Excerpts from Chapter 8

Large Commissions: How do you get them?

Large commissioned works are normally landed through established galleries. But for now let's assume you're not yet in a gallery and are able to land a few commissions on your own. Let's assume you know, or have heard of, a CEO, restaurateur, or politician who is seeking to commission a large painting or sculpture. However you meet these clients, if it's your first major commission, pay attention to what I'm about to cover. It details a set of circumstances that are far more common than not...

Snobbery: Another Word for 'Wasted Intelligence'

I suppose I could be a snob in writing about snobs, and thus out-snob them, but there's no winning that game, and anyway it's undignified. Compassion, I feel, is the best way to treat snobs, even if they don't seem to deserve it. Just remember, they too are only trying to fit in, like the rest of us. Perhaps snobbery is the only thing they've found that works. Except it doesn't work; it only leads to misery and emotional isolation and, I don't doubt, a great deal of depression...

Self-Doubt

Every living artist I've ever worked with, and every deceased artist I've ever studied, have all shared one simple trait: each of them has gone through varying levels of self-doubt; each of them, at different times in their lives, has questioned the worth of their talent. No one that I know of has ever been exempt from this. For some, like the poet Sylvia Plath (who was also a talented illustrator), their spells of doubt and depression were mind-numbing, paralyzing, and, in the end, beyond their control. For others, like Picasso, those spells were nothing more than a minor dip on their emotional graph...

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