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

Comments

Liminal Time

The word liminal comes from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. an in-between place, a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing. Dawn and dusk are considered liminal places. Crepuscular animals, like foxes and coyotes are most active at this time of day, a time that is considered a magical time in Celtic spirituality and to Indigenous people which is perhaps the origin of their designation as tricksters. As I write this, the northern hemisphere has just passed the vernal equinox, where day and night are of equal length.We are in a liminal space between winter and spring right now, unsure if we will have one more storm or snowfall before spring finally settles in. We're also in a liminal place as we live through this pandemic with the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing. A time of great transition for the entire world, wondering what we've learned from this and what lessons we'll carry forward. Author and Fr...

Lessons that Stone Walls Teach

Dry stone wall in the Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland I've just returned from teaching a Workshop in Wild Places class in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. Writing this post, I'm reminded of another post I wrote after visiting Inishmaan, the middle of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland several years ago. Stone walls crisscrossed the island in tight webs like a fisherman's net. I wrote then that the web of stone walls made me think of the idea of putting limitations on our painting as a way of exploring more deeply and how walls give limits against the limitless. You can read that article here. As our group hiked in the Burren with our guide, Marie McGauran we learned that the walls are stronger because of the holes in them. The wind can pass through. The oldest stone walls, estimated to be 3500 years old are at Skara Brae, a Neolithic site in Orkney. Most walls were built in the 18th and 19th century, marking areas of private ownership and resultin...

Am I Too Old to Change? Embracing Life

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels I'm in the process, at last, of working on the book that came to me in a dream seven years ago. It has circled my head all these years, demanding I get at it. It's called: We're Not Done Yet: Coming to Art Later in Life . It has actually hung in the air a couple of feet behind my head, attached by a string like a helium balloon, like a cartoon cloud, waiting for me to get to it. Some of you will know of it because I posted a request on Facebook in 2019 asking for artists who have come to art later in life to reply to me if they'd like to answer a questionnaire. I received 168 responses plus earlier interviews I did before the put out the questionnaire. There was some overlap, and some didn't respond after they'd offered to. All in all, I received 128 responses. By a huge majority it was women who responded to my questionnaire. By the time we get into our 60's we bring a rich life experience to our work: m...

Janice Mason Steeves

Search This Blog