How to Be an Artist : This article is an overview of the resources it takes to be an artist, including studios and peers, with a dip into a discussion of whether you are better to begin young as an art graduate, or find a creative career mid-life, with resources behind you.
- All 3 of these topics are rich for English for Art Purposes.
- Teachers of English in Art Schools can use this blog for in-class discussion and debate.
- Artists & Designers learning English – compare this information to your own situation (discuss with a friend/peer) if possible.
About Artist Studios
Most creatives spend years building their space and their working habits (good and bad).
Until their career takes off, they’re often holding down teaching jobs or evening shifts to protect precious studio time, or worse, compromising with pull-out desks or borrowed spaces, fiddling with maquettes of the sculptures they want to make.
Studios and workshops are at the core of an art practice. They support experimentation in any direction.
Space, and routines within them, become interwoven.
Studios are the backbones of our practice, as anyone who has taken an artist residency knows.
Residencies remix everything you know. All your behaviours.
If you are ever stuck, try swapping studios with a peer for a day!
Launching (and Keeping) a Creative Career
Creative careers don’t have a career ladder as much as a career tornado, with only a few lucky survivors.
Art graduates get stuck in the alternative, ‘temporary’ jobs at all points of this path.
Early creative career progression is usually one of compromise: with victories hard-won: you fight for time at first, then, as your career develops (and renumeration develops), you gain more space, access, and support. You can invest in a larger space, or access to professional workshops and services.
Your studio requirements scale with your career.
At every stage, you are still dreaming, if only I could afford an X. If only I had the time for Y.
It’s a road with many pitfalls.
Waiting to Be Ready
I’m thinking about this because last week at a networking event, I met a woman who’d had a 20+ year corporate career, which she’d just quit to start a business making clothes from Scottish fabrics like tweed and tartan.
Both these fabrics are full of wonderful craft and heritage—but they’re often associated with an estate-owning, landed class. She wanted to design with these materials for a different audience—her audience. People who love timeless, quality clothes. Slow fashion.
It was fascinating. I wanted to see more. But she confessed she was stuck.
For the first time in 20 years, she had a studio. Fabric. A cutting table. Machines.
And she was terrified.
“What if I fail?” she said.
“What if you just have some fun?” I replied.
Advice for the Creative Lifestyle
At True Voice English, we offer Portfolio Mentoring for International Art School Candidates.
More than anything to do with language, we guide people on how to move their ideas to the next level. How to spot a rut and get out of a rut (portfolio examiners are looking for variety).
I reminded her, the dreams in our heads don’t come out fully formed. The creative’s path is messy—it’s about shaping, developing, and sometimes abandoning ideas.
Even with a real craft like tailoring, there’s always a gap between what we imagine and what happens when we make.
Take the pressure off. Experiment. Research. Give yourself a break from needing to produce a finished concept before you’ve had time to play.
Experience and practice close that gap. It’s a process and I’m not sure you can skip it.
About Community
I named things that might help:
Time with a sketchbook. Visiting exhibitions. A day in a bookshop.
And finding community.
Having people around you who are also on a creative path.
At this, she baulked.
She said she didn’t want to do that until she was “ready.” She’d feel intimidated.
And I thought of every English learner I’ve ever had who says they can’t speak in front of “native speakers.”
(Like native speakers are automatically good at language!)
Hanging out with creatives will teach her how to think like a creative professional, support her and inspire her.
It can also get rid of any impostor syndrome she may be feeling.
Creative communities are not necessarily hierarchical. She’s not a fresh new graduate, she’s experienced a successful international professional life.
Unconditional Support
“Ok, until you’re ready—I have some books that can help.”
I popped upstairs.
The event was at my language hub, Blue Noun, and even though we have shelves of books all over the place, the ones I was searching for were the ones I bought when designing the Sketchbook English online course.
That’s a practice-led English course for artists and designers that I now team-teach with Jennie Reed.
The books are designed to unlock creativity. They offer small daily exploratory lessons and challenges—some of which I adapted for Sketchbook English.
The course gives you a daily creative challenge, then connects you to practicing artists in their studios, where we chat about each creative decision and approach. (It’s the only way I know to get real English for creative careers.)
The Difference between Corporate & Creative Cultures
I handed over a pile of books.
She looked briefly confused.
“It’s ok,” I said. “I’ll get them back when you’re finished.”
Later, I got a text from her – thoroughly immersed in the one about creative blocks.
With her 20 years in corporate, she’d not known the supportive, creative community that those with creative lifestyles, probably don’t know they’re lucky to have.
Where strangers lend books.
The difference between a corporate and creative community is free, unconditional exchange of ideas, help, resources, and support, to enable others to do great things.
Escape Corporate Mindset
I spent my own 7 years within the corporations that language teaching took me into, dreaming of a way of creating truly beautiful language experiences for people, far from their walls and rules.
It made planning the Sketchbook English course a doddle.
Artists, designers, and creatives need a completely different, practice-led language experience.
I knew what wouldn’t fit English for Creative Careers – and how to build a practice-led course that would serve artists. Active learning, not passive.
“Back then I had an enormous opinion of my talent… I just couldn’t water down things to suit anybody else, perhaps that’s why I’m still here after 30 years, the fact it was so idiosyncratic.”
Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, Under the Radar Magazine
How to Be an Artist
I wonder if my new friend has chosen the harder path or the more sensible one?
I envy her nest egg and her freedom now. She can launch as a creative and spend the rest of her life making.
However, I think I was more fearless when I was younger, and being unhampered by thoughts of pensions and practicalities led to a pure pursuit of art.
I failed to join all the dots needed for an international career – to turn that talent into business. Perhaps she will show me that it’s not too late: if you can think fresh thoughts you can be an artist and maker.
Finals Tip for Your Creative Career
- If you do find yourself pulled off your ideal career path, don’t panic – it is relatively normal in a creative career. However, do be aware that once you give up a studio, a community or a regular practice, it gets much harder to step back into making.
- Make a 1-year and 3-year plan. Don’t just stick it under your bed. Keep checking in on it.
- You can still upskill without a studio. What courses or training will set you up for the next part of your career?
- If you have downtime, don’t waste it – be hungry for information and squirrel it away for when you need it.
- Don’t be shy about finding community and great conversations.
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