Customer Reviews

Taking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist (The Insider's Guide to Exhibiting and Selling Your Art)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Last year I went out and bought every book I could find on marketing my art. Some of them were pretty good but this book just shone! It was so clear and funny that I decided to try to do exactly what the author said. I've had two shows of my work already and four more lined up for next year. And it was fun!

This is an easy-to-follow guide on how to establish a serious career as a fine artist. The first edition released in 1998 was excellent and the second edition has been appropriately updated to reflect how the Internet has influenced the business of promoting an artist's work. A significant strength of this book is its description of the business practices followed in the fine art field. Understanding how galleries operate and select art is a critical aspect of establishing a career. It is also important to know the best way to establish an artist's credibility with respect to the marketing aspects. The author's tone is very respectful of artists and the creative process and her approach is to inform artists on how to best establish a presence for their work in contexts that enable an artist to maintain a living as a professional artist. Readers should be advised that the focus of the book is fine art. It does not discuss licensing practices for commercial art or how to set up and run a booth at crafts fairs. However, if you are interested in a career as a fine artist, this is a genuinely excellent book.

Cay Lang uses practical terms and FACTS to teach people how to make their way as visual artists... The book has lists of things to do, the ways to do them and the encouragement to help you follow through. I find myself quoting this book all the time.
It was an easy read, not too technichal, inspirational and a great gift for people who are just a little bit nervous about taking the leap....
i have lent it to people who have promptly returned it to me so they could buy their own copy....

Thanks to Cay Lang, I am now selling my artwork in the triple digits. As she states in the beginning of her book,
artists would rather be making art than doing business.
This book helps you do both without sapping your creative juices. A new perspective, a simple remedy.

After being in a creative slump for about a year this is the book that inspired me to pick up my brushes again! I had these horrible thoughts of how difficult it would be to even attempt to make it as an artist but "Taking the Leap" eased my mind. It takes you step by step through everything you need to know and what you need to have ready to start your career. I learned how to properly photograph my art (I can't afford a photographer!) and how to set up my portfolio. There are also inspiring quotes from artists or pertaining to art to help get you through. I credit this book for getting me back out there!

A step by step manual of helpful information on every aspect on being a professional artist. Cay made it easy for me to approach galleries and I now have three exhibitions lined up for the year 2000. I'd recommend it for artists of all levels.

Cay Lang is a working visual artist, whose works have been shown internationally, and an accomplished teacher. The book is based on an actual 6-month long class she designed for other students ready to leap.

From the preface: "As my art career unfolded, from showing in nonprofit spaces, to national gallery representation and publication in books and magazines, and eventually to being seen in international museums and galleries, I picked up more pieces of the puzzle. By 1990, I had been teaching photography to university students for some time, and every new batch of students would ask me, 'How can we get our work seen and sold?' The answer was too complex for a ten-minute conversation, or even a semester's length class, so I started the Taking the Leap program, condensing ten years of information picked up in the trenches into an intense six-month practicum."

"The class was designed to be effective. I didn't want to create yet another situation where students dutifully attended a class, took great notes, and then filed them away somewhere for future use. I wanted things actually to happen for the students in a measurable way. I wanted them to experience the thrill of metamorphosis from art student to professional artist within the time line of the class itself, and I wanted to be there to hear them come bouncing in to announce that they just sold their first piece, or got their first show, or won an award. I decided that the class should meet weekly for no less than six months, limited the enrollment to twelve, and interviewed the students ahead of time to determine whether or not they were ready to market their work. The class turned out to be amazingly affirmative, with a high percentage of the artists going on to international art careers."

"This book is designed to recreate as closely as possible the experience of the class."

Are you ready to take the leap?

I've read several books on simliar topic's, and Lang's book is the most forward and down to earth. Although she doesn't go into the intricacies of copyright and other legal indemnities, Lang is quite a motivational and communicative writer. It's very good for getting started. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful book for those just starting to tackel the process of getting your artwork out into the world. It will save you time, money and allot of heartache. I wish I'd had it thirty years ago when I was starting out. I learned,as Cay learned, by "trial and error, error, error." I would strongly recomend this book to any artist who is serious about moving ahead in their career. You really can't afford not to buy it.

When people reach the stage where they start to think they may be artists, one of the things they envision is showing other people their work. At first, hanging it on their own walls seems enough (especially since many, at least at first, try to convince themselves that they are doing this work only for themselves.) But eventually the bug bites and they want to be exhibited in public. Cay Lang tells them how.

Of course the basic rule is work, work, work! But how to direct that work to get on the walls is what this book is about. Bit by bit, the author covers all of the steps that a visual artist needs to get exhibited, from preparing a submission packet for a gallery to schmoozing the press.

While reading about her process, I had a mental checklist created by consulting artists I know as well as my own experience. Once or twice, I thought I had her. She talked about mailing one's packet around. If all an artist does is send a portfolio by mail, the chance of being exhibited is small, even with the most brilliant artist's statement included. But a few chapters later there was the advice about making a personal visit, and a little later, there was the advice about networking. Eventually, she covered almost everything on the checklist.

Lang's writing is so simple as to be deceptive. It's straight forward and makes the process seem so easy. Of course, it's not, but if you can do the work you probably won't go wrong with her process.

This is an update of a previous edition, and she recognizes the importance of the internet in modern marketing. Occasionally, she makes some work seems easy, like taking pictures of your work for your portfolio. If you're a sculptor, taking pictures that will capture the spirit of your work is an art in itself. Designing a website, which artists need, even though sales from the site are unlikely, is also no easy task. So recognize that many of the tasks Lang touches on will involve whole new fields of study, or require the services of others.

The author also limits herself to discussing fine art exhibition. For artists like photographers there are other ways to present images to the public, including books and magazines, and selling from stock, that are not discussed here. Also, in one place in the book, she provides a reference to a book on artists' taxes that hasn't been in print for many years. This was quite disappointing because it would be great to find a book that could explain depreciation to an artist in simple terms!

In summary, here's a simple book that can start an artist on the way to marketing his or her art. It's a good recipe, but you have to add lots of work.