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The Fine Artist's Career Guide, 2nd Edition: Making Money in the Arts and Beyond (Business and Legal Forms) PDF

321 Pages·2004·1.8 MB·English
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Fine Artist's Title Page 2/26/04 10:00 AM Page i The Fine Artist’s Career Guide Making Money in the Arts and Beyond SECOND EDITION D A N I E L G R A N T ALLWORTH PRESS NEW YORK Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page ii ©1998,2004 Daniel Grant All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention,and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form,or by any means,electronic, mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,without prior permission of the publisher. 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1 Published by Allworth Press An imprint of Allworth Communications 10 East 23rd Street,New York,NY 10010 Cover design by Derek Bacchus Interior by Charlie Sharp Page composition by Integra ISBN: 1-58115-347-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grant,Daniel. The fine artist’s career guide/Daniel Grant. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Art—Vocational guidance—United States. I. Title. N6505.G657 2004 (cid:2) (cid:2) 702 .3 73—dc22 2004001815 Printed in Canada Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page iii Content s Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii CHAPTER ONE Selecting an Art School . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Choosing the Program or School . . . . . . 2 Art Schools and the Computer . . . . . . . 18 How Schools Select Their Students . . . . 23 Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Financial Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 CHAPTER TWO Looking for a Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Assessing Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Preparing a Résumé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Developing a Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Interviewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Resources for Job Hunters . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Career Advice for the Fine Artist . . . . . 55 CHAPTER THREE Establishing a Presence in the Art World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Making Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Internships and Assistantships . . . . . . . 63 Balancing the Day Job and a Rising Place in the Art World . . . . . . . 67 Exhibiting One’s Artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 – iii Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page iv IV – CONTENTS Art Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Private Commissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 To Sell or Not to Sell (Directly) . . . . . . . 78 Finding a Dealer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Sales and Rental Galleries . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Selling Art on the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 CHAPTER FOUR The Search for Art-Related Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Teaching at the College Level . . . . . . . . 96 State Artist-in-Residence Programs . . . . 102 Federal and Privately Sponsored Residence Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Developing a Print Market . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 CHAPTER FIVE Putting One’s Art Talents to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Portraiture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Courtroom and Forensic Art . . . . . . . . . 147 Religious and Liturgical Art . . . . . . . . . 150 Letter Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Combat Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 CHAPTER SIX Art-Related Employment Requiring Additional Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Medical Illustration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Scientific Illustration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Art Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Art Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Interior Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 CHAPTER SEVEN Making a Living as a Printmaker or Sculptor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Supporting Oneself as a Printmaker . . . 221 Working in a Print Studio . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Supporting Oneself as a Sculptor . . . . . 228 Public Works of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Working as a Sculpture Foundry Technician . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page v CONTENTS – V Carpentry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Theater Props . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Frame-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 CHAPTER EIGHT Careers in the Art World . . . . . . . . . . 243 The Museum as Employer . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Art Appraisal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Arts Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 CHAPTER NINE Careers in Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Moving into the Design Field . . . . . . . . . 260 Illustration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 A Foot in Two Careers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 From Commercial to Fine Art . . . . . . . . 278 CHAPTER TEN The Art World and Minority Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 African-American Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Native-American Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Asian-American Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Latino Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Minority Artists and Craftspeople . . . . . 296 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Scholarships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 General Job-Search Assistance . . . . . . . . 299 Career Skills for Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Art and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Health and Safety in the Arts and Crafts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Of Related Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page vi Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page vii Introdu ction eing an artist nowadays means building a career on two tracks: B Track One is finding a job that will cover the essentials (food,cloth- ing,shelter) and then some (art materials,studio rental,student loan payments, among other possible expenses). The average college student graduates these days $14,000 in debt (paying $170 per month for a ten-year loan) only to enter a job world in which the average starting salary is $24,000. Track Two is developing a presence in the art world that will even- tually lead to an income,supplementary at first and perhaps full-time later as an artist. Today it is the rare artist indeed who has not needed to have a job to support his or her art. A job,however,is not just something that pro- duces a steady paycheck; it has to be thought about with some care. Waiting tables is not likely to earn one enough money to pay back a student loan and, after years of trying to exhibit and sell artwork, one may only be qualified to wait tables some more. According to several surveys, most artists spend more on art materials than they receive in income from sales, a fact that renders their job income even more crucial. Many artists prefer to seek jobs that do not involve their artistic skills and talents, believing that their art-making energies will be diverted or that their art itself will be corrupted, turning into something that feels like just more work. Others look for jobs within the arts or those that call upon their art training so that the process of earning a living does not take them permanently away from art-making, which is the reason that they sought that training in the first place. Both approaches are valid: the history of art in the twentieth century has seen artists emerge from any number of professions, from wine – vii Prelims 1/1/04 4:38 PM Page viii VIII – INTRODUCTION merchant (Yves Tanguy), mailman (Arnold Friedman), and lawyer (Vasily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse) to art critic (Fairfield Porter),architect (Tony Smith), and museum curator (Howardena Pindell). This book naturally focuses on jobs—or,perhaps,second careers—that call upon one’s art skills and training. Some of these careers may require additional study or degrees, but in every instance a studio art background is relevant and highly advantageous. No one should believe the cynics who claim that training in art only prepares one for unemployment and poverty. Becoming an artist is not solely the result of a strong will to succeed. People become artists in association with others who are like-minded,join- ing societies,associations,and cooperative galleries,even living or renting studio space in a building with other artists. The Romantic image of the artist depicts the individual standing alone, but artists have always con- gregated in some place, providing each other with mutual support, an exchange of ideas,and what we nowadays call “networking opportunities.” Artists work and exhibit their work together as well as share information about opportunities. Regardless of the job one pursues, anyone believing him- or herself to be an artist should develop a wide range of attachments with other artists; otherwise,the desire to make art one’s career will be only a fading dream. 9 Chapter 01 1/1/04 4:27 PM Page 1 1 C H A P T E R O N E Selecting an Art School n 1930, eighteen-year-old Jackson Pollock left home, traveling I across the country to take classes at the Art Students League in New York City,joining his brother Charles,who was already there studying under the painter Thomas Hart Benton. Five years later,Pollock joined the New York workshop of Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros,following another brother,Sande,and a friend,Reuben Kadish. Earning a bachelor’s or master’s degree was probably not on his mind; rather, he was doing as artists had done for centuries—following the artistic currents of the time to the cities,studios,and private schools of the artists whose work most inter- ested him. Nowadays, eighteen-year-olds with an enthusiasm for making art are likely to choose among the hundreds of art schools and university art departments, seeking college degrees and basing their selections on repu- tation,facilities,student-teacher ratios,and career services offices. Virtually all of the fine and commercial artists schooled in the postwar era have taken this route, learning theories and technical skills and gaining an important credential for the society outside the classroom. Art academies are not exactly like trade or professional schools,such as those for business,engineering,law,appliance repair,and medicine,which are judged on their ability to produce qualified, employable workers who – 1

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This indispensable guide gives anyone with studio art training the vital tools and breadth of information they need to develop and succeed in the fine and applied arts. It covers the full spectrum of career options available to artists today-from being an independent artist to niches in the corporat
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