What defines a successful teacher? Student progress? Student adulation? Parental response? Professional reputation? Results in juried contests? Fame of former students? Placement of students in prestigious programs? Daily job satisfaction? Obvious progress in instilling skills, confidence, and a love of the art form? The definition of “success” is as varied as the teachers who might [...]
Archive for September, 2008
The Artist-Teacher: The Teacher-Student Connection
Posted in Teaching, tagged Teaching on September 30, 2008 | 4 Comments »
The Artist-Teacher: Intro
Posted in Teaching on September 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier in the month, I talked about teaching, and since so many of us do it in one form or another, I’d like to spend the next few days on the challenges of the Artist-Teacher, which I define as someone who makes his or her living both by teaching AND by working professionally in a chosen art. (Someone who is [...]
Essential Skills for Artists: Public Speaking
Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, Performing, tagged public speaking on September 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Artists seem to fall into one of two categories: Either we are at home in front of the footlights, flirting with interviewers and seducing audiences, or we are nervous wrecks, cowering in the back of the room hoping no one will call on us. Some of us are both: I am completely comfortable giving a prepared talk to an audience [...]
Essential Skills for Artists: Web Design
Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, Internet Issues, tagged web design on September 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »
First a disclaimer: We’re not really talking about web design here. We’re talking about something much more simple: Getting your stuff on the web, using resources that are readily available and inexpensive. It’s easy to be intimidated: professional web design can be a complex art form, incorporating visual design elements like type, color selection, text blocks, widgets, pictures, charts, and [...]
Essential Skills for Artists: Photography
Posted in Photography, tagged rule of thirds, rules for photography on September 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It drives writers nuts when non-writers say “I’ve been thinking of writing a book.” (Hey, it’s not like I tell my doctor, “I’ve been thinking of doing some surgery….”) So I’m sure it drives photographers nuts when non-photographers (including writers) say “I’ll just take the photos for this article myself.” The fact is that both writing and [...]
FOD Fest
Posted in Music, Performing, tagged Daniel Pearl, FOD Fest, FODFest on September 24, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I’m figuring that most of you will recognize the name Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered in Pakistan by terrorists in 2002. I’m also figuring that you don’t know that Danny (as he was known to his friends) was also a musician. Before Danny was a Wall Street Journal reporter, he worked for the Berkshire Eagle, the [...]
Essential Skills for Artists: Writing
Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, Writing on September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Writing is dead,” A business major once told me. “Who cares? I’ll just have my secretary do it.” Fast forward a few years: “I was wrong. I wish I knew how to write better. We don’t even HAVE secretaries anymore.” Yes, IMing and text messaging have created a new sub-language. But computers have not led us [...]
Essential Skills for Artists: Intro
Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing, tagged essential skills for artists on September 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
You know the stereotype of the artist: We musicians, painters, or writers are locked away in our garrets, obsessively making music, slapping paint on a canvas, or struggling to come up with the perfect metaphor. Sometimes I WISH that’s all we had to do! As we all learn, all too soon, creating our art is only part of the equation [...]
Renegade Writer Classes
Posted in Business Issues, Writing, tagged renegade writer, writing classes on September 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
How exactly do you get that first magazine assignment? Get paid to travel the world? Get an agent to look at your book proposal? If you’re a specialist in another field, or another art, can you really get someone to publish you? If you’re wondering, check out this series of classes, offered by the Renegade Writer. I’ve [...]
Myth of the Starving Artist?
Posted in Business Issues, Creative Communities, Freelancing, tagged NEA economic data, starving artist on September 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Over the weekend, I was at a reunion for a summer camp I used to go to, and inevitably, there was a lot of updating of information: where people had ended up, who had kids (and grand-kids, even), who still was in touch with whom, and what work people were doing. “I’m a writer and a music teacher and a piano player” [...]
