The Thriving Artist

By The Clark Hulings Fund

Arts Education Business Investing Management & Marketing Training Visual Arts

What's The Thriving Artist about?

The THRIVING ARTIST PODCAST is a feature of the Clark Hulings Foundation, which exists to provide training, professional introductions, and funding for working artists, to turn working artists into THRIVING artists. Tune in for insights from other artists, art industry experts, art collectors, and business specialists. Don't be a starving artist, be a thriving artist!

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The Thriving Artist episodes:

07.27.2022
How to Build a Robust Creative Economy That Rewards Everyone—including Artists
How do we live in a robust culture? How do we produce a robust culture at a time when we are fracturing, polarized, and creative enterprise is an afterthought?
11.26.2021
Virtual & Analog Art—Daniel DiGriz
We can have one foot in the world of visceral taste and touch and another foot in the digital world without having to split ourselves in half.
03.24.2021
Clark Hulings—Archetype of the Independent Artist
Writer James D. Balestrieri: “An artist really shouldn’t care about being in the canon. They should do what they do, which is what Clark Hulings did: work at their work.”
01.26.2021
Stock Art Can Go to Hell: Corporate Art Without Compromise
“I try to put everything, all of me, into the art.” Melissa Whitaker’s work—even for collaborations with corporate clients—is always her own.
10.14.2020
Virtualize Your Art Career: Part 2
“There is no one who can replace you in knowing what you want and telling your story.” Carolyn Edlund on success in tough times, and how the CHF Conference can help. Part II/II
09.30.2020
Virtualize Your Art Career: Part 1
Sales Strategy expert Carolyn Edlund discusses how artists can succeed during uncertain times and invites you to The Virtualize Your Art Career™ Conference Oct 19-30. Part I/II.
08.29.2020
Selling Art in The New Normal: Marketplace, Native Communities, and Virtual Reality
The Virtual Edition of The Santa Fe Indian Market offers an atmosphere of delight and awe at a time when most of us are cooped up in our own worlds of social distance.
06.08.2020
Build Your Own Future With Or Without The Establishment
“It takes years of putting lots of lines in the water.” Pop artist Ashley Longshore discusses guts, strategy, and other lessons learned as a leading artist-entrepreneur.
05.01.2020
Lockdown: Artists Double Down on Building Robust Businesses and Self-Help Networks
It’s a timely moment to hear from Cornelia Carey and Carrie Cleveland from CERF+, a leading nonprofit focused on safeguarding artists’ livelihoods nationwide.
02.19.2020
These Artists Graduated Training But are Entrepreneurs for Life
“It was a total mind-shift this year. There is a market for what I want to do, and I am selling. There are buyers for the subject matter that I want to paint.”
11.21.2019
Data Science in the Arts: Report on the Working Artist
CHF data analysts Lily Dulberg and Daniel DiGriz prove in the Report on the Working Artist that the secret ingredient for artists’ success is entrepreneurial training.
08.17.2019
Infiltrate the Business World in the Name of Art
“Certainly the jobs that are going to go last are going to be the ones that require people to creative problem-solve and come up with unique new ideas.”
07.12.2019
Artists Are Solving Atomic-Level Problems
“The arts are not just an amenity, they’re a critical function of society and a part of the fabric of social, cultural, and also economic life and livelihood for our country.”
06.15.2019
Classical Skills for Modern Art Careers: The Case for Training and Tradition
“With the advent of Modernism, there was this idea that training would ruin your creativity.”
05.29.2019
Fearlessly Take On The Big Daddy Ugly Goal
“The challenge was to make [the goal] so scary and big that you can never accomplish it, and I'm making small steps towards that.”
05.09.2019
If You Build It, They Will Ignore It. Unless…
“I think people who know what their values are...know what their values are! So yes, they're trading, yes they're ‘sacrificing,’ but what they don't trade off is what they value.”
03.12.2019
Tighten Your Sales Strategy, Then Refuse to Compromise
“When you decide what you want to do, you become more intentional about what you choose to do.”
02.18.2019
Lock Down Your Rights to Your Own Art
"If you don’t file a copyright application in a timely fashion you pay a very, very significant price. […] Artists really need to copyright their works I would say, immediately."
01.23.2019
Make the Gig Economy Work for You
“If you always give more than you ask, then networking is effective.”
01.12.2019
Get to Emerging Artist Status and Beyond
“There are so many platforms now for an artist living in obscure or out-of-the way places to get their work out and be seen.”
12.04.2018
Leverage Your Non-Art Expertise for a Career Blueprint
Kristin makes work at the intersection of art and science that connects us to the “extraordinary, strange beauty of the natural world.”
11.07.2018
Get Your Art Into Hotels and Corporate Spaces
“Make sure you’re always retaining the rights to the work. If someone is asking you to sign the rights, there’s a problem. Because we are asking permission to use it; not to own it.”
10.02.2018
Identify Pivotal Opportunities for Business Growth
“I consider myself a business owner, and my business is art. So I know that I’m running a business, and every artist that I know that’s making money is doing it the same way.”
08.16.2018
Generate Powerful Publicity: A Sistine Chapel Mindset
"The tipping point in my business was being able to educate people about why what I'm doing is different."
06.25.2018
Leverage Your Creative Skills to Improve Your Finances
"Your art practice will change; it’s absolutely necessary to plan for it. I don’t want to hustle to find rent money when I’m 80!"
05.12.2018
Build a Brand That Gets a Response
"The thing that trips students up the most is embracing that a commercial approach to art is OK."
04.18.2018
How Creative Entrepreneurs Build Investment Capital
“Creatives can, and should, own the companies that creatives work at---creative people are uniquely suited to understand opportunities and problems and therefore develop solutions for market opportunities.”
03.26.2018
Do Art Fairs Pay Off?
“Having one-on-one face time with an artist is what the viewer wants, it’s a good way to sell art and look at art.”
02.20.2018
How to Grow Your Customer Base and Increase Sales
"It doesn’t matter what your art is, if your intention is to earn a living from it and thrive in your art, that proposal will help you figure out how you’re going to get there.”
02.05.2018
Engage New Sales Avenues to Increase Art Income
It’s been an evolution to be a professional artist, and it’s taken me a long time to get here....I’m coming around to really seeing this as not only what I do, but my lifestyle and my income.”
01.21.2018
Identify Product-Market Fit for Entrepreneurial Success
"The best way to learn business is to start doing it."
12.23.2017
The Learned Skills of Successful Entrepreneurs
"Successful people say 'Yeah, I failed, but I did learn, and this is how I’ll apply it to the next thing I do.'"
12.12.2017
What Independent Publishing Can Teach Visual Artists
"One has to focus on strategy instead of tactic: tactic is the thing you’re going to do, strategy is the plan of how you’ll get respect, get well-known and get people to buy your work."
11.09.2017
Why Are You Working for Free? Examining Arts Labor
"There is a shame around making money off of swag or reproductions or something else that isn’t art---but that is making money off of art."
10.27.2017
How to Collaborate with Museums
“Art is a cool business---it's the only one I know where the customer often buys dinner.”
10.02.2017
Best Practices to Engage With Curators
They’re not separate at all---the market and museum---there are galleries now where there’s very little work in the exhibition that’s for sale. They’re publishing books and ‘competing’ with museums. The lines are becoming blurrier and some of that is positive."
09.08.2017
How to Meet Stakeholder Demands
"I don’t mind letting people see the process and where I go wrong, that’s part of the creative process and what people are interested in."
08.11.2017
Find the Best Representation for Your Art
"I see a lack of confidence standing in people's way, they don't trust what they're thinking, they don't trust what they're painting, and as soon as they get a little confident I see a huge change."
06.08.2017
Translate Social Media to Sales
"Every day something new happens in the world and art is really primed to look at those global changes and shifts."
05.26.2017
On Selling Tools of the (Art) Trade
"An artist recently said this to me about success: ‘You really just keep doing what you feel you need to be doing and if you do it long enough people believe it too’."
05.10.2017
Control How Your Art Business is Perceived
"When you’re younger, it’s fun to get that pat on the back, but you learn quickly that a pat on the back doesn’t pay the mortgage."
05.04.2017
Create Your Own Success
“I’m no Salvador Dalí, but I have built enough of a market that now I can start to work on leaving a legacy.”
05.02.2017
How to Find Your Audience
“Average people were very afraid to walk into galleries. Affordability became the key. You didn’t feel the intimidation.”
03.29.2017
Beyond Arts Education: Why Artists Need Business Training
“Sometimes they [artists] think earning money, charging for their work, is not something they want to do. They feel embarrassed to do so. It's an attitude, I have no idea where it begins, but a lot of artists just look...
03.21.2017
Manage a Successful Art Career
“As an artist, you need to be as prolific as you can because you will need a body of work to solidify your situation.”
03.10.2017
Art Collections Management: Caring for Your Collection
“Documentation is a very important part of the object and the care of collections.”
02.27.2017
Student Curated Art Collections: A New Way to Experience Art
“Young people need to have that experience and the effects can be dramatic over a lifetime. Experiencing an artwork in person is so much different than seeing it on a phone."
02.15.2017
Recognizing the Legacies of Overlooked Artists
“I think living artists should be very optimistic that there's still a healthy appetite for art... It's just occurring in different ways.”
02.08.2017
Between Creativity and Commerce: Art Thinking
“Many of the things that people approach in business - when they're talking about a business plan or return on investment - they're really talking about similar things to what happens in art.”
02.07.2017
Between Creativity and Commerce: Art Thinking – Amy Whitaker - Podcast – Clark Hulings Fund
How do you deal with changing industries? How do you make sure that your business remains viable for years to come? Amy Whitaker, author, business person, artist, and Assistant Professor at NYU Steinhardt, addresses these questions and more in her...

What's The Thriving Artist about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Thriving Artist episodes:

How to Build a Robust Creative Economy That Rewards Everyone—including Artists

Virtual & Analog Art—Daniel DiGriz

Clark Hulings—Archetype of the Independent Artist

Stock Art Can Go to Hell: Corporate Art Without Compromise

Virtualize Your Art Career: Part 2

Virtualize Your Art Career: Part 1

Selling Art in The New Normal: Marketplace, Native Communities, and Virtual Reality

Build Your Own Future With Or Without The Establishment

Lockdown: Artists Double Down on Building Robust Businesses and Self-Help Networks

These Artists Graduated Training But are Entrepreneurs for Life

Data Science in the Arts: Report on the Working Artist

Infiltrate the Business World in the Name of Art

Artists Are Solving Atomic-Level Problems

Classical Skills for Modern Art Careers: The Case for Training and Tradition

Fearlessly Take On The Big Daddy Ugly Goal

If You Build It, They Will Ignore It. Unless…

Tighten Your Sales Strategy, Then Refuse to Compromise

Lock Down Your Rights to Your Own Art

Make the Gig Economy Work for You

Get to Emerging Artist Status and Beyond

Leverage Your Non-Art Expertise for a Career Blueprint

Get Your Art Into Hotels and Corporate Spaces

Identify Pivotal Opportunities for Business Growth

Generate Powerful Publicity: A Sistine Chapel Mindset

Leverage Your Creative Skills to Improve Your Finances

Build a Brand That Gets a Response

How Creative Entrepreneurs Build Investment Capital

Do Art Fairs Pay Off?

How to Grow Your Customer Base and Increase Sales

Engage New Sales Avenues to Increase Art Income

Identify Product-Market Fit for Entrepreneurial Success

The Learned Skills of Successful Entrepreneurs

What Independent Publishing Can Teach Visual Artists

Why Are You Working for Free? Examining Arts Labor

How to Collaborate with Museums

Best Practices to Engage With Curators

How to Meet Stakeholder Demands

Find the Best Representation for Your Art

Translate Social Media to Sales

On Selling Tools of the (Art) Trade

Control How Your Art Business is Perceived

Create Your Own Success

How to Find Your Audience

Beyond Arts Education: Why Artists Need Business Training

Manage a Successful Art Career

Art Collections Management: Caring for Your Collection

Student Curated Art Collections: A New Way to Experience Art

Recognizing the Legacies of Overlooked Artists

Between Creativity and Commerce: Art Thinking

Between Creativity and Commerce: Art Thinking – Amy Whitaker - Podcast – Clark Hulings Fund