Underground Art School

Let Go, Move On

 LET GO OF YOUR EDUCATION FIRST 

 BEFORE IT HOLDS YOU BACK 

Hey. So, we're back. I personally needed a break to evaluate what UAS means to me, and how it can help you. See, I began UAS because I was a confused, exhausted graduate with a piece of paper that to me stood for internal turmoil rather than pride, self worth, accomplishment, and clarity of art and design as business (and pleasure). Basically, pure rage fueled this positive thing I have going on here. 

In order to post here and share ideas, I need to return to that dark place where I was genuinely pissed off. Except, that's not very helpful for my current illustration career. It often makes me frustrated easily with the work I produce, I still have the voice of the professor (you know that ONE professor that really gave you a hard time) criticizing my work. Then, I get a damn student loan bill and realize: I'm paying for an education in which I feel I didn't even get my monies worth. And I am back at annoyed. I don't want to live and create like this!

I needed February off to realize I need to set boundaries about my feelings about my education and I need to let them go so I can professionally and personally move forward. I'm grateful for if my education was perfect, there would be no Underground Art School. 

The question here for any art school grads who feel disillusioned by their education: how long do you plan on staying frustrated? Is this frustration effecting your work? What steps can you take to move forward? 

Set a time frame to soak in your disdain and then let go. 

 

APPLIED ARTS: The Artist's Way

 750 words a day to keep you motivated and on track 

A LONG time ago now I worked through Julia Cameron's excellent The Artist's Way. One of the two major linchpins of the book is Julia's insistence that all aspiring (and practicing) artists write three pages a day of long-hand stream of consciousness thoughts which she calls Morning Pages. On and off for fifteen years I've been taking her advice. Starting as a fledgling artist, too scared to pick up a pencil and draw, Julia's Morning Pages have steered my through faltering early steps, my first drawing class, starting an art foundation course, my eventual MA in Fine Art and on to working as a full-time artist and blogger. 

 How writing daily has helped me 

They have been a friend and a grounding witness to the good and the bad times. I have piles and piles of them! One of the guidelines Julia suggests it that Morning Pages are written longhand. She believes there is a more direct link between the brain and the words if they're written in pen and ink. Until very recently I agreed with her (I've also been a longtime proponent of drawing with pen and ink, but even that is something I've been rethinking of late), but over the last couple of months I've been working on my Morning Pages on my laptop using a site called 750 Words. I've discovered I love working on them this way. It's interesting, even after a decade and a half of writing Morning Pages, that I've realised how inhibited I was about what I wrote. Writing them online, where I have no fear that they might be read has made me far more uninhabited about the topics I explore and what I say. That's exciting. 

 Online or offline the Morning Pages are the smart choice for any   artist because: 

1. They form the start of a creative routine. This is a bit like autopilot for artists. Create a creative routine and eventually the work just happens.
2. They are a sounding board for new ideas
3. They help you explore ideas and thought that otherwise you might well just ignore. Creative breakthroughs happen when everything and anything is up for grabs.
4. They start the day with a feeling of accomplishment. If you can write 750 words everyday, just think what else you can do.
5. They help you learn to discover and trust your own artistic voice. If you're just out of formal education you've probably had your tutors' and teachers' voices in your head guiding your work for years. Replacing those voices with your own is vital for your creative development.

 Resources: 

1. 750 Words. A free to use site where you can securely write your daily Morning Pages. The site has a great email reminding service to keep you on track and you earn "badges" the more you write (keeps the child artist in me VERY happy).
2. The Artist's Way The now classic text from Julia Cameron.
3. The Basic Tools A free pdf download from Julia Cameron's site explaining her thinking behind writing Morning Pages (and her other basic tool, the artist date).
4. Video of Julia Cameron talking about writing her Morning Pages (in which she explains why she thinks writing them in the morning and in longhand is best).
5. The Morning Pages Journal that Julia talks about in the above video

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 Michael Nobbs is a full time artist, blogger and tea drinker. He publishes The Beany, an illustrated journal of his life and writes, tweets and podcasts about drawing and trying to keep things simple.

Join the Team!

 Write for our blog! 

Underground galleries (local hot spots) are the best places to get an art career started, to connect, and to network. So let's start sharing our favorite galleries! But, we need your help. Galleries exist everywhere and we're stuck in Connecticut because we can't teleport...yet. We were wondering, why don't you check out and interview a local space? It requires no previous journalistic experience, just email us and we'll collaborate:

 submissions_undergroundartschool@yahoo.com

You become acquainted with a gallery, you get featured on our blog, your gallery gets featured on our blog, which in turn helps another person who may be searching for a space to showcase. Everybody wins!  GO ART! 

APPLIED ARTS: Measurable Goals

 Aim High (or at least somewhere) 

Measurable goals are important in a successful art career. It's all too easy as an artist to spend all our time in the studio working (or even just staring out of the window and thinking about working) without any real idea where we're heading. Today, I'm here to tell you to change that and set yourself some specific (very specific) goals. I'm not talking about a grandiose ambitions like, "win the Turner Prize" (though of course there's a place in every artists dreams for the really BIG ambitions too!) but rather smaller, measurable goals. Something solid you can aim at this week or even today. What's important (and exciting) about measurable goals is that you know when you've achieved them, and the trick is to work at them until you have. Instead of saying to yourself I will work at this specific project for x amount of hours, you say I will work at it until I've achieved my aim. This approach is a great motivator and a great way of focusing your mind on finding ways to achieve what you want.

 A concrete example of what I'm talking about 

Want a concrete example of what I'm talking about? Here's one from my own work. Earlier this month I launched a new free to download ebook. While I was making it, I had a vague idea that I wanted to get out in the world and seen by as many people as possible, but hadn't really thought beyond that, and had no real idea of what would feel like a "success" for the ebook. On launch day a friend asked me over breakfast what I'd like to achieve with the ebook. That put me on the spot. I had to really think about it, a wishy-washy answer like, "I want lots of people to download and read it," wasn't going to do for my friend. I needed to be specific. I took a deep breath and said, "I'd like 1,000 people to download in the first week." That felt very scary, suddenly I had a measure of success for my project (and the chance of failure too). "Okay," said my friend, "how are you going to do that?" Time for another deep breath, answering that I was planning to just put the ebook up on my blog and wait (and hope) for a 1000 people to come along just wasn't going to fly. I decided to be bold. "I'm going to contact people on Twitter and ask them if they would spread the word about the book until I've reached my 1,000 downloads." Wonderful, I had a goal, and a plan to reach it. My friend seemed pleased, I felt nervous and excited in equal measure. The upshot of this story is that I'd reached my 1,000 target by the end of the second day, and at the time of writing have had over 3,000 downloads of the book. If I hadn't taken some specific action to reach my specific goal then I strongly suspect I'd still be waiting to hit that first 1,000 downloads.

 Goals that are both time and number specific 

What's interesting about this way of setting goals is that goals are both time specific and numbers specific. Both are important. After you've set the goal it's important that you work at it, and be creative about how you work at it (if one idea doesn't work try something else), until you reach it. Here are some ideas for how you could make use of this way of setting goals in your art career:

1. I will sell two paintings this month.
2. I will attract 10 new subscribers to my blog this week (you do have a blog don't you?).
3. I will arrange one solo show this year (whilst I think shorter time goals are better for focusing your mind and energy you do need to be realistic about how long some things will take).
4. I will write a blog post in the next hour.
5. I will get my work mentioned in one magazine/newspaper in the next three months.
6. I will write a guest post on one influential blog in my field in the next two months.
7. I will increase my income by $100 this month.
8. I will find one commission in the next week.
9. I will come up with a list of five time/number specific goals of my own in the 30 minutes!!

 Good luck! 

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Michael Nobbs is a full time artist, blogger and tea drinker. He publishesThe Beany, an illustrated journal of his life and writes, tweets and podcasts about drawing and trying to keep things simple.

APPLIED ARTS: Creative Routines

 Nine to Five

Get a creative routine (even a very small one). One of the wonderful things about being an art student is that you largely have a creative routine imposed on you. You have submission dates for projects, tutorials to attend, your final show to work towards. Basically you're being an artist with someone holding your hand and showing you the way.

Once your formal education is over it's all to easy to find yourself sitting in your studio (if you're lucky enough to have one) and wondering what to do next. If you've been prolific as a student you may well have a body of work already and you can spend your time applying for shows, entering competitions, or applying for grants. All those things are important for fledgling artists of course, but please don't lose sight of what is at the core of being an artist; making new work!

If you're not constantly making new work you're not really an artist, and the only sustainable way to keep making work is to develop a creative routine. A creative routine may sound a little dull and perhaps a bit of a contradiction. Can creative and routine really go together? Surely us creative types should just go where the muse takes us and create as an when inspiration, well, inspires. No, on the contrary, I think creativity thrives on routine. Turn up at the page everyday and draw, paint or write something and eventually you'll have a finished piece of work and then another, and another. What's exciting (and good news for anyone scared of routine), is that this regular working doesn't have to be a huge commitment. It's amazing how much you can achieve with small daily steps.

  Twenty minutes a day 

Over on my blog I recently launched the Twenty Minutes a Day Challenge. I've asked my readers to publicly commit to one creative project and agree to work on it for twenty minutes at least three or four times a week. Maybe that doesn't sound much, but why not give it a try and see just how much you can achieve. In time routines become habits and habits turn into a way of life.

 Resources 

Join the Twenty Minute a Day Challenge

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life by Twyla Tharpe

The wonderful Zen Habits has a whole section on creative routines and habits. Lots to read here

Elizabeth Gilbert talking about nurturing creativity at the TED conference

 Working with what works for you

By Racheal Anilyse, Creative Director Underground Art School

There is no secret key to a creative routine. Some days are easier than others...life is unpredictable. Having a general guideline helps. Holding down a part time job is a great motivator, because you already know your pre-set hours for when your available to work on your art (opposed to someone with an absolutely free schedule). Time is within a boundary, and it cuts through creative avoidance. A good rule of thumb is to have a 90 minute to 2 hour block of time available to create. It takes at least a good half an hour to focus before getting into the real form of creating (that's why classes are so long). When you think about it, 90 minutes a day is not a drastic amount of time. You can afford it. If you have a free schedule and are finding it difficult to focus, find an activity to schedule art around (for example joining a writers group or figure drawing group gives you something to work towards).

If you are in school (or out of school), start to observe HOW you work. What time of day are you most motivated? What types of projects motivate you? How long does it take you to set up? Do you need a lot of time for preliminary process? What does your environment need to be like? The answers to these questions will help you create your own schedule when you don't have a professor there to watch over your shoulder. If you've realized you need someone to do that, then find an art buddy. Be each other's teacher.

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Michael Nobbs is a full time artist, blogger and tea drinker. He publishes The Beany, an illustrated journal of his life and writes, tweets and podcasts about drawing and trying to keep things simple.

APPLIED ARTS: Be Your Own Advocate

Are you waiting for permission to get your art out there? Seth Godin isn't particularly talking to visual artists in this post. but I hope you'll listen to him anyway, and rewrite what he has to say for our industry. Gone are the days when we as artists need a gallery, or a magazine, or a publisher to see our potential and offer us a show, or an assignment or a book deal. Now we can take the initiative. The Internet make us all gallery owners and publishers and our own PR agencies. Grab the tech goodness by its horns and stop waiting for permission to get your work (and yourself) out there. Becom

 Be your own PR manager

Get a blog, join Twitter and Facebook, tell your story and get your ideas and work out there. Remember what Seth Godin says though, don't create slush. Keep things interesting and find your niche. Make it easy for people to understand what you and your work are about, write about it and share it regularly. If you fancy taking things a little further why not make some podcasts (I use the wonderfully simple AudioBoo for mine), or even some vodcasts (video podcasts), Vimeo and of course YouTube make creating, uploading and sharing video very easy. Maybe you'll go viral!

Become your own publisher

If you write a blog then you're already a publisher. If you want to go a little further consider publishing an eBook (same rules as with blogging; keep it interesting and useful). If you do, then eJunkie makes selling and distributing your masterpiece easy. The Internet can even help you get your work in print. Both LuluBlurb offer on demand publishing (I've used Blurb for my illustrated journal, The Beany and am delighted with the results).

 Become your own gallery owner 

Flickr and Facebook are both good choices for online galleries. Flickr in particular offers much in the way of networking opportunities with other artists. You can of course set up your own gallery on your blog or website, or even take things offline in creative and imaginative ways. Join groups of like-minded artists, set up your own groups. Get your work seen.

Artists who are doing it for themselves

• Hazel Dooney
• Danny Gregory
• Shannon Okey
• Elizabeth Perry
• Jason Polan
• Dan Price

  Get great advice

If you read Underground Arts School then you're already getting some great advice. Here are some other people and places where you can learn more about seizing the initiative and working online.

• Seth Godin The Internet marketing guru.
• ProBlogger Great advice for new and experienced bloggers. His excellent eBook, 31 Days to a Better Blog has been very useful to me.
• Alyson Stanfield and her great blog and podcast.
• The Unconventional Guide to Art and Money (I was interviewed for this eBook/audio package and if you buy it from this link I get half of the cover price. I think it's a great resource, but of course I'm biased!).
• The Red Lemon Club is a blog and resource for online self promotions for creatives

Final word

Mastering all the Internet has to offer isn't the whole story of course, but a rather a wonderful place to start. Hopefully your exposure (and confidence) will grow, and will leave you well placed to make your mark in the offline world too. You may decide to follow a more conventional path and approach galleries and publishers with your ideas for shows and books, etc. or maybe you'll have learnt enough about working unconventionally to try something different...or perhaps a combination of both. Whatever you do to grow your career as an artist, good luck!

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Michael Nobbs is a full time artist, blogger and tea drinker. He publishes The Beany, an illustrated journal of his life and writes, tweets and podcasts about drawing and trying to keep things simple.

APPLIED ARTS: Job Hunting

Don't be daunted.

In this economy job hunting may seem grim, but I can assure you work is out there. You just need to buckle down, work hard and seek it.

Your best lines of offense:

It's who you know.
People who know you, especially your work style, are the best. If you are on good terms, many will not just recommend places to look for work, they will forward your information along to their network. People love connecting folks - it makes them look good too. Just do yourself a favor: if someone hooks you up, be on your best behavior because it reflects on them. And the "who" that helps you get a job may be someone you didn't expect.

Getting out.
Meet new people with similar interests. Go to conventions, art openings, book signings, free lectures, etc. You may meet people who work for companies you are interested in. Don't be afraid to inquire just because you are new acquaintances. Some think it's taboo to ask about jobs within a company, but as long as you aren't pushy, you should be fine.

Social Media.
I recently joined Twitter and am SO surprised by how many folks just casually post that they are looking for someone and if interested to direct message them. It seems to casual to me, but that is the world we are living in now. TAKE ADVANTAGE!

Online Search.

This can be dangerous just because you are tempted to apply to anything and everything. But it's up to you to decide if filling out some sites long (and usually boring) application is worth it. Also, if there is a certain company you are interested in, make sure to visit their site every once in a while - some places update their sites and don't post to job seeking sites. Here are some of my resources, feel free to add:

New York Foundation for the Arts
Book Jobs
AIGA Design Jobs
Creative Hotlist
Coroflot
Aquent
Creative Circle
Creative Group
The Boss Group
Mediabistro
Creative Network Systems
Career Builder
Monster
Jobster
Craig's List
Art Directors Club
Job Board
ADCNJ
Job Board
Society of Publication Designers
Society for Environmental Graphic Design
The Serif (UK jobs)
Design Observer Job Board
Krop
Simply Hired
Design Related
Authentic Jobs
Freelance Switch
Smashing Magazine
FreshWebJobs
Icograda

Best line of defense:

Here's a quick list of things you should just have because you will be asked for some, if not all, of these. Each place has their own specifications as well so read carefully when applying! Also, I won't get into spec work because that's a whole other discussion…but I as a general rule, just don't do it. Of course, there are exceptions to it and you can decide…just be careful and make sure to protect yourself and your work. You're worth it!!

Designers
- Website URL or pdf sample of your work
- CV/Resumé
- Cover letter

Artists
- CD or slides
- CV/Resumé
- Artist statement
- Proposal for exhibition or project you want to work on
- Bio

Please feel free to add your own list or stories! Special thanks to Jason Alejandro for his list of resources and Maria Doering for artist input!

Fiona Clark (aka Wee Fi) is an artist working and living in New York City. Fiona graduated in 2007 from Hartford Art School with a major in Visual Communication Design and minors in Photography and Art History. After graduation she found herself freelancing with the staffing agency Creative Group, before landing a job as junior designer at the rich media company, Basik Group. If you'd like Fiona to answer your questions about life after art school, please email her at fi@wee-fi.com.