I recently attended a panel discussion featuring
Joyce Owens,
Dawoud Bey, and
Tony Fitzpatrick, along with
Juan Angel Chavez and
Paul Kleinat the Chicago Cultural Center on the topic of Turning Your Art Into a Career. First of all I thought the title was wonderfully crafted, implying that a career is a life vocation, if not necessarily a remunerative one. Dawoud Bey with all his eloquence offered up the following which he posted on his
blog which is called
What's Going On?, Advice to Emerging Artists.
Amongst his best advice and I quote here: "
Don’t be afraid to create new paradigms for how you can exist and function as an artist. A lot of the old paradigms were never meant to serve artists well in the first place. I don’t know any other field in which you can bear the full expense of production, then give someone 50% to sell the object or product, then pay the IRS the requisite 33% tax rate, and say you are doing "good business." This is the “normal” paradigm of the commercial art world, and at a certain level it does work, particularly at the mid to upper levels. It doesn't mean its the only way, and in the early stages your work will not be priced high enough to cover your costs of production, let alone pay your rent every month, under this structure at any rate."
So I encourage you to go over to
Dawoud's blog.
I am endeavoring to create and execute a new means of exhibiting my artwork. I found two venues last year, at the university art galleries of the University of Montana in Missoula and at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. I am putting together a small, select group of artists who make drawings for a concerted run at additional spaces across the country. That's this year's project.
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