Why now is the best time to be a fine artist

Hey! Welcome back. And if you're new here, welcome to my channel. My name's Christina Kent and I'm a fine artist based in San Francisco. And this video is geared towards all of you aspiring artists out there or also working artists who maybe feel like they're struggling and just kind of need a little boost. I know a lot of us artists are experiencing stress whether it's looking at the closure of galleries and struggles in the art market or looking at the broader economy and things going on in the world. When you read the news, it can feel like a lot of doom and gloom. So I wanted to bring a more positive perspective to the conversation and I want to talk about why now is actually the best time to be a fine artist. Times of change can be really scary and destabilizing. But they also represent opportunities. If the old rules are changing, that gives us a chance to write new ones. So let's dive into the reasons why I think now is the best time to be a fine artist. The first is that there's a lot less gatekeeping in the art world than there ever was before. In the past, you had to get into a selective MFA program and then get discovered by one of the few fancy galleries. But that's completely changed. Yes, galleries and MFA programs are still around but they're not the only way to succeed as an artist. In fact, I read news about established galleries closing their doors every day, every month and so it seems like that might not even be the best way to find success as an artist in the long term anyway. I think the artists who are succeeding today are the artists who are independent and have control over their own careers. And maybe they work with some galleries here and there but they're not wholly dependent on one gallery. And similarly with getting an MFA, you don't need to get accepted into a top MFA program and take on all of the debt that that implies to be taken seriously in the art world. You don't need it to get good training or define community. The internet has democratized a lot of artistic training. There are so many free videos on YouTube that'll teach you anything from painting to making sculptures to printmaking. And if you want to learn specialized knowledge from some of your favorite artists, many of them teach online workshops that are accessible to people all over the world. Plus a lot of galleries and community art spaces host open calls where you can submit your work directly to the gallery, no connections required. And while in the past being at a gallery or in an MFA program was the main way to build connections in the art world, I think the internet has made that a lot easier as well. Through Instagram, through social media, we can share our work with other artists and we can start building our own networks and communities. You can sign up for local arts organizations and gallery mailing lists to know which exhibitions are happening when. And I found that these platforms and being on these lists have helped me feel like I'm in the know in my local art community. And that's led to a lot of local connections in building my own artistic network, even as an independent artist. The second reason why I think now is the best time to be a fine artist is because we have so much access to inspiration. If you're watching this video, then it means you have internet access, which means you have access to basically the entire archive of human art history. This is such a unique and important resource. I've heard about artists who went to art school in the 70s and 80s, and the only way they could see images of famous historical paintings was if their teachers happened to have a book of those pieces. And even those books often contained bad reproductions of the original work. Or they would have to fly to Paris or New York to places with top museums to be able to see the pieces in person. Now you don't need to buy expensive plane tickets or scrounge through the library to be able to study art history. You can browse images of your favorite art pieces online and usually find high resolution versions that allow you to zoom in on the brushwork and the texture without even leaving your house. In addition to being connected to the wealth of art history, we can also see what contemporary painters are doing today. In the past, if you wanted to know what was going on in the contemporary art world, you'd have to spend a bunch of money to travel to New York and go to openings there or go to a big art fair like Art Basel. And even this would show you only a small slice of the broader art world. There would be so many artists that you would probably never see. Now through platforms like Instagram, although I know it has a lot of its own issues, it's so easy to open it up and quickly see what artists like you are working on today. And we don't have to see just what the top galleries want us to see. We can find the artists who are working in our specific niche. We can focus in on our favorite segment of the art world and see exactly what's happening there. And that can inspire and drive forward our own studio practice. The next reason why I think now is the best time to be an artist is that it's never been easier to connect with your people, your audience, the people who absolutely love your work. Because of the internet, you don't have to live in a big art city like New York, London, or Paris to find the people who love the art that you love. With the internet and our smartphones, it's never been easier to connect with the broader art community, other artists, and potential collectors. Today, it's so easy to share our work with a global audience. In the past, artists would have to get someone with a nice camera to photograph their work, have those photographs put on slides, and then take those to a gallery. Then they would hope that the gallery liked those slides, would do a show of their work, and that was the main way of getting their work seen. Compare that to today, where I can take a photo of my paintings with my smartphone, I can immediately share it online, and then someone across the world can see it. I know as artists, it's easy to get frustrated and burned out with social media, but it's still an amazing way to share our work with a huge community of people. And because we can easily share our work directly with collectors, with the people who love our art, it's never been easier to have our own independent, sustainable art career. So the next time you hear about galleries closing or big shifts happening in the art world, try not to panic. The old structure wasn't working for most artists anyway. I think the overall shifts that have happened with the internet have ultimately given the artists more power over their own careers. So don't think that you need permission from institutions or fancy galleries. You can start sharing, start learning, and build an artist's career on your own terms. So for aspiring artists, I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, be sure to like the video and subscribe to my channel. And if you did like this video, I share a lot more advice and tips on being a fine artist over on my Patreon community. So if you want to learn more and get access to exclusive content, then be sure to check out my Patreon. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.