I just wanted to say congratulations on acceptance into the BFA program. So you are now technically a professional artist. You have decided that this is what you want to do. I know that you may want to teach as well, but that all together is you being a professional artist.
So here are a few things you should keep in mind.
First of all, you have chosen the career that most frequently has people doing other things besides what they are trained in after they are done with school. What does this mean? It means basically you are now in the highest rate of failure career there is. People just can't hash it. This is something that speaks of society as a whole degrading from an appreciation of the arts to the artists themselves failing.
So what is the point of this letter? I am trying to maybe ferret out why artists fail and end up being busboys postmen and whatever else. (I guess this could equally apply to Keven as well).
From what I have observed in the last several years here are some ideas. Artist who go to school to be trained are at a big disadvantage because they seek the acceptance and approval of people that aren't paying the bills for them. What? Okay I mean students like you try and impress their teachers to gain approval, to the point that they pursue techniques and ideas for the purpose gaining that acceptance.
Here is an example. When I was doing the photography classes (I am still way glad that I didn't do a BFA, and I know I could have, I had way more skill than most of the students and a way better work ethic) I took lots of pictures of slot canyons that semester and the teacher kept saying he didn't like it and it was cliche. Well I kept at it and basically ended up with a b grade over it. What is more important, the acceptance of the teacher who didn't care for the work (he still ironically shot similar shots) or most of the class who thought the pictures were really great and wanted copies of their own. So 1 or 25. The one wasn't willing to pay. I ended up selling/trading for 5 prints. Also my focus on what I wanted to photograph rather than what teachers pushed led me to win a scholarship similar to yours, expect I was the only selected winner out of 9 students (6 bfa's by the way, the judges own bfa students).
So don't seek the approval of people that aren't buying the art or supporting you financially! My teachers have never bought a piece from me.
In the same token, you have to master the skills needed to be technically masterful of your subject in all aspects. Otherwise your only a dilettante with no future (you should look that word up and seek to never be this, if you see yourself never becoming more than this then change your major now).
Second, your salary and income must be considered from now on as what you make from art. So an internship that pays to teach art may count. Working grounds is only supporting you as a starving artist, or deficit spending. What am I trying to say...take keven and his camera equipment (and mine). He has spent some huge amount and basically has never made a cent from it. So keep that in mind clearly, your actual salary from art. Along this line, if your an artist and want to buy a house, you will have to prove that you have a consistent income from your art for at least 2 years before you can get a loan and in the next few years, I bet you will have to prove up to 5 years or more. That is making at least 30,000 for 5 years consistently, one low year and you will not be able to get a house. Where will you build your studio? And with what? Things to carefully consider. Be honest with yourself about your art, and work to make it pay for reals. This is something that most students think will just take care of itself and when they graduate realize that they have nothing. This is a reason possibly why so many artist fail overall.
Third, understand now that your most valuable asset for the rest of your career is your time. As you know in art it takes time to do anything (as resources, so keep that in mind and use them very carefully!). You have only so much, and so you need to maximize it completely. For example if you work 18 hours a day and 6 days a week for the next 50 years (you will be 74 by then and may want to slow down) you will have only
280000 hours to work. That seems like a lot of time but remember that you will probably not work that much at all (I doubt your on the wheel more than a few hours a day). So maybe you will only work 12 hours a day for that long and you cut that down to 180,000 hours. Well that is a limited amount of time and you can only accomplish a certain amount of stuff in that time. I struggle with ever having enough time to work on photography. To plan a photography trip takes a bit of time. Cleaning and caring for equipment (cameras, to pictures, tripods (I have 7 I believe), computers and harddrives) takes time out of my schedule that isn't even actual photography and involved in the creation of art. So will you ever really get that much time to work on the art?!?
So focus on never wasting your time again. You need to have fun and relax. But don't waste your time. I submit that watching TV is a waste of time all together. I still watch movies and stuff, but that last time I watch an entire movie was 3 months ago with our family. Last year I watched 3 movies with my wife other than when I was home. I am not trying to brag, but when you cut a time waster out of your life all of the sudden you don't have time for it anymore. Because you only have so much time left.
Last thought on time. When I focus during the week on using each five minute segment of my day I accomplish almost twice as much as I normally would. I am currently trying to spend no more than 10 minutes a day writing emails or playing on the internet during the week. I do better when I hold it to five minutes. You can do a lot more when your spend you time not waste it! I believe sincerely this is possibly Keven's biggest trial, the real reason he will fail at art if he tries the road. He doesn't manage his time. He wastes it away by snoozing, browse the net or catching a quick movie over lunch (who else does this that we both know and always does his bills at 3 in the morning, can you honestly think clearly at that time? It will mess up your next day for sure). Plan your day in 5 minute segments and try to waste none of them.
Okay so along with the time thing, your at school and doing a BFA in the department and have access to the resources. Do everything you can to learn all you can now. Do you want to master something someday? I say do it now. Don't pull the I will wait until I get my own studio... I will have time later... You have at your disposal resources that would take you arguably a decade or more to get, and most ceramics pros may never attain. Use them to their fullest capability. For example throwing cylinders like Roberts teacher taught. Sit down and with two fists size of clay throw a cylinder two feet tall. Then do it again 500 times. This seems kind of crazy, but can your teacher do it? If he can, can he do it in 1 minute? Well practice so that you can do it. If you get really good, imagine throwing 500 of these in a day, at 1 a minute. That would only take 8 hours and 15 minutes. Imagine the amount of pottery you could produce if you were able to throw that fast and that consistently. Learn this skill now so that later you won't have to waste your time doing this when you will need the skill.
Consider the professional fly tier. There are guys who tie for a living and make 50,000 a year or more. They essentially get paid by the fly. So at at a dollar a fly how many flies do they have to tie each year? well let us say 50,000. So take a person who wants to only work 5 days a week, so they can fish and have time for other things. So break that down, to 50 weeks of work (even they go fishing in exotic places, so take off 2 weeks of vacation), 5 days a week, and they have to tie 200 flies a day, or 17 dozen. They have worked things out to be efficient and fast and consistent (you don't want to have only one or two mugs work with each batch of ten attempts, you want only 2 or 3 from a 100 to fail because of things out of your control) so that each fly looks exactly the same. So to tie 200 flies a day will only take them 4 hours. How you say? They waste no time doing anything. They wrap the minimum thread, use only as much feather as needed, and work quickly. Most tiers will tie 50 to 70 flies an hour with easy flies, and 30-40 with hard patterns. I tie about 3-10 and hour depending on the difficulty. So really I could improve a lot. You can get to the same way. Art takes time. But somethings you can accomplish very quickly and and efficiently with beautiful results. I take my very best photography in 10 minutes of the light of day. Knowing that and maximizing that I can do and accomplish much more. If you found that you could sell 3000 mugs a year (at $10 profit a mug that would be $30,000 more than dad makes...) wouldn't it be nicer to produce those in 10 days rather than 2 months? I submit you could easily do so. The have months more to work on other things, like teach or projects you are working on that are more complicated. Take another example, Joe Bennion. He works only a few months a year at pottery and then rides the river as a guide for 5 other months a year. Well he can produce a full years worth of pottery on only a few months so he has time to do that. Also the woods teacher at Provo High. He makes the hand cut dovetail cedar chest and sells them for $300 or more a box. Materials aren't more than $50 and when he makes 100 at a time material cost goes way down. He makes those on the side and probably makes more money from that than actually teaching. He sells 50 a year at $300 then is making 15,000 on the side. Robert told me at one point he was sure he was making 3 or 4 a week.
Use your time wisely.
Forth, When you buy things only cry once. What? Only buy the best and save yourself time and effort. For my example take tripods. I use them a lot. So this is an important tool. Possibly the most important tool that I use besides the camera and lenses. I started out with a wal-mart special. This is great for people that never really use them rigorously. After 4 days of serous us on a trip it broke on me in Redwoods national park. I was hundreds of miles from a new one. I was taking pictures that had to have a tripod. I cried a lot over that (figuratively, actual I use some pretty choice words that Carl said he hadn't even heard in Paraguay). I thought I was saving money. So I stepped up to what Keven and Rex thought were the best tripod at the best price. I spent 150 dollars on a Promaster tripod. It still didn't hold the camera steady and I went through 4 of those before Rex finally admitted under rigorous use they just don't last that well (thank goodness for warranty). This was after I bought a carbon fiber tripod that was nice and expensive and he convinced me to return it (this was the last time I listened to someone else over what my own research had led me to, I suggest that you always research and completely understand what you need and want before you buy anything or listen to someone else. Like with the ipod. I avoided it because it was to cliche, but in reality it was better than my sony mini disc player (have you ever heard of those? I think that illistrates my point exactly) saved me time and was the best product available by far). So eventually I got the tripod I have now, the most expensive tripod (not a video tripod those are far more expensive) by the leading brand that had no bells and whistles, just made to last for a really long time and actually do its job. It cost $250, and since has supported me well in snow, ice, sand, dirt rock, water, waterfall, mountaintop, slot canyon, and tons of other places I have taken. The preceding sentence I think indicates that I do use the thing a little bit and test its abilities. When I bought the $250 tripod I thought it was to much money and cried over that. But I haven't regretted it since then, because I finally bought what I really needed and wanted. If I had bought it sooner, I am positive that aside from not spending my money on other dumb tripods (I would have spent less just buying this to start with) I wouldn't have missed many pictures because of bad tripods. My only regret ever with this tripod is that it is not Carbon fiber but aluminum. So it is heavier than I want, at 6.5 pounds. The Carbon Fiber Version is 3.5 pounds and works just as well to be sure, but is $400 dollars more. That is next on my list of non camera camera gear.
A note about this, only buy as well what you really need. I have bought a lot of camera gear that I really don't use but thought I would use. I was buying before I actually understood my real needs. Your job as artist is to really understand what your needs are so that you can best meet those (by cost, efficiency, and what ever parameters you need to meet). I need a computer for fast processing. If my computer is slow I may only be able to work 30 photos an hour instead of 50. Also remember that there is a happy medium, if I had the faster computer available to the consumer it wouldn't increase what I can do to more than 55 an hour. So the huge additional cost isn't actually worth it overall (like the Carbon Fiber Tripod, I skipped that and bought a lens that has been far more profitable than 3 less pounds to carry). Keven here again is having a hard time. He doesn't understand what he needs, so he thinks he wants the best and fastest. Having this doesn't get him anywhere at all. So be sure to consider what you need, why you need it, what it will do for you, how it will increase what you can do and then move forward. The other thing is don't buy on impulse, but don't put something off that will benefit you now rather than 3 months from now. Lastly don't buy things only good for a while. Maximize you purchase so it will last as long as possible. Obviously a computer won't be great for 10 years, but my tripod will likely be good for that long or longer. I may not be able to wear this one out, I was able to get something so well made. I suggest you buy these types of products, but only when you need them. You as ceramics person won't need a sweet action computer, a simple but efficient one will last you likely 5 years or more.
Fifth, You need to start cultivating you presence as a professional artist now. Do you think you would like to have your stuff displayed in galleries for sail? Both artistic and functional? Well I suggest you start now rather than when you graduate. Getting into galleries can take years. Even longer. So if you have a jump and start learning from mistakes now you will be years (seriously) ahead of those students around you. Approach galleries and representation by them now. You have the luxury currently of being so close to Jackson hole. Talk to them regularly, even if they say no in the past. Show them the new stuff. Talk to the owner and managers not the meager sales people (though sometimes they are the owners, so be careful). Approach places that don't already have art like yours for sale and try and get them to show it. Like at photo galleries. Maybe they would like something to make the place look nicer like ceramics in the corners to spruce the place up. You can often get into places like that. Don't dream that one place will cover you for your living. You will need lots. Once you get them and it works out, give them the best service possible so they will treat your art with a high priority. Also be willing to give them a big cut. Like 20-60%. But wouldn't you rather pieces sold rather than not at all?
Sixth, attend fairs shows and other places you might be able to sell. I suggest always checking it out before you sell there. This is long term research that can really pay off. Pick the brain of the artist there especially ones similar to your style. Ask how selling there is, how the management of the event is and so on so you can find if it works for you.
Seventh, develop a web presence. You can't easily survive in the modern world without some time of presence. Overall I am positive that more will always pay off as well. I have told you about to do this. You have to spend years becoming a big presence. It can really take of though and pay off. You feasibly could develop a presence that would allow you to support yourself entirely over the net. You have to start now and work on it consistently or you will end up years behind.
Eighth, you need to develop your own style. Figure out what you want to do and do it the best in your way. For things that everyone does, like mugs and whatever, be technically perfect so that you can stand out from the crown as being skilled rather than flawed. This goes back to mastering skills now rather than later. Think about the Harry potter series. 4 big characters can teach you lessons about this. They are
- Voldemort - He was the best student (not just skill wise, but study and persistence wise) to ever go to hogwarts. He worked at taking over the world and basically almost succeeded. Except for some serious good fortune on Harry's part. He was overcome because of his servants faults, and the ways they failed him. You can really learn about dedication and focus from old Tommy.
- Dumbledore - he was also brillant, but he was successful because he was possibly more persistent than Voldemort and he maximized all options available as best he could, like learning about Voldemort, he left no stone unturned. You can learn all you can about whats available to you and know what you have at your disposal.
- Hermione - She was dedicated to learning and understanding her problem, and as well was ever persistent in what she was focusing on. She is also a dang hard worker. So work hard like her, she accomplished more at hogwarts than any of her class mates.
- Harry - He is notable mostly for sticking to his goal and beliefs when the going got rough. He didn't waver when it was time to have some action.
Tenth, Start planning for your retirement now. Try and save a certain amount each year. You have to create your own retirement fund when you are self employed (I know this isn't the goal but it is a long term possibility). For me I am trying to save 5,000 a year so that when I am 55 I can retire. I want to retire then rather than ten years later at 65. You can accomplish retirement by planning now. Even if you only save 50 bucks a month. Money you save now will be 800 to 1600 percent more valuable when you 65. For dad it will only be 200 percent more valuable. So for example, if I save 5000 now and get a reasonable return (about 8-9% with little or no risk), I can expect that to be worth by itself $52,000 when I retire. If dad invests in the same accounts for only 15 years (time till he is 65) he will expect only 15,000. So start now. I suggest making a part of your budget. We have decided that we will always use our tax return to invest with and try and save about 400 dollars a month in addition. So in good years we will be able to invest up to 10,000 a year and hard years only 5,000. This will give us at the age of 65 more than 2 million saved and invested and pay out more than 100,000 a year to live on with out touching the actual initial funds. We are poor people honestly and we are still able to plan ahead. You can as well, and will need to to cover your future and families. For example we will likely need to help support mom if dad passes away soon. I hope he doesn't and I think he will live to be a lot older than his dad, but he isn't 40 any more. The same thing will happen to us. The guy who died in Zion was only 62. He had retired 1 week before (my main motivation for retiring at 55, plus if I plan ahead I can).
Well I guess for now that is all I have to say, but seriously you have potential. You have the option to do so much. I am optimistic that you will succeed if you really apply yourself and never take anything for granted. If you really work at this career you will be able to always do what you want. If your just hard headed and refuse to look at reality and spend you time just ignoring mom you need to practice this little phrase, "would you like paper or plastic"? Mom is not optimistic, but really she can't argue with success, so work hard and succeed and she will stop nagging you about things.
I love you man!
Chris
P.s. I would really enjoy a net of pottery (kind of like our own china...). You know, a set of 12 plates, big and small, cups, bowls, and some serving dishes...I would even fund the project, but as with all consumers I would only want to pay for good stuff that your so proud of you can hardly bear to part with it. I mean Robert is coming back and will want all his pottery we have (and enjoy).
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