The Art of Keeping Oneself Fed in Art School

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As someone who has been teaching professional practice classes for a very long time, and who now runs an artist run company that creates support services for artists (www.gyst-ink.com), I can tell you that giving information to artists does not harm them. It allows them to make intelligent choices, steer clear of mishaps, avoid unscrupulous dealers, and in general gives them the tools to create a career on their own terms.
No all artists are interested in galleries and selling work, and if you are a DIY kind of artist, this information is vital. If you are a gallery based artist, it gives you an inside look at how the system works. In the arts, I am not surprised to find that most artists have no idea of what they are getting into when they graduate from art school. What I am surprised at, is the level of animosity that comes from my peers at the idea that information is bad for others.
I also teach at CalArts, and I teach a class called Getting Your Sh*t Together, and one of my colleagues told the president of the school that the class I teach is for those artists who are going to fail. I find this very short sighted. In no other field that I know of is information looked at that way. The gallery and museum world and it's access is closely guarded by those artists that think that is the only way to "make it". I think the idea of a hybrid career has helped artists make a good life. I can tell you from experience that those artists who have taken my class both inside the school as well as in the city of Los Angeles, that it has empowered them. Getting information does not ruin you, contrary to what many believe, it is what you do with that information. Taking a business of art class does not assure that you will "make it" either, but it beats the hell out of getting screwed by those in power who always seem to find ways to manipulate artists.
Whether you take the path of the vertical artist (gallery driven, traditional) or the horizontal artist (one who creates their own path on their own terms), having information on the inside track can save your career.
So if any of you would like to get your sh*t together, there are some great resources out there. We have software for artists, and two publications. One is an artist manual and the other is for those who are teaching professional practices. We also have a blog and over 500 pages of FREE information for artists on our website.
Life is hard enough for artists. Lets share everything we have to make it better. Regardless of the path that an artist chooses. Ignorance, the last time I checked, never helped anyone. So, lets get crakin' and make our lives memorable for all the right reasons. And please, generosity is very underrated.

Karen Atkinson of CA 11:56AM April 22, 2010

I work with a social network, www.b-uncut.com that is devoted to giving artists the opportunity to expose their work and have easy and real conversations with other artists. Giving advice and discussing thier individual experiences. Its amazing to see how much the artists enjoy it and help each other find places to exhibit, give valid encouragement, and create collaborative opportunities.
Its an international community with artists of all backgrounds, ages, and success levels. so its really a place where the aritists can find answers to tons of questions and their communication is open unlike so many of these other sites where your messaging is controlled and regulated by the managers or others that are so enormous that hooking up with relevant colleagues is difficult i.e. Saatchi or artslant.

Kara Cardinale 8:11AM April 21, 2010

It is definitely a difficult world for emerging artists out there. But there are definitely people who are trying to diminish the gap between emerging and established artists, and bring art to the people. Since the boom of social networking on the web, there have been many websites created that cater to emerging artists and try to help them along their career paths. B-uncut, a community of 1700 artists, has the benefit of people in the same situation to give them advise on their work and their careers, and also has a commercial e-gallery that artists are selected to be a part of. The divide between emerging and established can't change much drastically, but there are ways that these emerging artists can find support and market their work and their name in the art world.

Amy Kassen of CT 8:05AM April 21, 2010

But it doesn't go very far. Yes, you can teach people how to read the contract that a gallery might offer them, but sadly, not many of them will be offered any kind of gallery contract. All these "business of art" courses just put a band-aid on gangrene; in fact, these art schools are nothing but a Ponzi scheme, exploiting the dreams of youth and leading them on to believe that they can make a living at something that will offer survival to only a tiny fraction of them, while saddling the majority with a heavy load of debt.
Even before the current recession the chances of making a living as an artist were vanishingly small. Since 2008, more galleries have been closing than opening, and sales have plummeted at those which remain. It's pretty obvious that art collecting isn't really part of the American way of life (we much prefer collecting mass-produced objects), and the odds are stacked against newcomers in the art game, Contemporary artists have to compete not only against each other, but against the legions of the dead, who have a distinct advantage - at least they won't be making more art and diluting the value of the works they've already made.
If an artist hopes to reach an audience outside the tiny quotient of art-world cognoscenti (who have mostly made their bets already) they need to know that an art-school education is more likely to harm than help their sales prospects. Art schools, paradoxically, tend to enforce a rigid conformity while valuing the "transgressive" above all; the better these students do in school, the worse their chances are of selling something to the general public. More than anything else, art schools teach an attitude that implies: "We, the elite, know better than you, the ignorant, what art is all about, and the less you like it, the better it probably is."
Meanwhile, art institutions like major museums are engaging in a concerted project of elevating the "low" arts at the expense of the "high" art these students are taught to revere. Right now, the MOMA in Manhattan is exhibiting work by Tim Burton the film-maker, in an attempt to reach the vast number of people who are turned off by the pretensions of "fine" art but like movies. Art stars like Banksy and Shepherd Fairey are picked from the street, not from art schools. Anyone hoping to make a "return on investment" would be better advised to spend what capital they've got at the racetrack than at an art school - the odds are better, and the game is more honest.
But art schools keep flooding the almost-nonexistent market with hopeful graduates: 30,000 or so each year. A few may find jobs as underpaid nomadic assistant professors (replacing tenured professors with benefits, as they slowly die off). But the vast majority eventually give up their artistic dreams and settle for the low-wage jobs their "education" has qualified them for. They may not starve - but food stamps will help with that more than any of their "business of art" courses.

Andrew of CA 10:19PM April 16, 2010