Artist Mentoring:
The mentoring sessions are aimed at artists who feel they may benefit from one to one support in helping develop a new approach or strategy to their career.
A typical mentoring programme may include 3 or more working sessions, of around 2 hours each. It begins with a detailed Arts Practice Review from which we will establish clear short term and long term goals. Over the course of the programme we will look at developing an effective strategy for how best to market your work, how to identify suitable galleries for your work, how to create a strong online presence, and how to ensure you start creating opportunities for your work to be seen and purchased.
Below are some of the areas we will cover as part of the mentoring programme.
Goals:
Personal – what do you aspire to?
Career – How would you like your career to progress? Where do you see yourself in 1, 3 and 5 years time
Financial – what do you need to make for your art practice in order for you to continue as professional artist? An annual salary or just material costs?
Your work - your "product"
As an artist there will always be an end product to your work. Like any other product it needs to find a market, and is therefore subject to the same rules of marketing and the market place as any other product.
If you do not understand your "product" or your market place then you will more than likely not succeed in achieving your goals – either Personal, Career or Financial.
Some questions to consider...
What is your “product”?
i. What are you producing?
2. Is your work identifiable as “your work”?
i. Do you have an identifiable style?
ii. Is it important to your practice to have a clearly recognisable style?
3. Who is it for?
i. Who is your work aimed at? Who are your audience? Other artists? Buying customers? The art critic?
ii. Who are your customers?
iii. Who do you want your customers to be?
4. How do you plan to reach your customers?
i. Public/galleries?
ii. Commercial galleries?
iii. Direct selling – art fairs, festivals?
v. Online?
5. What do you have to offer a gallery?
i. Why should a gallery – commercial or public – show your work?
ii. Can you say clearly why your work will fit into their plans? or complement their other artists?
6. Overview of the art market place.
i. Review of the gallery and public space sector.
ii. Review of where you see yourself in relation to the art market place
iii. Where do you aspire to be in 1, 3, 5 and 10 years time?
7. Building a strategy together to help reach your goals.
i. Setting objectives for each of the next 6 months to 3 years.
Professional Presentation
How you present yourself and your practice is an important element in building a successful career. We will take a detailed look at the “tools” you will use in presenting yourself and your practice to the outside world.
1. CV
2. Artist Statement
3. Website
4. email
5. Business Cards
A final thought…
If your aim is to make your living full time or part time as a professional visual artist then you must start thinking of yourself as a small business enterprise not just as an “artist”. As such you must become familiar with all of the business and marketing aspects of your profession and use these to help build a successful career.
all content is copyright of Padraig McCaul 2009
Contact Information:
Padraig McCaul
The Loft
Stylebawn Farm
Delgany
Co.Wicklow
Phone: 086 8801733
info@padraigmccaul.com
