The Long Game: 7 Principles for the Working Artist
Added 2025-08-06 12:28:55 +0000 UTC1. Master Your Craft
Dedicate serious time—ideally in an incubator or school setting—to build your technical skill and visual language; for me, that meant 10,000 hours over ten years.
2. Build Community
Stay socially connected with supportive peers—through school, artist networks, or online spaces—because healthy competition within community propels you forward and breeds new ideas.
3. Know Your Context
Study art history and understand the broader cultural and industry landscape so you can place yourself and your work within it intentionally.
4. Learn to Sell
Regardless of your stage, know how to sell and talk about your work—gallery or not—because making art is also a business.
5. Understand the Market
Be clear about what market you want to be in, who your collectors are, and the implications of opting in or out of traditional systems.
6. Use Social Media Authentically
Maintain an online presence and show up as yourself—authenticity, not performance, is what builds trust and visibility today.
7. Stay in it for the Long Game
Play the long game by working slowly, making fewer but better paintings, and avoid over saturating the market with mediocre work that could devalue your trajectory on the secondary market.
Comments
Hey Sara, when I was a student, there was no Instagram, but I shared my work sometimes through blogs and that helped to sell the work, it’s a tricky thing because you’re trying to formulate your identity, but you’re trying to learn at the same time, some people are very curious about process and if the student work is excellent it can be sold. I would say it also depends on how desperate you are, I had no choice, but to sell my student work, which meant I had to share it but again it wasn’t on social media platforms like Instagram. I would share the good stuff.
colleen barry
2025-08-07 09:31:07 +0000 UTCI’m curious to know how you think about sharing work online that is done in as a student. Do we build community out of the public sphere first and then share what we believe to be our “offering” to the art world? Or do we let the world watch us scratch our way to competence?
Sara Pendergast
2025-08-07 01:08:09 +0000 UTC
