Hardship lies ahead #1: Checklist for Artists

This post provides some CHECKLISTS FOR ARTISTS 

• thinking about the future and 
• wanting to get to grips with the basics of surviving as an artist AND an art business within the context of both Covid AND the Recession.

i.e. Neither the Coronavirus Pandemic nor the Recession are going away completely in a hurry - so it's time to tease out and get to grips with some of the practical implications for the medium and longer term.

For what it's worth I reckon it will be at least two years before we get back to normal.  Possibly three.

In the meantime people have some difficult decisions to make.

"Hardship lies ahead" is the new slogan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer - and he's absolutely spot on.

• Not all businesses will reopen
• Not everybody will have a job in the businesses that do
• Not everybody is going to enjoy the income level going forward that they have had in the past
• LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO FEEL VERY UNCERTAIN - and lack of confidence depresses spending on art.

PLUS at some point, we'll all have to pay for the enormous bailouts which have been going on around the world - which may well mean tax increases in the longer term.

This post is about translating that context into the PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS for artists and selling art generally and providing CHECKLISTS for

• artists - this post
• future posts re.
• art societies 
• art exhibitions 
• art galleries
• art teachers

A preamble

I last wrote on this topic in The Pandemic Recession: Likely Impact on Art Sales and Artists

HOWEVER I gathered afterwards that quite a few people felt I was probably being too negative and miserable - and that "everything will be back to normal soon".

I wonder if others might also now feel it wise to revise that view?

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the worst jobs crises since the Great Depression. There is a real danger that the crisis will increase poverty and widen inequalities, with the impact felt for years to come. OECD

Now that

• business closures and job losses are now being announced on a very regular basis as we begin to come out of the furlough period (i.e. closure of 8 branches of John Lewis is NOT normal! Nor is M&S reducing staff by 950 jobs.)
• businesses are talking about it taking years to get back to normal AND
• we're seeing some very fierce covid-19 spikes (i.e. second wave) around the world (notably in the USA) as people "got back to normal" much too fast and without taking appropriate precautions 
• PLUS as of today we're got local lockdowns in the UK and we're back to no more than 6 people meeting together I think it's time to get serious.

I'm really NOT being negative.

I'm essentially a really pragmatic person who likes to know the parameters of a problem - including the nasty bits!

I'm also a great believer in planning for what's coming.  Probably because I'm "cursed" by a very marked talent for being able to predict what's coming over the horizon - and a very good track record of being right. It has proved to be useful in a career (sometimes) - but there's always been a tendency to want to "shoot the messenger!" when people really don't like the message - so I wasn't surprised at all by the reaction to the last post.

I'm going to be like Chris Whitty and Dr Fauci and just keep saying what needs saying until people get it!! :)

CHECKLIST FOR ARTISTS

Just for a moment consider the following scenario - and how realistic it might be.

• Your art galleries close down - and your art gets stuck inside
• Your sales incomes dries up or reduces significantly - because fewer people are buying - because of lack of confidence in knowing how long the pandemic / recession will last
• Your regular Bread and Butter job which pays basic bills disappears - it's happening to a lot of people even if they are working for FTSE 100 employers!
• Your online platform suddenly shuts down - don't forget it's not just bricks and mortar businesses which shut down. Small entities are the ones which shut down in the last recession. Consequently all my blogs and websites are with very big hosts for a reason.
• Your partner loses their job - it happens.
• You will be living on a much reduced income - do you know how much you need to keep a roof over your head - and or how long you can last on just savings?
• BUT you haven't got a clue about....
• what you do that makes money or maximises your income and 
• which activity/activities is/are basically a self indulgent money pit

Bear in mind a lot of people have had to face this already.

So now is the time when spending some time on working this out is a really good investment. 

Otherwise life may very well come and bite you on the backside when you're not looking!

TIPS: FINANCIALS

Now is a really good time to work out the ABSOLUTE BASICS

• which income streams maximise profit for time and effort expended and 
• which represent a really poor return after you take every aspect into account.

The Distance Drawing Course (weeks 1 - 4)

 The Rokeby Museum has been posting blogs posts about a Distance Drawing Course.
The course is inspired by a correspondence course about drawing undertaken by 13 year old Rachael Robinson Elmer (1878–1919) and taught by Courtney Clinton, Rokeby Artist in Residence

From 1891 to 1893 Rachael studied illustration with a New York artist named Ernest Knaufft (1864–1942) through the Chautauqua Society of Fine Art. The course cost $5 dollars a year and offered instruction in freehand drawing and the pen and ink technique used for book and magazine illustration at the time — with today’s inflation that’s still a bargain at $150.

There are six lessons in total and they are posted every two weeks.

• Below you can find the links to the first four lessons - and a note at the end about the two still to be posted.
• The posts include some simply wonderful drawings - of their time - which can be appreciated without reading the accompanying text. However that is also worth a read - particularly if you want to learn more about drawing.
• Don't skip the interesting historical documents - also worth a read!

WEEK 1: VISION

This is the link for Vision

Seeing Rachael’s drawings and writing side by side gives us a new way to think about the practice of drawing. In her sketchbooks, Rachael uses drawing to take visual notes. With her art, she is recording and testing her understanding of nature.

For this week’s exercise I invite you to start a sketchbook practice. Over the next two weeks, go for walks with a sketch book and make small sketches of the different things that you see. Try to do five botanical sketches a week.

Don’t know where to start? Don’t worry, we are in this together! Below is a step by step guide to start your first sketchbook.

View this post on Instagram

In my first #RokebyDistanceDrawing lesson I invite students to start a sketchbook and develop a practice of engaged observation. Don't worry this doesn't require any deep breathing. ;) . . Through this exercise I want to challenge the idea of art as a kind of creative expression and instead present art as a kind of visual research. . . Most young artists assume that because they know the world around them they also understand it. When asked to put pen to paper and draw something as simple as a tree most flounder and draw a 🌲 not an actual tree. Many assume that this means they don't have any artistic talent. . . With first lesson my aim is to throw out this idea of talent and get students to start thinking about the connection between observation and drawing. . . Learning to draw is about training your eye. It means sitting in front of your subject for a sustained period and working out it's structure and mechanics. . . Of course the ultimate aim of art is expression but this research into observation will allow a young artist to better articulate and inform their ideas. . . For the lion's share of this course we will focus on training our ability to see. Near the end of the course we will shift our attention to creative expression. I can't wait for you to see how all of this time spent looking will fuel your creativity! . . Lessons are free and materials are kept simple (paper and pencil). Each lesson comes with step by step instructions! The course is hosted on the @rokebymuseum website! . . #artcourse #draw #drawing #sketch #sketching #sketchbook #artist #art #arttraining #creativity #artist #art #CanadianArt #canadianartist #vermontart #museumart #fineart #illustration #illustrator #outdoorart #landscapeart #pleinair

A post shared by Courtney Clinton Artist (@clinton.courtney) on Jul 28, 2020 at 6:42am PDT

WEEK 2: COPYING

This is the link for Copying

In the same way that Rachael learned to work with magazines by emulating her father’s career, she learned art theory (proportions, shading, and line quality) by copying the works of accomplished artists.

Why email subscriptions make sense

In an era when the social media giants sometimes makes it MORE difficult to hear from people you want to read, email subscriptions provide a lot of value in terms of connecting to those artists and sites that you like.

I guess like many other people I'm finding it a LOT more difficult to connect with people on Facebook:

• I know people are posting on Pages that my Making A Mark Facebook Page has liked and yet I don't have a clue when that has happened or what it's about! I'm very miffed!!
• if you don't post very often - you're even less likely to connect with others.
• if your followers don't connect with you - by leaving a like or a comment - it's even less likely that they'll hear again from you in future.

In addition, I really don't have the time to read through all my different feeds on Instagram and Twitter (I do have lists set up) - so picking up news about what people are up to can be a bit haphazard.

However I do add feeds from blogs to my Blogger Reading List - which is great for picking up all recent posts. (Read Manage blogs you follow - to read more about how it works)

What I do like however are the emails to blogs or websites which have proved their worth in the past in terms of content and news.

Be smart and astute when signalling emails

Those who are astute enough to precisely signal what the content of their email about get my vote. 
Being "astute" means generating:

• a really good headline which clearly signals the topic of the email (or blog post)
• an "on point" first sentence and certainly first 200 characters
• focusing on one topic per post

Here's a couple of examples

The first is today's post on my Botanical Art and Artists - News Blog

Blogger allows 200 characters for a shortened feed
Using a shortened feed means your blog posts can't be used unscrupulously
by scammers - as content on blogs trying to make money

The second is what my last Making A Mark blog post looked like in my list of emails - note how critical blog post headlines are to the likelihood of being opened.

Really good headlines enable me to sift and sort those emails I want to open and those I'll pass on this time. Those who are "astute" - and think about their headlines - are more likely to get read.

I don't mind getting lots of emails from some people - because of the interest and value of content when I do - even if I don't always want to read everyone.

Why email marketing makes sense

Email marketing has consistently proven to be effective at connecting those who want to promote themselves or their product/service with those who want to hear about it

Any other sort of marketing is essentially has a scattergun effect. You pump it out and hope it gets seen by the right people.

With a subscriber list, people have expressed an interest in reading more about what you write. Although sometimes they don't understand the breadth of your blog and think all blog posts will be more of the same in relation to the one that triggered their interest

If you weed your subscribers periodically, (i.e. by deleting all those who have never verified) you know you are sending messages to those who WANT to hear what you have to say - and how many of them there are.

I go through Feedburner (which is an RSS feed service not a full fledged email service) and delete all those who have subscribed but failed to verify their email address i.e. the "passing fancy crowd". That way I can keep track of the real number of actual subscribers.

Set up an email subscription service

If you've not got an email subscription service set up on your art website or blog can I suggest you give this some serious thought.

The main reason I don't use one is:

• my current solution works - and has done regularly and reliably for the last 15 years
• my current solution costs me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING 
• I've got too many subscribers
• I write too often
• the next alternative would represent a considerable sum of money per annum!

I use Google Feedburner which is a FREE service for anybody with a Google account. It 

• routes the the short feed from my blog via an email 
• alerts people to a new blog post and 
• works automatically - sending out an email to all those who have subscribed. 

It doesn't cost me a penny even though I've got lots and lots of subscribers. 

It also works with non-(Google) Blogger blogs i.e. I use it for my other blogs which are on Weebly websites.

If you want to do more than burn a feed from a blog, you need to look at alternative services.

Email subscription alternatives

I actually look to see who uses what when I receive my emails from a subscription service!

The main alternatives that I see include:

• Mailchimp - it's been around forever and is very popular and used by lots of friends of mine - and the Mall Galleries for its Friends Subscriptions
• AWeber - completely free if you have less than 500 subscribers
• Constant Contact - used by Duane Keiser for "a painting a day". It covers all media marketing and looks very professional to me. It's more often used by those with big subscription lists.

Constant Contact, Inc. licenses a permission-based e-marketing software platform to individuals and organizations. We act as a service provider to these customers, most of whom are small businesses and non-profits. Our product helps our customers design email newsletters, share them on social networks, manage lists of contacts and marketing preferences, and track email campaign results. We do not have a contractual relationship with recipients of the messages our customers send with the Constant Contact software.

There are lots more and it's best to take a look at some of the round ups and reviews of alternative options to create a shortlist of the ones you might want to take a look at without it costing you an arm and a leg. (Remember that some of these are used by very large companies and are rather more than you need). 

MUST DOS AND MUST AVOID

The one absolutely ESSENTIAL feature of any email marketing service you use is that it must have an opt-in facility to allow personal data to be collected. Those who play fast and loose with personal data are NOT companies you want to be doing business with - because there are big fines now for breaching privacy laws in Europe and California.

Interestingly those who try to do it on their own invariably breach legislation and regulation relating to email marketing and distance selling. I could name names but I won't - but some of them are organisations you would think ought to know better!

Grayson Perry Returns - on TV, at the British Museum and with a new exhibition!

Oh joy of joys - Grayson is back - in a diverse number of ways - on TV, at the British Museum and with a new exhibition!  He and his work can be seen:

• at the British Museum - NOW!
• at Victoria Miro - with a new exhibition from 15th September timed to coincide with the roadtrip television series.....
• on Channel 4 - riding across the USA on his motorbike - in 3 episodes later this month
• early 2021 - in a second series of Grayson's Art Club.

That'll really get under the skin of the Grayson Haters Club.

For those who love Grayson read on....

CHANNEL 4 - another road trip in September 2020

Grayson Perry’s Big American Roadtrip (w/t), broadcast on Channel 4 in September

In this very personal three-part documentary travelogue, award-winning artist and social commentator Grayson Perry is going to travel across the US, to explore the meaning of the American Dream today. At a time when the nation can sometimes seem more divided than ever, he will spend time with people from very different walks of life, to try to understand how Americans today view issues of identity, race, money and class.

I have no dates and not a lot more than the quote from the production company above. Keep your eyes peeled - my guess is second half of the month.

Grayson Perry with his motorbike by the side of the road

CHANNEL 4 - a second series in early 2021

Grayson will be inviting you once again to join his Art Club in early 2021. 
No wonder - the first series was incredibly successful and has been nominated for a few television awards!

Grayson’s Art Club was the best performing series from Channel 4’s #StayAtHome Academy programming, attracting over one million viewers per episode. Apparently the nation was inspired to unleash its creative side during lockdown - with the series reportedly responsible for a considerable rise in online sales for craft specialists! 

“Appointment television is back – and it’s a bona fide masterpiece. In the midst of lockdown, a quirky Channel 4 series has brought the nation together and served up not just creativity but a slice of British life like no other.”
The Telegraph

Grayson’s Art Club, the critically acclaimed series, from BAFTA-winning production company Swan Films, has been recommissioned by Channel 4.  There are no dates as yet. 

Philippa and Grayson Perry

The second series has contemporary award-winning artist, writer and broadcaster Grayson Perry reworking from his studio alongside his wife, the best-selling author, psychotherapist and broadcaster Philippa Perry.

“I’m so pleased and proud Art Club is coming back, it’s a joyful team effort with the stars being the artists who send in their wonderful works and tell us their stories. Of course, it’s not principally about art, it’s a celebration of life.” 

Grayson Perry

The second series of Grayson’s Art Club in early 2021 will follow the same format, In each episode:

• Grayson will in his studio making his own art - alongside Philippa who is no slouch in the art department!
• He will also have conversations with celebrity guests, high-profile artists sharing insights into their processes, 
• feature art made by the great British public. 

The one departure is that if social distancing rules permit it, Grayson will also travel around the country to meet artists and discuss their artwork. 

The series is being made by Swan Films produced by Neil Crombie and Joe Evans

“We’re thrilled to bring Grayson’s Art Club back to Channel 4. The first series unlocked a wealth of creativity around the country, and we’ll be building on that for the post-lockdown era, showing once again why we all need the joy of art in our lives.”
Joe Evans, co-founder and managing director of Swan Films

You will again be able to join in the conversation on twitter and Instagram @Channel4 using the hashtag #C4ArtClub

BRITISH MUSEUM

Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Review: 208th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

Yesterday I saw my first art exhibition in nearly six months. The Mall Galleries reopened with the 208th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours which should have been held in April. 

Wall in the East Gallery

I wrote previously about the prizewinners here Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours - 208th Annual Exhibition and Prizewinners - on 1st April which should have been the day of the Private View.

This post will include some of my photos from the exhibition but if you'd like to see the paintings online then go to:

• the online exhibition on the Mall Galleries website
• my album of 58 photos on my Facebook Page - which is PUBLIC (i.e. you don't need to be a member of Facebook) and will give you some sense of the relative size of different paintings

The RI exhibition of 444 paintings is open until 12th September (11am - 5pm) - and until 7pm on Thursday the 3 & 10 September.

The changes when visiting the Mall Galleries

View of the West Gallery
- minus tables and chairs and plus tape on the floor for the one way system 

This time there are some changes - and I'm going to deal with those first before commenting on the exhibition

• no Private View
• one way system for viewing the exhibition
• face masks required before you can enter the Gallery (all the staff are wearing face visors)
• sanitiser around and about the Gallery
• to visit you MUST book a timeslot - in advance
• no rack for coats
• no lockers
• no cafe (bring your own bottled water) and no tables and chairs
• no shop.

I also had to get on the Tube for the first time since March and that was surprisingly easy given there are very few passengers and everybody is wearing a mask.

I'd recommend people visit late morning / early afternoon as that seems to be the time when you're least likely to encounter lots of other people on public transport.  

• I arrived for 11 and departed about 2.30pm. 
• During that time there were quite a few people in the gallery but nowhere felt crowded and it was a very comfortable experience - apart from the lack of a cup of tea!  (I'd be happy with a hot water urn and a "bring my own sealed hot drink vessel and tea bag!").

About the 208th Exhibition

Overall my impressions of the exhibition were:

• it looked MUCH better in the Gallery than it did online - art looks good with other art - on the wall!
• It felt rather like going to the Summer Exhibition at the RA - where in the past Galleries have been crowded with paintings - which I like a lot
• the end wall reminded me a lot of a lateral version of the much beloved Small Weston Room - jammed with small paintings - before the RAs started messing about and using it for other things. It both felt like "coming home" and presented a visual draw to the eye when viewed from a distance.

The end wall of the West Gallery
masquerading as the Small Weston Room!

• There are many more small and medium sized works - rather than large works
• Pricing looked a lot more sensible. I've yet to crunch any numbers but I saw very few "silly numbers" on the labels I looked at. This can only contribute to more sales in the long term as the paintings get a better fit with the pocketbooks of those who visit the exhibitions.

Overall it's an excellent exhibition and I recommend you pay a visit.

East Gallery

You start in what used to be called the Threadneedle Space but has now reverted to being called the East Gallery.