Ever get curious about how an art career happens? Struggling artists are more common than successful ones in the competitive high stakes world of art. Let's look at one recent example of an artist's rise for near obscurity to museum shows and New York gallery openings. Artist Trevor Guthrie is an excellent example for the unknown artist to look at as a model of how things can be done in terms of building a career. It's not mission impossible it just takes luck and persistence. Getting press written about you is helpful but we'll cover that in part 2.
Trevor Guthrie makes large format charcoal drawings and obsessive oil paintings. He produced hundreds of high definition realistic black and white works on paper over the past decade. Guthrie's prices continued to rise in his home town of Zurich where he resides with his wife and two boys. It's been a long road for Guthrie who was working as a waiter for many years. Guthrie's rise was in this case due to determination and high quality work.
Even exceptional artists often hear "don't quit your day job" come from the lips of everyone from spouses to extended family. Holidays can be especially tedious for the artist still struggling for affirmation from loved ones or for financial stability. As a result of some big breaks in terms of art sales, Guthrie had the money to actually quit his day job and ever since has been constant in his production of art. Not many of the details can be covered in this short blog post. As opposed to going through each detail of how he did it I will say that success in visual art requires a great deal of networking and great work. Often unqualified artists promote bad work. The best way among others is to promote your best possible work. For additional tips feel free to ask me questions or add your own art career stories in the comment section below.