Books and Websites for Beginning a Career as an Artist
Books and Websites for Beginning a Career as an Artist
In this blog posting I reccomend a couple resources that have taught me priceless information for the beginning of this journey. Of the books listed here, I’ve finished about 75% of each of them. But I think I have covered enough to give a good recommendation.
1.)Art/Work by Heather Darcy Bhandari
This book was recommended to me by a coworker who attended school for art. She said that it was a great reference for living as an artist post-schooling and claimed that she pretty much kept it on her at all times - Her recommendation proved useful! I love how this book breaks down the tasks for building a career as an artist from the ground up. It gives you information in a series of steps that make sense from the beginning. You could probably read one chapter at a time and move on to the next chapter once you’ve completed that chapter’s groundwork but I chose to try and read through once (so I have a mental overview of how far I have to go) but maintaining the order of tasks that it suggests. The book also has little helpful quotes from working artists relevant to that page's information. Initially this organization of the book threw me off because it’s not your typical book format. But I grew to like how it breaks up the page to seem more manageable . It also has cute comics throughout the book that provide a nice flair of humor.
2) The Business if Being an Artist by Daniel Grant
This book’s material is arranged in more of the traditional format. From what I’ve covered so far it seems to have more information on a variety of paths that visual artists can take. - as opposed to how you would take them. Meaning I would suggest this book more as a springboard or starting point for ideas on how to earn money as an artist (while I would suggest Art/Work to be more of a How To on less of a variety of tasks). I like how this book seems to give a lot more anecdotal information as to illustrate certain legal aspects and/or arts career possibilities.
3.) Artwork Archive - Website
This site’s main purpose is selling an artwork archival and inventory tool to help working artists manage their work and business. Many of the archiving features actually fit perfectly within the recommended tools in the previous books listed here. I purchased a subscription and it’s definitely altered my financial perspective of the creative process. I began by simply logging all of my expenses versus income in just the most recent month. Yikes. (I’m spending way more than I realized on business expenses.) Currently, they have 3 levels of subscriptions one of which is a free version but you don’t receive a lot of the features with that option. I purchased the subscription for $15/month (they have one more expensive option) and it has been well worth the money.
Even if the monthly expense of an archive isn’t within your budget at the moment, I’d still recommend the site as a great resource. I actually stumbled on Artwork Archive initially for their blog which has loads of helpful information to guide amateur artists. The links and ideas found there have all been clear, concise and just detailed enough to be helpful.
4.) Mind Your Business: A Workbook to Grow Your Creative Passion Into a Full-time Gig by Ilana Griffo
As the title suggests, this is an actual workbook tailored to those with a Creative passion. This has been my favorite resource so far because it helps you manifest business ideas by following actual assignments. Being someone who can fall into the trap of planning too much without action, this book was a godsend. Also, it prompts the reader to think about questions and business aspects that I was not thinking about at all! Most other business starting workbooks that I’ve seen have not been tailored to creative business ventures so this book really is unique for artists. It helps you tap into your unique vision to develop a solid brand and message so it's not just doling out generic cookie cutter business advice.
As always, thank you for reading. Hopefully, these resources inspire you to get started on your journey and effectively guide you in the right direction. I may be coming back to this blog posting and adding more resources that I find along the way or I may just make new blog posts about the topic. (If there are any new blog posts on this specific topic they will be here)
Sylvia Sykes