Making your art work - Ann Gadd

Do you want to make a living from your art in South Africa? This book tells you how to do it.

Book in excellent condition. No tears or bent corners

Cover in excellent condition



Add some of my other available books to your order and pay R100 courier costs once off. (Maximum 5 books)

Ever dreamt of living as an artist?
Want your hobby to become financially viable?
Long to be your own boss?
Want to be inspired, rather than tired?

Art and income are not words that tend to sit comfortably in the same sentence, ditto with passion and profit. So just how possible is it to live as an artist? To use a phrase from a book by Stephen Walsh, to succeed, you need the art and the engine.

Over the years I have seen really talented artists fail because they dont have the engine, whilst some less than talented artists have succeeded because they have the ability to create interest and energy around their work. Take Damien Hirst, one of the worlds top living artists (think the shark in a tank of formaldehyde and the skull encrusted with diamonds), who took an unprecedented move by by-passing his galleries and selling a complete show for £111 million (1.99 billion) breaking the record for a one-artist auction. Interestingly, though perhaps not unexpectedly, Wikipedia describe him as an entrepreneur, rather than artist in their one word description of him. Described as average by his art school tutors, Hirst did not, it appears have the makings of a man who was destined to exhibit in the Tate gallery. Yet the man has an extremely powerful V-8+ engine!

So we can whine about talent that doesnt get noticed and appear appalled when art and the need to make an income, appear in the same sentence but the truth is, like any commodity (unless we happen to be trust fund kids) our art needs to be for sale in order not just to survive, but thrive. And remember we are selling our art, not as some would like to imply, our souls.

Since the publication on my first book on art, I have encountered many people with engines, fewer with talent and very few with both. South Africa is not a country filled with a rich heritage of art loving inhabitants. The majority of the population have had to focus too hard on survival to be concerned with adorning their walls, whilst even the minority often have art at the bottom of their list of essential must-haves. So living as an artist in Africa would not be the choice of anyone who has a fear of rejection or expectations of luxurious living.