Artist Career Planning for 2023
2023 is quickly approaching and it is time for me to start planning for next year.
Every year so far I have had best intentions to plan for the forthcoming year and then for nobody's fault but my own, I fall short. As part of my new approach to be more accountable, both to myself and my art I have joined the Visual Artists Association and Parker Harris Contemporary visual art specialists.
2022 - How did it fair?
With losing my father in 2021, it took a considerable amount of time for me to recover from the loss and wasn't very productive for a large proportion of the first 6 months. I tried to paint but my heart wasn't in it. We all grieve in different ways and I just couldn't focus. This past 6 months, I have steadily been producing new works, which I am happy with but my bias towards pure abstract art has come to an end. I find abstract painting therapeutic because there are no rules as such and for me it is about shape and colour harmony.
A few galleries contacted me directly asking if I'd like to show with them but I wasn't ready and I am always conscious about "vanity art galleries".... I know that 2 of the galleries fell into this category. Not a route I will ever go down.
2023 Goals
Charity collaboration - previously I have used my art to make donations to several dogs charities namely Jerry Greens, Dogs Trust and Blue Cross. However, they have been very one sided relationships. This year I will look for a charity that truly wants to collaborate and work together to sell the art and create money for both parties. I do want to find a charity organisation that isn't top heavy and the money donated goes to the work on the ground rather than large executive salaries. I will continue to donate 20% of all sales to charities but I need this to be a collaboration.
Competitions - I haven't entered any competitions for 3 years. I will rectify this in 2023. Not sure which I will apply for yet but I will put more effort into them than I did previously and tailor my submissions to the competitions.
Social media - Although the website is up and running, I am not overly keen on social media. I do think it has caused a lot of issues in society but I cannot deny the impact it can have on an artist's career. In conjunction with this I really would like to start doing time lapse videos and increase my video content for 2023. This is something I am going to have to learn over the Christmas period.
New Collections - after a period of purely abstracts, I intend to concentrate on abstract realism in 2023 and more importantly on my old passion for portraiture and animals/country life.