Save the Date | #ArtistHotline is Back on Twitter on December 20

First: get the recap from November’s #ArtistHotline. Then: mark your calendar for the next one!

Have you participated in NYFA’s monthly Artist Professional Development Day on Twitter? If you haven’t yet joined in, it’s a great opportunity to ask your career questions and get them answered by peers and international arts professionals. #ArtistHotline takes place on the third Wednesday of each month, and will be back on Twitter on Wednesday, December 20 from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST. As always, there’ll be a special Guest Chat between 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST with artists and arts professionals. Read more about how you can participate in our “Participate in #ArtistHotline” blog post and see below for a recap of November’s conversation.

November Topics

During November’s #ArtistHotline, we shared a range of general arts career tips, such as:

• Keep yourself motivated to create during the winter through playlists and by making your workspace appeal to you;
• Perfect your elevator pitch so you’re ready for any opportunity;
• Get on the radar of galleries in different cities by applying for opportunities with a national scope, but also be sure to maximize your local community;
• If you feel you’re ready to begin approaching galleries, and have a strong exhibition proposal, then you are!

Key Takeaways from the “Strategies for Mid-Career Artists” Guest Chat

Each #ArtistHotline, we focus on one special topic during a two-hour window, inviting virtual panelists to share their insights. In November, we were joined by Guest Tweeters Ella Boureau, writer and Awards Administrator at Lambda Literary, and James Everett Stanley, painter and Visual Arts Coordinator at Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC). Here’s a summary of the chat:

• Opportunities for mid-career artists abound, so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming deadlines. We shared a few during the Guest Chat:
• FAWC’s Stephen Pace Residency for a Mid-Career Painter; 
• Lambda Literary’s Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize;
• The 2018 Davyd Whaley Mid-Career Artist Grant; 
• Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Juried Residencies;
• Smack Mellon’s Exhibition Opportunity for Mid-Career Artists; 
• Gibney Dance’s Dance in Process (DiP) Residency
• When applying for opportunities, make your application stand out with high-quality images and by carefully curating your work sample;
• Build community by volunteering, attending events, and supporting other artists through mentorship; 
• Artists who are making a change in geography or medium: become involved with the community where you relocate, continue to share your work, and seek out artists working in your new medium;
• Reapply for opportunities if not accepted the first time;
• Create your own internal deadlines to ensure you’re continuously documenting your work and updating application materials;
• Maintain momentum from one opportunity to the next by continuing to create work, documenting it well, and sharing it, and staying engaged in your community via social media and in-person events

“NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Applications Tips” Staff Q&A

We kept the #ArtistHotline conversation going with Gabriella Calandro, Program Officer, Grants and Exhibitions. She shared insider application tips for New York State-based individual and collaborative artists interested in applying for a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship. Here’s what we learned from the chat:

• For the 2018 application cycle, Fellowships will be awarded in five categories: Fiction, Folk/Traditional Arts, Interdisciplinary Work, Painting, and Video/Film.
• Unclear on the meaning of “Interdisciplinary Work” or “Folk/Traditional Arts”? The Interdisciplinary Work category accepts submissions from artists combining or crossing disciplines. Examples include, but are not limited to: participatory installations or environments, live art, and public art. Folk/Traditional Arts includes work that is traditionally practiced within a cultural or a traditional lineage, that is typically handed down through generations. Learn more about the Discipline Categories here. 
• Applicants can create a compelling work statement by clearly explaining the submitted work, using active language, and avoiding academic language and quotes or references from other artists;
• Submit quality images: ensure your images are in-focus, and avoid uploading exhibition installation images. Images depicting the entirety of the work should include the edges.

Read the full day’s conversation in our Wakelet recap, and join us for our next #ArtistHotline on Wednesday, December 20, 2017, from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST. As part of the day, we’ll host a “Tackling Creative Block” Guest Chat from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST. Then, from 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST, we’ll be joined by Anna Ogier-Bloomer, Assistant Director of Career Development at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), for an Arts Adminstrator Q&A on "Work-Life Balance.” In the meantime, stay up-to-date with NYFA by following us at @nyfacurrent on Twitter.

Inspired by the NYFA Source Hotline, #ArtistHotline is an initiative dedicated to creating an ongoing online conversation around the professional side of artistic practice. #ArtistHotline occurs on the third Wednesday of each month on Twitter. Our goal is to help artists discover the resources needed, online and off, to develop sustainable careers.

This initiative is supported by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

Image: aotaro