Here is an excellent post by Lisa Call about defining success as an artist. They say it takes one to know one. I used to work as a chemical engineer and I really resonated with this post as the engineer in her really comes through. I’ll quote the post first and then add my own comments afterwards.
” Today Alyson Stanfield linked to my post about respect from her blog with some of her thoughts about when it is time to move on from juried shows. Interesting read.
I’ve been thinking about this prickly topic quite a bit the last few days (okay I couldn’t resist adding an image from my recent trip to the Desert Botanic Garden in Phoenix).
Because I am a requirements engineer by day I started thinking about what type of use case one might have for becoming a successful artist.
From the wikipedia article linked above: use cases allow description of sequences of events that, taken together, lead to a system doing something useful. Each use case provides one or more scenarios that convey how the system should interact with the users called actors to achieve a specific business goal or function.
So here’s my take on a simple use case for how to become a successful artist
Actor: Artist
Preconditions:
1. Artist has a desire to become successful
2. Artist has a definition for their idea of success
3. Artist has motivation to become successful artist
4. Artist has time to do the work to become successful artist
Main Flow (Artist definition of success is obtaining quality gallery representation):
1. Artist creates a strong body of quality art (and continues to create throughout the entire duration)
2. Artist creates quality materials to promote the art (and continues to throughout the duration)
3. Artist enters work into juried shows to build resume
4. Artist researches galleries and selects appropriate galleries
5. Artist approaches galleries
6. Artist has work accepted by gallery
7. Artist sells work with gallery
8. Artist repeats steps 4-7 until satisfied.
9. Artist is successful
Alternative Flows:
I. Artist definition of success is selling enough work over the internet to live comfortable
1. Artist creates a strong body of quality art (and continues to create throughout the entire duration)
2. Artist creates quality materials to promote the art (and continues to throughout the duration)
3. Artist researches online sales opportunities and selects appropriate venues (including ones own website)
4. Artist approaches online venues
5. Artist has work accepted by online venue
6. Artist sells work online
7. Artist repeats steps 4-7 until satisfied.
8. Artist is successful
II. Artist definition of success is making quality art
1. Artist creates a strong body of quality art
2. Artist is successful
etc (add different flow for each definition of success)…
Post Condition: Artist is successful
Well, that’s maybe not my best requirements work because I’m being very general.
But what I really want to talk about is why and where an artist might fail, or in the use case world these or often called exceptions - things that might happen that don’t result in the post condition being met but the flow ends anyway.
I really don’t know - not having failed nor planning to. But if I had to guess I would think the preconditions (which are things that must be true or the usecase can’t be started) are a big hold up for many people.
Figuring out just want it means to be successful as an artist is really rather difficult. Why are we doing what we do? What is our end goal? Maybe we have multiple goals. I think that different goals require different actions to reach that goal and not understanding the what the goal they are trying to reach can really trip someone up. There are so many options in the artworld I think trying to narrow down our focus to 1 or 2 can be very difficult.
I know in my path as an artist my end goals have changed many times over the years and I’m not the only one that struggles with this. Paula McCullough left an interesting comment about this topic on my last post - pondering about what success really means. I recently found Paula’s blog through her comments here on my blog and her work on artsocket and really enjoy reading her thoughts on her blog about her adventures in becoming a successful artist.
Long ago my end goal really didn’t exist and I couldn’t even imagine how I might have goals as an artist and I wandered aimlessly not really ever getting any where. Now I have very specific art business goals. It’s taken years to refine these goals and to define what I feel is my definition of success but I feel with them I have a road map that I can follow that will lead me to my desired end goal.
I also think the preconditions for having the time and motivation to reach the end goals are important. When I lose motivation or run into periods where I have no time for the art career things really stall out. Keeping motivation, staying in the studio and office - these are keys to success. I believe success is mostly about hard work, not about divine intervention and getting discovered.
Back in my respect post I was countering the argument that quilters aren’t making it in art world because they didn’t make statement art. I see all kinds of art getting respect out there in the world - not just statement art. So when I look at step 1 of all of the flows - making quality art - I don’t see there needs to be any kind of restrictions on what type of art that is. I think there is room in this world for successful artists of all kinds, working in all media and styles.
So I guess I’m just repeating myself because I don’t see that the type of work is what prevents an artist from becoming successful - I see it as the actions (or lack of actions) of the artist as the stumbling block.
Although the other thing I have to add is that I think without step #1 (making a body of quality of art) it is really hard to get very far. You can’t promote what doesn’t exist. So I think that means I need to stop rambling and get back to my studio.”
My Comments:
I think it is extremely useful to go through this process of defining what success means to YOU. Define what success means to you, then determine what specific steps you need to accomplish to get to that point. My addition is to do this in a series of success-determining steps. Decide on a lesser goal of success, perhaps simply producing a certain amount of quality work, and detail the steps to get there. (I would also suggest reading Lisa’s previous post on defining her business goals.) From there, determine your next goal towards success and define the steps to get there. Before you do all of these little steps, however, still determine your overall definition of success. Each of these little steps will lead you towards that goal. My suggestion is to get a big sheet of paper and start representing everything graphically.
Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.peacefulbirder.com
