Saturday was another day of Artist Trust EDGE training; what I like to call a course of study about the business of being an artist. In the morning we continued to talk about portfolios and looked at a few examples and critiqued one of our classmate’s photos. Some were ok, but even the better ones we had comments on and our instructor indicated that they were of bad enough quality that it could give a juror reason to give it a pass – it seemed a little harsh to me. She said the photos in “American Craft” magazine should be our benchmark, -- perfection – if that is true, you absolutely need a good professional photographer experienced in taking photos of your kind of work to get anywhere. More $$, no snapping pics with your own digital camera. You would think they could get past a little imperfection and see the work, but I guess there is so much out there, they don’t have to.
We also went over out artist statements. I brought in the one I did last spring for our student show which I was quite happy with, but with more people looking at it I can see that it’s too long and I need to take the bio information out of it – more to do.
The afternoon was looking at grant proposals, concentrating on the GAP grant that Artist Trust awards. Mostly I think because it is somewhat attainable, small amount, and they give out quite a few each year, but there are also more applicants applying each year as artists find out about it. After discussing some dos and don’ts we looked at a number of past grants that had been funded, sometimes we shook our heads at what they gave money to, but apparently 80% of the award is based on your work samples, not what you’re asking for.
It was another tiring, but good day of information.
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