more about commissions

Every night when I come home I see this series of enamels I made for my own tenant owner's association. And I am pleased with them - they are welcoming, they help orientation - and they look kind of nice.

There are commissions and commissions. If you get to do bigger jobs for municipals/regions/the state etc you get more artistic liberty, but you will anyway always have to take into account where it will be placed and who will see it. Then there are other jobs where it is more about creating complements to the architecture or adding some form of decoration. In the latter case it is very often art with a specific function and has to please the majority of people seeing the art piece.

When it comes to making art for a tenant owner's organization it is always the latter. They are "public decorations", they are supposed to beautify - like flowers in the garden... I see it as a challenge to make something that's pretty good under the circumstances. Of course a series of road killed wild animals for all the entrances in a building would contain much more than just "decoration", but it's not what people want to see every day coming home from work. And the kids would be sad to see dead animals...

Sometimes I might be whining about wanting to work on my own art, but I am actually happy not having to compromise there...I can compromise with the wild animals instead!

trees or wild animals

Yesterday when I met this tenant owner's organisation I came with two new ideas:
- either a series of enamels with leaf trees as motives
- or common wild (land) animals (from the region)

... these ideas had actually been my first thoughts when I saw the surroundings (a very green area with a feeling of closeness to nature), but I had instead followed the subject I was suggested (sea). But then everyone didn't like that...(note to self: listen to myself!)

They liked the idea of the animals best. I agreed: that is a motive more easily understood by everyone (children as well)... but a part of me thought it would be extra fun to make the animals as road kills; flat hedgehog, squashed fox etc. But of course I can not do that... at least 80 % of the tenants should preferably be pleased with the art pieces!

(you might wonder why I take these kind of commissions though. I'll let you know tomorrow!)

hedgehog

not the sea creatures

Today I had a meeting with a tenant owner's association about a possible commission (enamels) for their entrances. I had already delivered an idea sketch - sea creatures. They had liked the sketches and the main idea, but didn't feel the motive was suitable for their buildings and surroundings.

Today we met to discuss further ideas. Tomorrow I'll show you what I showed them this time...

Magdalena Eriksson is now exhibiting at Galleri Jeanette Ölund in Borås. I saw the exhibition today and really enjoyed it!

next weekword

... will be lesson.

Feel free to interpret it in any way: photo, illustration, art piece, poem, story etc. Just leave a comment on this post and I'll link to you on Friday!

Art as Business: Teaching/Giving Workshops

before a painting workshop with the Police

In August I asked myself: Where do I MAKE MONEY right now – as an artist?

I concluded that in my bookkeeping I had divided my income posts into
1. Commissions
2. Exhibitions (gallery)
3. Art sales outside exhibitions (provision sales/through my own studio)
4. Teaching/workshops

The first three I’ve already written a lot about – and now it is time for the fourth. Teaching art or giving art workshops is actually BIG BUSINESS. There are so many art schools for aspiring artists at any level, day and evening classes for happy amateurs, liberating workshops for people who need to bound at work - or art workshops to solve any kind of problem with marginalized groups in society (refugees, long-time unemployed, teenagers from the suburbs etc)

• painting with toddlers
• independent workshops: manga for kids (libraries, schools)
• senior-level art teacher
• night classes for amateurs (watercolour, oil painting, portrait drawing, manga)
• guest-teacher at art schools
• workshops for professional artists
• liberating workshops (painting together to strengthen group mentality)

… you thought that was just a list of what you can teach? No, that is what I have taught through the years!

Chibi, a kind of Manga

It is not surprising that most artists do make their living from teaching art to others. If teaching art is a steady job with a salary it’s someone else’s Art Business – but if you make the arrangements, marketing and administration yourself it is your own Art as Business!

Once upon a time I just saw teaching art as a way to get incomes, but when you manage to distance yourself a bit from it – and see it in a bigger context – some of the jobs will be like throwing stones into the water. They will sink and disappear forever… No that’s not what I meant. I mean that other things, than just the pay for the job, might spread like ripples on water.

I nowadays always ask myself this question: what else can I get out of this teaching/workshop?

Non commercial values:

• Will I enjoy it? (this one can let me override everything else)
• Will I learn new things?

Commercial values

• Will I get possible customers directly and indirectly (more workshops, art buyers)
• Will I get useful contacts?

Future

• Can it lead to better teaching opportunities?
• Will it expand my professional network?

Let’s apply these questions to some of the different teaching jobs I have had:

senior-level art teacher (not very good pay, employed = secure)
-Enjoying it? No, just rarely. It was more about keeping order than really teaching art. And I do not feel a calling to make a difference in that way.
Learn new things? Not when it comes to art. I did learn some things about new drugs the kids were using and was reminded about being a teenager (I’m so happy I’m not 15!).
Commercial values? Non. The kids think you’re a failed artist and so do their parents. If it had been another country at a fancy private school, maybe it could have been different.
Lead to better teaching opportunities? If you prove yourself and engage yourself in an extraordinary way you can get to teach children/teenagers in more interesting ways. But you're not gaining much points if you want to teach ART art.

Night/weekend classes for amateurs (employed = salary sucks!!!!, on your own = ok pay)
Enjoying it? Almost always. The students appreciate me and I do enjoy seeing their progress.
Learn new things? I keep repeating the foundation of drawing and painting. Very useful. I improve talking in front of people (I give little speeches like a preacher!). Besides - this is one of the few ways I meet people outside the cultural sector- and it teaches me how others see art and artists.
Commercial values? If I prove good at teaching they want to take more classes. Some of them might even become my ambassadors and will do their best to help me in many ways. Many of them will come to my exhibitions, some will buy my art.
Can it lead to better teaching opportunities? As a first step when teaching art it is good, but then you will not get any more points.
Expand my professional network? Only if the students happen to have jobs related to culture.

workshops for professional artists (arranged on your own = good pay)
Enjoying it? Almost always. But you might have to work on overcoming someone being a bit skeptic. Most of them have been teaching a lot as well - you will be scrutinized.
Learn new things? When teaching other artists I improve my technical skills immensely.
Commercial values? Not directly – they won’t buy my art. If they really like me they might take another workshop though – or recommend me to others.
Can it lead to better teaching opportunities? DEFINITELY! This is one of the few ways that you can really show other artists that you are good at teaching. Several of the artist that have been taking my workshops teach at art schools were I would like to guest teach – and I hope I made a good impression. (but someone probably has to die before there will an opening)
Expand my professional network? Absolutely. This is a natural way to get to know people that you might not bump into otherwise. But as always – you have to make an excellent job!

summer classes by the sea

Anyone who has followed this Sunday Series will by now know that I can not be accused of not having tried many options. On the contrary it might seem like I've been trying everything instead of concentrating on one thing. True. This is my weakness. But I have gained a lot of experience in many fields!

Anyhow - You can not change what has been. You can only learn from it and move on. I will next Sunday continue to conclude what I've learned from teaching art in many ways: Teaching Art/Giving Workshops II.

I'm sorry

...but I'm still following a different calendar which sometimes means that Sunday occurs on a Monday. Art as Business: Teaching Art/Giving Workshops will therefore be tomorrow.

art for everyone

"Mascara"(oil on canvas) 75 x 61 cm

On Tuesday opens the exhibition Konst åt alla (art for everyone) at Kulturhuset Vingen. We are 25 invited artists from Gothenburg exhibiting. I am participating with this painting and two screenprints.

have a nice weekend!

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

There is nothing as liberating as having art pieces you aren't pleased with. You can do anything you want! There is no fear of destroying something, no respect.

Over worked?
Work on it more. Cut it. Tear it. Poor coffee and wine. Let your kid play with it. If it still sucks just throw it away - or continue having fun and make it worse...

... it could magically happen that you make something really interesting out of it ... (but don't hope for it - then you loose the liberty of destruction)

Christine works with cutting things too, but in a different way - and now she has a great give-away!

Say AAAAAHH!

It seems like most people got a cold these days. But not me!

taking a break

You know they say you should take time to smell the flowers. They aren't in bloom any longer so yesterday I smelled the autumn and kicked yellow leaves. My love is telling me I'm constantly two things nowadays: in a hurry and tired. We don't want it to be like that, do we?

I would have loved to see the exhibition "Slash: paper under the knife" in New York. Here you can see some of the work.

Art as Business: Progress Report II

So here we go – progress report 2.

It’s been 4 weeks since the first one – and besides missing out on 2 days of work because of sick kid (again) – I’ve been working really hard (only 2 out of 4 weekends off). But I feel like I’ve had a hard time to get the time to do what I should. When setting my deadlines it’s like I really didn’t take into account all the other things I had to do - especially not the administrative parts.

My excuses are:

1. The dog ate my deadline list
   
2. Wednesday and Thursdays I’m always teaching and have just time for 2 hours administration daytime.
3. Lunch meeting meant also preparation time and summing up time
4. 2, 5 day screenprinting workshop (+preparations and administration)
5. Mural (execution, preparation, administration)
6. I’ve been to 6 meetings
7. We’ve had a house guest (brother in law from Colombia) which meant I couldn’t spend all nights in front of the computer

bad bad dog!

- What about the deadlines and tasks?
I’ve done what I should when it comes to the commissions – except the part “contacts within tenant owners associations/architects firms”. I have distributed my brochure to more people, and I have started (slowly) to pull some strings when it comes to architects – but I haven’t worked on this as hard as I should… THIS IS MY WEAKNESS. I have to improve…

- Ok, deadlines and tasks are good things – but do I see any results?
When fishing for commissions it takes loooong time to get any results. Some things that are happening now are because of contacts taken before I started my Art as Business series. But let’s count it anyway!

• 10th of November I’m having a meeting with a tenant owners association interested in (probably) ordering enamels for their 38 entrances. They have already seen some sketches. They contacted me because they had seen my enamels from 2008.
• When making follow-up calls for the lunch meeting invitation (public commissions) I got in touch with someone in the municipal of Lerum who knows the art works I’ve made for them. She didn’t have the time to come to the lunch meeting, but asked if I could contact her 4 weeks later and then come to see her instead (in my calendar now!). They have some projects coming up that might need commissioned art.
• The client who ordered the mural I painted last weekend contacted me again just two weeks ago for another mural. BUT I had to talk to the architect ...he wasn’t too happy about the idea (very obvious)… and then convinced the client they should see what the tenants thought first. This might just be an excuse. I’m not getting my hopes up for this one.

When it came to the galleries I gave myself these tasks

1. order new portfolio by October 6 - done!
2. 2 hours every Thursday night should be reserved for "thinking about GALLERIES" - I have not had that time but one Thursday
3. Progress Report on my thoughts and Gallery approaches on my blog 1st of November - See no 2
4. try to spend 40% of my time on creative work in studio/KKV - Not even 15 %

Here I’ve been less successful … I had given myself unrealistic tasks considering everything else I had to do. I will instead concentrate on this in November and December.

1. Follow up exhibition applications by phone
2. 3 gallery visits - asking to exhibit - in person (not the GALLERIES)
3. Send more exhibition applications (with new portfolio)
4. in average 3 days/week in the studio
   
5. Plan for concentrated working period in the studio - 3 months - spring 2010 (financing? time?)
6. I will wait with the "going for the GALLERIES" until spring, but I will plan for it this year and let you know my strategies.
   

In five weeks (6th of December) I will give my third Progress Report. I will then concentrate more on the exhibition part (galleries and strategies), but also keep you updated on how I advance with the commissions.

Join me next Sunday for yet another Art as Business post! Next weeks topic will be teaching Art/giving workshops [how can that be business?]

studio lunch

I decided to overexpose the photos as it's been so dark lately. I need more light.



I moved into my studio some time ago, but I haven't gotten everything ready until quite recently. Now most things are as they should and I can even invite friends for lunch! Camilla and Morran visited me yesterday and I got a calendar for 2010 (is 2009 almost over?) ... thank you Camilla!

more fools

I didn't know I was this interested in clowns ... Can it be that I associate them with McDonalds?

Anyway - this is sandblasted and coloured glass and one of the material tests I've been working on for public commissions. The glass had an old image on it that I made some years ago (in the kiln). I used the cutting plotter to get a mask (the drawing) and blasted away all the colour except for in the lines.

Day 3 (Sunday)

On the third day I finished the painting. I turned the men in the boat into women (can you guess who is me?) and made the waves more stylised.

here you can see the sketch - but I couldn't follow the original idea about the watercolourish surface (wall and paint behaved differently than anticipated)

Art as Business: Selling Your Art III

So there you are: full of determination and set on getting to sell your art - on your own. Screw that gallery that sold so little at your latest exhibition – you don’t need any gallery! You list all the ways to sell your art, and get going.

FRIEZE!

What you very often forget to do is to think before acting. What effort will it take and what will you really get out of it? And what is your target group?

Consider this: you’re a predator and you’re judging if that prey is worth hunting after. Cheetahs are among the smaller big cats but are very successful hunters of big preys - 50% of the time they get a kill (compared to the tiger who only succeed in 10 % of the hunting attempts). The Cheetah is very fast and put a lot of energy into the hunt (running) - and therefore just chase an animal they think they'll have the chance to catch. If it is not worth it - they save the energy for another time. In other words: Cheetahs evaluate the effort needed and the chances to succeed before giving it a try.

Let's be cheetahs: Animals hunted by everyone will be more nervous and aware of the predators. You’ll have a hard time even getting close to them (you have to be sneaky and patient). But there is a reason why everyone hunts them (a lot of meat). As always: personal connection will get you closer - you will just have to stretch out a bit to make the kill. Sometimes you’ll just bump into a prey by chance and should react fast and instinctively: get it! Then there are those preys that not all predators are aware of as being eatable. But if you are hungry you are hungry.

ART CLUBS
A very popular prey. I don't know how (if) it works in other countries (yes, please: tell me!) but this is how it works in Sweden: Art clubs at workplaces are encouraged for social reasons. Members pay a fee, art is bought and the members have the chance to win in annual lotteries. Before the companies always put some money as well (often the same amount as the members) to encourage the art clubs, but it is not like that everywhere anymore. The art is then bought through galleries, directly from artists in their studio, through art dealers coming to the workplaces etc. Sometimes - with more ambitious Art Clubs - they arrange workplace exhibitions and visit artist studios for technique demonstrations or artist talks.

• put a little effort but still have the chance to get results. Get in contact through personal connections. This can not happen that often, but you should be aware of possible opportunities. Ask around. You need to make the effort of inviting them to your studio, be plesant and serve them something as well (preferably wine so they lose their judgement and buy a lot!).
• more effort to get more results. Going after them - sneak up on them, be persistent. Call the switchboard at bigger companies and ask for the responsible for the art club. I’ve done this for the organisation and gallery Grafik i Väst when updating the contact list. And this takes time and patience. Besides they might get really pissed off getting disturbed at work (and even worse if you try contacting them at home…) Together with other artists in my former studio we invited art clubs to our studio. But we just managed to get the art clubs where we had personal connections to come (we tried others as well). I think that if we had offered to come to them it might have worked out better (but then you need a car). I know an artist who has made this a good business for herself. She mostly comes to the Art Clubs and brings art works in the right price class.

WORKPLACE EXHIBITIONS
a tasty prey but more rare. You have to ask around to find out about these. Other artists do not share this information with everyone. Workplace exhibitions are arranged by either art clubs or other constellation having this as their business. If you already have a lot of material it won't demand much extra effort. When an Art club is behind it you can normally get a subsidy and they normally promise to buy something. If it is another arranger there should be a similair agreement. This way you reach people who would normally not go to galleries. The first case has worked ok for me and the other one really well - this way I reached individuals interested in my art...

INDIVIDUALS
a prey that is hard to track down. You have to react immediately when you get the chance. You might reach them through the two above, but sometimes just by being easy to find. I’ve been contacted several times by women finding me through my website via artist organizations mostly. They’ve been like angels send from above! (tastes like chicken). When I get this opportunity I invite them to my studio and offer them something more. Maybe a technique demonstration + food and wine. They could bring their friends along and I arrange it as an after work...

INTERNET
a prey that you hunt in the dark without night vision - maybe it is there maybe it is not. Many people sell things on internet nowadays. Things to consider: if you have possible clients already, if you’re art is easy to ship and if you have the right price. Cheaper art (often just printouts) or printed materials (postcards, calendars) are more easily sold than fine art. Selling my art this way hasn’t worked at all for me and I’m thinking maybe I should just let it be. But I’ve talked this matter over with friends who have a totally different story to tell. But they do have a lot more visitors to their blogs than me!

not only are they fast and efficient - they are skinny too

You’ve defined your possible preys. You can not go after all of them and should therefore hunt the ones you have bigger chances of catching. Now let’s turn it around – after you’ve made contact it is all about if THEY like what you have to offer. . You can not make them buy your art by pure willpower … Some people like dogs, some like cats - and that is how it is. If you have been selling your art for some time you might know who your art appeal to – or not. If you haven’t you will find out by trying. (good to keep track of who the buyers are, if possible).

I know for example that besides family, friends and acquaintances, my main buyers are art consultants (that is: my peers) for regions/municipals. Then there are occasional individuals (women under 40) that come across my art by chance and love it. When it comes to art clubs I mainly seem to appeal to architects and people in advertising, but art clubs in general doesn't seem to buy my art.

My decision has therefore been to just go for Art Clubs when the opportunity presents itself. I'm always willing to exhibit at workplaces (should ask around more), and I do try to reach individuals (yes, please - spread the word). I might try selling some screenprints on internet again if I get some extra time (?) to fiddle with it at night.

But as you might know by now getting more commissions is my main strategy to make money. Next week: Progress Report II (commissions continuing + galleries).

what I wanted to paint...

[Sunday will not be until tonight]

Sunday delayed again

Working all weekend again, and having my "brother in law" visiting from Colombia, turned out to delay my Art as Business post. But be patient - it is half written and full of information! So join me tomorrow for yet a Sunday on a Monday!

Day 2 (Saturday)

initial sketch for the boat (after Rembrandt's painting of a storm)

Painting and reflecting...
It's not like I'm doing any high art here... 15 year ago I would never had imagined me painting a mural in a staircase. No way! I would rather have worked like a cleaning lady at night. But reality changes you...

But of course I wasn't happy when one of the guest at the hotel praised my painting and compared it with those of a painter who has made many murals here in Gothenburg. (I don't want to mention any names) Those paintings are kitsch and not even working when it comes to proportions and perspective. But on the other hand. This mural I'm painting right now is on the border to kitsch...and the placement is of course not helping. I'm trying to see it as functional art and buying myself time in my studio. (I won't show the painting to the art council!)

I've been listening to Artist Talks from Tate at my ipod while painting.

Day 1 (Friday)

Yesterday I started to paint. The light is very yellow in the stairs ...

something else

I don't know what this is. But it is dancing.