Final lecture on contemporary art professional practice, by Lee corner, Friday, 18 March 2016.

The first opening comments of the lecture were given by Dr Graham Lister who had identified, whilst reading through some of the responses to the most recent assignment, that there was a disconnect, between some of the students websites, and their own statements or aspirations. As a recommendation, he suggested that we should find the connections between aspirations and our own professional values and credentials. Aspirations of themselves are in fact goals. We need to state our aspirations in or that that employers can find what they are looking for, in order for them to be matched with what can be found in our own profile documents, which also match our values together with our aspirations. This synthesis of values needs to be articulated within the websites, because ultimately it is likely that the employers should find you as an individual contributing artist through your own website.

During the previous lecture Lee Corner suggested that there would be two visitors to today's session, the artists James Naughton and Rachel Howfield-Massey.

Some pre-research I had done;

... on James Naughton found that he had spent time as artist in residence at the Bolton University and is an established landscape painter. He is highly influenced by the works of Thomas Moran, a 19th century artist who visited the grand Teton range in Yellowstone national park in the United States. This links particularly well to James's location in the south-west Pennines. He has exhibited continuously as a key exhibitor at the Beckstones gallery, and has also written and illustrated his own book, a book on creativity called "Yoluma and the King".

... with regards to Rachel Howfield-Massey, some pre-research found that she is based in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. She currently has a project entitled "bear hunting and other ways to walk". It seemed to me that there was a kind of linked to geo-mapping and psycho geography, but with the added twist that this was based on rural locations, rather than the more typical psycho geography which is based in urban and cityscapes, such as the work by Will Self and Ralph Steadman.

I also found a quotation by Karl Marx which seems to relate to psycho geography quite well, and perhaps also to the work by Rachel Howfield Massey, which goes like this:

"People can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves.-There landscape is animated, obstacles are everywhere. And they are all interrelated, maintaining a reign of poverty".

Presentation; Rachel Howfield-Massey

I found the presentation by Rachel particularly interesting as she is a very local artist to my own residence, and seems to be specifically interested in the well-being of the human condition which is constantly being urbanised. I think it touches on the idea of mindfulness and some of the work that I have reviewed by Dr Kirsten Stewart.

To put this into context, Rachel is working nationally in a "re-wilding movement" recently being brought to public attention by the writer Frederick Gross in his book of the same name, and also Shinrin Youku, who is an advocate of "forest bathing".

Further reading on this practice may be obtained from the book "the wild places" by Robert McFarlane.

Presentation; James Naughton.

In the presentation provided by James Naughton, he described his work as a fusion of printmaking techniques working together with oil painting, in order to produce landscape paintings which were a synthesis of both the real and the imagined.

James provided some very useful points for all the students as we are just about to start out on our career.

• After graduation take a rest and then research where you fit in? Take time to see where your work will sell.
• Make high resolution copies of all your work and create a very solid portfolio.
• See arts as a career for your future.
• With regards to pricing do not sell yourself short!
• Create your first promotion material now. Create business cards and postcard sized promotion material. Create a website with a jargon free statement.
• Beware of rushing into social networks. Make sure you have separate private social network accounts from your business accounts.

James also discussed how he created many have his paintings by painting on glass is a monotone or tonal style drawing first and then using that pane of glass to create an impression on either canvas or paper.

He also discussed;
the advantages of selling your work through a gallery; which are,

• that the gallery all ready has a reputation and existing clients.
• It allows you to focus on your own art and production of it.
• It means that the sales and promotion side is done by the gallery itself, who also provide lots of guidance and support.

The disadvantages of selling through galleries.

• There are no direct links between the artist and the client.
• It is difficult to create new ambitions for your work, as if you change your style it may not sell.
• You therefore have to make a decision that you are creating art as a product.
• In essence you may be caging a golden goose.
• Some galleries are not very patient. They expect you to be able to churn out work in quite high volume once you become successful.
• Don't be surprised, in fact you might as well expect that galleries may charge up to 50% of the price for their own commissions. Therefore it is essential to achieve a sales price of your work first!.

Selling through the Internet is generally good, there is new media and new avenues for selling work opening continually. The disadvantage is of course that it can easily be copied.

Studio space is important. Make the decision whether this is going to be part of your own home, or alternatively I are going to have gallery space next to your studio space or perhaps just a studio space on its own somewhere else in the lock-up perhaps?

Consider your ongoing management of your own direction. You must do this yourself, otherwise someone else will do it for you!

Sales, of course this is a blessing, but in order to do well, you may lose sight of your own artistic needs and direction.

Conclusions;

• Spend one hour a day every day, for administration and social networking, together with blog writing. This is about the current way that I do things now and is a good habits to maintain.
• The Tetley gallery in Leeds as many artists in residence, it may be worth approaching them to see if it would be possible to shadow some of those artists and obtain some mentoring?
• Most established artists are quite approachable. Do your research by making visits to galleries with studios and talk to them regularly.
• I did this a few months ago at the Dean Clough gallery and spent time with Jake Atree, a highly successful artist, with a studio on the premises. I spent approximately two hours with him and found the experience invaluable, with an invitation to openly visit him again, which I must do soon!!.