Erin Murray - Ugly and Ordinary Animal Hospital

By Jenn Sharon

What is there to say about today’s Ask an Artist artist Erin Murray? More than you’d think! After getting her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art back in ’01 Erin returned to Philadelphia and it’s art scene with a mission. She’s been shown various places around town including the Painted Bride, Projects Gallery, F.U.E.L., Artist’s House, Center for Emerging Visual Artists — just to name a few. Her paintings of urban structures will strike a chord in any metro minded mortal. She recently took about 2 years off while she was building her Fishtown multi-unit house/artist space practically from scratch, and now that she has captured her vision for that building in 3-D, Erin is focused on returning to her art. I recently got the opportunity to chat with Erin about her views on different citrus fruits. No, wait, art– her views on art.

Art in Bars: Is someone an artist who does not continually make art?

Erin Murray: No more than I’m a writer just because I write once in a while. I’m cool with lots of people considering themselves artists; it’s not the sacred cow of designations, but you’ve gotta produce something, with passion and purpose. That can be artisanal cocktails, power ballads, full-sized liberty bells made out of pennies, whatever.

AiB: Do you consider the word ‘art’ a blanketed term on all things creative or do you think it is overused? Is there a traditionally accepted form of art that you think isn’t actually art?

EM: While I’ve walked into many a gallery and thought, “Are you f***ing kidding me?!”, I do not mind using the term ‘art’ for all things creative under the sun. If the DaVinci Code is writing, then that pile of poo can be art. Whenever I’m confronted with a confounding piece of art, I remind myself that it’s okay not to like or understand it, that’s for the critics anyway. I call it mattress planet art; allow me to explain: In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams speaks of a planet that is simply full of mattresses and nothing else. In an infinite universe with infinite possibility there would, of course, be such a thing, somewhere. In a supportive arts environment, the spectrum of art will be broad and varied and sometimes outright weird, and that’s something to be happy about.

AiB: Do you feel your work is influenced more by art historical traditions, your schooling, or something else you discovered?

EM: I think most artists could pick out hundreds of factors that influence their work. It‚Äôs a crystallization of everything you‚Äôve seen with everything you‚Äôve been. For me, I‚Äôve been influenced by other artists–discovered in galleries, in art school, and in random books left at my old studio building by other artists (thanks!). Certain teachers were influential of course. The city around me continually inspires–my personal history as a Philadelphian and the circumstances of my youth growing up in and around this city are also a factor in what I make as an artist today. Random things too; I stumbled across an interview of the architect Robert Venturi on the internet and found a wealth of ideas to inform my art. He had a good quote regarding influences from his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture: ‚ÄúFrom what we find we like‚Äîwhat we are easily attracted to‚Äîwe can learn much of what we really are.‚Äù

AiB: Because a college path of the arts is now generally socially acceptable, more young people are attending art schools. This means that there are now more people who identify as artists, with differing levels of passion and commitment. How do you think the luxury class of young artists affects the arts environment? Do art schools serve any purpose to young artists?

Erin Murray Ugly and Ordinary Daycare

EM: Well, it certainly makes the art scene more competitive and drives quality up and that’s a good thing. Another consequence is that many talented but self-trained artists can find themselves behind the curve. I know I’ve felt that way many times just for not having gotten an MFA. As I see it, thems the breaks. In some ways the art world is a meritocracy; the self taught artist who is dedicated and talented enough will rise to the top no matter. So, are we left with a slew of self identified artists that the market cannot bear? My feeling is that they will find their way; people with a college education usually do. At the very least they will have a knowledge and appreciation for art, and hopefully a fat paycheck because THAT is what the art world needs the most, patrons! (Maybe even ones outside of the art scene bubble!) I do think art schools serve a purpose, mostly because they are college, and I cringe to think where I’d be now without it.

AiB: Do you think criticism or praise inspires an artist to create more or better works? Or is the art just within the artist and neither criticism or praise is a factor?

EM: The idea that art is just within the artist and is not susceptible to change through criticism or praise is way too romantic for an old cynic like me. No artist is as good as they’re gonna get, and an artist who doesn’t at least take criticism under consideration is just plain stubborn. I’ve met people like that and, frankly, they’re annoying.

AiB: Do you always look at life through the eyes of an artist?

EM: I do, especially since my work takes the built environment as its subject. It’s darn near impossible just to walk around the city without being visually overloaded with work that I should make or that someone else should.

AiB: If you didn’t work in your primary medium, what (if any) other art would you create?

EM: I’d probably be making really bad crafts and selling them on etsy.

Look out for Erin in the upcoming 2010/2011 art year! But until then, you can check out her work at www.erinmurray.org. If you’re a self-identifying artist and would like to be asked some questions, or if you have burning questions for the artistic community, contact Art in Bars at admin@artinbars.com

Lemme tellya a thing or three

You have a website, or perhaps a tumblr or blogger or wordpress. Marvelous. You even update your resume as new shows and reviews come in, and you add images of new work and inform the public on sales. You’re rocking this web thing. But is anyone seeing it? Can anyone find you?

I’m kind of obsessed with tags and key words these days, because I’ve come to see how essential they are to sorting through the mass of information that is the internet. I was trying to look up information on a Philadelphia artist the other day, and I was shocked to find that searching their name and the word artist lead me to Art in Bars, which you know, isn’t so helpful since AiB was who was trying to find more information.

A buzzy skill these days is search engine optimization. Now, I have barely functioning coding skills, and if you’re not a code monkey yourself, you are in some ways limited as to what you can do, but never say never. If you have html knowledge, you already know how to create metatags for robots and keywords. But there’s always room for improvement in what you input as your keywords.

Imagine you are an artist in Philadelphia named John Circe. You do pencil drawings based on photographs of your friends wearing animal masks.  You also make sculptures out of pencils. This is your shtick.

It’s easy enough to get a handle of making sure your full professional name (John M. Circe) is included with any show you take part in,¬† or any image of your work you put on the internet. So if someone knows who you are they can find your website by searching your name, perhaps with artist or art if it’s a common name. But let’s imagine someone saw your work in a group show three months ago, didn’t write down you name, but has been thinking about how much they liked that art and wants to track it down. This is where key words become your best friend.

You need to think about how people who know you, who know your art, and have no idea you exist will find your art. Key word combination that should lead to you. Think specific. Of course use the terms Philadelphia, artist, drawing, pencil, art, but also think of the kind of drawings, the subjects, the materials and add those. Make up long strings of words someone might use to describe your work – weird drawings people masks, hipsters animal mask, Philadelphia drawing mask people, and flatter yourself.¬† Best Philadelphia drawing, really cool pencil sculpture, interesting drawings masks, new artists pencil really good. Always assume you want people to find you who don’t even know who you are, who have an idea of art they would like to see, and make sure your work comes up.

This assumes you have access to code to embed keywords. Let’s say as fancy as you get is a blogger site.¬† You have no idea what I’m talking about with keywords. Tags can be used the same as keywords, and should. Even if you post one image of a painting in progress, tag the hell out of it. Your name, the materials, the subject, the location. The robots of the internet use these words to find your page and suggest it to people who are searching the terms. The robots do not see pictures, they see words (this is why one can make an argument against artists having flash websites) then they look to see if the words in your tags or keywords match other words nearby (so you’re not lying about the content.)

The unsolicited advice: always when you put an image of your work on the internet, attach words to it. Lots of words. Specific words. And then the robots, and the art lovers, can find you.

ASCB '10

Couple of quick opportunities for artists, curators, mixologists, and those of you who self-identify as all of the above:

Art Star is accepting applications for their 7th annual Art Star Craft Bazaar. The rules say that up to two artists may share a booth, but collectives are allowed to apply as a group. It would be awesome to see some collectives and more art-orientated artists showing works at the popular event which always gets lots of press and foot traffic. To apply, go here.

Pterodactyl

Have a fabulous idea for a show but no place to exhibit it? Pterodactyl has an open call to curators right now. Information on their website. You need to have a solid concept, an idea of what artists might go in the show, as well as images of artists work. They also accept ongoing artists submissions.

In booze news, Art in the Age is looking for ROOT recipes yet again. Got a nummy one? Make a quick video of yourself and post it to their blog. Press release here. As always with ROOT, you could win more ROOT.

How to pump your resume? The most obvious advice is to apply for juried and group shows. Try for grants, purchase prizes, and public and private commissions. Submit your work for anything and everything you are remotely qualified for. But don’t fall into the trap of throwing your money away on scam shows, such as those that are online only or pay-for-play. Read the fine print. There are many opportunities that are free – paying for the chance to compete is not always the wisest decision as an emerging. Some good shows are free of cost and some bad ones have a very high entry fee. The point of these shows is the exhibition itself but also to use as a springboard and to boost your curriculum vitae, to parlay into the next exhibition.

Familiarize yourself with http://www.artdeadlineslist.com/ and sign up at least for their free emails. Get on the mailing list for museums, especially the smaller local ones, and those at Universities. Galleries that are in your vein are also good, but don’t blindly send out packets if they’re not accepting submissions. If you’re on their mailing list however, you should get notifications of open calls they have. If you are emerging, focus on emerging venues. Read as many art related blogs as often as possible. You cannot be too informed. And then, get your shizz together. Have images, in various formats, information, and statements ready to go. Constantly update your resume – because of that pesky catch 22 of having a bigger resume gives you the opportunity to get a bigger resume.

In the meantime – between actually getting into juried shows and galleries falling over your fabulous work to give you shows Рyou spin something out of nothing. You stretch the one senior show you had by listing it a few different ways. Did a teacher once hang some class work in a hall outside the studio? Find out the name of the hall that your work hung in and list it as though it were a gallery. Hang your work in your mom’s friend’s hair salon and call it a solo show. But remember, just because you hung drawings in your mom’s home doesn’t make it an exhibition.

None of this means you should lie – I’ve gotten resumes that claim they artists have had shows – or are going to have shows – at the gallery I work at. Which they have not. I’m not exactly sure of the logic behind this – I’m fairly sure I know the artists I’ve worked with. My prosopagnosia ain’t that bad. You also should not create shows on your cv that never happened. Including a show you and your friends put on for one night for a party is also a shady tactic. Likewise, it’s wonderful that you’ve sold work. Do no include relatives in your permanent collection.

People are aware of the galleries in this town, and everyone knows how to use a search engine. I do not recommend inventing a gallery that you’ve shown at that isn’t real or was a one shot-deal – unless that one shot got a lot of press. Nothing calls into question your reputation like outright lying about what you’ve done. It’s better that you’re honest about not having done much than getting caught in a lie or half-truth.

That being said if you’re not getting anywhere trying to break into the usual channels, start something yourself. If you can have a show in your studio space, do it. But if no one sees it, did it happen? You should of course always be working, creating new art. Try to make things happen with your current catalogue but always be working on the next thing. The truth is a good portfolio or application is not enough to get into a show Рyou have to pump that resume.

Students graduate with very thin CV: many schools do not emphasize developing a resume, and if one focuses on their schooling, they may not seek out resume builders as an undergraduate. A graduate has their thesis show, possibly other student shows, and any honors. Outsider artists don’t even have that, and yet they are each expected to undertake the arduous task of breaking into the scene while continuing to produce work (and for bfa holders unlearn most of what they were taught.) Emerging artists also must consider what kind of artist they want to be. Do you want sales? Lots of press? Solid gallery representation? Do you want to get museum shows? Your CV will reflect as well as push for these goals.

CVs should follow the same basic pattern: Name and contact information, education (including any extra curricular studies), Solo shows, select group exhibitions, awards and honors (this includes commissions, public projects, speaking engagements, etc.), collections (if applicable), and finally press/bibliography. Shows or exhibitions should follow the format of: arrange by date, newest first: show title, location name, city, state, date. Plug in your information and then work on fleshing it out from there.

A simple trick to stretching an emerging CV is to be detailed, and don’t abbreviate anything. Spell Pennsylvania – it eats a lot of line space. Also, slightly sketchy but effective is redundancy. If you have participated in a juried group show and won a prize, list the exhibition fully under group shows, then again under awards, with the award title. Use the name of whoever juried anything you have participated in, as well their title and where they work. It eats space and gives credence.

My friend is a teacher, and we have discussed if it‚Äôs worth it to include things you applied for. She says go for it and include anything you‚Äôve tried out for – if you don’t have anything you’ve won for your resume, let people know you were actively trying. I say only if you‚Äôve got nothing else, include things you know you were in the final running for. Like if you were a finalist for a grant or prize but didn‚Äôt get it. I see a lot of CVs that include every scholarship (merit or not) that students received.

Don’t format a short resume to be more than a page. Tweaking the margins and increasing your text size and spacing to waste paper is pointless if you only have three lines. Emerging artists are just getting started – that’s a given. I don’t care that you know Word and Photoshop. You should have a resume for trying to get a job and a CV for your art career and never the twain should meet.

Part 2 tomorrow.