Julia Harrison

Reading a year-end article from a blogger I normally agree with, I came across some advice that didn’t sit well. She challenged us to deal with envy by first wishing those whom we envy well, and then moving on. I’m totally down with the first part (more on that below) but I believe that to try and sweep envy aside unexamined is not just difficult-verging-on-impossible, but also wasteful. Envy is an invaluable tool for self-reflection and redirection, particularly for those of us whose lives have proceeded along atypical lines. 

Inevitably Enviable 
   One thing I’ve learned from joining a community of driven and high-achieving artists is that a seat at this table comes with a heaping helping of comparison. Comparison has always been a compulsion for me, but back when I was surrounded by geologists or lawyers, it was easier to recognize the folly of measuring my failures as an apple against their achievements as oranges. Now I am an apple among apples, daily aware of how crisp and ripe the others are. 
    These comparisons frequently trigger envy, which I experience as a kind of pull or tug exerted by someone else’s achievements or acquisitions. I have wasted so much time trying to ignore that pull, but eventually I learned that envy has stuff to say and the more I try to shush it, the more insistent it gets. Some sins are like power tools: deadly and useful! Each experience of envy shows me something about who I am and who I might be. 

Jealousy into Envy
      But while I entertain and even cultivate envy, I do everything I can to stay free of jealousy. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, jealousy and envy are fundamentally different. Envy is wanting something that someone else has; jealousy is wanting to have it instead of them having it. If I envy your ice cream sandwich, I’d like to have one too; if I’m jealous of your ice cream sandwich, I lie awake at night plotting ways to take it from you. 
    Jealousy springs from a sense of scarcity and/or the habit of score keeping. Perversely, it reinforces itself by depleting your time, energy, and strength. Jealousy is corrosive, diminishing and destabilizing everything it touches. 
     While I’m no stranger to jealousy and, as with envy, I’ve never had much luck at ignoring it, I have learned to convert jealousy into envy through a process of interrogation. I shine a bright light on its pinched little face and demand the facts: Does that person having The Thing really keep me from also having it (or something comparable)? And is The Thing exactly and truly what I want? More often than not, the person with the ice cream sandwich is happy to tell me where to find the ice cream truck. And then when I get there I realize what I actually want is a Choco Taco. 

Specificity > Scarcity 
     For the most part, when you take a calm step back from feelings of envy, you can see there’s more where that came from: there are more fish in the sea, more cute shoes, more success, and even, more money.
     But what if you can’t shift into a sense of abundance because it really seems like there’s only one of what you want? Only one job, one first prize, one front cover? What if your friend Jesse is dating someone and it’s burning you up because you think Jesse’s Girl is the one-in-a-billion match without whom your life will be hollow?
     Ok, so until cloning is an option, there isn’t an abundance of Jesse’s Girls. So the key to learning from this envy is to get more specific. Perhaps what’s tugging on you isn’t Jesse’s Girl, but the relationship between Jesse and JG: the way they look at each other, or swap hats, or cheerfully team up to wash and dry dishes together. In that case, even if you could lure JG away (the jealousy move), it’s unlikely that you, a different person, would be able to generate the same chemistry. However, if you keep the Jesse+JG model in mind as you date other people, you’ll be better equipped to recognize what you’re looking for when you find it. 
    But what if it really is Jesse’s Girl, the unique individual, who exerts such a pull over you? Maybe JG is the funniest person you’ve ever met, around whom you become the second funniest person. Perhaps instead of severing JG’s relationship with Jesse, what you really want is to establish an entirely new relationship, one in which you and JG start writing and performing comedy together and go on to become global superstars, with Jesse himself cheering you both on from the wings. 
    Envy (and evil twin, Jealousy) can lure us into seeing the world as a binary of have and not-have. If we can learn to sit with our envy and get to know it in detail, envy can also suggest beautifully customized ways of having, doing, and being. 

Envy as Intuition 
    As mentioned above, I believe envy is especially useful for artists and other people whose lives and/or career paths are non-traditional. Not only are our paths generally non-linear and lacking in easy-to-spot signposts or milestones, we tend to meander down them in a bit of a daze, preoccupied by our creative passions. In this lovely daze, it’s easy to forget about what lies beyond our immediate attention, to become diverted or wander in circles. Envy can act as a kind of GPS; it reminds us to look up and check in with our surroundings, it suggests where we should detour, slow down, or take a shortcut.
     I owe my current position as a Penland Resident Artist to just such a GPS. When I first visited the Residents Studios here in 1997 the tug of envy was so sharp it left me breathless. For the next 23 years I wandered through various jobs and studies, and each time I was reminded of the Residency, the pull of envy gave me an opportunity to course correct. As I got nearer to what I wanted, I experienced more and more envious moments, and therefore more opportunities to fine-tune my aims and approach. 

Maximum Resonance
     I remember very little of substance from the year I spent torturing a cello teacher (who eventually protested that she couldn’t, in good conscience, continue taking my money) except for the magic of sympathetic vibration. If you bow a note on a single string and its neighbor is tuned to the same note, the neighbor will hum along without any contact from the bow. 
     A lot of marketing—both commercial and social—aims at getting something in us to vibrate in response to whatever cool/sentimental/aspirational product or life plan is being peddled. Having emotional strings that are stretched and ready to hum along is one of my assets as an artist, but it also makes me ridiculously susceptible to being played, with the result that I’ve cried at cellphone commercials, bought absurd shoes, and enrolled in unsuitable schools. 
    Over the years I’ve learned to recognize when envy provokes only a shallow sympathy within me, like the humming of a single spindly string, and to reserve my attention for responses that are deeper and more genuine. Today, I only take envy seriously if I can feel it resonating in my head, my heart, and my gut. If envy is redirecting me in a way that feels smart, good, and true, it becomes something to aim for; if not, its appeal is shallow and I know from experience that it will quickly pass. 

Envy of All My Friends
     During the years I tried to avoid feeling the sting of envy, that often meant avoiding the smart, successful, fun-to-be-around people who might trigger envious feelings. This was self-sabotage cloaked as self-care! It turns out that the people who have what you want are exactly who you want to be around. Like the ice cream sandwich eater above, they are experts who can tell you how they got what you want, and maybe they can tell you how to get it too. Close proximity to people like Jesse and Jesse’s Girl allows you to try before you buy, figuring out what exactly what you want before you make your move.
     Today, I’m proud to say that everyone I’m close to has one or more attributes that I find enviable, attributes that I can celebrate and mine for inspiration. 

No-Envy Zone
     I also believe that each person should have some arena in which they are so rock-solid that the tug of envy finds no purchase. Mine is my art. That’s not to say that I think I’m the best artist, or that I don’t envy other artists’ circumstances, reputations, accolades, or paychecks. I can appreciate, celebrate, and learn from their artwork, but I don’t envy it. Even when my work isn’t going exactly as I would wish, it’s my work: it’s work that only I can do and it’s the only work I want to be doing. I can’t wait to see what I do next—and I hope that every artist feels the same!
    

​Like so many of my posts, this has been my attempt to articulate and publicly commit to a course of action. It was useful to me to get it all down and I’d be so happy to hear if anything was useful to you. 

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Over the years I have sold my work in dozens of different venues and I’ve experienced dozens of different financial arrangements. When I first started out, I tried to keep my profits consistent; in those days, different shops or galleries might have been selling the same work at different prices.

These days I strive to keep my prices consistent, so that a buyer will pay the same price at own studio in North Carolina as they would at a gallery in Seattle. In the age of the internet, buyers can shop around, but I don’t want them to have to.  

But keeping my prices consistent means that I have to be careful to set prices that accommodate a range of different situations. Here’s how I reverse engineer my prices for three common retailer relationships…

I am the retailer

I sell work directly to customers through my website or during studio visits. I retain all of the money the customer paid for the work, BUT it’s important to realize that this isn’t pure profit: I’m also having to pay for card service fees, sales tax, shipping, packaging, rent, display, customer service, etc.

If I retail a piece for $100, I keep $100 minus the additional costs of completing the sale.

I am wholesaling work to another retailer

This is the relationship I experience least often, and it usually applies to lower-priced production work. I sell the work to a shop or gallery, who will then sell the work a second time to the retail customer. I can set my wholesale price (what the gallery pays me for the work), but I can only suggest the retail price (for the kind of work I do, retailers commonly double the wholesale price to set the retail price). The retail shop or gallery owns the work so they can price the item higher that I suggest, or they can put it on sale. In either case, I earn my wholesale price and the retailer bears any additional costs of completing the sale. 

If I wholesale a piece that has a suggested retail price of $100, I typically make $50. 

I am consigning work to another retailer

This is the arrangement I enter into most often. I send the work to the gallery or store but I continue to own it until a customer buys it; if it doesn’t sell within a certain window of time, it will be returned to me.

If you’re aiming for consistent retail prices, you need to know how much the gallery or store is going to increase your wholesale price in order to set their retail price.. This “retail markup” is often expressed as a ratio or a multiplier. Common ratios are “50/50” (as in the gallery doubles your wholesale price and you each get half of the retail price) or “60/40” (in some cases this means the artist gets 60% of the retail price, while the gallery gets 40%, but it can also be the other way around so be sure to ask which number is the gallery and which is the artist if it’s not specified).  Other galleries will multiply your wholesale by 2, 2.25, or even 2.5 to reach a retail price. 

If you deal with a gallery that offers the artist more favorable terms (aka a bigger cut), woo-hoo! You’ll pocket more of the proceeds! If you’re considering selling through a gallery that has a higher-than-typical markup, be sure that whatever services or support they offer justifies their getting a bigger cut (do they print catalogs? Or have a clientele you’re eager to meet?).  

This is where things start to get a little messy. If I consign a piece that retails for $100, the amount I will earn from the sale depends on the gallery’s markup. If the gallery is 60/40 (artist/gallery) I will earn $60. If the gallery is 60/40 (gallery/artist) or has a 2.5x markup, I will earn $40. 

Your prices should always cover your expenses AND allow you to turn a profit (I’ll say more about this in a separate post). If you are selling in different venues and your want your prices to stay consistent, you will need to set a price that still allows you to cover expenses and turn a profit GIVEN THE LEAST ADVANTAGEOUS FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT. Set your retail prices according to the markup of the gallery or store that gives you the smallest slice of the sale. In the examples above, I’m selling the same $100 item, but my cut varies from $40 to $100; if set my retail prices with the $100 profit in mind, I will be losing money every time I sell through a gallery that only pays me $40. 

This is just my way of doing things and a different approach may be better for you. Whatever you chose, aim for clarity and consistency, and always ask if terms or conditions aren’t spelled out, rather than making assumptions or hoping for the best! 

When I was awarded my first public art commission, I felt like a hunter-gatherer trying to compete on The Price is Right—only instead of guessing the price of a washer-dryer, I was assigned a fixed budget and tasked with generating an appropriate artwork. It was abstract to the point of absurdity; I just couldn’t figure out what $40,000 was supposed to look like. 

Even as public art and public art opportunities become more widespread, the financial side of things generally remains opaque. Although I’ve never bought a washer-dryer, I’ve seen enough ads to know roughly how much they cost; on the other hand, I’ve eagerly examined hundreds of public artworks…without ever knowing the costs involved. I could probably guess the weight of many public sculptures more accurately than I could guess their project budget! I’d be even less confident guessing how much of that budget ended up in the artist’s pocket. 

Leaving aside conversations about commodification, elitism, and cultural values, I’d like to emphasize how detrimental this secrecy can be to anyone hoping to get started in public art: in the absence of concrete information and examples, many of us underestimate costs, overdeliver on designs, and dig ourselves into budgetary holes. So for the sake of transparency, I’m going to choke down my culturally-conditioned discomfort with talking about money and share the budget and expenses for my recent project (Connected Community at the Miller Community Center in Seattle), with further comment on specific expenditures below. 


Total budget                 $46,000

Insurance                      $500
Fabrication supplies      $1,400
Paint                              $600
Tools                              $1,000
Local mileage                $250
Crate                             $800
Shipping                        $4,500
Travel for installation     $3,000
Installation service         N/A
Seattle city taxes           $3,500

Supplies / Tools / Paint / Mileage:
     One advantage of the technique I used for this piece was that the raw materials are relatively cheap. When I first planned the piece I hoped to use more reclaimed materials but the lull in shipping during the pandemic meant I had to change my plan and purchase new material instead. The pandemic also meant that the new material was harder to find, more expensive, and more expensive to ship than when I originally designed the project. 
     I had to purchase a lot of new tools specifically for this project, but most of them are things I will be able to use again. I split paint out from the rest of the supplies so you can see that it’s a significant expense—even for a very small amount of paint. This was my first time purchasing paint and the cost surprised me!
     Local mileage comes from running errands to pick up tools and supplies—and this was when gas was much less expensive than it is at the moment. 

Crate / Shipping: 
    Both of these expenses were much higher than originally anticipated. Because I moved cross-country during the project, transporting the piece back to Seattle was a challenge. I priced out all of the options and decided to hire a shipper rather than driving the piece myself. Because of the shipping backlogs and driver shortage I had a lot of trouble connecting with a specialty shipper; we ended up hiring an installation service (see below) and using a shipper that they arranged. The rising cost of plywood and construction foam meant the crate itself was another unexpectedly high expense. 

Travel for installation / Installation service: 
    Given the difficulty I was having with long-distance logistics, my project supervisor and I decided to hire a professional art installation service. The cost of this service came out of a contingency fund, which we were able to access because the project had been impacted by circumstances I could not have foreseen from the outset. I don’t know exactly how much the installation ended up costing, but it was roughly a third of the total project budget. For any future projects, I would factor this cost in from the beginning, whether I ended up using the service or not. 
    The installation service received the crate and arranged for all the equipment we would need on-site, but I still needed to travel to Seattle to participate in the installation. Again, in the future I might change my design so that my presence would not necessarily be required for installation. . 

Seattle City taxes: 
    After I moved away from Seattle, the city pre-deducted sales tax from the payments it made to me. I’m not sure how common this practice is, but I’m mentioning it here as it had a significant and unexpected impact on my bottom line. 
   
What’s missing from the expenses list? 
In my previous post on public art, I suggested making a pre-project inventory of your existing assets—that is, things and people who can help you save time or money on the project. Assets crucial to the success of this project included: free studio rent and utilities, access to a wide range of expert advice, access to a sandblaster, access to a wood shop to prep parts for the crate, access to a forklift to get the crate out of my studio. If I had had to pay out-of-pocket for any of these, the project expenses would look very different. 
    The biggest invisible line-item of all was my time and labor. I did almost everything myself and I did it painstakingly: research and design, technical samples, fabrication, accounting, paperwork… I logged my time closely enough to be able to more accurately predict how long a future project would take. After much fumbling and figuring out, I would certainly be able to do things like fabrication more quickly next time, but I also spent a lot of time on tasks that were out of my control and probably always would be: correspondence, meetings, chasing service estimates, travel. Going forward I plan to triple or quadruple my estimate of how long it will take to do any task that involves the participation of other people. 

So was this project profitable? 
   Yes and no. If you just look at expenditures, I’m in the black. If you factor in the replacement cost of all the in-kind assets I brought to the table, the profit margin drops. Divide that by the hours I put in, and I still wouldn’t have gotten into debt, but I would not have been making a living wage. 
    But while this might not have been a lucrative project, I can’t consider it a total loss. I’m not out any money; I did lose some time, but I learned something from (almost) every minute of it. It also gave me the opportunity to see my work at a scale I’d never attempted before. 
     My second public art project has left me much better equipped to handle a third. If I manage to land one, I hit the ground running with a more realistic notion of how to design a project that is a more suitable fit for the given budget. ​

I am by no means an expert: I completed my first public art project in 2018, installed my second in March 2022, and am currently trying to decide whether or not to pursue a third. While I have not found public art particularly lucrative or easy, it has certainly been a catalyst for growth and learning. The following are some things I’ve learned about dealing with the conceptual, emotional, and logistical challenges of public art—things I wish I’d learned sooner and hope not to forget. 

YOU WANT IT: Pursuing a Public Art Project

Join the Roster
Many cities maintain a “roster” of artists who have been pre-approved as suitable candidates for public art commissions, and if you are even tentatively interested in public art, there’s no reason not to apply for a roster. Roster inclusion doesn’t guarantee anything, but there’s a good chance you’ll receive targeted announcements about upcoming opportunities, if you’re a good fit for a project with a tight deadline, you might be specifically recruited to apply.

Perform a SWOT Analysis
SWOT is a classic career development exercise in which you take inventory of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Tailoring the same analysis to your public art dreams can guide you towards projects that are a good fit for your approach and your circumstances. As an example, here’s what my own SWOT might have looked like just prior to my first public art project: 

Strengths: designs integrating nature and culture, interviews and historical research, community engagement, thinking of things that could go wrong, willing to work hard and learn new processes 
Weaknesses: not prior public art experience, not much $ to put in up front, no car, not physically able to wrestle large/heavy items, getting hung up thinking of things that could go wrong, no studio space of my own
Opportunities: Seattle has many public art opportunities, inclusion in roster of artists pre-approved for public art proposals, potential to use studio space at work during off hours, friends good at moving large/heavy items 
Threats: liability issues, public art has to last at least 30 years, outdoor work is vulnerable to weather and vandalism, public art would need to fit around my FT work schedule, working outdoors in unpredictable conditions

Do the Math
Not all commissioning agencies set public artists up for success. Read the call for application carefully: if they are asking for the moon but their budget would barely cover a Moon Pie, it’s probably not worth your time to even apply. 

Budget ≠ Profit 
A big budget is seductive; it can be hard not to fantasize about seeing that money in your very own checking account. But even when a project is big and shiny and successful, the artist only ever pockets a percentage of the budget—at best. Bigger budgets come with bigger potential for profit, but also for loss. 
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I Spy
Notice every piece of public art and really look at it. Consider what you do and don’t like about it, of course, but don’t stop there: how is it made? What materials and techniques were chosen and why? How is it held up or down? What has worked well? What hasn’t? How old is it? Does it look its age? Then get just as curious about things that aren’t artwork: how do flagpoles work? How are drinking fountains attached to the ground? What kind of aggregate crumbles the worst, and what kind of internal structure can you see inside? Some of this research will be only of passing interest, but other items will be invaluable when it comes time to make your own work. 

YOU’VE GOT IT: Woo hoo! You’ve been commissioned! Now what? 
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Big Words and Fine Print
Read the contract. Read ALL the words in the contract. Have someone else read the contract (in Washington I had all my contracts reviewed by WA Lawyers for the Arts at $20 per consult; your state probably has something similar). Follow up on any terms or concepts you don’t fully understand. Ask about anything you don’t totally agree with—but realize that many large agencies will not make changes to their contracts. Make a list of any actions you need to take to remain in compliance with the contract that are not part of your usual M.0. (For example, giving the agency a change of address if you move). 

Prepare for Pushback 
Even once you’ve gotten the commission, you will still experience rejection. Some project stakeholders may feel that the project is being imposed on them; they might express this openly (“This is a waste of money.”) or more subtly, by being slow to respond or difficult to work with. Some people will be onboard with the general idea but disagree with your design decisions. Don’t take any of this personally! Listen with respect and an open mind, but remember that it may not be possible to make everyone happy. 

Let Go a Little
Public art is not your art. Compared with your usual, personal creative process, the process of creating public art will probably not feel the same or flow in the same way. I trick myself “public art” out loud, but the term I use in my head is “public project.” For me, “project” bears fewer assumptions and expectations than “art.”

YOU’VE GOT TO DO IT: Making a Big Job More Manageable

Preload the Paperwork
Set up all the paperwork for the entire project with blanks to be filled in as you go, and list each form or deliverable on a timeline or calendar, adjusting as needed. I find it’s easier to jump through bureaucratic hoops if I get them nicely lined up before they’re set on fire. 

Start From the End
In language learning, there’s a great tool called backchaining; when you’re stumbling over a complicated word or phrase, you sound it out syllable by syllable starting from the end of the word. For example, one of the neighborhoods where I used to teach in Tokyo was called Seisekisakuragaoka: phew! Backchaining would break this snarl of sounds down like so:

1. Oka
2. Gaoka
3. Ragaoka
4. Kuragaoka
5. And so on…

I finally realized the the same principle could be applied to planning public art projects!! By which I mean, when planning a project, it helps to start from the finished concept and work backwards, repeatedly checking and confirming the transition from one discrete step to the next. For the piece I just finished, a backchained workflow might have looked like this:

1. The finished piece will be a wall sculpture mounted approximately ten feet off the ground (no need in the planning stage to get hung up on what the piece will look like). 
2. The wall is drywall, so the pieces will be screwed into drywall anchors. 
3. The activity of driving in drywall anchors and screwing brackets will be easier from a scissor lift than from a ladder: what size lift? Will it fit through the site door? Can it be delivered to the site? 
4. The installer will need to hold the piece while screwing it to the wall. What is the maximum size/weight that the person in the lift can manage at one time?
5. The crate containing the work will come in through the door. What is the maximum size crate that will fit? Will it be carried? Wheeled on a pallet jack? How far apart are the pallet forks? 
6. The crate will arrive at the site on a truck. Is there room at the site for the truck? Does it have a lift gate? If not, how will the crate come off the truck? 
7. The crate will be shipped on a truck. Is there a standard dimension that will minimize shipping costs? Is there a maximum weight? Is it possible things will be stacked on top of the crate? In which orientation will the crate be loaded? Is it possible to construct runners on the bottom of the crate so it can be loaded in either direction? 
8. The crate will be loaded onto a shipping truck. Where will the truck park? What equipment will make the transfer? What if it’s raining? 
9. The crate will leave my studio through the barn door. What are the maximum dimensions? What equipment and assistance is needed? If using a forklift, are extenders or straps needed? 
10. And so on, all the way back to the initial design…

Whether the answers to these questions are single number or a range they will help to eliminate impossible options from the get-go. Initial designs can reflect and respect parameters that might otherwise only appear later in the timeline: for example, if a person in a lift will need to hoist each piece, the overall design must be drawn in a way that can break down into smaller, manageable increments. 
In actuality, I didn’t think of this approach until it was too late for my most recent project. By starting at the beginning, I was constantly creating problems and then having to solve them. I ended up with sculptures too big to fit on a standard pallet and a crate too big to fit out my studio door or in through the site door! Backchaining my decisions would have saved me time, money, and stress. 

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About a decade ago I asked one of my favorite former professors to write a letter of recommendation for an application I was really excited about…and he refused. 

“I don’t know you well enough,” he explained before driving the dagger a little deeper: “…and that’s your fault.” 

I felt slapped. This was a dude I’d studied with for two years, with whom I’d laughed, cried, danced, drunk two-buck Chuck, and had conversations that continue to shape the work I make today, and he didn’t know me?? 

But then I realized that he had a point. We hadn’t really spent time together since I graduated, mostly by my choice. Post-school I was depressed, stressed, and a mess; I figured I was shielding the people I cared about by avoiding them. I had continued to have valuable conversations with him, but entirely in my own head; oddly enough, he was unaware of these imaginary interactions. 

His refusal still stings, but more in a tough love, snap-out-it kind of way. It also helped me to realize that the process of securing recommendations is excellent practice for developing and maintaining good relationships of all kinds. Yes, you have to plant the seed, but you’ve also got to keep it fed and watered and weeded if you hope to come back and pick some fruit.

At its best, a recommendation reflects a relationship. The process of securing a strong recommendation starts earlier and lasts longer than you might assume.

• Consider the kind of opportunities you might be looking for in the next few years (employment, research projects, grants, freelance work, etc.) and list the skills and experience that would make you a strong candidate. 
• Be on the alert for people who witness you demonstrating the above skills or gaining the above experience. If possible some of these people should be peers and some should be experts (teachers, managers, etc.), but in either case they should be people you actually like and respect.
• Having established the relationship, begin the recommendation conversation: 
  • In theory, would this person be willing to recommend you for appropriate opportunities? If they say No, they are doing you a huge favor and you should be just as grateful as if they had said Yes! It’s better at any point to move on to another than to depend on a recommendation from someone who’s unenthusiastic about you, uncomfortable with writing, or unable to meet deadlines. 
  • If they agree: How much notice do they need? What’s their preferred contact method?
  • Snapshot your shared experience: some people will ask their potential recommender to jot down notes or even write a draft letter while their experience together is still fresh. It might be ok to do that with someone you know well, but in general it’s more respectful to take on this task yourself. Make note of: 
    • how you met this person (when, where, class title)
    • what details might jog their memory about which one of a dozen students you were
    • what skill/experience you demonstrated/gained in their presence
    • any positive comments (as verbatim as possible) they made about you or your work 
• ​Make a plan to stay in touch. If you have a mailing list or newsletter, ask if you can add them. 
• Capture all this info in a spreadsheet. 
• Follow through on your continuing contact plan. 
• When you find an opportunity that you are definitely going to apply for, contact your potential recommender right away, giving them at least as much notice as they asked for. 
  • Remind them of who you are and how you know each other. 
  • Supply the details: 
    • the format of the recommendation (an email? a paper letter? a phone conversation?)
    • paste in the section of the application form that describes what the recommendation should cover
    • a brief overview of your proposal
    • the deadline
    • the name of the opportunity
    • Make it easy for them! Offer to provide: 
      • ​any additional information they would find helpful 
      • a draft letter of recommendation (that they can edit or use as a starting point for their own letter)
      • a list of “talking points” (facts or personal qualities that prove you are a qualified and outstanding candidate)
      • a draft of your proposal (as soon as possible)
      • Let them know whether or not you would see the contents of the recommendation (this is less common now, but sometimes recommendations still come to you to be submitted in one big application packet, and your recommender should know whether what they are saying is confidential or not). If they request a draft letter of recommendation, emphasize your relevant qualities and qualifications, be positive but not over the top, and try to write in a neutral voice. 
• Use the application portal or application manager to monitor recommendation submissions. If necessary, remind your recommender around the day that they indicated as being their minimum turnaround time, and again a week before the deadline. 
• Write your recommender a thank you note after they submit. 
• When you hear the results of your application, share the news with your recommender and thank them again—no matter what the result. (By the time you hear back from one application you may be two or three applications down the road, so a spreadsheet can be another great way to record who supplied your recommendation, and to remind yourself to follow up with them.)
• Pay it forward or pay it back. Be ready if a peer recommender asks you to write a recommendation in return. Get excited if another artist asks you for an “expert” recommendation!

Is this a lot of work? Good heavens, yes! Do letters of recommendation really matter? Not always. But let’s imagine you’ve written a bang-up proposal and are neck-in-neck with another strong applicant: suddenly your supporting materials start to carry more weight. A recommendation that’s substantive, detailed, personal, and enthusiastic can nudge your application over the finish line. 

Even more importantly, the recommendation process can create wins from failures. Remember I suggested that your recommender should be a person you like and respect? That’s what makes the recommendation process itself a means of growing your community and making professional progress. Even if an application is rejected, your recommender knows that you went for it and their minds have already started to test-fit you for similar opportunities. Ultimately, a good recommender holds a stake in your growth and success. 

​

​Since the first session of my Cultivating Creative Expression class way back in August, the students and I have had several regular and ongoing assignments. Just like physical exercise or daily vitamins, these assignments aim to build and maintain vitality, resiliency, and full range of (e)motion: 

1. Daily: Diary
2. Weekly: Off-Leash Hour
3. Monthly: Giving and Heavy Lifting 

Daily Diary (all day, every day—at least ideally)

It can seem as if creativity strikes like a bolt out of the blue, and sure, sometimes it does, but a more reliable source of inspiration is the world around you. There are two essential steps for harvesting the gold nuggets littering the ground at your feet: you have to spot them and then you have to actually pick them up! And by “pick them up” I mean write them down: trusting your memory to hang onto a good idea is like leaving a gold nugget on the ground for later.
​
I had the students use Lynda Barry’s fantastic framework for a daily diary (please read more about it in the maestra’s own words). There is so much to love in this format:

• It dispenses with the emotional muck that sometimes causes the pages of your typical journal to stick together until it seals itself shut and is never opened again
• It promotes a balance of action and awareness (things I did AND things I saw)
• It makes us use a well-rounded variety of approaches (seeing, hearing, words, pictures) that allow us to celebrate our strengths and improve our weaknesses (my struggles to complete the “overheard” section taught me that I’m not naturally a good listener—and gave me an opportunity to get better)
• It differentiates each day from the others, gently shaking us awake when we start to sleepwalk through our lives

TLDR? Step one: observe, step two: record. Even if you’re not particularly interested in moving on to a third step of actually making something out of these gleanings, steps one and two on their very own can help you to live a more satisfying, present, and connected life, which is no small return on investment.
​
Final note: because this was an assignment, and because students are students, there were several instances where people missed a few days (or weeks) and then tried to go back and fill them in later. THIS DOES NOT WORK. As I put it to one of my sporty students: imagine you skipped the gym for 6 days; would it make sense to go in on the seventh day and cram a week’s worth of workouts? This journal exercise is about building creative muscle through regular and repetitive use. If you stop, start again wherever you happen to be. 


Off-Leash Hour (minimum one hour per week)

I couldn’t think of any better image to illustrate this assignment than dogs at a dog park. Picture that moment when the leash is unclipped and the dog bursts like a firework into joyous action. Leash-on versus leash-off, he might seem like an entirely different dog; I suspect that the leash-off version is closer to the dog’s true self.

​The off-leash hour is your time to do something, anything (ok, sure, anything not criminal or immoral) that makes joy come out of your pores. No judgment: whether it’s a video game, a long bath, a session of Ukrainian egg-decorating, or running figure-8s at the dog park, it’s valid. Extra credit if your off-leash activity takes you outdoors. 

I think that this practice has the potential to reconnect us with that playful, unselfconscious inner child that so many of us have paved over as adults. An hour of joyful freedom is like a taste-test, a sample of what it can feel like to genuinely invest in a creative practice. 


Giving (minimum one hour per month)

Although I can argue for days that being actively creative is fundamentally about offering your best gifts to the world, and is therefore a generous and healing practice that effectively lifts all boats, the word on the street can say otherwise. Perhaps you’ve heard that creative pursuits are frivolous, or wasteful, or selfish? Maybe you’ve even taken these ideas onboard. In the long run it’s best to shove these unwelcome untruths out of your boat, but in the meantime let’s balance them out by dedicating some time to someone other than yourself. 
​
I’ve loved hearing about the things my students have done with their monthly giving hour. One of them noticed a elderly neighbor’s yard getting out of hand and stepped in to help out. Another started to make a point of striking up conversations with folks who seemed lost or lonely. Another started to leave early for classes so that she could pick up litter along the way (yes, I have added David Sedaris to her reading list). 


Heavy Lifting (minimum one hour per month)

Speaking for myself, nothing chills my creative vim as efficiently as the cold shadow of an undone task. I mean the kind of thing that never goes away or gets better on its own, but only grows bigger, darker, and scarier, sucking any spare energy into its vortex. (I was about to say that this is especially true of anything that has an emotional component, but on second thought, almost any task that passes its due date will start to carry emotional weight. For example, the need to clean out my crisper drawer currently fills me with a sense of sadness, loss, and thwarted potential.)

This task asks you to really level with yourself: what is it that you are avoiding most? And see there! You just looked directly at that horrible thing and are still alive to take the next step: do something about it. 

It doesn’t have to be a life-or-death matter, as long as taking care of it lets you breathe easier. Over this semester my heavy lifting has run quite a gamut. One month I gritted my teeth and sorted out some issues with the IRS: whew! I also initiated a couple of long-avoided carefrontations with dear friends: hurray! And I did four loads of laundry AND put them away: ahhhhh…

Bonus, you eventually learn that it takes less time and effort to just deal with the damn problem than it took to avoid it. Can you think of another arena in which the muscles of decisive action might come in handy? (HINT: YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE. Oh wait, that was the answer, not a hint. Decisive action in action!)


I hope that some of you reading this will find these practices as helpful as I have. If something shakes loose for you, I’d love to hear about it. More Creativity Camp activities and assignments to come…

Whenever I’m asked about my favorite medium, I’m tempted to answer…spreadsheets!

Since I tend to accumulate more information that my memory can handle, I build spreadsheets for almost everything I consider important or interesting. I get a little tingly over formulas and automation, but even a simple sheet is a joy when it does its job well. 

My Art Log spreadsheet was inspired by my grad school professor, Mary Lee Hu, who urged us to make a regular habit of recording all the salient details of our artwork in one centralized location. Mary kept her own log on a stack of index cards and it worked just fine; when a museum approached her about mounting a retrospective she was able to look in her cards for the details and current location of almost every piece they asked for! I updated her idea into a digitized spreadsheet and even if it never comes in handy for a retrospective, having all this info in one place has shaved hours off of filling out applications (see the “Mise en place” section of my previous post). 

Don’t yet have a log of your own? Here’s a simple template in Google Spreadsheets that you can use as a starting point. Some of these fields I fill in religiously, others only when relevant: 

• Image: this relatively new Google feature is so useful! Click in the box to highlight it, then go to Insert, then Image. 
• Series: what other work might this piece be grouped with (even if these pieces were not specifically made to go together)? This could be a category in your own mind, but it’s also useful if it would make sense to an outside observer. For example, I was recently asked what mouth brooches I have in stock; I was able to easily sort the Series column for mouth brooches and then look at the Sold / Stock column. 
• Sold / Stock: if you needed to quickly put your hands on a piece, where would you find it? If you keep all your stock in one place that might be enough info, but if you have things stashed in different places, note it here. If the work sells, note the venue, the date, the wholesale and retail prices, and if at all possible get the name and contact information for the buyer (some galleries are more forthcoming with this if they understand that you are just keeping records, not trying to court the buyer directly). The buyer info is crucial if the work is one that you consider particularly strong or emblematic, so when that museum gets in touch about your retrospective you know where to find your best work. 
• Shown / Published: add a duplicate column every time the work makes a public appearance (some of my older pieces have a dozen Shown / Published entries). Note any pricing associated with the event; my codes are R for retail price, W for wholesale, and INS for the insurance value if the work was not for sale. 
• Notes: did the work get broken? Lost? Did you turn it into something else? 

Of course you can tailor the fields to suit your own needs, but it’s worth making a strict habit of taking a photo and filling in the log whenever a new piece leaves your hands—whatever the reason, whether or not you expect it to come back. When you’re just starting out you may think that you’ll remember how big each piece is, or who bought it, but most of us won’t, and the longer you wait to start keeping records, the tougher it will be. 

I went to a pathologically competitive middle school. Every action students took was judged and scored, and our tallies were public record. Naturally, participation in sports was by try-out only. Very unnaturally, I decided I wanted to be on a team, despite my total lack of ability. 

On the second day of an already lackluster 7th grade softball try-out, a classmate and I were lobbing a ball back and forth in light rain. My glasses fogged up just as a fast, accurate pitch headed straight for my face and I caught it…in my mouth. My lower lip skewered itself on my lower teeth and although my upper front teeth stayed put, the blow killed the nerves and someday they’ll have to come out.

I was back at try-outs the next day. I did not make the team. I was back at softball try-outs the next year. I did not make the team then, either. By the end of middle school I had tried out for every team and hadn’t been chosen for a single one. 

I think about that experience a lot. Of course it was humiliating and public proof of my “loser” status. It launched a lot of tropes about teams and being left out that I still struggle with more than 30 years later. It undermined my childish expectation that adults would be kinder and more just than children. And I have to wonder what might have happened if I had redirected that focus and tenacity towards activities I was actually any good at. 

But that experience also gave me a valuable skill that probably wouldn’t have come from a childhood of easy success: when absolutely necessary, I can take it in the teeth and come back for more. 

For a professional artist, resiliency might be even more useful than a facility with color wheels or vanishing points. In my earlier blog post, I talked about the “shadow CV” of rejections that scaffold the public CV of my successes. Here are a few of the practical and emotional tools that have helped me along the way. 

1. Get Your Mise en Garde
A chef doesn’t chop parsley or make stock every time an order comes in. Nope, they get ready for a shift by pre-preparing all of the ingredients that expect to use most often; the practice of mise en garde lets them work more quickly while having the flexibility to deal with that “special” customer who insists on ordering off-menu. In terms of applying for art opportunities, there are things you will need over and over: a resume, images, references, etc. By anticipating these general needs and preparing accordingly, you can work on individual applications more efficiently, you can better respond to last-minute opportunities, and you give self-doubt less of a foothold. 

2. Build a Ladder
I try to apply for at least one thing (show, grant, teaching gig, etc) per month, which helps to smooth out both logistical and emotional bumps. My more natural inclination is to do a whole batch of applications when the mood strikes, but then I am likely to have a soul-crushing batch of rejections arriving around the same time (or very rarely, a stack of simultaneous acceptances, which is its own kind of problem). By sending stuff out monthly, I usually get one rejection at a time, and usually by the time it arrives I have the next application out the door; each rejection stings less because I’ve already moved on. 

3. Dress for the Job You Want 
Direct the bulk of your energies towards applications for which you are qualified, but every once in a while treat yourself to a long shot. Sometimes I’ll complete an application for something and not turn it in because I just want to test drive a possible new direction for my work or career. Sometimes I’ll go ahead and turn it in and then pay close attention to how the eventual rejection makes me feel; if “meh,” I redirect my efforts elsewhere, but if I’m really upset I look carefully at the steps I would need to take to be a stronger candidate the next time a similar opportunity comes along. And very occasionally I make it to the interview phase; I’ve never gotten an opportunity for which I was completely unqualified, but I have reaped valuable connections, feedback, and motivation.

4. Audition Amnesia
One of my co-teachers at a youth arts camp was a professional hip-hop dancer. He had had a huge career but as he slid into middle age, he was booking fewer and fewer gigs. How did he not just give up and sink into the La-Z-Boy of despair? He had trained himself to forget about an audition the second it ended. He didn’t replay it in his mind and beat himself up about things he could have done differently. He didn’t hover by the phone waiting for it to ring. If it did ring, it was a surprise—maybe a good one, maybe a bad one, but one that hadn’t cost him any unnecessary time or emotional energy. I can verify that amnesia is learnable; I couldn’t tell you the last three things I’ve applied without checking my notes and I’m happier for it. 

5. You Already Have the “No”
The Listserve was a mailing list of people from all over the world, one of whom was chosen at random to send a message to the entire list each day. One writer shared a nugget of advice that has proved to be the most valuable reframe in my emotional arsenal. She asked her mentor how she, the mentor, managed to remain resilient in a highly competitive field; the mentor said, more or less, “If you don’t try, you already have the ‘no.’” This is similar to the idea that you miss all the balls you don’t swing for in the way it argues for missed opportunities being the default, but it adds a level of agency and emotional nuance. First of all, if anyone’s going to reject me, I’d sure rather it not be me doing the rejecting. Second, when you send out an application, you’re not giving them the chance to reject you; you’re giving them the opportunity to accept you. ​

​I hope that something here will be of use to you or to someone you care about! And if you have any strategies that allow your own Weeble to wobble without actually falling down, I would be very happy to hear about them. After all, the rejections won’t stop until I do!

2021 
Museum of Art and Design Virtual Artist-in-Residence
Jake Rusher Park Public Art Project
World Wood Day 

2020 
2 + U 2nd Ave Lobby
World Wood Day 
City of Issaquah Tibbetts Valley Off-Leash Dog Park
City of Durham Pre-Qualified Artist Registry
BASE Cohort
Bothell Fire Station 42
Artist Trust Fellowship
South King County Recycling Center 
Harris Building Interior Art
Tokyo Biennial
Haystack Open Studio Residency 
Jacksonville Medical Lobby Sculptural Installation

2019
World Wood Day 
Artist Designed Infrastructure Bioretention Edition
Seattle Metals Guild Grant

2018 
Jakob Bengel Residency

2017
Shunpike/Amazon Residency
AJF Grant
Bloedel Residency
Amara Mural
Seattle Center Winterfest

2016 
Bloedel Residency
Olson Kundig Creative Exchange
Jakob Bengel Residency

2015
Seattle Public Utilities Green Infrastructure and Waterways Artist-in-Residence
Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship
Rome Prize
Kohler Residency
Artist Trust Fellowship
Seattle Airport Concourse

2014
Artist Trust GAP Grant

2013 
Artist Trust EDGE Program
Houston Center for Craft Residency
Appalachian Center for Craft Exhibition
Artist Trust GAP Grant

2012 
Artbridge Fellowship
Artist Trust GAP Grant

2011 
Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts PIVA

2009 
McColl Residency
Artbridge Fellowship

A few times in my career, another artist has done me the tremendous kindness of pulling back the curtain on a truth that isn’t normally part of polite conversation. There was: the professional artist who spelled out how her pricing formula covers her economic bases and adds an emotional surcharge; the super-successful artist who spoke candidly about the mad paddling it took to keep all her ducks afloat; and the former peer group who listened to my struggles but admitted they couldn’t really identify because they had “married well.”

I am so thankful to each of these artists! In each case their honesty and openness helped me to see my own situation with more patience and clarity. 

I’ve been thinking about these lessons even more frequently since I began to tell people about being a Penland Resident. There has been a tremendous amount of support and enthusiasm, but I’ve also heard and sensed some deflation from people who contrast my little spike of success with whatever’s going on for them. I can feel this deflation second-hand because I’ve so often felt it first-hand, the sense that opportunities are finite and not for me. I’d like to take a turn at pulling back the curtain, so that anyone inclined to comparisons at least has more to work with than the shiny surface of a public achievement. 

So I’m publishing a list of those times that I swung and missed. I think of it as a “shadow CV,” an inverse of my actual accomplishments without which those accomplishments would not exist. (If you do take a look at it anytime soon, note that I am working backwards through my records, so my shadow CV will continue to grow.)

This is not false humility or self-deprecation. It isn’t a “poor me” ploy for sympathy. It’s not my version of “when I was your age I walked fifty miles to the studio and it was uphill both ways.” It isn’t sour grapes. These “failures” are their own kind of achievement and I’m proud of them. 

If you are also an artist or someone whose career revolves around rejection, there are some great reasons to keep a list of your unsuccessful efforts: 

1. Should your business take a loss, these applications are evidence of profit motive—an important distinction between businesses and hobbies
2. Many of these applications are annual, so you’ll be reminded what to circle back to, and you’ll have a solid starting point should you choose to apply again
3. Just like the wood chips piling up under a carving, your shadow CV is proof that you are doing something even when it might feel or appear otherwise 
4. You can see more clearly how your concept of your career has evolved 
5. You’ll gain a better understanding of how to structure, schedule, and bill for your working hours

And if you have a shadow CV, there is a great reason to share it with others in your field, particularly those who are getting starting or those who are struggling: 

1. It’s the truth

The Windgate ITE Fellowship allowed me to play at both ends of the scale,  incorporating my jewelry forms into architectural elements as well as exploring jewelry inspired by furniture and architecture.