for Cultural Advancement through Visual Art,
• AIR, 
• Artists’ Union England, 
• Artquest, 
• Axisweb, 
• Crafts Council, 
• Contemporary Visual Arts Network, 
• The Design and Artists Copyright Society, 
• engage, 
• East Street Arts, 
• Live Art Development Agency,
• National Federation of Artists’ Studios Providers, 
• The National Society for Education in Art & Design, 
• Space and 
• Voluntary Arts Network.

The survey will be complemented by investigation of existing research, focus groups and case studies and is due to be completed in Spring 2016.  The full report will be available in late 2016.

The deadline for completing the survey is Friday 25 March 2016.

More information:

Take part and share your views on the day-to-day realities of being a professional artist and the challenges and barriers you face.
A-N - Comprehensive new study: Artists’ Livelihoods survey needs your views

The survey forms part of a wider study, which is the first of its kind in England in a decade. It aims to identify the challenges and barriers faced by visual artists that prevent them from realising their full potential, whilst highlighting how these issues vary across different groups within the sector.
The study will look at social, cultural and economic factors and how each of them impacts visual artists. Location and other factors which affect the movement and retention of artists between the regions, London and internationally will also be explored.  
Arts Council - Arts Council launches survey into visual artists' livelihoods

This is the first comprehensive study in over a decade of how visual artists in England live and work. The project aims to listen to and document the realities of practicing as a visual artist, as well as providing an opportunity to inform future initiatives. The findings will help to focus support where it is most needed to ensure a resilient and diverse visual arts sector.  
Axisweb - Artists' Livelihoods Survey

How do artists earn money, how much do they earn, and by doing what? Help a-n, Arts Council England, Artquest and our partners find out so we can advocate for better working conditions for artists.  
Art Quest - Artists Livelihoods

5 tips for artists trying to get a grant

This post is for grant virgins and all those who would like to get better at making grant applications.

A friend asked me to help with a grant application today. She had been made aware of it at very short notice but decided to give it a go. The deadline was 5pm today. As it happened there was far too much to do within the time available. This reminded me of all the very many things you need to do before making a grant application. It struck me that as the deadline passed it might be worth writing down what I know about grant applications.  Plus pass on some links to helpful advice and information online (included after my five tips)

By way of an introduction, I should probably disclose that in my career, for a number of years, I was responsible for assessing many hundreds of grant applications for many £millions of public funding.

I was in fact one of those people that applications have to get past before recommendations are made to the "official body" as to whether a grant application should be granted or not.

This was a long time ago but the basic rules of how to satisfy somebody who hands out public funds never go away.

Much of what I highlight below is targeted at making it to the shortlist.  After all at the end of the day, those who are awarded grants should be those with the best proposals in terms of content. The key is to avoid tripping yourself up and falling over before the final hurdle.

Today, when I was looking at the information provided to applicants for the Visual Arts Grant the first thing I did was look for the answers to the first three tips below.

What's the payoff for a degree in art? (Plus a new POLL)

It's coming up the beginning of a new academic term in higher education. So what's the payoff for a degree in art?

Plus a new POLL! - See the side bar for the new poll - Education and art: which route did you take? - for some really silly reason which Polldaddy really needs to sort out, you can only vote if you view the results first!

The poll will run to the end of September.  I'll do a report back on the results at the beginning of October.

Below you can see an infographic about Pathways after a Bachelor's Degree in Visual Arts. These are the nature of the choices people make who achieve some sort of Bachelor's Degree in Visual Arts in terms of what they do next and its financial outcomes over a lifetime. The infographic has been created by the United States Census Bureau. It was based on a census done in 2010 and it was first published in 2012 - so a little out of date.

In a nutshell it asks how much can you expect to earn over a lifetime if you follow different career pathways.

One of the aims of the exercise is to demonstrate that what look like small differences early in your career become magnified over time as the differences in earnings begin to stack up. That, in due course, has a major impact on our economic wellbeing in later years in terms of pensions etc.

Some art graduates go on to higher degrees and some go on to occupations in the visual arts field. The infographic is based on the numbers who have achieved the highest level of degree they finished with. (In other words - those who got an MA or a PhD are not counted in with the BAs)

It suggests that:

• there is a clear financial payoff for all those who go on to an advanced degree - particularly if it has a professional orientation - or pursue a professional path related to art.
• art teachers have a mixed picture. Artists do better than elementary art teachers! However if you teach in a secondary school or higher education, on average you do better than full time artists.
• those who work in design and marketing do best of all those who have careers in areas related to art.

What do you think of the picture it paints?

Personally, I'd like to see more up to date data and I'd also find it very interesting to see the same sort of data for people doing degrees in different countries.

Pathways After a Bachelor's Degree  - Visual Arts image
[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]
Click to see a larger version

Read Creation of the Synthetic Work-Life Earnings Estimates for Field of Degree Brief and Infographics to find out how they calculated the work life earnings for different pathways

Synthetic Work-life Earnings are a way of looking at how small differences in earnings can add up to big differences over an extended period of time. For example making $12 per hour more adds up to $480 per week or $25,000 per year or $1,000,000 in a 40-year work-life. While this way of looking at earnings is very useful one should note that these estimates are based on many assumptions, discussed below, and they should be used for illustration purposes rather than an exact projection of a persons earnings.

The "stickability' factor

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"a very old adage - for a good reason

Yesterday, in my post "Will you be a success if you blog your paintings daily?" I suggested a number of factors which I think help artists to sell their work online - independently of online galleries or auction type websites.

Today, I want to emphasise one more factor - the "stickability" factor.

The reason for emphasising it is I think maybe too little attention has been paid to the fact that a lot of the people who are now enjoying success with sales associated with their daily painting blogs - or other art projects - didn't necessarily achieve success straight away.

As is common in a number of walks of life, people's stories about how they achieved success tend to focus on what they did or what tools they used to become successful but skip the 'grind' that very often accompanies the use of those tools and which also preceded success. That 'grind' for artists is about hard work, practice and refinement. It's about 'doing' again and again and again until you get it right. Which means getting it wrong quite a lot of the time too.

So how do you get to cope with the 'grind'?

I think it's about 'stickability'. What is 'stickability'? It's still slang (I think) but the various ways in which it is defined include

• a positive mental attitude
• staying power
• perseverance
• commitment
• to stick with something until you perfect it

People who have 'stickability' are able to:

• finish things they start
• turn up every day
• stick with a task in order to achieve success
• suffer lots of failures before they achieve success
• resist being discouraged when they don't get instant results
• continue with the task despite failures / the lack of positive results
• follow through and complete a task - even if it takes a long time
• do what it takes to get to where they want to be
• etc, etc

It's the reverse of "quitter's disease" - people who expect to get what they want right away and give up if they don't get it or it's hard to achieve quickly. Like....

• giving up painting watercolours or oils because it's difficult 
• they can't paint like a master at the end of a two week painting holiday or draw perfectly after one class or workshop.

Personally, when I need to prod my own personal 'stickability' ingredient into action, I always try and remember an amusing metaphor I once read. A girl believed that she had to kiss 100 frogs before she would meet her prince. Her attitude was that every frog kissed was an achievement as it was one step nearer her quest. I find it makes it a lot easier to stick with a task if I remember that a failure is always just one more step on the path to learning how to be successful at what I'm trying to do.

You might not be a quitter - but do you have 'stickability'?

And can you be a successful artist without 'stickability'?


Link: Making a Mark - Will you be a success if you blog your paintings daily?

"Making their Mark" - an audit of visual artists

Having a blog called "Making a Mark" means that you tend to find out about all the other things with a similar name - one of which is an audit of visual artists in Scotland which was commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council and published in 2003.

When I set up this blog I decided that due to the reality that few artists make a living from selling their art, one of its purposes should be to share information and comment on influences on the development of art careers. So I thought it might be a good idea to highlight some of the main findings. So having duly got my written permission to quote from the survey from the Scottish Art Council - here goes!

Bit of background - the Audit was commissioned to provide evidence of the characteristics of the visual arts sector in Scotland and the contribution made by visual artists to the economy. I suspect there was probably some rationale behind it which related to the Council's own funding agreement with the government.

Making their markAn audit of visual artists in Scotland 
- Summary Report
Published by the Scottish Arts Council

"Making their Mark" - the summary report is an interesting read. It tells us about what sort of aspirations artists had in Scotland in 2003, what sort of challenges and difficulties they faced, and what opportunities artists identified and what their views were on their needs for continuing development. Although the findings are specific to Scotland, it's unlikely that the themes are very different from those experienced elsewhere in the world judging by comments I've seen being made in various art forums on the internet.

I personally found the extent of the level of professionalism in terms of initial art education/training and gallery/agent representation both in Scotland and elsewhere to be most encouraging. However, the levels of income being achieved and the level of attention to and spend on marketing and further professional development are rather more negative.

I've summarised the summary(!) of the main findings below. They cover a variety of topics:

Practice

• Media: 60% of all respondents working in the visual arts are engaged with the disciplines of drawing and painting - but there is fair degree of cross-over between different media and new technology is having an impact
• Exhibiting: 94% of respondents had had work exhibited in the previous 2 years. One third had exhibited internationally and a similar percentage has undertaken an overseas residency
• Professionalism: 27% had agent or gallery representation; 19% were represented by an overseas gallery or agent; Respondents were highly trained - 45% are graduates and 37% hold postgraduate art degrees

Working conditions and artists' resources

• nearly 40% of artists have access to a dedicated studio at home;
• older artists are more likely to have a studio at home; younger artists are more likely to rent a studio
• 18% are tenants of a publicly subsidised studio (28% of urban-based and 3% of rural based)
• 63% of those who don't have a studio said cost was the main bar to having one
• of those who have a studio, their main concerns are heat and lighting costs, security of tenure and working conditions
• the report suggests home based studios might have a negative impact on effective communication and networking with peers and wider networks - which can affect professional practice

Information

• the survey identified a clear need to signpost funding schemes and creative opportunities more effectively
• a variety of sources are used to obtain information - the majority use the Scottish Arts Councils; 66% use a-n The Artists Information Company; 41% use the Internet and 15% get their information from other artists

Income and tax

• 38% of visual artists are self-employed with most of them earning their main income from art - although only 7% are registered for VAT (on their gross turnover)
• The report concludes that the levels of income being earned challenges the viability of artists' practice. Levels of income are low compared to the national average and levels of professional qualification;
• Although over 80% of visual artists regard art as their profession,
• 82% are earning less than £10k gross from their art
• 10% earn between £10-20k and
• only 7% earn in excess of £20k from their art.
• 40% of under-35s are making art with no income attached and 44% of younger artists rely on grants and awards for income; by way of contrast some 49% had received no support at all from public or private funds
• earnings other than derived from their artwork come from a variety of sources:
• 66% derive income from other arts related practice (teaching art 37% and arts related occupations 27%)
• 24% earn income outside art
• 25% derive income from benefits and other financial support (while 53% receive no form of state support)

Expenditure

• average spend on practice (by those who responded) was £5k
• average spend: materials 30%; then around 10% spent on each of premises, equipment, assistants/assistance; travel and framing
• only 2% was spent on each of research and professional development/training

Opportunities

• around two thirds of artists identified a significant untapped opportunity to develop sales of contemporary art in Scotland. This opportunity might be better exploited by raising awareness of opportunities to buy contemporary work, more effective use of art fairs and developing buyers confidence
• artists were very clear about their continuing professional development needs - identifying prime needs as being
• improved marketing and promotion skills (60%)
• fundraising skills (40%)
• IT skills (40%)

Barriers

• Artists believe their contribution to culture, society and the economy is not fully recognised (57%) - this offers the opportunity to highlight the role artists can play in communities. Interestingly those located in rural communities felt very much more valued than those living and working in urban settings
• Individual practice suffers from the need to generate income from other work (60%) with under 35s feeling this particularly strongly
• Artists want to invest more of their time in:
• research and development of their work (60%)
• production of their work (60%)
• Artists suffer from poor or localised structures only for promoting their work. Main promotion vehicles are:
• informal, rather than formal, networks. Almost 50% of the respondents indicate this as being the primary way they promote their work
• private galleries (44%)
• their own (modest) publications (42%) [I wonder if this included their own websites?]
• broadcast media (9%)
• Marketing and promotion were identified as a key professional development need by artists. Nearly 40% of artists feel the need to invest more time in promoting their own activity
• only 20% of artists believe galleries are the most important for promotion
• only 10% consider informal networks and public galleries to be the most important for promotion (despite the fact that almost half use informal networks and 36% use public galleries for this purpose)
• Three-quarters of women felt they were unable to develop their practice to its full potential compared to 55% of men - with the inability to afford childcare being a barrier to 40% of artists who are the primary carers of their children.
• The collective voice of artists is difficult to hear. Membership of artists organisations is very unevenly spread. While 55% are members of one of five organisations, 43% of respondents not a member of any sort of organisation.
• Only 13% of respondents felt that "bias" or a "closed shop" mentality was an issue or barrier to them.

This is the link to the full report for those who'd like to know more.

Can I just highlight [read "very small boast" hence very small letters] how, during the course of writing this post, I learned to do nested lists in html as part of my continuing drive to improve my IT skills! [big grin!]