Where is the Blueprint for This?

I asked several teachers along the way to tell me how they succeeded in becoming an artist, how to get into galleries, how to make a living, how to thrive and not just survive. Because surely, after all those years of working and trying, of receiving genuine encouragement and accolades for the work I had already spent seven years developing, albeit still in an early stage of my young career—surely that meant it could really go someplace. At least, I believed it to be so...

So the question seemed quite reasonable for me to ask them: how did you do it? How did you succeed? How did you find your galleries? These were questions that were not mine alone.

The only semi-concrete answer I remember hearing filled me with a foggy sense of disillusionment. “Well, I went down to London after I graduated and did the legwork,” was followed by the professor in question quickly disappearing down the stairwell, as if that snippet of infomation would clear up all of my questions and doubts…

On another occasion, the school had invited two graduates to come and talk to us about how they had “done it.” Our questions received the same elusive, vague answers, and slightly nervous laughter, as they jokingly made fun of their lack of real success. Again, more disappointment and a looming uncertainty as graduation approached. An uncertainty I suspect I did not carry alone.

Eleven years on, I am surprised by how much those moments still linger not too far from my subconscious, if I decide to travel backwards in thinking about my career trajectory.

The clarity on how to succeed and continue after art school was missing. It really did, and still does at times, feel like being almost entirely in the dark, shooting cannons with no target, and on many occasions leaving me feeling shrivelled and behind.

The truth is, it really wasn’t my fault, but it wasn’t theirs either. What felt disappointing and frustrating to the younger artist trying to get direct answers from those further along the trodden path has now been replaced with a more understanding position. Because truthfully, I now understand that no matter how successful they may have been, they probably never could have advised me, or anyone equally eager to know the way forward. Not because they didn’t want to, but because there really is no blueprint for this life. To be an artist, that is.

Even now, the idea of success resists explanation. You can trace certain steps, certain moments, but the rest is filled with unknowns: unexpected connections, twists and turns, coincidences that lead to a conversation in a certain room on a certain day, which may or may not open anything at all.

The path is invariably convoluted, that (you, someone, they) never really could explain how to make it as an artist, not in any linear sense that is. I am no longer sure if this is a comfort or a detriment. I certainly aspired to navigate the journey well, and to lay out all of my answers for those who followed swiftly behind me on this uncertain terrain. But as I realised the lack of a blueprint for this unruly, wildcard life path, of being a painter, a writer, a musician, (enter your chosen medium), I came to see even more clearly how little of one there actually is.

Whatever happens to my work, through my own actions, may not, and likely will not, apply to you or the next person. And perhaps that is the part that is hardest to accept.

Nevertheless, I do think there is something to be said for speaking plainly about it, for not pretending there is a formula where there isn’t one. Instead of providing false answers, to instead leave something behind that is at least recognisable. Something that says: this uncertainty is not yours alone.

If I were to find myself back there, asking those same questions again, I think I would have wanted them to say very little about how to succeed, and more about what it feels like to continue, that it will be uncertain, and at times, difficult to carry, so that the path needn’t begin so blindly.

Because perhaps it isn’t the difficulty that matters, so much as knowing it is there, and finding a way to stay with it.