JCAL Fellowship: Pathways
My fellowship activity has ratcheted up in the last few weeks and I feel like I’ve been learning so much! This program continues to be a wonderful way of making connections with successful artists and learnings about the hidden quirks of the art world. I’ve loved learning is how every artist navigates their paths to success differently.
Two weeks ago, my residency program visited the artist residents at the Queens Museum of Art. The two artists we met were so generous with their time and we were grateful to experience their creativity within their studio space at the museum. The inaugural artist residency program through the Queens Museum is unique lets artist dedicate themselves to their practice in an amazing studio space for two years while earning a salary and health insurance and it asks participating artists to engage the local community. It’s definitely a program that seems more cerebral and activist-minded because of this community engagement.
Catalina Schliebener (pictured right), who hails from Chile, is currently exploring notions of gender and sexual identity, class and race through collage and painting. They are especially interested in how these notions are formed through depiction of Latin American culture as cartoons and storybook characters. Her collage work and paintings take on these fantastical figurations that are sometimes disturbing but done in Disney-like style.
The other artist that we met, Cameron Granger, is a multidisciplinary artist who celebrates familial ties and history through installation, sculpture and even movie making. I was fascinated by his research into Black American mythology and magic and its relationship to Black communities.
Guy Philoche in his studio alongside one of his paintings.
Me standing next to one of Guy’s painting of Misty Copeland.
A few days later, I visited Guy Stanley Philoche during the East Harlem Open Studios tour ahead of his visit to our fellowship cohort. A very accomplished painter from humble beginnings , Guy has been grinding on his art game for over 20 years to reach massive success: he currently sells his pieces for six figures and he has an upcoming Netflix documentary coming out on his career. His current body of work is literally about giving people their flowers; he paints grayscale portraits of people, both famous and unknown atop primitive representations of daisies (his mother’s favorite flower) as a way of celebrating them. When I asked him how he stayed motivated during those 20 years of grinding to success, he told me that he simply told himself, “Why not me?” In addition to his self belief, he diligently researched the art market, engaged in creative guerrilla marketing campaigns and continued to make the work without comparing himself to others.
What’s also inspiring about Guy is that he is adamant about paying it forward when it comes to supporting emerging artists. He purchases their works for his own private collections and showcases their work, all the while keeping in mind how hard he had to work to get noticed. While at his studio he kept emphasizing how there really is enough room for everyone to have a seat at the table. It didn’t go unnoticed that this is the second successful artist that I met during my fellowship who operated from a place of abundance.
When it comes to being a successful artist, there is no magic formula; no two paths are the same. Before I was selected to be a ARTWorks cohort, I was admittedly cynical about the feasibility of having a successful art career. I think this was because I too often encountered non-artists who were cynical and dismissive of the idea that an artist could be successful. But over these last few months I can shrug at the cynicism and say, why not? Why not me?
