Kyle’s Work – Page 9 – Kyle Clements

          Lately, I have been spending a lot of time trying to focus on the business end of my art career. I feel like the creating art side of my life is in a very good place right now. I’ve been working on paintings more or less non-stop for over a year now, and with every brush stroke I make, I can feel the difference that my constant practice has made possible. I would imagine that I am really close to my 10,000 hours by now, or maybe I’m already past it, I honestly don’t really keep track of my hours in the studio. All I know for sure is that this past year has done wonderful things for my art making skills, both in technical ability, and in problem solving abilities. When a painting just doesn’t work, I used to feel stuck, and I would either work myself into a creative rut, or I’d give up on it for the time being, with every intention of coming back to it later. Those aren’t problems any more, I’ve developed techniques for dealing with those situations, and I get the feeling that something wonderful could begin to come together in my work at any time now.
          But the whole marketing and business side of my life has been at a standstill. Other than the occasional website update, which I don’t do nearly often enough, or mass mailing, which I never do (How can I spam people, then expect to sleep at night?) I really haven’t done much of anything to keep up with or expand upon the business side of things.
          After the solo show at Open Gallery, and the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition and Nathan Phillips Square, I took 2 weeks off to read up on a bunch of art business stuff. I wanted to know more about branding, marketing, and presenting a more professional image to the world.
          I’ve always been the type of person to research something quite heavily before getting started in it myself. I like to know what I’m getting myself into, what to expect, and how to handle unexpected situations that might pop up along the way. I like to make sure that I’m not getting ripped off, screwed over, and most importantly, I like to be sure that I’m not making a huge mistake that I will regret for years to come.

          So, like any curious person who wants to know about something, I turned to Google. After a few keyword searches, I discovered a glut of art blogs; and much to my (initial) excitement, most of them paid a lot of attention to marketing and selling art online, and had a lot of ideas about getting noticed.
          “Perfect, thats exactly what I want!” I said aloud, without any concern for what the neighbours must think of this strange fellow talking to himself at 4 in the morning.
          I began clicking on every link that looked remotely interesting. Over 50 tabs were opened in my browser, and the next 2 weeks were spent reading, jotting down notes, and adding them to the wall of crazy that lives beside my computer. After I had taken all the information in, I began sorting through it, organizing it, comparing it, and I slowly began to realize something.
Continue reading Wasted Time? Business Advice from Art Blogs.

I have noticed that quite often, before getting to the meat of the discussion, authors will start with a few hundred (or thousand) pages of what is called ‘throat-clearing’. This means that they spend a whole lot of time being really boring before getting to the point. But, it seems like a necessary part of making sure that the audience is on the same page as the author when that point is being made, so I’m going to have to do a little bit of that here.

I am a visual artist. My primarily focus is painting, but I also do some photography, video, sound, and new media projects on the side. I also spend a lot of time with other artists; and, surprise surprise, the topic of our discussion is, you guessed it – art.

          I have noticed that a lot of artists claim to be very conceptual in their practice, even if that conceptualism doesn’t seem to show in the final work. They can sit down and have endless discussions over the finer points of, well, just about anything.
          Then, when asked to present their work, they will reach into their pocket, pull out a card, and proudly show off their highly conceptual art. A quick glance at the image reveals…some brown rectangles. Brown rectangles? With colour choices that look like they were based on the curtains available in this month’s Sears catalog.
          The artist will try to explain to me how their art explores some deep concept. This part of their work represents one thing, while another part represents something else. As I look at those brown rectangles, I strain to find the connection between what they are talking about, and what is actually present in their work. More often than not, I just don’t see it. The more this happens, the more I get the impression that those explanations are just thrown together after the fact. Why bother with these post-hoc explanations? Well, We do need something to write about, after all.

“What happened to those concepts while you were in the studio?” I often wonder.
Continue reading Throat Clearing