The Bad News and the good

The more I give talks on the subject of being proactive as an artist the more bold I become in delivering the tougher messages. So here are a few of the things I'm now saying more directly:

The News:

• there's no-one to do it for you....do it yourself - you can't just offload writing and promoting your work to others, it matters that you do it yourself as you need to learn how to go about this before delegating it when successful enough to pay for it
• galleries and curators won't come looking, you have to take it to them - so put on your own shows and invite them. Demonstrate your commitment to being an artist by not just making the work but putting on the show, organising the pv, sending out invites etc etc
  
• sending slides (or cd's) unsolicited is a waste of time and money, they end up in a pile and may well get binned - get to know galleries and curators, find out their interests, chat to them, talk about what they are showing before asking them to look at your work
  
• if you don't put the name of the person you want to reach on the envelope it will go straight to the bin - if you can't be bothered to find out a name (and in doing so demonstrate that you've made some effort) then why would anyone come more than half way to meet a stranger like this?