Art Mentoring/Art Coaching Program

With Naomi Gerrard in Winnipeg, Manitoba

Over the past couple of years in my workshops, students have asked about getting one-on-one feedback or doing private critiques with me. But one artist in a workshop this past summer, Jill Segal, suggested that I do an art mentoring program. Thanks to her encouragement, I'm just launching it.

The Art Mentoring Program is intended as a distance mentoring program, to provide one-on-one guidance to artists no matter where they live. The goal is to give artists feedback on their artwork and help them develop a cohesive body of work. There are few opportunities for artists to receive clear feedback and guidance about their work. Our artists friends are generally reluctant to offer anything other than encouragement, even though they may think differently about certain of our paintings. Encouragement is definitely helpful. We all need that. But where do we get clear feedback? Hard to find. In workshops, we can get feedback for the work that is produced in the workshop. But how does that tie together with the other work we like to do? How can we create a body of work that is more unified? The Art Mentoring Program will aim to address those issues.

It is intended as an ongoing process. The artist will send me several images of their work by email. I will spend some time with the images and we follow that with a telephone conversation to discuss the work. Our conversation might focus on the process, the direction, the techniques, the elements of art, the body of work, etc. There are many possible areas to focus our discussion. The idea is to determine what the goals of the artist are and begin there.

I ask the artist to send me an artist's statement, a CV, their website if they have one, and to write out their short term goals for their work. They are asked to commit to a minimum of 4 Art Mentoring sessions at a time.

I have had a couple of people ask me how this process would work if I don't actually see the work in person. I remind them that when you submit work to a juried show, it is in a digital format. The exhibition is juried by digital images. When you apply to a gallery for representation, they want to see your images on your website. If you apply for grants or artist residencies, you submit digital images. The original works are only seen when they are accepted into an exhibition. It's your images that lead the way.

To find out more about the program and to register, please contact me at:
info@janicemasonsteeves.com

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