Art Heroes Radio

DIY fund raising and shameless self-promotion, a conversation with Philip Huang

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Artist and provocateur Philip Huang blew me away when I saw his stunning performance at the Dynamic Adaptability conference. He demonstrated his approach to fund raising by telling the audience to "get out your wallets," raising over $200 in 5 minutes for a series of street performances. Check out the video embedded below to see it for yourself.

Philip's message is simple: Artists aren't entitled to shit.  If you want it, you have to get your hands filthy, filthy, filthy.  Screw grants, residencies, galleries, theaters, arts institutions—make your own fucking way.  If you're good enough, they'll come knockin'.

In this conversation we'll discuss fund raising for individual artists, how to pitch a project, the differences between speaking to groups or individuals, and why your own fund raising efforts are more likely to be successful than the traditional approaches of grants, residencies and auditions.

Model-turned-actress Philip Huang is the founder of Dana Street Theater, a queer performance space based out of his Berkeley bedroom. Check out his awesome Youtube channel, Philip's Video Club.

Stop freaking out about money, a conversation with Naomi Dunford

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Sometimes it seems like artists fear success even more than failure. There are so many issues around actually earning a living from art that it can paralyze us before we even begin. It's not just the myth of the starving artist— the fear that your friends will think you sold out is just as real as the fear of being homeless and alone. Why is it that money freaks artists out so much? What can you do to move past that and learn to be okay with earning a reasonable income from the hard work you put into your career? How can you stop treating money like a magic talisman and realize that it's just a tool to get things done, like any other tool you use in the studio?

In a recent post on Ittybiz.com, Do We Need To Talk About Money?, Naomi Dunford asked her readers about their money drama and the response was amazing. As a result, she collaborated with one her former clients to create a Money Class that explored where money drama comes from and how to get rid of it. As I read the comments on her original post, I figured this would be a perfect topic to have her discuss on the show.

If you've ever thought that marketing and business are boring, complicated, or scary then you probably haven't read ittybiz.com. Naomi is smart, entertaining and brilliantly talented at helping entrepreneurs and microbusiness owners take their business well past expectations. She doesn't doesn't bullshit, she doesn't hold back, and she genuinely cares about the people that she works with.

Selling art in your studio, a conversation with Julia Hensley

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I first met Julia on twitter last year and was tremendously impressed with both her art and her ability to write about art and ideas on her blog. Julia has a depth of education that informs her work and a passion for sharing that knowledge both through teaching classes and writing online.

At the end of last year, I noticed that Julia's studio sale seemed to be going remarkably well as she tweeted about work that was selling. When I asked her about it recently, she told me that she had sold quite a lot of paintings, more than often sell in a gallery show. And she had done even better the year before when the economy was having it's darkest hour. We'll discuss her strategies for successful self-produced shows, how teaching art can be an unexpected avenue for sales of art, and how to run an art school as an independent artist.

Julia Hensley received a BFA in painting from Boston University. She has taught drawing and painting to adults since 1999 at Kirkland Arts Center, North Seattle Community College, the Frye Art Museum, Pratt Fine Arts Center, and Julia's Studio, her private school. Julia has self-produced two shows and represents her work online at www.juliahensley.com Her gallery history includes representation by the Sunne Savage Gallery in Boston, Foster White Gallery in Seattle, and Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco.

Q+A Call In Show— Pros and Cons for artists working in multiple styles or media

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Steve Taylor emailed in the following question for a call in show:

How do you brand/market yourself if your work crosses multiple styles within the same medium? I figure you must have some idea how to do it successfully, given that bottlecap mosiacs and steel fire pits are on different parts of the artistic spectrum, even if they are both are made of metal. I ask, because as I'm coming up with new designs for pieces of furniture, I find that they all don't fit into a single style. Is that something I need to be careful of until I'm "recognized" in my medium or should I "damn the torpedos" - build/sell whatever I come up with? — Steve

The tradional advice for artists is to create a recognizable style and stick to it, to promote the artwork rather than the artist. This made sense when the primary sales outlet for art was galleries and when promoting artwork required print advertising, mailings, and expensive catalogs of shows. A consistent portfolio does make it easier to market an artist— you wouldn't mistake a Henry Moore or a Dali for another artist's work. There are exceptions in the traditional fine art market— Picasso worked in nearly every medium and had a broad range of styles over the course of his career (although that didn't make his work any less easy to recognize).

Most artists, I think, experiment with multiple styles and media. Many limit themselves to promoting just the core work so as to avoid confusing their audience and to focus the cost of promotion on the work that sells best. But I believe this is a model we can let go of, now that the web has made it so cheap and easy to promote a variety of art. There are strategies that help manage a broader portfolio— effective design and navigation, niche content, multiple sales platforms, the long tail of search, strong copy writing skills coupled with keywords. You can make more art and more sales by understanding proper management of multiple styles and media.