Mentoring and coaching services
Artist Mentor provides mentoring, executive and professional coaching, career support and training to contemporary artists and creative professionals, in one-to-one and group sessions.
We also provide learning and skill sharing opportunities through expert led classes, resources and free community events and resources.
Our aim is to demystify the art world, to create parity and shape a future where the full spectrum of creativity is represented and has a voice. We believe that every creative deserves and needs champions.
We help creatives make the most of their gift, develop their practice, signposting new opportunities to attract new audiences and generate income from their work.
We have now equipped thousands of creatives from across the globe with the confidence, tools, knowledge, and community to achieve greater impact.
We also have a network of Associate Mentors we provide regular work to - a diverse mix of experienced artists, curators, educators, and gallerists, enabling us to respond to increased demand and support a growing range of client and sector needs.
What do you provide artists and creatives in the mentoring relationship?
We provide a safe thinking space to explore creative blockers, unhelpful assumptions, and real potential, clearing the way to enable clients to reach their goals.
We have an empathetic, and gently inquisitive, playful style. Building trust is key to having an honest, fruitful dialogue and relationship - a critical friendship, that best serves the client’s needs. Once established, this trust means we are in it together, exploring alternative perspectives and strategies that will unlock barriers to success.
How many mentoring or coaching sessions do clients usually have?
Everyone has different needs, but a minimum of six sessions usually ensures we establish trust, get under the bonnet of the core challenges, and address priorities and key concerns. This sets the stage for positive transformational change to occur.
We usually establish the number of sessions during the first meeting, once we have agreed what the goals are.
Mentoring and coaching services for artists and creatives
Some examples of areas you could get support with include:
- Artists Statements
- Portfolio Reviews
- Curating and Exhibiting
- Documentation
- Marketing
- Pricing and Selling
- Making Applications
- Reaching new Audiences
Artist Statements
An Artist Statement is a useful text that enables you to communicate your key drivers and line of enquiry.
A good short summary should be fresh, dynamic, unusual and clearly paint a visual picture of the ideas, media, methods and things you draw on and any key recurring obsessions that feature in your work. It should pinpoint what it is that makes your work uniquely yours.
The text will help researchers, writers, curators, collectors, gallerists and peers to connect with you and your work.
It is useful for your website and supports applications to residencies, competitions and open exhibitions.
Having great work is, of course, the priority, but the more interest you attract the more people want to find out about you, and it’s useful to have something simple that articulates some of the key factors that motivate you. If your statement is too lengthy, sounds vague, boring or like everybody else, it will affect how people read your work.
Many artists and creatives find writing about their work difficult and drawing together the complex range of ideas that are inherent in your body of work is inevitably a challenge.
Sometimes it helps to have an objective, critical eye look over your statement to see if there is a way to improve how you are communicating about your work.
During an Artist Mentoring session you can receive:
- Objective critical feedback on your existing artist statement
- Suggestions on how to improve the statement
If you identify that you would like help in writing the statement, that can be achieved post-session and will be charged at a day-rate, depending on how much work needs to be done.
For example, if it means writing the text from scratch, it may require further discussion, looking at more images of work or watching videos to ensure the text best represents you.
The result could be a more dynamic and intriguing overview of your work, that will also help focus your existing and developing body of work.
Portfolio Reviews
Sometimes it’s lonely being a freelancer or working in your studio. Regular discussions with artists, creative professionals and friends are useful and important, but occasionally you may want to speak in an unguarded way about your ideas, a recent body of work or your key concerns, frustrations or blocks in your work.
Portfolio Reviews are designed to support you developing your work, address key challenges and help you realise your full potential.
You may want to reconsider your style, methodologies, medium or presentation, but don’t have clarity or the initial budget to take that first step in changing course, so talking it through will help.
You may be keen to explore how best to pitch an exhibition, prepare your work for a studio visit or select the best work to submit for residencies or open exhibitions.
An Artist Mentor Portfolio Review session offers a timely opportunity to reflect on where you are in your practice or career at a particular moment, with an expert in the creative industries.
Ceri Hand will take time to reflect on and discuss your work to date and:
- Offer objective critical feedback on your work and creative journey to date
- Advise on challenges you are facing in your work
- Make recommendations that will help address creative blocks
- Provide a concise action plan for you to take away and implement
Initial mentoring sessions are a minimum of two hours, to ensure the best understanding of your work, assess the challenges and make the appropriate recommendations.
Curating and Exhibiting
During a mentoring session you can receive advice on editing and curating your work, particularly useful if you want to produce a coherent exhibition.
It may be that the gallery you are showing with requires information in advance and you need support on communicating effectively with them, such as:
- Selecting artworks
- Preparing project plans, schedules & budgets
- Writing loan or consignment agreements
- Catalogue texts, editing, design & production
- Press releases
- Developing associated public programme
- Exhibition design
- Fabrication and working with technicians
- Coordinating transportation of artworks
- Hanging systems and installation/de-installation
- Organising the private view & opening events
- Invigilation and security
- Health and safety and risk assessments
- Insurance
Documentation
Representing your work through images and evocative titles and supporting interpretative text will ensure your work communicates effectively. High quality, stimulating images are crucial to your success and in order to represent your work internationally.
During a mentoring and creative coaching session you can:
- Receive recommendations for professional photographers to document your work or edit the images you already have
- Receive support selecting work that is the best coherent representation of your practice
- Receive support on how to present your images online and in PDF’s
- Receive support on titling your work
- Receive support on selecting the right images for the context you want to target or operate within
Marketing
Creatively communicating about your work requires some consideration, planning and investment of time to determine which methods and platforms are suitable for your ideas and work, whether it’s press releases, newsletters, social media or a website.
A mentoring session or online support services provided by Ceri Hand I Artist Mentor can help you find the right marketing platforms for your work and help you with the changes you need to implement to reach wider audiences.
For example, independently written texts on your work can clarify your line of enquiry for the public and are useful for submitting with applications, distributing to curators, collectors, press and showcasing on your website.
Press and marketing campaigns are crucial to the success of any exhibition or event and you can solicit advice on managing all aspects of your campaign, from key press to digital marketing.
Artist Mentor can help with:
- Artist statements
- Press Releases
- Catalogue Texts
- Exhibition proposals
- Applications
- Selection and editing of images that best represent your work
- Website creation
- Website content
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Digital marketing
Pricing and Selling
Artist Mentor can provide advice on all aspects of pricing and selling your work, including
- Preparing your work for sale: using archival materials, framing, packaging, editing etc.
- Preparing for a studio visit
- Liaising with collectors
- Pitching your work at the right price
- Consignment forms
- Certificates of authenticity
- Discounts
- Editioning
Making Applications
It’s important to identify how you can support your work and make time and space to develop. Being a creative means being proactive and researching and finding opportunities, that includes making time to apply for exhibition opens, competitions, residencies and funding to support and develop your practice and career.
Artist Mentor can provide the appropriate expertise to support you in this area, including ensuring you have the most succinct texts and enticing images that reflect your work at its best, enabling you to achieve better outcomes. This might include, for example:
- Writing artist statements, supporting text or cover letters
- Selecting and editing images
- Titling work
- Writing funding applications
- Preparing budgets
- Identifying appropriate opportunities
Reaching new Audiences
Being a successful creative means effectively communicating your ideas with another individual or group of people.
Determining who you want to communicate with is part of the creative journey, but can often get lost in the making process and the solitude of the studio or workplace.
Identifying the right audience for your work not only helps you consider the right content, medium, display and distribution methodologies, but builds your circles of influence and helps ensure a legacy for your work.
During a mentoring and creative coaching session we can:
- Assess your work history to date
- Identify potential audiences for your work and areas for development
- Identify potential individuals, organisations and audiences for your work
- Sketch a communications plan to outline key messages and methodologies for reaching new audiences