If you are lucky enough to be on my very short list of "people I call”, you will occasionally receive exasperated phone calls from me after I've talked with Joe. He is one of the artists I have been working with since the early days of The Artist's Office. Joe is a challenge to work with...in a good way, because he rejects many of the things I understand as givens in the art world.
Our weekly calls for the past five years have at times left me banging my head against the wall, or wondering if my advice and recommendations are just plain wrong. It's an ongoing existential crisis that keeps me on my toes and forces me to think about things deeply, never falling back on beliefs I have about the way something is supposed to be done.
Here is the issue:
Joe needs to expedite his art career because he only decided to recently become an artist, and since he's in his seventies, the clock is ticking. He aspires to success, achievement, and recognition, and he is happy to pay anyone who will help him get there in the next five years. His solution? Joe wants to outsource his art career.
Can this be done? I honestly don't know. All my feelings and tried and true beliefs from decades of experience are collectively screaming "No way. Uh uh. Can't be done. Shouldn't be done." But am I wrong? Are my beliefs about how things should be done naive or self-righteous with outdated holdovers like "paying your dues"?
Artists can pay for many things (besides their dues) to help their career. PR agents. Grant writers. Studio Managers. Lawyers. Consultants and Advisors. Agents. So far, this all feels totally acceptable.
Many Artists hire fabricators and studio assistants to help make their work. Totally reasonable.
Artists can hire people to get them a solo museum show. People who will sign a contract and make a commitment to get an artist one or more museum shows for X amount of dollars (priced per museum show). You’re in a hurry? No problem, but it will cost you a rush fee.
Oof. I'm starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. I don't think museums are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but a part of me still thinks that they don't run like a vanity gallery. As I am typing this, I am having even more of an existential crisis and wondering if maybe everything in the art world is a part of one big vanity gallery. This is a business after all. So, what's wrong with pay-to-play if it gets you to your overall goals?
Most of my artist friends and colleagues cringe at the idea of pay-to-play. They would never! I also think poorly of pay-to-play, mainly because these "opportunities" are often predatory and offer hungry artists very little in return. I tend to think that, while not exactly a meritocracy, the art world at least holds merit and quality as ideals.
So instead, I advise artists to follow pathways that I think will help them meet their goals while keeping cringe at a distance.
Finding ways to connect with others has always been a part of my recommended routes to success, but in the past six months I have been focusing on it almost exclusively. This is advice I give to a lot of artists, probably because it has been the most tried and true path to meaningful (and successful) opportunities in my own career.
My current research obsession has been investigating this—how to create and maintain meaningful relationships for an art career. I've been talking with a lot of folks in the art world about how their relationships—their network—have aided their career and supported their wellbeing in this challenging wild west of an industry. It's fascinating. Every conversation reaffirms my theory that developing, sustaining and adding new relationships is essential for forward movement in an art career.
They are also something that can't be outsourced. This has made me skeptical about how far Joe will get without doing studio visits, building peer relationships with artists, going to galleries, and connecting with people in the art world.
Everyone will have a different path in their art career, and I am sensitive to this reality so that I can support each artist's priorities. If I do know one thing, it’s that there is no single correct path.
Joe's largest successes so far have arrived through his close ties to his community, partnerships he has built with gatekeepers, and existing friendships he developed before he was an artist. Sales, commissions, and shows that he didn't have to buy came through his network.
That's the lesson I'm taking with me.
Feeling connected,
Virginia