stakeholders – Sidi's Journey

Primary research – talk with two stakeholders

Conclusion: this primary research made me realize that I need to specify my audience from fine art graduates to fine art graduates who want to be a freelancer or wear more than one hat. This process also helped me to enrich the definition of my model, for example, I put ‘the ability to be humble’ to the ‘self-control ability’. This also verifies the feasibility and credibility of the test I designed to a certain extent.

online talk with Yigao (fine art background, currently working in a film company )

I talked with two stakeholders about my project and my career model as my primary research to acquire more opinions and fine art background students’ suggestions.

1. Talking with Yigao (fine art background, currently working in a film company)

Before talking to Yigao, I ask her to test the organisation’s ability, the sequencing question of intervention 6. Surprisingly, her answer was the closest to the correct answer. (Her answer is 5-2-4-1-3, and the correct answer is 2-5-4-1-3.) Then we talked about whether she is an organised person. Both she and I think she is a well-organised person, whether in life or study or work. So I guess, to some extent, this result shows the feasibility of this organization ability test.

After that, I introduced my career model, and we discussed her changes in these abilities before and after graduation. The conclusion is that, except for cooperating ability, the rest improved a lot after entering the workforce. Because when she works in a company, she has to undertake her tasks and responsibilities that she should complete. Every link has a corresponding person in charge, so there is no need to coordinate the process of cooperation. The whole collaboration is conducted under specific procedures.

I think it depends a lot on what she does and how the company works. For those fine art students who want to be freelancers, cooperation ability is vital since they need to actively seek cooperation to get more job opportunities. Then I realized that I needed to specify the audience of this career model. This model is more suitable for those who want to be freelancers/start their own business,/wish to do multiple jobs.

2. Talking with Chery (fine art background currently studying fine art PhD)

I was talking to Chery about his experience of selling paintings. He said that when he is doing his bachelors degree, he doesn’t like selling his work since he thinks art is the art that cannot be valued by money. In addition, his parents believe that it is tough for this subject to find a job(compared with design subjects and science and technology, finance etc.). So his father worried about it and tried to sell his paintings at that time. ‘I hated it,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to sell my work, and I certainly didn’t want it to be bought by people who couldn’t read it. But I don’t think so anymore. You know, most of the fine art students are a bit self-glorification. Ummm, it’s a good thing to sell paintings, you know, I found that It’s even harder for me to sell paintings by myself without my father’s help, and I have to face reality, I want to earn money.’

Although it’s a single case, it can illustrate some phenomena. Self-glorification, too confident, could be the label of most fine art students. Going back to what I did in unit 2- help fine art student to sell their artworks through synaesthesia. After finding a relatively effective way to combine sound and paintings, I realized that it is hard to sell this idea to fine art students because of their personalities, their typical temperament. This point is also one of the main reasons for art students’ problematic employment. So I added the ability to be hambling in my model.

Try to contact the Blogger – Sophia

I found a Blogger who interviewed 100 artists and share her story and insights on social media. Then I tried to contact her and ask some advice. Alought she refused my request for an interview online, I still found some information valuable in her blog.

One point she mentioned make sense:

A lot of artists are shy and not good at talking about money, thinking that focus on creation is more pure. But every artist has the right to know where his work has gone and who has collected it. You should not be afraid to communicate with collectors, and ask galleries and partner institutions for the list of collections. It’s not necessary but it shouldn’t be avoided. Both galleries and artists are mobile and two-way. Both parties should cooperate professionally and protect yourselves.
Sophia said

What she said inspired me to design the test about communication ability. I design the quiz like this:

Q: Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..

A. Feel happy and keep working on it.

B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.

C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.

correct answer: C

So, if they chose C, which means they have good communication abilities, and vice versa.

Reach out to experts – Fine art course leaders of UAL

In order to improve my career model, I contacted the Fine art teachers of UAL. The following are the two teachers who have replied so far. One is the course leader of Chelsea Fine Arts, and the other is the course leader of CSM Fine Arts.

The survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-KD7QLYD29/

Patricia’s opinion

1) I’ve rated Business ability as 1 — because the definition is a bit confusing: Artists should always focus on making their work in a way that is most interesting for them. If you’re trying to appeal to the market for the sake of making money your practice likely won’t get very far (and you’ll lose interest). This is because it shows more about your understanding of the market (which might not be an expert) than your commitment to your practice. And trying to please someone else is no way to live — in art or for anything else… And also if the market was possible to predict we would all be very rich! There isn’t one market — there are many and they are in constant motion. Instead, it’s about making connections and finding like-minded people who connect with your ideas and work. Collectors + institutions invest in work that is critically important — so it should be every artist’s priority, to make work that is genuinely critically interesting. It’s important to be aware of current trends in art — but also culture at large and how your work contributes to progressing these. Artists do however need ‘business sense’ — but not really in relation to the market. By the time your career gets to the stage where you are making reasonable money, you will likely have gained enough personal experience to effectively deal with your situation, and have assistance from people who are more expert. When you’re starting out, you will likely be earning small amounts of money periodically — and will likely make some small money mistakes! But these usually don’t have serious consequences, and you learn from your mistakes so you are able to confidently deal with larger money situations when they eventually happen. It is far more important to be good with money — ie. know how to make savings, when to invest in your practice for important opportunities, and how to manage the budgets for the projects you are working on. 2) YES!!! Communication is super-important! 3) Cooperative ability, I didn’t understand the definition so rated it as 3 for the part I agreed with: YES — to cooperating with institutions etc. (5) NO — “The ability to create works that fit the theme of exhibitions even if you’re not interested.” (0) You should only ever do things that you find interesting. And work with like-minded people who you find interesting. This is where Cooperation is extremely important: you need to make connections with people who have similar interests and ambitions and help each other to accomplish your goals. Cooperation is super important so should be 5+ — but perhaps consider the definition? 4) Organisation — I’ve rated this 5, but perhaps should be more than 5! Being organised is extremely important. But not just in doing one thing — most artists have many different projects or activities running simultaneously. So you need to be organised to balance and accomplish many things at the same time! It is extremely important to finish projects as this is what develops your portfolio, and to always meet your commitments to prove you are reliable — your reputation is your “track record”. Attention to detail is also extremely important. Also, there are a few other things that are perhaps as or even more important than the categories listed: Self-Confidence Commitment Self-Motivation Self-Reliance Agility— Life as an artist can be very unpredictable — you need to be very flexible and agile to manage your continuous practice — to recognise opportunities when they happen and make opportunities for yourself if they don’t. Being Helpful + Friendly — Help other people as much as possible and people, in turn, will help you. Also if you are a nice and kind person, people will enjoy working with you! This sounds really basic, but a lot of artists don’t think about this. And most important: BE INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE!!! Take a genuine interest in what other people are doing, and they will likely take interest in you. You have to be interested to be interesting!

My reply:

Then she replied to me again and share her opinions and experiences. She also recommends me some artists to me.

Another expert’s reply

I would like to say that this is not quite positive feedback. But I realized that it could be a misunderstanding since I didn’t mention clearly each ability’s definition. It is also because this is a very early stage of the model. Again, reflect it to my model, I need to improve my communication ability, especially when I reach out to experts and predecessors. In addition, I also realized that I need to point out the differences between my model and the existing model. Both my model and the existing model should not be the only ones, it all needs to be iterated.

Reach to a peer who did similar research

After I visited Laura’s graduation exhibition, I try to contact her. She always did research about sound, audience, interaction, engagement etc. The difference is that I am trying to use multi-senses to help other art students to better express their work and let the audience better understand their work, and in the long run, the distance between art and the public should be narrowed in this way, so as to increase the potential customers willing to buy art. But Laura is trying to use sound as a medium to express her mind and her art. But we can discuss how to apply the sound in a more different way.

Laura’s art work about sound

I interact with Laura’s work and I found that she is trying to record audiences sound in a special way. She is also try to use sound to connect and interact with audience. Then I found that her perviously work is mainly with sound and music. I try to contact with her since I am also did some research related sound. I am still waiting her reply..

Talk to a music therapist

The connection of Painting and Musical instrument

I communicated with an expert. She graduated with a master’s degree in music therapy from the State University of New York and is now engaged in music education.

I showed her this picture and asked whether these instruments have anything in common from a musical and psychological ?

She said except Cymbals, others have something in common.

‘In the classical period, the oboe, contrabass and cello were all wooden instruments. The oboe was later improved into metal. Wooden musical instruments have a long history and generally feel simple and close to nature.’she said.

To a certain extent, this is consistent with what this painting wants to express.

2. There may be no direct connection between buying behavior and resonance

From intervention 2 to intervention 3, all participants said they have stronger resonance with the art work.However, when I ask whether they will buy the art work, no one said yes.

3. For my next intervention, I need think about other ways to increase the resonance of the audience, and thus generate buying behavior.

Contact with UAL’s career centre staff

Finally there are one more person reply my email.

Kyle, an UAL career centre staff, gave me some advices. He shared with me a workshop slides which help student set up an account on LinkedIn. He also recommend me two links which is about how to manage IG portfolio.

From my own view, LinkedIn is different from other social media platforms. LinkedIn is more professional and is mainly for find a job. However, IG needs you to show your own characteristics and personality.

Through the slides Kyle shared with me, I found the linkInIn learning platform, which is free for students. I searched a bit and found a course on personal branding. This may be useful and relevant information for my project, and Chelsea Krost (the teacher of this course) might be my potential dragon.

Contact with one expert successfully

Hayley is a freelance illustrator, she manage her business account on social media for years. Now she has more than 3,000 followers following her account. She also manage her online store to sell some relative artwork to support herself. We discussed about this topic and she said that it has taken a lot of trial and error to find a system that works for her and helps her to build her audience. Having more information and advice at her disposal earlier on in her career would have been extremely helpful!

Her answer made me more confident about the question I was studying, and I think the topic I studied is a valuable thing.

When I ask her : Could share some of your opinions about how to use social media (like Instagram) to operate an account and get benefits?

I summarize her answers as follow:

Post your work consistently

I think one of the main things to consider when using social media as an artist or designer is to post consistently. If we take a site such as Instagram, due to the algorithms it’s important to post content when your followers are going to expect you to, so keeping a schedule that you stick to will mean that your followers will see your posts. For example, you might post a new artwork 2 or 3 times per week on the same days and at the same time, which means that your post is more likely to be seen and interacted with by your followers, which in turn helps boost your engagement and makes your profile more visible.

Asking more engagement

The more engagement you receive (likes, comments, shares etc.) tells the algorithm that your content is interesting, so your post will be shown to more users. If you break that consistency and stop posting for a week or two, your engagement will drop and the next time you post, you’ll receive fewer interactions.

Communicate with your followers

It’s also important to make sure to communicate with your followers! Make sure that you reply to comments on your posts. You could also use this to further understand who your audience is, and from there you can tailor your content to suit whoever that may be. For example, if your specialist field is children’s book illustration, the audience that you are trying to appeal to could be parents/guardians of young children, as well as authors and publishers, so do your research and try to make sure that your feed speaks to these types of users.

Using appropriate hashtags

You could use appropriate hashtags to increase the chances of these types of Instagram users seeing your posts. It’s also useful to have a short yet informative bio that quickly tells people who you are and what you do, but is still punchy and memorable, that way any potential clients or customers can immediately see what type of artist you are and what your specialist field is.

Make your ‘grid’ appealing

You may want to add a link to a website, portfolio or email address so that you can be easily contacted. I would also recommend taking an overall look at your social media page; does your Instagram “grid” look appealing? Does it draw the viewers in and make them want to see more of your work? I’ve found that alternating between posting finalised drawings and photographs works well and makes my “grid” look attractive! It’s important overall to ensure that your social media pages are professional, but that they also feel approachable and look aesthetically pleasing.

I decided to make a booklet that contains the main tips on how to manage business accounts, which is my early intervention.