ArtSake

The platforms and technology make it feasible, and even, in the right circumstances, advantageous: artists bypassing traditional gatekeepers and presenting work themselves.

In some cases, an artist may decide that self-publishing/presenting is the most appropriate method for a particular work. In others, an artist or group becomes a presenter to benefit their discipline’s community, as a whole.

We asked artists who’ve crossed to the other side of the gate: Why did you decide to become an artist/presenter?

Cathy Jacobowitz, who is self-publishing her novel The One-Way Rain
I realized that I had been perfecting my craft for 25 years, and that I had allowed myself to be held back by my desire for authorization from the literary establishment. Since I decided to self-publish, a large weight of bitterness has been lifted from my shoulders. I can go into a bookstore without hating every literary novelist who got a book deal. The prospect of marketing my work, which used to paralyze me with dread, now seems natural and doable. I’m a happier person.

Jason Slavick, Artistic Director of Liars and Believers and director of Le Cabaret Grimm (for which he wrote book and lyrics)
I began my career directing whatever shows were sent my way. Along the way I created my own original small projects. Soon I realized that devising my own work was what I really wanted to do, and no producer was going to pony up to present it. Why should they? Take a risk on an unknown writer/director? Especially on works they’re never seen. How are they supposed to sell tickets? So I decided to produce my own work and take out the middle man. I now have total control – but also all the headaches and all the work. Funding is the hardest part and it steals time and energy from creating art. I’m looking for partnerships to help ease the burden. It’s important to find mutually beneficial relationships that feed everyone’s artistic needs while spreading the producing weight.

John A. Walsh, illustrator and creator of the graphic novel Go Home Paddy, published as an online serial
The BIGGEST reason to present Go Home Paddy myself is mainly the poor state of the economy. In an economy where everyone is scared to spend money or to take a chance on something new? Just DO IT YOURSELF. Perhaps when the economy improves, artists will go back to seeking/using gatekeepers, but I’m not sure about that. The internet allows us to cut out the middle man in many respects and to connect with people/patrons on our own. And what better way to expose people to your work than by exposing them to yourself as well?

Also, crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter are changing the way many artists can make money from their work. So once again: Just DO IT YOURSELF. If a traditional publisher doesn’t want to publish Go Home Paddy, then I have the option of turning to Kickstarter to fund the printing of the book and getting it into people’s hands that way!

Kelley Donovan, choreographer and curator of Third Life Studio Choreographer Series, a monthly showcase of Boston-area choreographers
I decided to host the Third Life Choreographer series for several reasons. There are not many opportunities for choreographers in Boston to be presented. Additionally, there are almost no opportunities to workshop a new dance work in the area in front of a small audience on a regular basis. After spending time in NYC and showing a lot of works in progress with Movement Research, I felt this opportunity was really valuable and greatly improved the quality of my work. I wanted to continue this process in Boston, and I want to provide an opportunity for other dance artists to do this as well.

I’ve also been spending several months a year in NYC for the last several years and have felt increasingly disconnected from my dance colleagues here in Boston. I often miss the one presentation they do each year when I am away, and this was a chance to see others work and also for them to see what I have been working on. It can be a bit isolating when you are just at work in a studio with your own company only, and I need those connections for my own artistic growth, I hope other choreographers have benefited as well. It also gives me a chance to network with others, meet dancers and musicians I would not otherwise see and form future collaborations with.

We are starting a Kickstarter campaign in July and hope the arts community will support this endeavor by donating whatever they can. All the proceeds will go to pay the choreographers who present the work each month. We have presented the work of over 20 artists in 6 short months and would like to provide an opportunity for working artists to make a living doing what they love.

Jason Slavick’s Liars and Believers will present Le Cabaret Grimm at New York Musical Theatre Festival (July 23-July 28)

Kelley Donovan’s Third Life Studio Choreographer Series in Somerville will present its next showcase on Friday, July 13, 8 PM

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Community can be a place, a group, an environment, a conversation. In the arts, community means all that and something more. We recently asked artists in different disciplines: What makes an arts community thrive?

Lara JK Wilson, MCC Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow, Board member and Instructor at Grub Street Writers, Inc.
What makes a thriving writers’ community? The short answer: the generosity of spirit and open-mindedness of the writers in it. Working in isolation, writers engage in their community for many reasons – to discuss craft issues, get honest feedback, feel encouraged, be inspired. What seems to make writing communities thrive is a real feeling of solidarity, i.e., wherever you are in the process you belong because we’re all in it together. When writers of all levels are respected, they not only find support but are eager to learn from one another, to take risks, to innovate.

Sarah Slifer, choreographer
There are different levels of arts community: global communities within genres, like “The Dance World,” and then the multi-disciplinary communities tied to a locale, like in my current hometown Gloucester, MA. I think artists function best when they have a grasp of how to move well through both their macro and micro communities. But within the micro/local, I think three main elements influence whether a community is thriving: 1. Artists need OPPORTUNITY, and the people or organizations that make opportunities happen, within the community. Maybe it’s an affordable studio, maybe it’s a great little theater that’s theirs for the taking, maybe funding channels, but the artist needs to feel like there’s something for them in a community. 2. Artists need TO TALK ABOUT ART. Whether it’s for critical feedback, suggestions on costumes, a clash of opinion that makes you confront your own practices, or getting inspired by someone’s work in another discipline, dialogue is good, and should be sought out. 3. Lastly, it’s always good to SHOW UP or at least SHOUT OUT for each other’s openings and performances and readings. In other words, artists need acknowledgment from the community for the work they do within it.

Samantha Burgoon, Founder and writer, BostonArtUnderground.com
I think participation is the single most important factor in determining the health of an arts community, and for an audience to grow, people have to feel that they are able to access that community. I’ve met so many Bostonians who are interested in the arts – people who want to see great exhibitions, and view interesting performances – but who just don’t know how to enter into the so-called “art world.” Either they don’t know where to find information about gallery shows and announcements of openings, or they feel that they don’t belong to the typically exclusive world of contemporary art. With Boston Art Underground, I’m attempting to shake the connotation of elitism that today’s arts culture has acquired, and to show people that wherever you are in the city, great art is never more than a subway ride away. I want every Bostonian to feel like he or she is a welcome member of Boston’s art scene, because the more participants our community has, the stronger it will become.

Kathleen Gerdon Archer, artist, owner of White Bird Gallery, member of Rocky Neck Art Colony
What makes a community of artists thrive? The support of serious, hard working artists and neighbors who believe that what you do is important and want you to succeed. A variety of studio and gallery spaces at reasonable rents is critical. The opportunity to show work, continue an artistic education without high costs, and ask for a critique from others you trust makes life as an artist quite wonderful. Read more.

Julie Hennrikus, Executive Director, StageSource, a service organization for theater artists
Balance. The balance between theater makers, organizations, and audiences. Promoting and facilitating active communication between those three constituencies. New tools, like social media, make this communication easier and more authentic than ever. It also means that it can’t always be curated, but is that a bad thing, especially in theater? Theater is not about passively receiving art. It is about engaging with the art. That can mean being an active audience member who reacts to the action on stage, applauds and then goes home. Or it can mean the audience member who follows the designers’ blogs, reads the dramaturg’s notes, attends the talk back with the playwright and the director and posts a review. It can mean the actor who has a twitter account and engages with other theater makers and audiences. It can mean the organization that uses social media to engage audiences with the process of creating a piece of theater. All of this communication, these conversations, are two way because of the rise of social media and the fall of many gatekeepers. And while the adjustment may be tough for some, the opportunities are huge for our community.

Balance doesn’t mean being so entrenched you cannot move. It means being nimble enough to adapt, and to stay upright. No one area should dominate, and all areas support the other two. The three components of our community – theater-makers, organizations, audiences – must be in balance in order for the entire community to thrive.

Scott Listfield, painter
What makes an art community thrive? You. Doing stuff. This is probably pretty self evident, but you can’t just make some art and expect an arts community to grow up around you. Local galleries might not call (or exist), and museums might treat you like that guy at the bus stop with an eye patch and odors (although hopefully not). Maybe you’ve looked and there’s nobody else doing what you do in your city. That’s tough. Go make friends anyways (make enemies, too – a little rivalry never hurt). Go to their openings. Promote their work like you would your own. Go online. Find artists or blogs featuring work you like. Your community is not just people in your neighborhood. Somewhere there are likeminded people doing things you’ll love – go find them and email them, blog about them, post their work on facebook or twitter or whatever is the new big thing in 3 months. Hopefully they’ll like you, too. Maybe they’ll write back, or post your work, or share your site, or invite you to show in their town.

Then keep doing that. There. Now you have a thriving arts community.

Image: Scott Listfield, FLOATING ISLAND PIZZA HUT (2011), oil on canvas, 12×7 in.

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We’ve been exploring issues artists encounter in their work, and we recently asked a variety of artists: How do you choose your titles?

In part two of the same discussion, a wider picture starts to emerge of how titles function in different artistic disciplines.

Deborah Abel, choreographer
Usually the title for my choreography offers the only words I will be using to convey my intention to the viewer. I use the title to unfold layers of meaning that will speak differently to different individuals, and to introduce the spiritual/philosophical truths I want to share and explore. With just a few words I want it to create questions and images that the audience will bring with them to the performance (and entice them to attend). The process of searching for a title can take weeks if not months. It’s is a part of the creation that I enjoy immensely .In my most recent concert Calling to You: A Tale of Ancient Wisdom in the Modern World, the basis for the concert was a story that included a parable from ancient India. For months we called it the “India concert” for lack of another title. I read through Rumi poems and took notes on many different lines. I found that one jumped out from the list: “Standing on the bank calling to you.” I was drawn to the mystery of who is calling to whom and the layers of meaning in the line: earthly and divine love, personal love and universal all calling to you.

In The Beauty Road, our concert about the power of community, we were working on a “wedding scene.” For the title we looked for synonyms for “witnessing,” and found The Beholding, a perfect title, we thought, for the event itself and the community’s role as those beholding and making real this love for the couple.

Michael Teig, poet
“How do you choose your titles?” The short answer is I don’t know. Good titles are a kind of seduction (Or sometimes, like any seduction, they just seem good at the moment). Some titles start as lines and then migrate up or often to a completely different poem. I choose titles while a movie or a song or a friend is talking and I drift off over a phrase they’ve said. Some start out as common expressions or instructions or simply images I’ve been carrying around.

Another answer is I steal them. Some come from songs (Snatch it Back and Hold It), some from books I haven’t read (Au Bonheur des Ogres was on the shelf at my then girlfriend’s house), and some from ridiculous jobs I’ve had (Directory of Obsolete Securities exists – I used it to research a web-based game about Wall Street). I choose titles from things I’ve thought or heard or misheard or thought I’ve thought. I put them in cold storage: notebooks where they wait. I write them on receipts or say them into my phone like a detective on TV. I pull the car over when my son says something I’ll need to use later. A good title is a very short poem by itself. And in that respect you can think things with a title that you can’t think anywhere else.

Carrie Gustafson, glass artist
It’s really important to title the pieces, as a title provides a reference for the viewer and a window into what the piece meant to me when I was making it. The pieces which have “Bottle” or “Bowl” in the name are often called that so the gallery knows what piece I am referring to! Or (as in the case of my thistle bottles) it signals a form or pattern that I repeat, as opposed to a title like Caju, which is a one of a kind work.

Richard Raiselis, painter
Titles are a good way to remember paintings when they are no longer in the studio. I choose titles largely for my own amusement, and so that I can visualize my picture when friends tell me that they saw one. My paintings on the MCC website include Thelonica, Prelude, Toots Teal Man, and Eighty-Eight. These titles all refer to jazz – music that I play and enjoy listening to. Sometimes my wire pictures look like musical scores, or like heads; in jazz the head is the melody played before improvisation. (Read more about how Richard selected these titles.)

In each case, the title post-dates the picture. I may joke around with possible titles as I paint, but I don’t think that my word games influence my formal choices as I work.

Facing Music, an exhibition of work by Richard Raiselis, opens at Gallery NAGA on May 4, and runs through May 26, 2012.

Images: still image from CALLING TO YOU, choreographed by Deborah Abel, photo by Liza Voll; Richard Raiselis, EIGHTY-EIGHT (2011) oil on linen 40×40 in.

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I made it. Now what do I call it?

We’ve been exploring issues artists encounter in their work, and we recently asked artists in different disciplines: How do you choose your titles?

Paul Endres, Jr, painter
Being a painter in a digital age is, at least in part, a contradiction. Many artists might also suggest that providing titles to their visually-based art is also a contradiction of sorts, or at least unnecessary, and in some cases I would agree. However, my work is the descendent of a specific niche of art history, 19th century history and portrait painting, one that not only requires titles, but also depends on them to explain the narratives or patrons.

My work is an ongoing series of paintings about an alternate reality in which a disastrous unseen event known as the American Burden is causing destruction and civil war. The paintings exist as memorials to these events; fictional historical artifacts. So for me, at this time and making this work, naming a piece is like the planets aligning, in that there are many criteria to fulfill. The titles must further complicate the image by providing an additional context, give insight into the narrative, and to hint at the illogical nature of the individuals of this reality, who like us, thrive on contradiction.

Jason Palmer, jazz composer
I’ve always found it to be as big a challenge to adequately name a composition as it is to write it, especially if I’m composing purely for the sake of composing, and not for a particular project. Luckily I’ve always found inspiration for titles from people, places, and events that I’ve related to. I’ve used “plays on words” as titles (especially if it happens to be a “quirky” melody). I’ve come to find that my compositions usually resonate with the listener to a stronger degree if they have a catchy title and a story that conveys the inspiration for the title.

Kathryn Burak, author of Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things
To my mind, the best title is taken. Picnic, Lightning, Billy Collins’s fourth collection of poems, took the prize a while back. Collins’s title comes from a line in Lolita. “My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three.” Who would think the best title in the world would be tucked into parentheses in chapter two? (Okay, Billy Collins would.) So, when my editor, Nancy Mercado, told me the sales and marketing team decided my very quiet title, The Dress, needed to reflect the excitement in the plot – the road trip! the mystery! – I automatically said, “Sure. As long as we can find a Picnic, Lightning.” Though Nancy agreed having a perfect title would be nice, she admitted that she wasn’t sure how much a title might make or break a book – providing you don’t hit the apex, as Collins did.

Before this request to retitle my book came, I had joined a collaborative marketing group for debut YA writers (The Class of 2k12), and we had already printed up a mass mailing advertising my quiet title. I quickly sent word that the new batch of posters and postcards to librarians should have my new, more action-packed title, How People Disappear. It wasn’t until my third and final title got the okay, months later, from sales and marketing (Emily Dickinson needed to be a part of the title, they thought) that I realized how many different books I was promoting with my group – three books, or at least three titles – on bookmarks, mass mailings, and websites. Oh, and the current title – Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things – everybody shortens it to Emily’s Dress. Not that far off the original.

Masha Obolensky, playwright
I know some writers who start with the title. I never do. Coming up with a title is always challenging for me. It is often something I do when I find myself lost. So I throw down the gauntlet – what is at the heart of this play, Masha? Say it in a few words. A few years ago I wrote a play about girls and desire and after I had completed a first draft I brought it to my class at Boston University. Hearing my cohorts’ comments, I realized that I was walking a fine line and that what I had written could easily be misinterpreted. I decided to entitle it The Girl Problem. It’s not mysterious like my other titles – this one definitely positions me, the writer, in relation to the material. Giving the play this title helped me to sharpen the play, while allowing me to keep the ambiguity that had elicited so many different interpretations among my classmates.

Read part two of How Do You Choose Your Titles? featuring a choreographer, poet, glass artist, and painter.

Image: Paul Endres, Jr, THE OATH OF HAMILTONIAN INACTION (2011) acrylic on canvas, 62×96 in.

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Truth, whether revealed, bent, created, or discovered, told straight or told slant, is central to the creative process. Sometimes, the question of what is and isn’t true in art can become a deep source of controversy.

We’ve been exploring issues artists encounter in their work, and we recently asked artists in different disciplines: How do you incorporate the “true” in your art?

Tracy Slater, writer and founder of the Four Stories literary series
As a literary event host, I leave it up to my featured authors to decide how to render the truth without sacrificing creativity in their nonfiction – and I learn a lot from their abilities to do so. As an academic-turned-narrative-nonfiction writer, this is a challenge I’m fascinated by: I was trained as a literary critic to detail the truth as dryly and clearly as possible, but now, as I’m learning to grow (I hope!) as a creative writer, I know that to write great narrative, as opposed to theory or criticism, you somehow have to make the plain truth captivating. The key – and the challenge – I think is not to allow yourself necessarily to go beyond the actual or plain truth, or to ignore its limits, but to render it in a way that resonates with all the emotional depth of its significance. Sometimes this is incredibly hard, but it’s what makes writing narrative/creative nonfiction so exciting, such a motivating challenge.

Of course, if you’re writing memoir, you can’t always remember every detail of every event that may have happened years ago. In this case, I try my best to be as accurate as possible and challenge myself in my re-readings to pare away any embellishments I’m not sure I trust. But I also think readers know that memoir and creative nonfiction are not the same as reportage, and as long as the writing doesn’t betray the details of how a situation happened, to the best of my memory about it, I feel I’ve done my ethical duty.

Carolyn Shadid Lewis, filmmaker who employs hand-drawn animation in nonfiction films
In my films, I record oral histories with individuals who recount personal experiences of public events in history. Often, these personal experiences are tinged with sadness and pain, of individuals caught in war or brutal circumstances. Visualizing their accounts with stop-motion animation gives access to their stories. The animation allows us to momentarily imagine the invisible memories of the participants of the film, transforming the once solitary act of remembrance into a shareable experience.

I believe that animating oral history in documentary storytelling can protect the individual recounting the story, maintaining their privacy by creating an aesthetic distance between the speaker and the viewer. At the same time, animation also initiates a creative space for the viewer to actively employ their own imagination in the film, promoting an empathetic and tender response to the stories being told. Animation in non-fiction filmmaking allows for a poetic interweaving of imagination and memory.

Gregory Hischak, writer whose award-winning play The Center of Gravity reimagines the Wright Brothers
Truth in art is the artist’s intent – with the assumption being that the artist’s intent is to portray humanity from a newly lit angle. Intent doesn’t follow the book and sometimes you manipulate the truth to help a deeper truth emerge; you walk the slippery slope with only your intent for balance. I frequently populate my work with historic characters because it offers a baseline factual premise that an audience grasps and starts together from. From there expectations are twisted, facts become malleable but only in the pursuit of achieving another truth. All is fair in art, I say, and one should be prepared for detractors. That’s why I carry a mallet.

Matt Brackett, painter whose work (pictured above) explores the borders between the real and fantastical
My artwork tinkers with assumptions of truth and doubt. This is a result of an underlying influence of mine, the seductive suggestion of the unknown couched in familiarity. I find this is an elemental trait in all our lives, since perception and memory, our two modes of deciphering reality, are notoriously fugitive and faulty. Such gaps of uncertainty can be unsettling, but examined, can also yield enlightenment. It’s as tools in this latter pursuit that I try to build and use my paintings. In suggesting wonder or menace within the confines of a naturalistically-delivered image, I try to generate a potential narrative like a machine stores potential energy. I find with this power source I can map and remap my own interpretations of the memories or emotions that brought the image into being. When things are articulated just right, it’s a gift when others can find their own meaning too. And this is perhaps the phenomenon that comes closest to something really “true” in art: a kind of trusting covenant that emerges between an artist and a viewer through which all meaning in the arts is found.

Julie Akeret, documentary filmmaker who recently embarked on a fictional film project
Finding “the true” is kind of like going on a treasure hunt. Sometimes getting to the treasure you need a shovel. Other times it’s a pick. In documentary filmmaking, the shovel is a better tool. In fiction, I like the pick.

Carolyn Shadid Lewis’s quote is excerpted from a guest post in The Public Humanist blog.

Image: Matt Brackett, THE FAMILIARS (2011), oil on canvas on panel, 36×48 in.

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We’ve been asking artists about issues they encounter in their work, and we recently asked three artists currently exhibiting portraits: What’s the most essential element you try to capture in your portraiture?

Always interested in a multi-disciplinary take on things, we put the same question to a photographer, a filmmaker, and a composer.

Stephen DiRado (Photography Fellow ’11)
I have always been interested in documenting people, particularly concentrating on individuals. In recent years, I have devoted time to investigate the close-up portrait. By simplifying and minimizing extraneous details, I’m liberated to examine subtle, emotional expressions disclosed within a face. Without props, or any inclusion of an environment, there is very little to fall back on while posing and lighting a solitary subject. With my camera mounted on a tripod, working at arm’s length from my acquaintance, I converse and direct with a great amount of control. The successes of my photographs begin with the mutual trust between us. The best come about when subjects first appear neutral or void of any emotions but with further inspection, we sense an underlying array of emotions.

David Binder (Film & Video Fellow ’11, Photography Fellow ’01)
The heart of my portraiture, whether it’s in a still photograph, a photo essay, or a documentary film, is portraying the essence of the subject’s personality within the context of their lives. My 2001 MCC-awarded still photo essay of Rebekka Armstrong was a portrait of a woman, a Playboy Centerfold who was living with AIDS. Rebekka’s story is of a woman who is identified by her physical appearance and the fantasy of her sexuality, within the context of her life living with AIDS. (A quote from one of her fans was “if this is what AIDS looks like, what’s the problem?”)

My film Calling My Children is a portrait of a family dealing with the universal experience of loss, of the bonds of love, of the challenging relationship the surviving husband/father and the children have with each other, and of the character development of children who have grown up without their mother.

These projects are not exposes or investigations. They are portraits of people within the context of their lives.

Joshua Fineberg (Music Composition Fellow ’11)
My work Lolita: An imaginary opera based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov is a strange sort of musical portrait: one which is being deliberately created and distorted before our eyes by the very narrator who tells us his is crafting his own self-portrait. The work is constructed entirely within the mind of its narrator Humbert Humbert, who is writing his memoir/novel. All that is shown or heard on stage are the projections of his visions/fantasies. This places us in the heart of Humbert’s perspective and allow us to witness the unfolding of his delusions. This movement from internal to external perspective places the audience in the deeply uncomfortable situation of feeling simultaneously attracted to and revolted by this most seductive monster.

Read more about Joshua Fineberg’s creation of this piece, and hear an excerpt!

Images and media: Stephen DiRado, ERIKA, AQUINNAH, MA, JUNE 29, 2011 (gelatin silver contact print); excerpt from CALLING MY CHILDREN by David Binder; still photo from a production of LOLITA: AN IMAGINARY OPERA BASED ON THE NOVEL BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV by Joshua Fineberg.

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We’ve been asking artists about issues they encounter in their work, and recently, we asked three artists exhibiting in Portraits at Drive-By Gallery (3/1-4/7): What’s the most essential element you try to capture in your portraiture?

Laura Chasman (Painting Finalist ’04)
To capture what is felt, as well as what is seen. Each one of my portrait paintings is a personal journey that explores the humanity that is all around me. I am especially drawn to the youngest and oldest persons. I lose myself in either their primal exuberance or the still waters of their wisdom and fortitude. My need to paint is driven by my need to see these subjects clearly. However, like a mirage it often disappears upon completion and I strike out to do it all over again.

Andrea Sherrill Evans (Drawing Fellow ’12)
I don’t always think about my drawings first and foremost as portraits, but as in the case of this show, it is an interesting way to frame them. By using my husband and myself as figures in the work, I root my investigations about relationships and interactions with the larger world in personal experience, within the bodies that I know best. As portraits/self-portraits, I am always seeking to capture the right expressions and particularities of our bodies.

But in many ways, I see these drawings as functioning more as a portrait of a relationship, rather than of individuals. They are about a kind of balance and negotiation that comes with intimacy and closeness. I hope they can speak to more than just our particular relationship, to the struggle inherent to any relationship: the desire for, and impossibility of a complete connection with another. So in effect, these portraits/figures have the potential to be inhabited by other bodies. Because ultimately, what is it that we look for in a portrait? Some mysterious, ambiguous aspect of that person, made visible in the rendering of their face? Perhaps also some kind of recognition of a bit of ourselves as well, of the things that connect us and of what we share in common?

Helena Wurzel (Painting Finalist ’10)
I explore the layers and complexities of femininity, physical beauty, and the reality and imagination inherent in this realm. The lives, rituals, and introspective moments of myself and my friends are an integral part of the subject matter.

Read part two of this post, where we pose the same question to a photographer, a filmmaker, and a composer.

Images: Laura Chasman, DOSALENA (2012), gouache on museum mounting board; Andrea Sherrill Evans, PLAID SHIRT #4 (2011), silverpoint and watercolor on prepared paper, 14×11 in; Helena Wurzel, SHE’S GOT LIGHT IN HER EYES (2012) Oil on Canvas, 12×16 in. Portraits, an exhibition of work by these three artists, can be seen at Drive-By Gallery in Watertown March 1 – April 7, 2012. Helena also has a show (One Is Always Forgotten, with Ariel Freiberg) at Laconia Gallery (3/2-4/22).

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Artists and creative individuals are often asked (or decide) to make their work available for free. ArtSake guest blogger Bren Bataclan, for instance, gives away all of his Smile Boston Project paintings; playwright Charles Mee makes the full texts of his plays available online for other artists to “remake.” Others might choose to not share any work without direct remuneration.

So, where do you draw the line? Do you donate art to good causes? Share excerpts to build interest? In our conversations with artists in numerous disciplines, we’ve asked: How much art do you give away?

Jendi Reiter, poet
Good question! I hardly ever give my poetry books away, because I think it’s important for creative writers to be recognized as professionals, and unfortunately in our society that means getting money for our work. However, since the publisher of my first chapbook is going out of business, and I still care about this work reaching an audience, I plan to ask her for the right to create and distribute an e-book version for free.

Alice Bouvrie, filmmaker
I often donate a DVD to a relevant, non-profit organization to be used as a fundraiser – either as an item in an auction, or for a screening with a paying audience.

Suzanne Strempek Shea, writer
The question once could have been “How much art don’t you give away?” Early on, I used to give away a lot, between stories, talks, classes and book donations. I was grateful for anyone’s interest in my books, and appreciated any opportunity to spread the word. I’m still grateful for anyone’s interest (no readers/audience/students and I don’t get to do this for a living) and the chance to spread that word, but as I’ve been lucky enough to get busier and busier, I’ve had to pick and choose when and where to donate work and time – because I have only so much time. In recent years I’ve become my family’s primary breadwinner, so I’ve actually been soliciting more paying work to fund dog kibble and other household necessities. I do try to donate work when I can, in continued gratitude for that all-important interest from readers.

Lilly Cleveland, painter
I have given away work for worthwhile causes and fundraisers (mostly silent auctions). This always generates another request from the same group each and every year. I still donate original art work but the donation is NOT tax deductible (Ed: in MA, only the cost of materials is tax deductible for the artist). Once, I heard an interesting solution from Kathy Bitetti of the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition. Give a 20% off coupon as your donation so that the art buyer can come to your studio and pick out a painting and receive the discount. Raffle off the coupon or donate to silent auction.

Elizabeth Searle, writer
“A gift;” you are “gifted.” These are the somewhat lofty terms we use to describe any sort of talent. I once heard a poet advise his students, “If you write for money, money is your God.” Or as Jon Stewart put it, talking about show biz: “You don’t go into it for the health benefits.” In the theater world, while the profit motive is strong, I’ve found there is still at heart a playful spirit of: “Let’s do a SHOW! My Dad’s got a BARN!” These days, I enjoy all the outlets – online and elsewhere – that writers can make “free” use of in today’s topsy-turvy literary world. Of course I prefer pay. But I also like jumping into the mix and giving some of my work away, sometimes in connection with a good cause or two. I have spent over a decade working (and playing) within the group PEN/New England, trying to find ways for writers to use our particular gifts to “give back.” Art for art’s sake – wisely, the MCC named this blog for that creed. Whether or not you eventually luck out money-wise, I think that’s what it comes down to, “art-wise.”

Eric Hofbauer, composer and jazz guitarist
When art became monetized it forever changed the public’s relationship to it. For better or for worse, art and especially great art gets much of the attention and respect it deserves by the price tag it wears. This was the status quo for decades and it worked in all artistic disciplines quite well until the internet flooded the world with free “amateur art” of all kinds. Now the artist must be willing to give something away to reach potential buyers, agents, venues, critics, and most importantly audiences. Personally, I give away full recordings to critics, and all other music industry people, including my musician friends and colleagues without hesitation. I also give away “teaser” or sample tracks via online outlets, like my website, soundcloud, spotify, etc. to my fan base and potential audiences. There is still a vivacious audience in the world who respect great art by placing a financial value on their relationship with it. The 21st-century artist must find ways for “free art” to reach these audiences and pique their curiosities and passions without diminishing art’s reputation by being associated with amateur art outlets.

Jendi Reiter’s most recent book is Barbie at 50; Alice Bouvrie’s film “Thy Will Be Done” screens at First Parish of Watertown on Feb. 10, 7 PM; Suzanne Strempek Shea’s most recent book is Sundays in America; Lilly Cleveland teaches watercolor painting at South Shore Art Center; Elizabeth Searle’s most recent book is Girl Held in Home; Eric Hofbauer will perform at the Lily Pad, Feb. 3, 7 PM and at Longy School of Music Pickman Hall (w/Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club), Feb. 4, 8 PM.

Image: Joe Wardwell (Painting Fellow ’12), NEVER BE STRONG (2011), oil on canvas, 18×32 in.

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Part of the thrill of making art is discovering how your audience interacts with your work. In our conversations with artists in numerous disciplines, we’ve asked: What’s the most surprising response to your work you’ve ever received?

Kathleen Volp, visual artist
I have been under the impression that the subject of many of my pieces was a deeply textured cantaloupe. I was surprised to find many viewers didn’t even remotely see a cantaloupe! Not even a kumquat. People saw protoplasm or coral or some kind of micro-organism or a CAT scan of the brain. It’s all good, even exciting, but really, really shocking to me. How could I not have seen this in my own work?

Mary Kocol, photographer
When I first started exhibiting at Gallery NAGA in 1993, some people thought the photographs were paintings – perhaps because I presented the work without mats or glazing, the traditional way to exhibit photos back then.

Ilie Ruby, writer
I once had a short story ravaged by wolves in a writing workshop. A friend suggested that the best revenge was revision. I looked over the story, dotted some i’s, crossed some t’s, and decided I was happy with it as it was. Then I haphazardly tossed the story into a box marked “contest,” (not knowing what contest it actually was). A few weeks later I received a phone call: “Congratulations, your story has just won the Edwin L. Moses Award for Fiction chosen by T.C. Boyle!” I received a huge prize, a small amount of satisfaction, and learned never again to listen to wolves.

Joshua Meyer, painter
I once stood in front of my paintings with the poet Robert Hass as he described my art to me. I felt like I was in the midst of one of his poems, a participant.

Scott Tulay, visual artist
My daughters, who are eight and five, consistently complain that my drawings are “too scary.” They will ask me, “Why can’t you draw something nice, with color, like with a rainbow?” Once in a while, however, I’ll do a drawing, and they’ll tilt their heads to the side and say, “Not bad, Dad.” This scares me.

Christopher Faust, painter
I had someone point out to me that there was something wrong with my composition – that the figures were too in the middle. When I told him I knew that and I did it on purpose, he kind of got angry and confused, then he stopped talking to me. I also had a piece stolen recently from a show.

Tara Masih, writer
“I love that story about your father.” When I told the woman it was fiction, that the character was not my father, she burst out, “Don’t tell me that! It was better when I thought it was real.” People seem to have a pathological need to have writing be autobiographical.

Rick Berry, painter
Tears.

Paul Goodnight, painter
Silence.

Jeff and Jane Hudson, musicians
YouTube and iTunes.

Shelly Reed, visual artist
Well, the most common response is that people very carefully and diplomatically suggest that I add at least a bit of color. The most surprising response was when someone contacted me from my Web site and asked me to design their tattoo.

Merrill Comeau, mixed media collage artist
I was working at the National Park of the Old North Bridge, on the edge of the Concord River. As I walked down, I fell into a sink hole of mud up to my knee. When I got to a good spot to work, I removed my boots and socks, washed them out in the river and hung them on branches to dry. I set out my tarp, stacks of fabric, lunch, etc. and worked all day. When I climbed back up to the bridge, the Park Ranger told me a group of women, seeing me on the edge of the river, asked where to leave money for the homeless person (me).

Salvatore Scibona, writer
My local Provincetown bookseller tells me that on the day my book (The End) came out, he sold a copy to a woman from New Hampshire, a tourist, the wife of a retired minister. It sounded interesting, she said; she liked the cover. What could be more commonplace than a person on a walk in a small town stopping to buy a book and taking it home? But also, what could be more unlikely, more uncanny from a writer’s point of view, than that a stranger he will never know should walk down a street with years of the writer’s thoughts in her bag?

Image: Kathleen Volp, BOUND MELON #2 (2011), photographic transfer, oil, metal and graphite on fabric and wood panel, 12x12x1 in.

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We’ve been exploring some of the practical issues working artists face in their creative careers.

We asked curators, arts leaders, and visual artists: What’s the first thing you’d tell to an artist looking for new opportunities to present his or her work?

Brian Crete, Creative Director and Gallery Administrator, UFORGE Gallery
It’s best to start slow and have a clear objective. I encourage artists to focus on gaining exposure rather than putting their energy into immediate financial success. Developing a proper foundation and being able to self promote is key for any serious artist. Social media and websites are important tools for today’s artist. When approaching curators, galleries and creative spaces, artists need to remember they’re on an interview, so be prepared. Learn about the organization’s mission as this will help clarify if an opportunity is good for you. Group shows, open critiques and reviews are some of the best ways to gain exposure and build your network. Be present, enjoy the experience and take risks since unknown opportunities may be on the horizon.

Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director, Griffin Museum of Photography
It is about building relationships with curators. It takes time, and success does not usually happen overnight. An artist today has to be able to market his/her work, yet at the same time be mindful and respectful of a curator’s time. I often encourage artists to keep me informed through exhibit postcards or emails. I don’t want to get an email every week but once every three months is not intrusive to me. An artist should ask how a curator would like to remain informed. I also encourage artists to take part in opportunities that provide exposure for them. Portfolio reviews, auctions and group exhibitions are good ways to begin to get work out into the public sphere. Today it is imperative for any serious artist to have a website that is current and presents work in an informative way.

Carolyn Hulbert and Stephanie Goode, Founders of the Rifrákt Artist Collective
Carolyn: Communicate with other artists and/or collectives. Do research; see where and how other artists are presenting their work, locally, nationally and internationally, through websites, blogs and art openings. This is why I love being part of a collective – everyone shares what they know and it creates immense room for rapid growth both artistically and art career wise. Something I constantly do is research other artists. If I get into a show, I look everyone up, especially when I like the work, or it’s similar to mine. I read their statement, bio and artist resume. Perhaps they’ve been part of a biennial that’s right up my alley. Or if it’s a local artist, maybe they’re part of an interesting collective or they’ve shown at a nearby gallery that specializes in emerging artists that I haven’t heard of. Sometimes it’s not about new opportunities as much it’s about your communication skills. Every showing artist needs a contact list, in short, people that enjoy your work and will show up to an event. I’ve seen artists have great opportunities and almost no one shows, and I’ve seen artists show at pizza shops/cafes have an amazing turnout and sell almost everything. Communication is key.

Stephanie: I would first think about how you want to be portrayed in the public eye. Is it a DIY underground vibe you’re after or are your eyes set on high art spaces? It’s not unattainable to aim high but it’s easier to start with more feasible venues. There are so many cafes, restaurants, and other venues to host work at besides the traditional gallery scene. I think starting there helps with the building blocks of how to communicate with your audience, the curator, and how to present yourself as an artist to strangers. You learn a lot, surprisingly.

Candice Smith Corby, Artist and Director of the Cushing-Martin Gallery at Stonehill College
I have two vantage points – one as an artist and one as a college gallery curator, and my opinions and actions are influenced by both of my positions. As a curator, I really appreciate a submission that is very organized. There should be a well-written polite cover letter addressed to the correct person with correct spelling. Artwork examples should be good images that are described well and in detail in an image list. They should not be folded and wadded up inside an envelope that is too small. I prefer to receive a physical submission rather than through email, however I do look at websites that artists refer to via email. As an artist, I think it is important to represent yourself professionally with a clear and concise submission packet. Follow submission criteria or you could be disqualified. Make sure the venue is right for your work but send as many submissions out as possible, knowing that one will eventually be welcomed. Make sure the work is consistent and the images are good representations. From both angles, quality is what rings true, even when taste wavers.

Image: Installation view of VISUAL LYRICS, the November 2011 show at UFORGE Gallery. UFORGE uses an innovative monthly assignment model to spark creativity and encourage unique art submissions.

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