artist niche

Having a Growth Mindset as an Artist

For some reason we give ourselves the permission to try new things and grow in our capabilities in them as a child that we don't as we grow older, even if we're trying to acquire a wholly new skill set. It's madness to think that simply by virtue of your age you're entitled to some virtuoso talent at a novel, new experience. There are two mindsets, one that's fixed and believes that your abilities are innate and then there's a growth mindset. I'm convinced that having a growth mindset for artists is the only way to be. Times and artistic tastes are going to change. Your work and how to best distribute it are going to change. To reject these truisms is to be at war with reality.

 

 

I certainly believe that people have predispositions to being skilled at a given task, what we would call talent, but it's routinely born-out in athletics and the arts, that those that are naturally gifted and strive to be the top of their craft frequently are. Innate talent can only take you so far and such individuals are likely to plateau without the disciplined work that's prerequisite to become a true master of one's craft.

 

If there's skill that you think would enrich your life for being adept at it, I'd urge you to take that child-like approach of the enjoyment of the activity regardless of the outcome and to work through it to the best of your present skills. Think back to most things you may have tried in your childhood and you'll likely have produced nowhere remotely near professional results, whether that was drawing, coloring, or whatever creative expression you attempted early on, but you likely enjoyed making the art making process and maybe you were lucky enough to have some kind adults lie and praise what you were making. When attempting new art forms as an adult, after a multitude of tries, fifty, one-hundred, then you would have some grounds to honestly determine the effectiveness of your efforts because while your critical eye may be honed as an adult, your muscle memory for a new task is often just developing.

 

For all the myriad of ways you can spend your time developing new capabilities, there comes a time when you need to narrow-in and focus on an array of abilities that are the most worthwhile and fulfilling to you. You could learn how to code and make custom websites, but if just creating a website through a templated site such as this Squarespace blog you're currently reading accomplishes the vast majority of what you want it to do, then the choice is fairly obvious. While you can likely learn how to do a great many things, at some point you're going to have to pick and lane, a focus, and prioritize what capacities help reach your goals from that perspective. The number of distractions that you can find are infinite and many creatives find some amount of constraints to be liberating in their ability to focus on the important tasks at hand as opposed to the infinite canvas stretched-out in all directions.

 

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

Fan Art Illegal?! Things to Consider When You Make Fan Art

There's a range of opinions on whether artists should create fan art and the ethics of doing so. One might make fan art as a genuine expression of their fandom, as an opportunity to gain exposure for their art, to make money, or some mixture of all three motivations. I'm not looking to judge someone's choice in creating fan art, but from a strictly creative business stand-point, if you're making the majority of your sell-able artwork around intellectual properties that you don't own, this seems like tenuous footing for an artist to be in. Selling fan art's illegal and this isn't just some opinion I happen to hold, this is straight from the mouth of contract and intellectual property attorney acquaintance, Seth Polansky.

 

Watch Fan Art Illegal?! | Things to Consider When You Make Fan Art

 

Luckily few intellectual property holders crack-down on fan artists selling their work, but that's precisely the issue: if you make your living selling fan art based merchandise- you're relying on "luck" for your continued livelihood. I lurk an artist alley Facebook page and I've seen the occasional so-and-so animation studio's issuing take-down notices. And a take-down notice or a cease and desist form is a kind way for the copyright holders to go about it- who knows if we'll see an effort to slap-down this form of infringement in the same way that the music industry came down on some of those pirating music in the early to mid 2000's to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

EXCERPT ON FAN ART USAGE PER COPYRIGHT ATTORNEY SETH POLANSKY ON ONE FANTASTIC WEEK

 

 

With the risks that are stake, I simply couldn't see putting all of my eggs in the fan art basket. I may occasionally do a fan art piece if the mood strikes me, but I definitely intend to make that the exception rather than the rule. What's your opinion on fan art? Do these considerations make you any less likely to make it?
 

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

Getting Ready to Show at My First Art Booth! | Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia, PA

This Saturday I'm taking a leap that I've put off for some time in years past- I'm getting ready to show at my first art booth at the Art Star Craft Bazaar here in sunny, hot, humid Philadelphia! Art Star has been running successful arts and crafts shows for several years in the area and I feel like I'm in pretty good hands. This is a pop-up show, which means it's only one day for a few hours. The first date for it is Saturday, 7/28/18 from 12-5pm.

 

There's a few reasons I've put off boothing at art fairs, but I think one major one was not feeling like I'd ever had a large enough body of solid artworks to show. I don't feel like you can do this sort of a show without 10-12 images you feel strongly about. There's also a fair amount of start-up costs to running a booth- there's the cost of inventory (and the packaging of said inventory) and the display and booth decor items aren't particularly cheap if you don't happen to have what you need on-hand and want to have a certain level of professionalism to your presentation.

 

WATCH MY THOUGHTS ON GETTING READY TO SHOW AT MY FIRST ART BOOTH | ART STAR CRAFT BAZAAR IN PHILADELPHIA

 

 

Speaking of professional presentation, there's a few people I'd like to thank for inspiring me with best practices, either from watching their content or sending them the occasional frantic Facebook message. I've been following the independent genre artist podcast One Fantastic Week's YouTube content for a couple of years and I think there's few better resources for entrepreneurial artists and they've a great community of like-minded people. I also owe Pete Mohrbacher a beer for recommending El-Co Color Labs- they've produced some really fantastic prints of my art. Crystal Sully, creator of "Untamed Beastiary", was also super helpful in helping me track down a couple of vendors for booth supplies. Rather than have you track Crystal down, I'll list the vendors I've used for booth display.

 

Craft Show Vendors

  • Printing: http://www.elcocolor.net/

  • Banner: https://www.nextdaydisplay.com/product/fabric-wrinkle-free/

  • Print Bags, Cardboard Backing, & Shopping Bags: https://www.clearbags.com/

 

I'm doing four of these shows and I'll let you know how they ultimately went- fingers-crossed that it was worth it! To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

Greetings & Welcome to the Dream Syndicate Art Dolls

How rude of me- I've yet to properly introduce my YouTube channel. In this video, I do just that by giving folks a taste of what they can expect from The Dream Syndicate Art Dolls with this channel trailer.

 

WATCH WELCOME TO THE DREAM SYNDICATE ART DOLLS

 

Throughout my videos, I share the process I use in crafting fantasy art dolls, showing you how I sculpt, paint, build, and paint them. I also show how some of the props are made for a photo shoot and a glimpse of what the photography sets look like for my dimensional art doll illustrations. When I'm not creating videos about making art dolls, I make videos about the arts, whether it's culture or thoughts about what it's like to be a professional artist today.

 

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

The BEST Art Advice that You RARELY Hear

We live in a landscape of seemingly inexhaustible "experts" when it comes to the creative field (heck, when it comes to most fields). Where many are pushing their opinions without your knowing their credentials. And that is crucial, if you can't verify why someone's opinion is more valid than any other person off the street, chances are it isn't. We live in an era where most everyone feels they need an opinion on most everything, no matter their lack of expertise on the subject-matter, to feel validated as a human being. With that, my old time-y wisdom to you, the best art advice that you rarely hear is this: always consider the source.

 

Watch The BEST Art Advice that You RARELY Hear

 

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Until next time, make believe!

Should I Be a Specialist Artist? A Response to "Your Value in Art" by Bobby Chiu

I came across a video by Bobby Chiu entitled "Your Value in Art" and my curiosity was piqued. Being the even-keel, zen-like soul that Bobby Chiu is, he didn't place a value judgement on whether one should be a generalist or a specialist artist, but (perhaps because I'm less even-keeled) I definitively believe that a long-term career favors the specialist artist.

 

Watch Your Value in Art by Bobby Chiu

 

Watch Should I Be a Specialist Artist Response Video

 

First, it would be helpful to establish a definition of both generalist and specialist artists. A generalist artist dabbles in any number of genres, styles, or niches of art making. A "jobbing artist" that goes from project-to-project, competing with several other well-qualified creatives to do so, perhaps a toy design one week, storyboards the next, and then a couple of weeks illustrating a book cover. A specialist artist narrows-in on one artistic field, medium, or overall aesthetic and produces work in that vein. The specialist artist is often brought into a project because they were one of a short-list of candidates who could properly envision the project, whether that's designing characters for film or television or creating work for print media.

While artists can make a living as a generalist, a generalist artist is a commodity, like a bottle of orange juice you'd buy at the local supermarket, easily replaced (and in the times we live in, easily outsourced if communication barriers are minimized). When their skill set is in alignment with what's desirable in the creative market place, a specialist artist is actively sought-out for the specific thing they do and therefore has a much easier time standing-out among a field of generalist artists.

If two artists were competing for the same job to design environmental concepts for a video game studio, who's most likely to get the job? The artist with the portfolio of character, vehicles, weapons, and environment concepts or the artist with the same number of pieces in their portfolio, but every single piece of the portfolio shows that they want to do the job their trying to get hired for, each piece shows a game environment concept? I don't know about you, but I'd say the smart money's on the second candidate, the specialist.

There's also the level of niche-ism that surrounds us today- an artist that may not have gained support through the conventional route of publishers can now go directly to the public if they're willing to become savvy marketers of their work. Services like Kickstarter, Patreon, YouTube, Instagram, and the like give artists a multitude of platforms to try and connect with an audience. Add to this that in most countries, there's fan conventions for any kind of niche you could imagine- everything from fantasy/sci-fi, to comic books, to My Little Pony, to... furries.

But isn't there a danger of being too specialized? Frankly, there's risk in any field one could choose to invest decades in that the market could shift and the only thing one can do is shift with it or perish. Commercial airbrush artists were in demand from the 60's through the 80's, but once the art market shifted, many of them either had to pivot their artistic skills to another medium or no longer work in the creative field.

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Until next time, make believe!