Comments on: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Book Review

By: Sari Grove

Thu, 06 Mar 2014 02:25:13 +0000

Finally sat down & read it cover to cover yesterday…Thank you…Good read…More book recommendations please…

]]>

By: Wendell Myers

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 15:24:41 +0000

Based on your review of this book, I went ahead and bought the Kindle version. I am about 1/3 into it, and have already found it interesting and very helpful. It has helped me remember that I started my adult life as an artist, and that even though I found it necessary to enter a different field after several years in order to survive, and didn’t start making art seriously again until my fifties, I never lost my interest in or involvement in art. When I closed my studio and went back to school in January of 1984, I promised myself that, once I could afford it, I would fill my home with original art and fine craft, and over a period of 15 years or so, did exactly that. About 7 years ago I changed jobs, accepting a 2/3 cut in my income, in order to gain more free time so that I could get both music making and art making back into my life. Even so, balancing the demands of a full time job with trying to be an artist again is quite difficult, particularly in terms of trying to get my work out there to be seen and hopefully sold. These essays say to me that I am, and in a very real way, always have been an artist, and that the struggles I have experienced in manifesting this are all just part of the journey.

]]>

By: Alyson Stanfield

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:33:22 +0000

In reply to jennifer ressmann.

Yay for libraries!

]]>

By: Alyson Stanfield

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:33:11 +0000

In reply to Flora Doehler.

Hope you enjoy it, Flora!

]]>

By: Alyson Stanfield

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:32:47 +0000

In reply to Donna Gordon.

Donna: Something, too, to keep in mind is that these artists are almost all gallery artists. So they rely on people other than themselves to do the marketing and promotion.

]]>

By: Alyson Stanfield

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:30:09 +0000

In reply to Sari Grove.

Thanks for the math lesson, Sari. 🙂
I wish I could ship a book to Canada for $9.48.
I do think you’ll like the read.

]]>

By: jennifer ressmann

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 23:42:24 +0000

Sounds like a great book! I was lucky to find it through the library! Thanks for sharing! 🙂

]]>

By: Flora Doehler

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 21:01:36 +0000

Thank you Alyson for pointing out this wonderful resource.
I’ve just downloaded it from Kobo and the Canadian price was:
Subtotal $12.39
GST/TPS $0.62
HST $1.24
Total $14.25
I can’t wait to dip into it!
Flora

]]>

By: Sari Grove

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 16:06:26 +0000

In reply to Donna Gordon.

So if 3 out of 40 survive on sales, that is 7.5%…Meaning you have to be above the 92.5 percentile to survive on sales alone as an artist, based on Donna Gordon’s having been smart enough to have bought the Kindle version & read it already, whilst I will be behind since it will take 2 weeks to get here…

]]>

By: Donna Gordon

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 15:54:22 +0000

I too read the book and got a lot out of it. (I bought the kindle edition, and it was very affordable.) The biggest eye opener for me was realizing that 99% of artists, including nationally recognized “successful” ones, support themselves with something other than art sales. Be it teaching, other jobs, a spouse, a grant, a trust fund etc, I think only two or three of the forty (I didn’t go back to count) survive only on sales. SO we need to place art sales on the What It Takes To Be Successful list but… maybe not #1, if we do. The other take away, is that we have to just keep moving forward and not be traumatized too much by rejection or too terribly elated by the “big break”. For whatever reason, in the arts world, there is usually not a linear progression to “success”. Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. You have to keep at it, every day.

]]>