Your personal website is your art lifeline to the world. Without it, people in the Netherlands are never going to know what you’re currently producing and corrupt publishing companies won’t be able to steal your hard work.

All kidding aside, if you’re going to be a professional artist in the modern age you should also have a professional website. It’s another tool in your arsenal and can be just as powerful as your paintbrush or stone chisel. Take advantage of it.

In my travels on the information super highway, I’ve encountered many artists’ websites. Some were slick, some were sloppy. Depending on your goals either type may work for you but, strictly speaking as a professional, when you’re trying to land a big job or a coveted promotion, showing up with a mustard stain on your shirt isn’t going to strengthen your position.

Here are a couple of things your website should have if it’s going to be the proactive business tool you want it to be.
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Article of Interest: The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition Needs A New Name

Welcome to the second of two articles dealing with the recently presented Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (TOAE). Cath and I are writing this one together. To read the first one, “The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition Needs A New Name”, please click on the link above. It deals with the lack of accountability by the festival to artists in Canada and does have, I’m afraid to say, a rather negative tone — but sometimes these things have to be said.

We went to the show with two topics in mind. One is the subject of my first article, how the TOAE touts itself as an Art exhibition yet seems to fail artists more every year as its contingent of crafters gets bigger and bigger. The second is the subject of this article, what we saw and liked at the exhibition. It didn’t seem fair to just point out the flaws we found in the TOAE’s mandate. We also wanted to give a positive perspective and a bit of free advertising to artists exhibiting in Nathan Philips that we thought were noteworthy.

If you’ve read my blog in the past and seen the type of artwork that I produce then chances are you’ve got a pretty good idea about what I like. Although I am fairly open to the diversity of artistic endeavours that are currently in play in our society, I hold some above others as being more worthy of praise. A lot of subjects such as stilllife, traditional portraiture, landscape and animal artwork have been done to death.

Although I won’t say these expressions don’t have value in our modern society I find their artistic contribution to be very minimal compared to the new avenues of exploration that more imaginative and open artists are pursuing. As Cath, often points out, although still life and landscapes can be very beautifully rendered, often that ability to realistically render is valued far above any expressionistic input by the artist — in the age of digital media, if all you want is a pretty picture, take a photograph; what point is there in making art unless artists don’t comment on their subjects?

With that criteria in mind, we decided to look for some of the more outrageous and creative artists in the exhibition. We didn’t find many amongst the booths of abstractionists and jewellery makers, but we did meet five different artists who stood out from the crowd, their artworks being not only technically brilliant but showing a degree of mental sophistication that one just can’t find in a close-up picture of water ripples or a thrush sitting on a wetland reed.
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Welcome to the first of two articles I’ll be writing about the Toronto Outdoor Art Festival (TOAE). This article will deal with the necessity of a new name for the TOAE because the one it has does not describe the contents of the package and something must be done.

As it happens every July at Nathan Philips square, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition came to give us a much needed Art booster shot. It was on for three days this year, July 10th, 11th, and 12th. Cath and I took some time on the Friday afternoon to swing by the festival and see what was on the exhibition block this time. We couldn’t have picked a better day as the weather was perfect and the crowds not so crowded.

We saw many booths filled with artwork. There was realistic painting and abstract alike, sculptural works utilizing traditional materials as well as many types of found materials, watercolours, oil paintings, acrylics and just about every type of artwork you could possibly imagine. We also saw many booths filled with fine crafts. There was glasswork of all kinds, jewellery, pottery, fashion accessories and even clothing available to tantalize the visual senses and this brings me to the title of this article — why the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition needs a new name.

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Both Cath and I are avid movie fans. We’ve got a personal collection that we could probably start renting out that is, if people were still interested in watching VHS. We don’t mind it. Our VCR’s still work and I can get old tapes from Eddie at his used book shop Dencan Books and Magazines for less than $2 a pop. Why buy it on DVD for ten times the amount?

On many of those VHS tapes are movies that were made several decades ago, classics of yesteryear as far as I’m concerned. Lately, in the movie industry, Cath and I have noticed a terrible trend of remakes being released, remakes based on these classic films. It seems that the movie industry is at a loss for new ideas and remoulding old films is the only way to produce anything ‘new’.

We’ve seen the release of My Bloody Valentine in 3D, a Friday the 13th remake, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, a remake of Children of the Corn which will be truer to the book, truer than the 1984 version was at any rate, etc. The list goes on. Every time we turn around there seems to be another movie revisiting the past.

Well, why not Art too?

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On July 7th, 2008, I quit my job of four years at Highland Equipment to pursue my career as a professional artist. Highland is a stainless steel equipment manufacturer. I spent most of my time in food and pharmaceutical plants running stainless steel piping and then welding it for production. While it was a decent paying job and the work was engaging to a degree, it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. In July of 2008, I’d saved up enough money to finally pursue my dream of being a full-time artist, so I quit Highland and started the pursuit!

Since then I’ve been living on savings, working to build a viable, self-sustaining artistic business. In order to do this, it has been in my best interest to try and make my savings go as far as possible. I’ve done this in a number of ways and I’d like to relate them to you today.

For all of you out there who are ready to take the plunge and make Art production your livelihood, I’ve made some observations about making your money endure while you bring your dream to fruition, which hopefully you may benefit from. Let’s get started…

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