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Musings, Reviews, Comic Cons
Am I even ready for this? I'm still dealing with teacher baggage from the last few chapters! Okay, here we go, all about cultivating patrons.
We're out of the Mindset section and into Market, which is something that definitely does not get covered in art class but is vital nonetheless if artists want to not starve. It opens with an Elvis story that I hadn't read before, and which I will not retell here because it really ought to be read in context to get everything out of it. But I will quote this bit: “If you are going to create work that matters, you are going to need an advocate – a person who sees your potential and believes in your work.” So, lonely, misunderstood artists slaving away in service of nothing but their passion who suddenly emerge from their solitude and strike the world still with their brilliant creation? That's a myth. What apparently really happens is that they emerge to find, like Rip Van Winkle, the world has moved on and their idea has already been done by someone with better publicity. At the time it looks and feels like someone “stole their idea,” but maybe it's just that they had no patron. So how do you go about getting a patron? There may be some slaving away in solitude involved after all, because you have to have some kind of work to show that you're worth the trouble. And being able to take and use constructive criticism is a huge plus. Manners are also a huge plus. Nobody owes you the time of day, so thank people for their interest in you and the time they spend helping you. Don't give them any reasons to regret making eye contact. And one of these people (evidently) will be so impressed by your work and your good attitude that they'll get as invested in your work as you are. Now, there's nothing that special about an artist interested in his own work, but an artist plus another person interested in it? That's unusual. Make it another person who knows the genre or media well enough to make a reliable judgment about whether the work is good or not, and you have an influencer. And without one, the creative work won't spread far enough to make the impact you want it to make. So, what's your project that's going to showcase your best skills to potential patrons, and is there any sort of project that you'd be interested in seeing? Remember, commenters on this blog series are entered to win a copy of Real Artists Don't Starve by Jeff Goins. Just comment before the series is over!
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Paula RicheyArtist, writer, creator of stuff. I just want to build worlds for you to escape to. Archives
March 2020
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