Sunday, December 28, 2008

New Paradigms

I recently attended a panel discussion featuring Joyce OwensDawoud 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.

2 comments:

Joyce Owens said...

Nancy: Check out my recent blog post about a guy named Bob Ragland!BR/(If people click on my name on they should get there). BR/He gives lots of great advice about having an art career... BR/BR/By the way, Paul Klein convened the panel at the Chicago Cultural Center, and developed the theme and title. He preferred that title for many astute and generous reasons...BR/BR/I am telling folks that I developed the theme "Artists at Work" that the city uses when I came up with the idea for the 2002 Chicago Artists Month. BR/BR/So glad it stuck because I wanted people to understand that art making is REAL work!

Nancy Charak said...

Thank you Joyce. I did listen to the Bob Ragland piece and it was instructional and dare I say inspiring. I always find it interesting when some guests step into my studio at an open house, some of them are wary, and step ever so gently into the space. I suspect that this is related to two things, perhaps a fear of being upsold, sort of like entering the show room of a car dealership, and perhaps the other is that the studio is a place where magic and alchemy do happen. I welcome guests sometimes by saying exactly that, "this is my studio and this is where I make the magic." Would I be better off announcing that this is where I work?