JCAL Fellowship: Thinking Abundantly
Yvonne setting up Get the Art Out, a game she created to generate discussion about our experiences navigating the art world as artist entrepreneurs.
Sunday was the our first official meetup of the JCAL ARTWorks fellow. Our first seminar was led by the amazing Yvonne Shortt.
“Seminar” feels like too small of a word to describe this experience. It was more about creating space to have honest conversations about what it means to be a working artist and to challenge the idea that we had to operate in scarcity.
Yvonne Shortt is a New York based artist and the founder of the Museum for Contemporary Artists. She embraces the idea of working from an abundance mindset as an artist. As she aptly pointed out in our discussion, the art world operates from a place of scarcity; artists are competing with each other for recognition, validation and patrons. Because there is this pervasive belief that there isn’t enough for everyone to go around, artists tend to be grateful for whatever scraps they can get. As a result, they undervalue their time, labor and the value of their creations. If you compound this scarcity mindset with the the all too common philosophy that artists don’t produce anything of value, it’s not surprising that artists feel undervalued and are exploited. (As someone who also went to law school, the scarcity mindset is enforced from day one which is why law school is so damn cutthroat and law students are miserable).
Yvonne wants to subvert all of that and in her discussion with us and pointed out that when we choose to think in abundance, we value ourselves more and ask for more. In practical terms, this looks like asking for financial transparency when working with non-profits and commercial gallery spaces. This also looks like artists working as a collective and sharing information; sharing information looks like having honest discussions about income (which still a very touchy subject) just as you would have honest conversations about salary with your coworkers. Having this information gives us leverage to negotiate better financial opportunities.
In the spirit of the abundance mindset, I asked Yvonne her thoughts about artists having day jobs so that they don’t have to demand that their creativity support their survival. She pointed out that without a safety net, art becomes a product and that having a day job allows for exploration and spiritual practice. In my own experience having a day job has allowed to me to say “no” to projects that don’t align with my values and it gives me the space to experiment with new approaches to creativity.
I felt so validated and energized by Yvonne’s words and I feel fortunate to connect with her in the space of our program. I’m to expanding my thoughts on the themes that were birthed from this experience.
To learn more about Yvonne and her art practice, please visit her Instagram page and the website for the Museum for Contemporary Artists.
