Research task 4

Other creative strategies

Access interviews by other practitioners in which they discuss their creative process, starting points, how they use challenges, experimentation, and chance, and how their creative strategies have helped to sustain their practice over time. 

I went back into the enterprise hub and found the interviews from some creative practitioners , I picked two to watch, read and look into.

Lydia Halcrow

Lydia spoke about exhibitions, she suggested going to any exhibitions and galleries, research and document them, write down which galleries show Landscapes, Portraits etc, and note down your skill so you know which galleries to contact in the future.

Look for ‘Open calls’ public funded ones are good to pick when you are starting out. The Royal Academy is a good one to look at, although more local ones are smaller to start with.

These local ones are good for meeting the artist and curators, you get to meet like minded creatives that are starting out too, you ca build a small community and exchange ideas and practices.

Building an artists collective can be a good idea when you first graduate, you can do book readings, film nights go to gallery shows together, and then you could put on your own exhibition together.

Look at empty shops the council could rent to you for a short period of time: two weeks, pop up shops. Look at the artists association, other artists studios , they may let you use some of their space for a week or two, to show your work. Village halls are a good place for a collective show, get the locals involved.

This will give you the experience of putting on your own show, you can document it and curate the space between you, take photos and film the occasion, then you can use this, create a small PDF or booklet, then you can use this to show non public funded gallery owners, and it shows experience and what you can create.

Plan ahead create a 1-2 year plan, ask yourself these questions:-

Do I wan to sell or share my work

Do I want to work alone

Is my work activist? I may need to look at other avenues.

What influences you:-

Financial influence?

Motivation and making is my influence?

Commercialise my practise?

Separate job for financial stability?

Art the side hustle?

I found Lydia’s interview interesting, it gave me a lot to think about, even though I’m more of an illustrator, it gave me some questions to ask myself. I t gave me some pointers of how to think when I graduate, and some focus on the future right now.

Molly Fairhurst

I then went on to read the interview with Molly Fairhurst.

Mollie is not represented by an agent but still gets work, but focuses on and relies upon her work being seen live, on her website or on her social media. It is up and down but she finds it doable.

Mollie works in editorial magazines and newspapers, she finds this regular and reliable work, but its not so highly paid.

Branding and advertising’s higher paid, and can financially keep her going for a few months if she’s has some adhock work from them.

Mollie has worked in these different fields:-

Textiles

Children’s TV

Childrens games in magazines

Prints

Mollies clients are mainly US based and from Europe, German magazines tend to like her style the best, and this is where she gets a lot of editorial work from. So its not always in the UK that you will find work, or that UK customers and clients er based, think further afield.

As a freelance illustrator Mollie is based solely online, she connects with clients and proceeds with work mainly by emails, or phone or video calls.

Mollie connects with friends and other liked mined creatives on social media, she has grown up in this way of connecting so doesn’t find it odd or different, for it not to all be in person.

Mollie advises to contact art directors, design agencies and companies yourself, keep the email short and polite, and express a relation to their brand. Link your portfolio or online website for them to view more of your work, and give them an email or contact details if they wish to get in touch.

I found Mollies interview really good, it has helped me to think more about how I need to approach my future work life after graduating. Some of the pointers I already do now, but there are a few I could implement now to start the ball rolling.

I think every illustrator is different in what niches they want to develop and work in, and also everybody’s style is unique to them, so some of her clients wouldn’t be my clients but some would be generally similar, like I would like to work in editorial as well, but my clients might be US based as they prefer my style.