In a recent post, 'Art Gallery Submissions: How to Prepare Before You Submit Your Work,' I covered the prep work artists need to do to be ready for gallery representation. If you’ve done the prep work (you have a website, a way of tracking contacts, an artist statement and bio, professional images of your work, a consistent body of work and established practice to sustain making your work) your next step in the search for gallery representation is research and a long range plan.

Blindly submitting your work to galleries rarely yields a response. Gallerists prioritize their existing artist roster and collectors, leaving little time to review seemingly random artist submissions. To find representation that offers the level of time and attention your work deserves, adopt a systematic and thoughtful approach to connecting with galleries.

The gallery ecosystem is fueled by a desire to attract and maintain collectors. You can get your work in front of collectors without gallery representation, so don’t limit your potential by focusing exclusively on commercial gallery spaces. Artists who drive interest, create thoughtful conversation, and produce strong work will inevitably influence collectors and, by extension, gallerists.

Instead of focusing on gallery representation alone, take a wider view of the importance of getting your work seen. Dedicate time to reviewing calls for artists and submission opportunities. Virtual exhibitions, artist publications, podcasts, and group shows: these platforms offer engagement, audience growth, and the chance to build meaningful professional relationships, so don’t overlook them. I keep a calendar of deadlines, I follow social media platforms and publications that support artists, and I save opportunities that wouldn’t be possible at this time but I hope to be able to pursue someday. Often these platforms and publications provide a network of curators and artists that keep me informed.

I also have a weird interest in reviewing the CVs of artists I admire. When I find an artist whose work aligns with mine I look at the artist’s CV to study their exhibition history, publications, professional experience and education. This exercise gives me tangible goals, like guest lecturing or pursuing residencies, and broadens my focus to include growth I might not have previously considered for my own trajectory. It also gives me a roadmap to exhibition spaces that might have an interest in my work.

You need to consistently apply to lots of exhibition opportunities to build an exhibition record and to form a network of support for your work. There is a lot of overlap in art circles so you may find that a curator or gallery director is serving as juror for an open call that leads to an opportunity to introduce your work to the gallery or exhibition space you’ve been eyeing.

I like to give myself a monthly budget for applications so that I can prioritize the submissions that make the most sense for my schedule and objectives. When I stick to a budget I also don’t feel the sting of rejection as acutely because I can look at the process as a numbers game not a personal dismissal. I have to remind myself that even if my work isn’t selected from an open call, I’ve had the benefit of getting my work in front of the juror and the organization considering artists for the exhibition opportunity. The more your work is seen, the more likely it is to be remembered.

Visibility is a byproduct of staying true to your voice and vision.Think of your work as the epicenter of your focus. Once you’ve established a strong voice and a solid body of work, every opportunity to share your work becomes a natural offshoot of that center. Strengthening the core of your practice will help you navigate decisions and form meaningful partnerships. By prioritizing the work itself, you position yourself as an artist who creates impact rather than an artist who is seeking permission.

If you find a gallery that you feel strongly aligns with your work, your vision and your goals you want to establish a relationship. If you can, show up to support the gallery and the artists by going to openings and taking an interest in existing gallery programming. You won’t be the only artist the gallery represents so think of the gallery as a community that you want to support.

Some galleries will accept artist submissions. If they do, the submission process will be outlined clearly on their website. Follow the submission guidelines. Provide the materials that the gallery asks you to submit. Personalize your email. If you feel strongly that your work is a good fit for the gallery, explain why. What makes your work a good fit and why are you interested in the gallery? Don’t immediately email the gallery director with a short email and a link to your website. If the gallery has outlined their submission policy and you’ve ignored it you’re unlikely to get a response.

If you follow the guidelines, submit your work and get no response (this is more than likely by the way) don’t give up. Follow the gallery, join the email subscription list, stay on the radar. The gallery may eventually announce an open call or a search for artists to feature in an alternative exhibition space. You can also keep the connection warm by asking if you can add the Gallerist or curator to your email list. This gives you the ability to follow up with exhibition announcements and new work without constantly trying to get time and a commitment from the gallery. It gives the gallery a passive way to keep up with your work when their time and attention allows. You can also mail exhibition announcements and postcards a few times a year to keep your work in front of the galleries you hope to connect with. The postcard will probably get tossed but someone will look at it before it goes to trash (an email never even gets opened).

You’re running a marathon so don’t be discouraged if you don’t get an immediate response. Some connections take years to nurture and develop but if you approach your growth as a gradual building of relationships you’ll find genuine connection and support that you can sustain. Trust the process of slow growth over the lure of a fast, meteoric rise. The longer it takes for your career to gain momentum the more prepared you’ll be when it does.

In recent years (sometime post the advent of social media) the word collaboration has become well worn. Collaborations are happening with so much frequency that culturally we’ve shortened the word to collab, a shorthand that lessens the impact of meaning while simultaneously making the word more transactional. I used to think of artist collaborations as deep, difficult and tied to lived experience. Not short lived but truly invested in the exchange of knowledge and skill.

I think of Martha Graham who revolutionized modern dance by collaborating with visual artists like Isamu Noguchi. Graham and Noguchi’s partnership spanned decades. Their deeply rooted collaboration fundamentally altered aesthetics and modern design. The visual dialogue and experiential environment that Graham and Noguchi spent years refining and building resonates in nearly every corner of the cultural landscape today.

As the term collaboration has been narrowed in scope to fit into an easily digestible, not very deep box, it seems to have become entangled with a different purpose altogether. Collaborations are not brand partnerships but we seem to be using the two, collabs and brand partnerships, interchangeably, as if both terms want the same outcome . . . profit. Brand partnerships leverage relationships, align messaging, they even mesh aesthetics to form new beautifully coveted products but they don’t challenge thinking or create a cultural shift.

The distinction between collaboration and brand partnership is important for artists to question. Brand partnerships are transactional and limited in scope. If successful, they will broaden your audience and potentially lead to an influx of sales. Brand partnerships are risk adverse. Artists like Martha Graham and Isamu Noguchi lived in risk. They thrived in the unknown and the potential for failure because they dedicated years to the development of their artistic goals. Their collaboration was undoubtedly fraught with challenge and the need for reinvention. I feel sure that they disagreed at times and had to compromise but also respected each other and shared a mutual admiration for their abilities.

The element that developed their artistic impact is sorely missing in today’s collabs.

Time and dedication to an artistic pursuit is a daily practice that defies logic. It certainly defies analytics and conversion rates. Imagine if Martha Graham entered into a brand partnership with Lulu Lemon. I mean seriously imagine the pitch meeting! Marketing Exec: “Martha we’re thinking the sea foam colorway is really in line with what your younger audience is going to be wearing this season.” Martha Graham: “No. I want a brass wire spider dress.”

Artistic vision is fearless. It’s fearless because it weathers the storms that make vision a necessity. What we’re celebrating in a collab culture is superficial growth. Comparatively, it can feel like a lack of success when your audience is narrow and your influence is hidden. But there’s a lot of noise to cut through to get to a kernel of real depth at present and it doesn’t look anything like a brand partnership.

When vision is applauded it comes with time. Time spent making mistakes, edits, breakthroughs, frustrations and failures. Collaborations that lead to real growth aren’t pretty or instantaneous. They require a bit of back and forth and bad work that leads to good work. Their depth is hard to fit into a small square or define with a keyword. Collaborations have the ability to transform understanding. Collabs not so much.

Last week, I planned to share a post with practical pointers for artists seeking gallery representation, but two things changed my focus. First, my schedule fell apart and I raced all week to catch up with life. Second, I realized that most of my advice actually centered around the essential prep work needed before reaching out to galleries and seeking exhibition opportunities.

So, I’m shifting gears. This week, I’ll cover the work you need to do, along with the realistic decisions you’ll need to make, if you’re truly ready to approach a gallery. My specific tips for the submission process will follow in a later post.

Own It:

Before I share any pointers, I want to emphasize that it’s important to work with the mindset that an artist is always a sole proprietor. Basically, own your voice, own your content, and own your goals before you look for partnerships. Get your s*@t together before you ask anyone else to get it together for you and you will always own your choices and manage relationships with professionalism and authority. Once you can confidently say that you are ready to be in charge of your career you can start looking for the opportunities that align with your personal goals.

First and foremost, artists need an online presence. A website is a must if you’re going to share your work publicly. Your website is your portfolio, your message, your brand, your archive . . . Basically a website is your business hub whether you’re selling work or seeking opportunities. Your website should include professional images of your work, images of your work installed for presentation, and an artist statement and bio.

If you haven’t exhibited your work you can hang a mock exhibition in a space that looks clean and professional and have it photographed to look like the exhibition of your dreams. High-quality documentation is an investment that serves you long after a piece is sold, so start with a strong foundation. While you may choose not to list prices publicly, you should have a document ready to share that includes titles, dimensions, mediums, and pricing.

If you don’t have a lengthy exhibition history, focus on quality not quantity. Sharing in situ images, an exhibition statement, curator’s statement and press for one exhibition shows your level of professionalism and care for your work better than a list of ten not so great exhibitions does. But keep in mind that you will probably have to be in charge of collecting the imagery (i.e. having the work and the exhibition professionally photographed), writing the exhibition statement, asking a curator for a statement and writing your own press release.

You need to create and cultivate your own audience so have a way of collecting email addresses even if you don’t send out group emails. Some galleries will share your collector list with you but many won’t, so don’t rely on anyone else to grow your contact list. Sending a personalized email to a potential collector when you have a new body of work or exhibition announcement to share is just as effective as a gallery sending an announcement for you. Your contacts will be excited to see your career grow so own those connections and they will follow you through every transition - even if a gallery doesn’t work out. Keep in touch with your contact list! Write a note, send an email, mail a postcard, send a pigeon . . . just keep your engagement with your audience active to foster continued support.

Don’t worry about the numbers. Large email lists often don’t equate to large engagement numbers. The more connected your contacts feel to you and your work the more likely they’ll be to continue showing up and supporting you. Knowing who your audience is will help you to determine when a gallery is the right fit for you. Also, galleries want to represent artists who their collector base will support. If you have already cultivated a solid following on your own, you’ve proven to the gallery that you will garner support.

Work It:

Before you’re ready to reach out to a gallery you need to have a consistent body of work to present. Ideally, if you’re seeking gallery representation you're planning to create a partnership that will last and be successful for many years to come. Know what you want before you form partnerships so that you can manage expectations and growth.

Think of it this way: you find a gallery that enthusiastically wants to represent you and your work. The gallery asks you to send 25 works in multiple sizes for a show. The work sells and the gallery wants you to send 10 more pieces the following month to replace the work that sold. Your work sells consistently for two years. That means that every month for two years you have been able to send new work that is consistent with the work the gallery is selling. Do you still want to be making the work you're submitting to the gallery for consideration two years from now?

You can experiment as much as you want but galleries are going to want to sell the work that they chose to represent from you initially. The gallery may love and support your growth but if you’re selling landscapes with a gallery that programmatically focuses on traditional landscapes and portraiture the same gallery may not be into the geometric abstraction you’ve decided to pursue.

If you’re ready for exhibitions you also need to think about how your work will be presented when it leaves your studio. Even if you don’t frame your work you’ll need to think about how you want to install it. How the work is presented in a public space is as important as how the work is crafted. Don’t skip the final steps that ensure your work stands out and looks thoughtfully executed.

Consider logistics like how you’ll ship your work to galleries and collectors. I’ve had more problems to manage when work leaves my studio than I encounter when making it. If you’re selling work that isn’t made with archival standards in mind, be prepared to problem solve and know how to manage issues with the work when they arise. You want to minimize risk so that you don’t end up losing time and money on past mistakes. I make encaustic work that frequently gets chipped and scratched in transport. I’ve learned the hard way that spending extra time and money on professional transport and proper packing is far better than dealing with the drama that comes with having the work arrive damaged.

Know It:

Before you submit to a gallery you need to do some research. Your goal is to connect with the galleries that align with your specific practice. A gallery is a good fit if they represent artists whose work is in conversation with your own. For a gallery, your work should fill a gap in their program, complimenting their overall focus without directly competing with artists already on the roster. Ideally, your work will attract its own audience and generate sales without jeopardizing the collector base for the gallery's existing roster of artists.

By the same token, if your work is radically different from the rest of the gallery's roster, their existing collectors may not be ready to make the leap and invest in your work. Additionally, you’ll know a gallery is a good fit if the price points of their represented artists align with your own.

If you’re an emerging artist and you aren’t sure how to price your work, you’ll want to work with a gallery that will help you establish pricing that can increase as your work matures, your exhibition history grows, and your collector base builds. Once you’ve established your pricing structure and you’ve clearly outlined how you’ll work with the gallery to grow your reach you’ll need to lean into the relationship by directing inquiries and sales to the gallery.

Don’t stop the work of owning your voice and growing your career. Your brand, your message, your audience and your goals should always be yours to manage but commercial galleries will help you to sell your work. Think of them as a partner in your business, not the owner of it. Before diving into the logistics, it’s worth pausing to consider the type of relationship you want with a gallery—or if you even want one at all. Artists can most certainly develop a very meaningful practice and exhibition record without commercial gallery representation. Regardless of your career goals, I encourage you to proactively gather as much information as possible before making decisions about your path. You can always change your mind, but making informed decisions will empower you as you navigate your choices.

There’s a lot of rural land in the South. Driving from one big town to another, the scenery is dotted with a steady loop of red clay, vegetable patches, and gourds hollowed out and hung from the clothing line to make bird houses. I find a fascinating shift happens on the outskirts of a bigger urban environment below the Mason-Dixon. As the drive gets more rural the yards get bigger and the lawn ornamentation changes. The landscape evolves from gas stations, Dollar General’s and houses with front porches to plastic deer, tires and American flags in the front yard. As the green stretches of bermudagrass expand, fake fiberglass boulders seem to become more and more popular.

Over the years I’ve adapted to a new way of life in South Carolina. In the landscape that has become home I’ve come to think of yards as real-life installations—perhaps the only truly open, empty spaces most of us have to express who we are. Whether the choice is a cluster of garden gnomes, a political sign, or a hollow fiberglass boulder, these aesthetic decisions are a form of self-expression. Yards act as a public interface for our private identities, turning a flat plot of land into a stage where we declare our values and creative impulses to the world. Much like an artist uses a gallery as a platform to engage an audience, the front yard serves as a curated space where the mundane is crafted to invite consideration.

Installations aren’t special because they’re in a gallery. Installations are special because they bring the element of activation to the gallery setting. They disrupt our expectations of space and ask us to question the hierarchy of place. A museum or gallery setting establishes the importance of placement and demands consideration. But these moments of activation exist everywhere and I am more excited by finding a moment of visual interest in an unexpected place. There is something deeply satisfying about spotting a composition that feels meticulously planned in a location that otherwise exists without aesthetic intent.

I find this accidental activation of space in the rural landscape every time we drive from our home in Travelers Rest to my parents’ home in Aiken, South Carolina. One massive yard in particular has become a bit of a destination in my own mind. The yard is so expansive it could really be described as a field but it’s covered in grass and it is very well manicured. In the middle of the sea of short green grass is a big plastic boulder. The scene melts my minimalist heart. I imagine that it’s a zen garden. The concentric lawn mower rings around the plastic rock no different from the rings raked into sand by a Buddhist monk. It also makes me wonder what is under it that is so unsightly it requires a cover with a giant plastic rock? And why is a fake rock the best solution to the problem? The simulated rock is an aesthetic choice that I find fascinating.

I am compelled by the idea that I can find beauty in mundane spaces that are accidentally visually engaging. I like to think that my focus brings a personal and emotional response to ordinary scenes that are often overlooked. In a gallery, our gaze is directed. Shifting from passive observer to active spotter strips away the limitation of the white cube and proves that visual harmony isn't a commodity; it's a way of seeing. The act of noticing is a creative practice that shifts power from the institutional to the individual. To see this way is a quiet rebellion that finds the exquisite in the ordinary.

In 2020, I enrolled in an NYC Crit Club virtual critique class. As a participant in the course, I was able to present my work to a series of guest curators and gallerists each week. I thought of the class as an opportunity to get my work in front of notable art-world figures and decision-makers whom I otherwise would never have a chance to meet, let alone discuss my work with. A defining moment in the course came when I presented my work to a curator who asked me, “Do you want to be commercially successful, or do you want to be in the Whitney?” My immediate thought was: “Do I have to choose?"

The comment stuck with me, feeling both critical and eye-opening. As I considered every angle of the question, I realized one thing with certainty: the Whitney isn't coming for me. But what do I do with that realization? If selling work is the only way to keep making it, can art be both compelling and buyable? Does finding commercial success inherently bar me from the upper echelons of the art ecosystem? And what if neither happens—if I achieve neither market success nor institutional recognition? Does that mean the work isn't valuable enough to keep making?

Another hard truth I had to confront is that the “art world” as it were, loves silos. In fact, the foundation is built with silos. Silos are safe. They separate the fine art from the commercial. The intellectually superior from the uninformed. The serious collectors from the ‘match my couch’ buyers. Here’s the problem with the infrastructure that defines artistic worth: the silos are limiting, and they deny the work any connection to real-life experience.

Shortly after acknowledging that I had to choose the path that made the most sense for my real life, I understood that while silos exist to keep people out, I want to live and make work in a way that invites people in. I am interested in the artist who creates despite the weight of caregiving, bills, and domestic labor—the artist for whom time is a precious commodity and every creative decision is an act of bravery. This is work made on the fringes. My own practice exists in the same margins of available time, the materials within reach, and content informed by the intimate struggles of my family.

Existing in the fringes means being willing to let anyone into the conversation about art. If you love my work because my palette matches your decor, I’m here for it . . . and I invite you to look for deeper meaning in the colors you choose to live with. For me design-influenced color is a strategic entry point because the work’s aesthetic appeal gets it through the collector's door. Once the viewer is drawn in by color and composition, I have the opportunity to 'sneak in' personal history and a deeper narrative about my family history, my struggles as a mother, and my desire to memorialize the personal. And suddenly, in the conversation that started with color pairings, we find a shared humanity. Real life is lived in the fringes, in the liminal spaces that defy definition. For this reason, I keep making, knowing that my connection to living will be deeper; if nothing else, I’ll leave my daughters with the knowledge that their lives are important.

I started writing about abstraction and empathy in 2020 at a time when it felt incredibly self indulgent to paint and to make work that didn’t directly address what was going on in the world. Recently, I’ve found myself revisiting the same questions. This persistent cycle makes me think that it’s a good time to share my thoughts on abstraction–especially when I find myself asking if I should be hiding my work and myself when there is so much pain in the world. When I question the role of an artist and the validity of abstraction I come back, time and time again, to the need for vessels that connect humanity. I realize that abstraction acts as a bridge between private grief and shared experience.

I seem to oscillate between the need to share a visual narrative and the urge to hide it by stripping away detail in my work. I’ve found that abstraction provides the widest funnel for capturing and working through everything I see and experience in the world in the most succinct form. The more abstract my work becomes, the more I feel I am able to invest emotionally. My hope is that the viewer connects to a sense of familiarity in my paintings and that the connection leads to a deeper understanding of the commonality in living and loss.

As I revisit my consistent return to the language of abstraction, my understanding of its function evolves and widens. I guess the opening of the funnel that allows me to capture and work through ideas keeps getting bigger. Over time I’ve come to see experience itself as a form of conceptual shorthand. As the opening of the funnel gets bigger, the neck of the funnel gets smaller and my understanding of abstraction becomes more focused. I’m able to find emotional resonance in color alone, in a fragment of pattern, in an unsteady line and in the isolated bits of texture that suggest the passage of time and the loss of a physical presence.

At some point in my development as an artist I realized that I could work through my deepest feelings of sadness and vulnerability in my work. As my artistic voice matures and strengthens so does my sense of understanding of my own emotional world. Investing emotionally in my work ultimately gives me a sense of empowerment when I am able to see the strength that comes out of reckoning with my fears.

As my work evolves, I continue to confront a sense of vulnerability more intentionally as I feel the need to connect to the core of what it means to be empowered and to empower others. I feel a heightened sense of responsibility as a mother and artist to do something, to be part of change, even just to create a space for empathy and understanding of basic human rights. As I grapple with these questions, it helps me to revisit the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, an artist whose poetic voice still resonates today. I find this quote from Gonzalez-Torres to be poignant every time I read it, “Some people say aesthetics and politics are different. I say the best thing about aesthetics is that the politics which permeate it are totally invisible. Aesthetics are not about politics; they are politics themselves.” Returning to Gonzalez-Torres’s work I find that the ideas are still pertinent and moving. It leads me to believe that abstraction is timeless, it mirrors the poetic core of shared experience.

In 2002, in my mid-twenties, I committed to a three-year MFA program in Painting. My reasons for pursuing a masters degree in fine art had little to do with financial gain, although I naively assumed the degree would make it easy to find a teaching job. I wanted to pursue a masters degree because I wanted the time and direction to hone my skills and to find my voice as an artist. In short, I wanted to become one of the contemporary artists whose work I studied and admired.

Before grad school, I thought I knew how to paint; I had some notion of why I wanted to paint but in grad school I questioned everything about myself, my goals, and my practice. I was consumed with anxiety and self-doubt that made me feel at times like I should abandon the hope of ever becoming a “real” artist. While my friends were getting married and buying houses I was eating frozen meals, sleeping on a shitty futon, and spending the few dollars I had from my assistantship on art supplies and books.

I wouldn’t say that I completed the MFA brimming with confidence in my work or carrying a map to success. What I did leave with, however, were a few important disciplines and core convictions that continue to anchor my work to this day. Today, I can confidently assert that artists continue to learn and evolve over the course of a lifetime. I’ve distilled the lessons I chose to sustain after school into a few core tenets that have become the essential pillars for building and nurturing my practice.

1. Know Your Craft: Critiques in school were challenging. When discussing my work in a group critique I needed to be able to confidently explain every choice I made, from surface preparation to brush size and color mixing. If I couldn’t explain why the choice was important to my professors and peers I had to ask myself if I needed to make a change. I remember a particularly difficult critique when the professor asked me: How many layers of gesso had I applied? Did I sand between layers? Was I using an oil ground or acrylic? My answer: I’d bought a pre-primed canvas. I had no idea how many layers of gesso it had, and I definitely wasn't sanding a ready-made surface. My heart races just thinking about the muffled laughter and snickering my answer provoked in the class. Before completely dismissing my work, the professor said, “This canvas isn’t worth the paint you’re putting on it.” Believe you me, I started researching gesso and substrates after that critique. There are artists who apply forty layers of gesso to their surface because it completely transforms the paint application. I’ve found that four layers of gesso sanded in between layers is enough for me (admittedly I’ve never applied forty). But it took experimentation, preparing my own surfaces, and a lot of trial and error to learn that a well-crafted painting is the result of every material choice and thoughtful decision. Think about every detail that goes into the making of your work and you will continue to grow as an artist because you will become an expert in knowing your craft.

2. Be Your Own Best Judge: Sharing your work publicly inevitably invites scrutiny, but not every opinion is valuable to your work. Learning to accept criticism as an opportunity for growth will help you decipher which feedback to consider and which you should let go. The more you dig into questioning your own work, the better you’ll become at filtering out the input that doesn’t need to stick. Conversely, you’ll know when a critique is valuable and considerate. People will share their critique of your work for any number of reasons, not all of them have anything to do with you. Some opinions are none of your business. This leads me to want to underscore an essential truth: external gratification never fuels real growth. An artist’s growth is an internal landscape of work that, once solidified, becomes unshakable.

   

3. Keep Your Artist Muscle Active Daily: After a difficult first semester in grad school, I was heading to visit my family in Florida. A professor asked how I was going to work over the break. Well, actually, I wasn’t planning to work at all; I was planning to lounge by the pool and walk on the beach while listening to my iPod. I remember vividly that my professor’s response was critical. His exact words, as I recall, were: “That’s unacceptable. You can’t spend four weeks without working." I knew I’d have to return to school with evidence of work, so I packed my sketchbook, drawing supplies, and camera. Every day, I carved out time to sketch, take photos, and write about the work I was developing outside of the studio. I realized that work doesn’t just happen in the studio; it’s a constant mental engagement that I take with me everywhere. This exercise has proven to be the constant that keeps me going and thinking of myself as an artist when life is lifing and studio time is hard to find. Finding some small act of engagement with the artist compartment in my brain everyday makes the transition back into the studio far less daunting after a long break. Over time, I’ve found that committing to my artist self allows me to absorb everything I experience as part of my practice. Rather than narrowing my focus to only consider the physical output of objects valuable, I’ve expanded my perspective to see every moment as potential for the work. In this way, I perceive myself as an artist even when my output isn’t visible to the rest of the world.

4. You Have To Work Through Self-Doubt: For me, self-doubt and anxiety go hand in hand, and together they often create a mental spiral that leads to paralysis. This cycle aptly describes my first year in grad school. Fueled by confrontational critiques and a lack of confidence, I questioned every aspect of my artistic foundation. I made very little work the first year because I was so trapped by my own overthinking and the need to be taken seriously. I wanted to make conceptually strong work first, technically strong work second. I actually spent weeks working on the same small painting of a spoon, over and over again. I thought that if I poured enough hours into one painting, the work would eventually become strong just from the time spent handcuffed to the same subject. Stress was making me turn inward and hide rather than making me produce. Eventually I realized that the more work I made the more I was able to answer difficult questions because the answers came through the work. With more work came the ability to see the result of my questioning rather than keeping it all in my head. I no longer allow self-doubt to paralyze my process; instead, I work through the doubt until I can clearly define the direction. I make some really bad paintings in times of transition but I’m also able to see how those transition pieces lead to stronger work.

5. Never Stop Asking Questions: In the midst of the systematic stripping away of self—a process that turned the right side of my brain into a protective fortress—questions were an unwelcome foe. I couldn’t answer even the most basic questions: Why did I want to paint? What was my subject? What informed my palette? Which painters inspired me? Why didn’t I just throw in the towel and go work as a manager The Gap? (no really I had that thought). As soon as I managed an answer, if it was challenged, I abandoned it. I was constantly shifting to find the right answers. As I went through a funnel of questioning looking for the end I came to an important realization: I will never stop asking questions of myself and my work. In fact, I’ve learned to embrace the cycle—questioning breeds curiosity, curiosity leads to creativity, and creativity demands more work. Also, I no longer take questions so seriously. It’s okay to not know the answers. Now, instead of paralyzing me, the unknowns simply drive me to want to find out what happens next.

My Grandma Winnie’s bathroom had pink cabinets and a grid of tiny pink tile with white grout on the floor. It was shell pink, a very specific pink from the 1960s that leaned beige. The cabinets and tile were the same shade as my grandmother’s bathrobe and slippers. She always had cocoa butter soap and Close-Up cinnamon toothpaste on the counter. When millennial pink emerged as a cultural zeitgeist somewhere in the 2010s, I felt like the universe was celebrating my Grandma Winnie and remembering her quiet elegance. I use Winnie’s pink over and over again in my work as a way of connecting to her and re-telling my family history.

The latest issues of Architectural Digest always occupied a prominent place on Winnie’s coffee table. I remember flipping through the pages and feeling a disconnect from the reality that I knew. Architectural Digest was special. I wasn’t allowed to cut it up to use the pages in my collages like Better Homes & Gardens magazine. I didn’t think that my grandparents’ house would exist in the pages of Architectural Digest but I knew that their home always felt sophisticated and polished.

Winnie’s couch was stiff and upholstered in rust-colored linen with a chinoiserie print of pagodas that felt fancy and pristine. It wasn’t like the couch in my house—the rough salmon-colored corduroy one that sunk in the middle because my siblings and I jumped on it and fought over the spot closest to the TV. There was no TV in the living room with Winnie’s couch. There was celery green carpet, a record player, a fireplace, and a beautiful dresser by the front door where Winnie kept her car keys, her leather gloves, a tube of Clinique lipstick, and Chiclets gum. She always stopped at the dresser to put on her lipstick and her leather gloves, pop a brilliant green square of Chiclets, and grab her car keys before she walked out the front door, even when she was going to the grocery store.

When I start working on color stories in my work, I begin with the memory of personally meaningful spaces, like the specific pink hue of the cabinets in my grandmother’s bathroom. Since my grandparents’ home was rooted in the 1960s, I look at the design trends of that era to understand the influences that formed their aesthetic choices. Once I’ve established the core palette that comes from my memory of the past, I connect the colors to the present by layering in contemporary trends. If I’m seeing a lot of celery green and rust in current interior design trends, I introduce three color variances to make the palette feel current. So, for instance, I take the celery green and rust pairing from my grandparents’ living room and I layer a moody blue or eggplant plus a butter yellow as a nod to the design I’m drawn to today.

My aim is to anchor my emotional connection to the past with the inspiration I find in current design trends. By linking the two, I create color stories that respond visually to popular culture while carrying the depth of lived experience. Color is nothing if it’s not emotional. I believe color is inevitably bound to nostalgia; by tapping into the depth of a shade as seemingly sweet as shell pink, I am asserting that it’s powerful.

Winnie was quiet and kind. She was the wife of a respected Presbyterian minister, a mother of four, and a voracious reader. She was also an absolute shark when it came to playing Scrabble. As I age I realize more and more about her strength and I remember her in color.

There was a time when I thought that if I could find gallery representation my career would be made. I would sell work, be included in major publications and noteworthy articles, participate in art fairs, and make enough income to be able to commit full time to my studio practice. Somewhere in between the uncertainty of emerging as an artist and the realization that I might just be mid-career, I came to the understanding that I was wrong. With this knowledge comes some insight that I want to share. For artists there is no one size fits all framework for success. That said, if you’re committing to a career as an artist you’re probably at least thinking about gallery representation. As an artist who has had a long career in organizing exhibitions and working in the arts, here’s what I want you to know . . .

You’re In Charge: Whether or not you aim for regular sales of your art, pricing and sharing your work with an audience makes you a small business owner. The sooner you own your voice, your goals and your commitment to your practice as a business owner, the better. In the expanse of a career you’ll form many partnerships - with studios, collaborators, galleries, writers, curators and collectors. Know what you want so that you can form partnerships that align with your values and aspirations. Write about your work, establish your pricing consistently, value your time, present your work professionally, communicate thoughtfully, and honor your commitments. Like any business owner, when you show up reliably you’ll find opportunities because others will want to work with you again.

If You Aren’t Invited To The Party, Make Your Own Party: It can be hard to find exhibitions and opportunities to connect with a wide audience. I’ve received far more rejections than invitations (in fact, I received three rejections today). However, if you’re creative enough to make artwork, you’re probably innovative enough to come up with a unique way for people to see it. You can mount an exhibition anywhere - a U Haul, a garage, your apartment, an empty storefront, a classroom, even a pop up with a business that fits your vibe. Over the years, I’ve curated shows and collaborated with artists to make exhibitions happen when my calendar was otherwise empty. My advice: create the exhibition you envision—whether it’s an installation, a series of paintings, or a performance. Document the installation and artwork with professional photography, and then invite the press, curators, writers, artists (everyone you know and want to know basically). Give the exhibition a title, write a show statement and an artist statement, send out your own press release, and add the images of the exhibition to your website. If you’re not a strong writer, hire someone who will work with you to create a statement that meets your needs. Use the images and writing sample in applications to support your exhibition history. Follow up with everyone you invited to your art happening and you’re on your way to building new relationships and finding new opportunities (boom goes the dynamite).

Galleries Are Partnerships, Not Ownership: For-profit galleries function as small businesses, meaning their priorities, marketing plans, timelines, budgets, and ethics are distinct. No two galleries operate the same way. As an artist you need to solidify your priorities, pricing, work output, and marketing plan so that you know what you’re looking for in a gallery. Ultimately, you want to partner with businesses and organizations that fit with your business model and share your values. The more you define what you want and what a successful partnership looks like for you, the more likely you are to form relationships with galleries that support your work. You should expect to review a working agreement with a gallery or exhibition space before you agree to send work. The time to ask questions and evaluate if you think you’re a good fit is before you sign the agreement. If a gallery expects new work every month and you don’t think you can make enough work to fulfill your end of the agreement, talk about this and create clarity with the gallery before you overcommit. Conversely, if a gallery agrees to pay you four weeks after a sale and that doesn’t happen you are going to have a hard time trusting your partnership. In the end, galleries are part of a puzzle with lots of pieces that require constant change but they are not the whole puzzle.

Relationships Are Important: Artists need a network of support to be able to grow and succeed. The most successful artists I know have formed the strongest arts communities around them. Artist peers will provide solidarity in the form of feedback, introductions, advice, and inclusion. You have to be incredibly self-reliant to pursue the work of being an artist but isolation won’t benefit you outside of the studio. I’ve found that support from other artists has made a huge difference in how I view success. Working as an artist is often difficult, conflicting, emotional, and frustrating. But having friends who truly understand your unique dilemmas makes the struggle feel not just manageable, but deeply valuable.

Your unique view of the world is what makes you valuable. Believing that your work is important should always be at the core of the decisions you make and the relationships you form. I know for sure that there is never enough external validation to make you feel like you’ve made it; it’s an endless cup that can’t be filled. The most vital question you can ask yourself is this: Do I believe in what I’m making, and does making it bring me joy? If the answer is yes you’ve made it.

Leave a comment

So I’m here to share how a creative lens makes being an artist more perceptual shift than work output. I want to share the way that words shape my work, how I find beauty in almost everything, how heightened sensitivity influences my perception, and how I try to connect to people even though I prefer solitude.

We’ll see how it goes. I’m sort of thinking of this as an extension of my sketchbook. It’s a mess but there’s a lot of good ideas in there.