Teaching Series

I'm enjoying reading all of your articles, Ayin, and think you're so good at writing! I keep getting pressured to get on Instagram but I am resisting. Maybe I'm too old school to care about "likes." I wish articles like yours had been available to me when I was younger. Never in any of the art classes I took in college did anyone ever talk about the realities of building an art career and all that it entails. Thank you for all the wisdom you're sharing from your own experiences.
 
It's been wonderful so far. (Not that I'm expecting the quality to decline, you understand.) ;) I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

The recent one entitled "Building your House Part 1" was an excellent read. I could relate to it more, as a hobbyist. I really like the concept of the circle of control and downloaded it. I *might* spend too much time trying to move items from circle 3 over to circle 2, but hey. 😜

Looking forward to seeing more!
 
I'm enjoying reading all of your articles, Ayin, and think you're so good at writing! I keep getting pressured to get on Instagram but I am resisting. Maybe I'm too old school to care about "likes." I wish articles like yours had been available to me when I was younger. Never in any of the art classes I took in college did anyone ever talk about the realities of building an art career and all that it entails. Thank you for all the wisdom you're sharing from your own experiences.
Donna, thank you! Writing is something I'm always working at, but I still don't feel I'm all too competent with. I don't have much formal education with writing. I've only taken an English 101 class at a community college. That was more than twenty years ago. But I'm so happy to hear that you're getting something good out of the articles so far. I've heard over and over (for many years) that artists do not learn anything about how to go about putting together their practice after art school. It's why I'd been asked to come to speak to undergrad and even a few grad school classes in the past, but I'm so bad (nervous) to speak in front of a crowd. Some of my educator friends wanted me to speak to their student about how I've done it, and I'm happy to share it, so I thought writing about it would maybe be better.

Instagram is a double-edged sword of keeping yourself "out there" and getting caught up in those "likes" and comparing yourself to other artists. There is an option to turn off seeing other people's followers and likes, which I've had to do from time to time, when it starts to get to me, because it has! I hardly get "likes" each day as a matter of fact. I don't have too many followers either, not compared to many other artists I know. But from talking to them, they don't have many sales, so I know the optics of popularity do not equal success. It's the quality of people who follow you, not the quantity. It's just hard to keep that perspective sometimes.

Many people also BUY followers, believe it or not. I'm not saying all these other artists are doing that, but we don't know who is doing that and who isn't. There are also algorithms that Instagram implements that show certain posts more often than others, and there's no control we have over that.

I basically use Instagram to post art every day, and promote my blog and website. It's also to have some semblance of a connection to other artists and curators, especially since I moved out of the LA area. And despite Facebook owning Instagram, I hated Facebook for many reasons. I need at least one social media platform. Another one I really like that is geared only for creatives is ello.co, but of course it's not as popular. I rather like that one, but not on it too often.

Sorry this got really long. Ha ha.

I should have just said "thank you" and closed my mouth! :ROFLMAO:
 
It's been wonderful so far. (Not that I'm expecting the quality to decline, you understand.) ;) I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

The recent one entitled "Building your House Part 1" was an excellent read. I could relate to it more, as a hobbyist. I really like the concept of the circle of control and downloaded it. I *might* spend too much time trying to move items from circle 3 over to circle 2, but hey. 😜

Looking forward to seeing more!
Thanks Terri. You're always such a major support and I appreciate it SO MUCH! I'm glad to hear that it's helping you, even as a non-pro, but don't you sell a little bit at times? I am hoping my words can still apply to all artists in some way. I know some of the articles will probably only apply to artists that want to make art a career, but I think some of the things I'll be talking about will apply to all artists. I'm hoping to give everyone a bit of confidence in all their efforts.

Tomorrow, I think the one about building a body of work will get posted. :)

Thank you for your amazing words!!!! ♥️
 
I've done several art fairs and sold some stuff, photography related, yes. When I look back I can't say I had any particular motivation or plan, other than lots of positive feedback and watching my stuff pile up. But a "Why not?" attitude is fairly shallow, and what I'm finding so valuable from your series is the idea that it's okay to flesh out something more. It's simultaneously challenging and reassuring. ❤️
 
I just read your latest -- on producing a body of work -- and now I know I need to go to the beginning and read from the start! I know almost nothing about the topics you're covering, so they're super-useful to me. Thank you for sharing your experience.
 
Thank you Martin! It all starts about here. Or, this one is the preliminary post for how the series started. I've written all of them out until January 17th, all posting twice a week. I may come up with a couple more, but those are what I have as of now. I'm glad these are useful to you. That's all I could ask for.

To speak candidly, I see dozens and dozens of people (perhaps a little more qualified and some much less qualified) that charge money for the same type of advice. It's all over Instagram--workshops for hundreds of dollars. It kinda baffles me how they can charge artists like that when it's all researchable information. Maybe they have their curriculum more organized into Zoom meetings/presentations. And sometimes they have guests (like successful artists and even gallerists) that will speak one-on-one with artists for the fee. But the information is basically the same, and in all honesty, a lot of it is kind of useless, especially when these people tell artists to get tri-folds printed up (that's expensive!) and send those out to galleries for the purpose (hopes) of getting represented. That is a waste in my opinion.

This "tri-fold" advice was given at a 2-day workshop that cost $750. I have a friend that did the workshop and got virtually nothing out of it.
 
Just here to remind anyone who's interested that I've been posting those Learning Series articles twice a week still.

Here are links to some you may have missed that covered these subjects:
And more to come til the end of January. I've been posting them on Mondays and Thursdays.

I can come back to this thread to remind people (with links). If ya'll don't mind. ;)
 
I posted another this past Thursday and the last one will release on Monday morning. FYI. Then I will be done with it all. Thanks to those who read them.
 
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