ELAN Seminar day
This afternoon I went to a seminar put on by ELAN, quebec's english speaking artist network.
It was a very well done seminar, with a panel discussion by artists Nadia Myre and Max Wyse.
The panel discussion was a "how to" on being a montreal artist. A fair amount of the stuff I already knew, but it was nice to hear other artists discuss their practice and reiterate some good points.
The beginning of the discussion revolved around Myre's and Wyse's personal practices, how they had gotten to where they were and what venues they'd used. Max Wyse made sure to state that his focus was always the work. He said that starting with your own compulsion to make work is where every artist should begin. The pleasure and obsession to make = a professional practice. After the work comes an integration within the community. Making a connection with other artists and being involved with their dialogue as well as yours is the best way to open doors into a full time professional practice.
Nadia Myre added that the obsession with your work is a good place to start, but you needed to make sure that you were producing a good product as well. She felt that making work that you can stand behind and ensuring that you behave according to a business model was essential to any practice. She also stated that every artist needs other people to champion their work. Finding other artists, curators and collectors who really believe in what you're doing and want to talk about it and share it with others is one of the only ways that you can get the necessary connections to continue making your work.
Both Max Wyse and Nadia Myre clearly stated that having really good visual documentation of your work was completely essential to surviving as an artist. Although slides never reveal the true nature of your work, they are the best possible way of relaying a lot of visual information really quickly to prospective curators and collectors. They both emphasized the need to take the time and make sure your archiving is done extremely well.
The talk then shifted to a discussion about finding galleries, both comercial and non, to support you. Wyse spoke again about how important it was to be involved within your peer groups in order to get those connections you need. By having a good sense of what your peers are doing you can find other artists who share the same style of work. He stated that galleries are way more likely to accept you if you are introduced to them by other artists they already represent. Normally you won't find a lot of connections just by cold-turkey sending out your dossier to galleries. He emphasized that what is important is building relationships, because you never know where those connections will lead to. He did also make sure to restate that, first and foremost, is having a strong body of work that you can show when necessary.
Nadia Myre said that being visible within your own milieu is almost more important than your own practice. She once again stated the need to connect and market yourself appropriately. She said that the only real essentials for any artist were tenacity and courage.
The moderator then interjected at this point with a little bit of advice he used during his last teaching postion. He told his students to stop questioning the validity of their work. He said that your work is your work, just assume that it's great and stop asking if it's valid. The essential question to ask is not "is my work good?" but, "who is my audience?" There are people out there who are already into exactly what you're making. They are just waiting for it to be put in front of their eyes so that they can love it. The key is finding those people and marketing in places that already have the same vibe and feel that your own work has.
I found this panel to be very well stated, and although there was nothing super new that was talked about, it was still good to hear. Being reminded to focus on community connections and proper markets for your work is something that can not be stated enough. As well, making sure that you have a solid body of work, a good product and proper documentation is the most important thing to making sure that you can progress further in your career. And although there will never be a formula for becoming a successful professional artist, making sure you are doing all of these things can never hurt.