Several years ago, my dad asked me to join him for a workshop at Hollyhock, an island retreat on the West Coast of Canada. After a crisis of confidence, I agreed and we found ourselves a few months later on the beach with a group of keen and diverse painters. We took turns with demos, talks, exercises and crits, working as a gelled but paradoxical unit. Our students seemed to enjoy the yin and yang of our strokes.
From time to time I do workshops and demonstrations for art clubs in my community. At the beginning I generally ask some questions: “How many paint in oils, how many in watercolor, how many in acrylic?” Here I look clearly into the faces of those who have given up an evening to try to pick up a new technique or two. Generally, eight out of ten will be women. Often these women will be in the process of switching gears from previous identities as wives or mothers. Some will have taken up painting the way others take up golf or bridge.
Robin Timms of North Vancouver writes, “I am hoping you might provide some words of wisdom as to how to make my approach to obtain some critical input from galleries. I am thinking of sending out this letter… and would welcome any advice.”
Robin’s “gallery letter” opens with a detailed artist statement followed by a request: “As an emerging artist, a practical next step in my painting journey is to seek realistic, honest and knowledgeable advice from those experienced in putting gallery shows together — to understand whether my work is gallery-worthy, or whether it even ‘holds’ together as a series.”
Yesterday, a young artist messaged: “I recently received my submission review for a juried exhibition, which was terrifying and exhilarating. Until now, it’s been the general public, family and friends’ feedback that have been hardest to sift through. Would you suggest I keep entering juried shows? Or should I use the juror’s crit to make new work before submitting to more?”
My friend Sam emailed some work from her latest series. Before I knew it, I was writing back, “You need a show.” “I was going to contact you about that,” she replied. “Maybe you can help me a little bit with the foreign language of portfolios and galleries and what to do.” No problem, Sam. Here are a couple of time-tested ideas:
Mentors come in two kinds: those who advise you about your work and those who will use their influence to advocate for you as sponsors. Like most meaningful relationships, both grow organically, one perhaps into the next, and the benefits are meant for both parties. Rather than “Get a mentor and you will excel,” think, “Excel and you will get a mentor.”
In Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 leadership manifesto, Lean In, she advises would-be mentees to look for solutions to specific problems rather than give vague help or hand holding. Do not, says Sandberg, seek out a mentor with the idea that you will be whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after
A subscriber who signed off as “Over The Hill Portrait Artist” wrote, “You must be one of those Millennials, they don’t think like we mature artists.”
Thanks, O.T.H.P.A. Millennials are the generation born between 1980 and 2000. While this rules me out, 80 million are in America alone — the largest age group in history — and many are artists. In a recent article for Time magazine, Joel Stein describes a calm-looking anxious person checking a smart phone hourly and sending and receiving about 80 texts per day. This is apparently a kind of stress-reducing tick caused by
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