Advice for Starving Artists

From One Who is Not

The following article appeared in The Florida Times-Union
on January 13, 2006

By Brandy Hilboldt Allport,

Unless you are independently wealthy, you'll have to take a day job, or a night job, to support your work. Take heart, there are worse things -- like starving.

Dorrell owns a gallery in Kansas City, Mo., and is the author of Living the Artist's Life: A Guide to Growing, Persevering, and Succeeding in the Art World (Hillstead Publishing, $16.95). Professors at several universities recently added his title to required reading lists to help students learn about building a resume, dealing with rejection and cultivating relationships with clients.

I'm not saying people have to become bookkeepers, but at some point, they have to realistically assess where they are and treat their art career, or at least some aspects of it, as a business -- or keep starving, Dorrell said Tuesday during a phone interview from his gallery. He was about to catch a plane and begin the Florida sweep of his national book tour. Join him for a discussion at 7 p.m. Monday at Barnes & Noble, St. Johns Town Center.

What are his bonafides? Art consultant for a monument to Dwight Eisenhower in the Capitol Building in Washington. A client list that includes corporations (Russell Stover Candies, Air France) and private collectors (Steven Spielberg). Plus, there's the school-of-life factor. Before the folks at Hillstead Publishing said "let's do it," Dorrell received 177 rejections on all his books over a period of 25 years-a good portion of that time with a New York agent.

Is this book only for artists? Dorrell asks in Chapter 1 of Living the Artist's Life. Of course not. I've also written it for the student and the teacher, the writer and the reader, the gallery owner and the collector, and anyone else who lives within the world of creative drive . . . I speak your language.

Indeed he does. Plainly.

A Guide to Growing, Persevering, and Succeeding in the Art World