Most people will tell you that a “complete guide to studio practice” involves finding your muse, mastering your medium, or curating the perfect aesthetic for your Instagram feed. They treat the studio like a sacred, untouchable temple of pure inspiration, which is a lovely sentiment for a textbook but utterly useless once you actually have […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2008, staring at a beautiful, large-scale oil on canvas that a collector had finally agreed to purchase, only to realize the artist hadn’t kept a single record of its dimensions, the specific pigments used, or its exhibition history. We spent three frantic hours hunting through old notebooks […]
I spent twenty-six years in a gallery where the air smelled of expensive floor wax and quiet desperation, watching people freeze up in front of a canvas because they didn’t know how to bridge the gap between themselves and a stranger. Most “experts” will tell you that you need a curated list of icebreakers or […]
I remember sitting in my small gallery back in 2004, staring at a stack of applications from artists who clearly thought they were writing for a PhD committee rather than a human being. They would hand me these dense, impenetrable walls of text, filled with words like “juxtaposition” and “liminality,” used as if they were […]
Most artists approach the search for a residency like they’re looking for a holy grail, convinced that a few months in a drafty studio in Tuscany is the only thing standing between them and a career at the Tate. They spend thousands on application fees and travel, chasing a prestige that often doesn’t exist, only […]
I remember sitting in a drafty studio in 2004, watching a brilliant painter I represented spend three weeks weeping over a fifty-pound application fee for a residency that offered nothing but a bunk bed and a sense of prestige. We are constantly told that the secret to a sustainable career is some magical, all-encompassing complete […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, nursing a lukewarm Earl Grey and staring at a three-page agreement from a dealer who had more charisma than sense. He promised the world, but the fine print was a graveyard of artist rights, specifically regarding how he’d handle my best-selling painter’s secondary market sales. Most […]
I remember a painter I represented in the late nineties—a brilliant, messy man who could capture light better than anyone I’d ever met. He signed a licensing deal for a stationery company because they promised him “exposure,” and within six months, he realized he’d essentially sold the rights to his soul for the price of […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, watching a young painter realize—with a look of absolute, gut-wrenching horror—that he had signed over the reproduction rights to his entire portfolio just to get his work on a single cafe wall. He thought he was being “professional,” but he was actually being cannibalized. Most of […]
Stop treating your art like a charity project and start treating it like the business it is. I spent twenty-six years watching brilliant painters walk into my gallery with nothing but a portfolio and a prayer, completely blindsided by the sheer mechanics of a sale. Most of the advice you’ll find online is either way […]