Artists U

You empower someone to your level of trust in them.”  — Craig Rogers in a management workshop.  Eskin Corollary:  this applies to trust in your self as well; empower yourself.

Last weekend I attended Artists U in Baltimore.  Part of our session related to strategic planning and part of the planning was to revisit what you wrote a week later.  So here I am — revisiting.

Andrew Simonet was our workshop leader and is the Founder and Director of Artists U in Philadelphia. The free, Friday evening and all day Saturday class was about building a balanced, productive and sustainable life as an artist.  It is a grassroots, artist-to-artist effort to help artists make a better life for themselves – to offer skills and tools to help overcome many of the challenges faced by young artists working to establish themselves. In addition to Andrew there were three facilitators and 23 artists (including me) from a very broad array of disciplines.  We discussed strategic planning, finances, time management and developing an Artist Statement.

Most of the artists were younger than me, but there was one other “mature” artist as well.  I did not feel at all out of place — the workshop is built on foundation of being inclusive and all of my classmates were friendly and welcoming. However, some topics were more helpful to me than others.  Being retired, the financial issues facing many young artists were less relevant to me — although being paid for my photography is gratifying and can be considered a source of “feedback” on how successful I was at conveying the ideas I thought I captured.

The three areas I found most helpful were time management, writing an artist statement, and strategic planning. Taking the last, first, I already had a plan but this class provided great motivation to review, revise and update the plan.  As a retiree, it is easy to be lax about time management because there is no supervisor setting deadlines, so it is even more critical that I set a consistent work schedule and goals with time lines.  We talked about goals as being personal, professional and artistic, recognizing that some goals would fit in more than one category. So my first three in the professional category were:  (1) set a more consistent work schedule, (2) minimum of three blogs per week (starting here and we will see how well I succeed), and (3) have work hung in at least 6 exhibits in 2014.

We worked on artist statements in a group first, then in pairs.  I had been nibbling around the edges of starting a new project that recognized the art and design of nature as seen in macro- and microscopic subjects.  Usually artist statements seem to me to be tortured post-project rationalizations for the body of work — this time I actually liked what I wrote.

There will be a followup, one-on-one with Andrew or one of the facilitators later this month so another short-term goal is to work on and revise my plan with specifics to discuss at that time. There may be an opportunity for the class to get together again for an evaluation of progress or more advanced topics which I hope happens and that I can attend.

Bottom line:  if you are an artist, young or old, who believes that you can improve your life as an artist, you will likely find this to be a helpful opportunity.  Thanks, Andrew for doing this.

PS Some additional quotes I thought were relevant to the course:

I do really good work, but only when I’m working within a structure.  Everyone is like that. You just have to practice discipline and routine so that you can create your own structure.” – Humans of NY

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” — John Carmack

“Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.” – Harriet Braiker

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” — Joseph Chilton Pierce

“The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” — Edwin H. Land

Fail. Fail often and fail cheaply. This is the very best gift the web has given to people who want to bootstrap their way into a new business. –Seth Godin

“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” – Alvin Toffler

…be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you are gone, and most of all, doing important work. —  Seth Godin

A big part of doing your work is defending your time and your attention so you can do your work. —  Seth Godin

 

 

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