Hi Subscriber,
Tina Garrett, an ARC Living Master and BoldBrush Signature Artist, just
sold two pieces in the 2021 ARC Salon at Sotheby's in NYC. She joined
BoldBrush for a candid conversation about her career, some of the
people and ideas that helped her reach these achievements, and where
she'd like to go from here.
Enjoy today's selection,
BoldBrush Studio Team
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Tina Garrett Melancholy
Tina Garrett, Melancholy, oil on canvas, 2020
Reaching Goals and Crafting a Career:
A Conversation with Tina Garrett
You came to painting as a second career, but in the years since you
started painting you've reached some major milestones in any artists'
career; you've won many exhibitions, you're a respected teacher, and
you've had several pieces acquired by the permanent collection in the
Art Renewal Center. What's your perspective on your career now that
you've achieved these goals?
I'm coming up on my tenth year of being a painter and so much has
changed in those past ten years. Now that I've had my work collected by
several museums and the ARC, I'm feeling like there are fewer and fewer
of those milestones to check off and I'm feeling more and more freedom
to just do what I want to do, for the sake of doing it- I have a
philosophy of life that's based on feeling fulfilled and satisfied, and
I feel like when you've done enough, everything else is just icing on
the cake; when I had the first place collected by the ARC, I thought,
I've done it, I'm in a permanent collection, I'm going to go down in
history - what else is there to achieve? Everything else is just icing
on the cake. That takes a lot of the pressure off and makes the rest of
your journey really fun. Essentially I make the work I need to make;
I'm very internally driven - in a way I'm a selfish painter, because
I'm not really thinking about what the world needs to see but about
what I like and want to paint.
What has changed in your painting now that you feel more freedom to
just do whatever you wish?
I'm not killing myself the way that I was at first; the first five,
even seven years, I was working so hard, mainly because my husband was
supporting me during that time, sometimes working up to three full-time
jobs, and I felt a great deal of guilt about not contributing to our
family income. So being in a position now where I am making an income
and contributing to the family again, I feel way less pressure.
What do you say to your students who struggle with that?
I do several types of teaching, and that particular conversation
happens with my business mentees; when I'm working with them I tell
them they need to make an assessment of the actual time that they spend
on things in their day-to-day life, so that they can see whether
they're even doing what they think they're doing with their time. A lot
of people say "I think you have to paint every day to be successful,"
but when you ask them to show a calendar of what they've actually done
in the last 60 days, they've painted only seven days. So they don't
actually do what they believe they do, and they're failing according to
their definition of success. They can choose to do one of two things:
actually do what they believe to become successful, or change their
belief. Because I don't think you have to paint every day to be
successful. I can't paint every single day. On a good year I travel 26
times in a single year. But I am thinking about painting every single
day, either painting or marketing or connecting with people. The
biggest misconception people have about being a successful artist is
that you just have to do great work and somehow everything else will
unfold. There's not a single other business on the planet where all you
have to do is make the product and the money will just come flying to
you. You have to talk to people about it, to make it easy for them to
understand what you offer and why and how to get it. All of these
things are business - an art business is like any other business.
It seems like you really value personal relationships, with your
students and with mentors you admire. What role did that play in
getting you where you are today?
100%. I could be me, understanding what I do about business because of
my past experience, but if I hadn't taken workshops with the painters I
admired, I don't think I would have been successful. I owe 100% of what
I have done to my amazing teachers - including Richard Schmid, Michelle
Dunaway, Daniel Keys, Jeremy Lipking, Romel de la Torre, with whom I've
taken seven workshops as well as private lessons. Really all of this
leads back to Schmid, because when I started learning to paint at the
Scottsdale Artist School, they gave me a great scholarship for Romel de
la Torre. I had no idea who he was, or anyone in the fine art world for
that matter. It wasn't until that day, when I saw Romel bring a person
to life on canvas before my eyes and I was just dumbfounded and had to
learn more, that I started asking questions. I went to one of the
students in the class and asked him why oil paint was such a slimy
mess, and he told me to buy Alla Prima by Richard Schmid and do the
color charts. I did, and it made all the difference. I worked so hard
finding teachers that were either heavily influenced or directly taught
by Richard, because he wasn't teaching any more. And ten years later,
here I am having met Richard and Nancy, spending time in their home,
blessed that they took me under their wing - but that happened because
I went to the Scottsdale artist school and started putting the dots
together, looking at all of these successful painters connected to
Schmid, and going to the source.
I'm often asked how I advanced so quickly; you can look at my work from
my first or second year painting and it's not that great but by my
third year I'm starting to get international recognition. First of all,
I worked at it like a 40-hour week work job, like my income depended on
it. Many people don't get to do that - they have other jobs they're
working while they study - but I was lucky that my family believed in
me and supported me while I was studying. But then also I was smart
enough to recognize that instead of bouncing around to various classes
and styles, I stayed very focused on oil painting, studying only with
people who had studied with Schmid. I know myself, that my brain has a
limited capacity and if I load it with other things like watercolor or
different painting styles or what-have-you, I'll loose the information
I need to retain. So I put my blinders on and focused.
Tina Garrett, First Watch, oil on canvas, 2020
Tina Garrett, First Watch, oil on canvas, 2020
Let's talk a bit about the focus. Schmid has a very distinct style and
you can easily see who has been a student of his. What made you decide
to pursue that specific route?
When the Scottsdale Artist School gave me Rommel as a teacher, he was
too advanced for me and his class was way over my head. I needed to go
home and do the color charts, like I was told. So Schmid's book Alla
Prima really helped me and having that 'bible' of art lessons in front
of me made it easy for me to see that this was thorough enough for me
to learn painting well, and I saw that all of his students were
successful professional painters - and then I saw in this trail from
Schmid a tremendous generosity of knowledge. When Schmid received his
Lifetime Achievement award from the Portrait Society of America, he got
up and pounded the podium and said, "You don't own this information.
You have the responsibility to pay it forward." And I know from
experience that each one of his students has that attitude that they
learned from him. They care about great work. Because if you want there
to be great artwork being made 200 years from now, you have to share
that knowledge so future generations can make the great work. Above all
that was the key, that generosity of knowledge. Too many painters are
afraid of sharing everything they know because they don't want to be
surpassed, and that doesn't make any sense, because no one can be a
Daniel Keys or a Dan Gerhartz, they are themselves and no one can be
them.
So we discussed your main goal, becoming a recognized painter. How did
you set the smaller goals and steps along the way, especially finding
the right exhibitions to show in?
Well I was looking at ways to advertise my work and it's expensive to
pay for advertising; that wasn't financially tenable for me at the
time, so I had to find other ways for getting work in front of people
that wasn't so expensive up front. And when you enter a competition, if
you win, they do the advertising for you; as a winner you're being
announced in magazines and online and all over the place, you're
actually getting more press than if you're paying for it yourself, so
that was my strategy. I found competitions that had the kind of work I
aspired to make, and started following them and paying attention to who
won and what their rules for submission were. Making sure my work fit
into that scene before I entered it so I wasn't wasting time. Make sure
you understand the show and don't break rules when you're entering,
that's important! I looked for the places where I would get not only
prize money but recognition in the press.
And the other benefit of that process is being associated with your
peers in the competition who are doing the same kind of work.
Yes! My husband always says "Go where your people are." When you're
talking to other artists about art, you're essentially talking to your
market. I would say about 70% of the people who buy my work are also
artists. And 100% of the people who take my workshops are artists!
Artists love art, they love to collect it and make it and talk about
it, so they are the main audience you should go to.
Tina Garrett, City Blues, oil on canvas, 2015
Tina Garrett, City Blues, oil on canvas, 2015
You seem like a planner; how much of the success you've reached would
you say has been a result of planning and how much has been unplanned
serendipity?
That's a great question. I've had certain things happen that seemed
like chance but at the same time weren't: I'll give an example. The
first series I did was a series of figurative works called Vintage
Nouveau - those paintings only happened because I as at another
painting show and I saw this beautiful figure of a woman from the back,
with hair all the way down to her calves and I could just tell from her
posture how lovely she was. And so I went over to her to ask her if she
would mind sitting for me, maybe we could go outside and we could get
some pictures or something - when I tapped her on the shoulder and she
turned to me I saw she was about 80 years old, this gorgeous old woman
wearing 7-inch stiletto heels and long flowing hair! And me going up to
her and starting a conversation turned into her coming over to my home
for a day and giving me access to her great-aunt's collection of
original 1920s and 30s clothing and making an entire series based off
that clothing. In a way that was serendipitous, but it took the spark
of my own audacity to talk to a total stranger and ask them something
they might say no about. I guess I don't believe there's much that will
just fall into your lap; that you have to at least try to make your own
destiny. You have to take the risk of being told no.
That's a great answer, you took initiative and something genuinely
unexpected came out of it. What is the best part of reaching this stage
in your career, when you already have recognition and you don't feel
like you're working as hard? And what's a challenge?
Well, I think if I had any kind of an ego issue I'd be in trouble. If I
started worrying about what people thought of me, I'd be in trouble.
That one's hard for me. That's something I watch in myself, to accept
the fact that my work may not be everyone's cup of tea. I think that's
something that can hang up a lot of painters, feeling like your work
needs to be loved by everyone or you're not good. You have to figure
out what your "enough" is, and my "enough" is making a living for my
family. I kind of surpassed my goal of being collected; anything that
happens beyond that is just icing on the cake. The best part of being
at this stage of my career is the relationships that I've made along
the way. I love the people and the group of artists I've met in the
past few years. I don't know of many other jobs where your colleagues
genuinely cheer you on and they are a part of your lives like this.
Sharing the excitement, painting together, learning, I always feel so
energized after I'm with them. Being a painter is a very lonely job, it
can be isolating and I counteract that with the teaching that I do and
the shows I attend. That circle of friends that "get" you that's the
best part of being a painter.
I can see that dealing with negative opinions could become more of a
challenge as you become more well known. Do you still deal with not
being satisfied with your work yourself, and what do you do with that,
since people expect great work from you now?
I'm actually more terrified that people will expect me to make a
greater quantity of work then about the great quality of work. Because
I believe that given enough time I could make a masterpiece that could
make you cry, but ask me to make ten and I might have a breakdown! I'm
concerned about the time factor. I've learned to build a community of
friends and mentors who can tell me when a painting is done. When I'm
reaching the end of a piece I'll reach out to a few and ask them if it
meets the standard they'd expect from me and more often than not
they'll tell me I've overshot it! So I'm learning more and more to
reach out for that kind of input. Successful painters keep their ears
to the ground and listen to what their market is telling them, and the
market includes not just collectors but your students and mentors too.
Because you are the commodity, so if your community is telling you
something, take it with a grain of salt, but listen to it. And I'm
hearing from my community that my perfectionistic tendencies are
slowing me down, so I'm working on that. You might ask how to find that
kind of mentor; when you're out at these events and you meet
such-and-such and learn they work for this magazine or curate for that
museum, you say "I would love to get your input on my work, can I get
your business card, can I give you mine?" and then you actually do
that, send them an email with a picture and say "This is what I had on
my mind, I'd love your input but I know you're super busy so if you
don't get back to me it's fine." As long as you're super gracious since
you're bothering them with something they don't get paid for, then you
should get some feedback that you can decide if you want to use or not.
That's how I move past my indecisions; I have my set of professionals
that I trust who have years of experience behind them. It's only a bad
situation if you get stuck inside the feedback loop of your own head
and you tell your self it isn't any good or it will never be finished
and then you end up believing it isn't any good and never finish.
What is a big goal that at the beginning of your career that might not
have seemed possible and is still a big goal for you?
Well when I first started painting my husband took me to the Prix de
West, where Jeremy Lipking was showing some paintings. I didn't even
think until this year that I would ever ever be allowed to show in the
Prix de West. But this year I submitted an application and I'll find
out in August if I'm admitted. The Prix de West is the best of the best
in Western American Art and for me it's a huge achievement to show
there, so that's my next goal. I've been self-represented the entire
ten years I've been painting and adding the Prix de West on to the
sales I make on my own would be just the right level of representation,
where I would show just once a year but have access to a huge collector
base. I'm really excited to hear back - it's incredibly exclusive, so
it might take a few years to get in, but I finally had the guts to
apply so that's a start!
Last question: Who are three of the most influential artists for you
from the past and from today?
I could go on and on, there are so many great painters today that I
follow. Top of the list is Richard Schmid; he painted everything
consistently well, there's stellar quality throughout his career; he
has pieces from the 1960s to 2015 and none of it feels dated, he's
always Richard and the quality is always there. Also not just his
paintings but his entire philosophy of painting is very influential for
me. And then his wife Nancy Guzik; she has a very tender sensibility in
her work that I hope to get to in the next 25 years. It's my goal to
take people into the same atmosphere that she's able to create. And
Jeremy Lipking; I love the way he's able to create portraits of his
children and 'unportraitize' them, make them iconic and timeless. As a
mother, Lipking has shown me that you can embrace your family in your
work in an authentic way, and genuinely celebrate what's happening in
your daily life through your work while making a living out of it. His
work remains very authentic and personal but also very marketable, and
I think that's a masterful perspective for any artist working today.
Working with so many artists, especially women, I hear this dilemma all
this time, the balance between being a parent and being a painter. I
look at Lipking and I think, "There's how to do it!" If you're immersed
in this portion of your life, why try to paint something outside of
that and apologize to your kids for not being with them, or separate
your family from your work life?
For painters in the past, I really love Isaac Levitan; he is where I
want to be in my landscape painting some day. I hesitate to name
Sargent and Sorolla, because everyone likes them, but I have many books
on them - although in all honesty, when I sit down at the easel, the
book I turn to most frequently is still Schmid's Alla Prima. Right now
I'm working on a big 54'' portrait of a lady riding a horse so I'm
looking at Remington. I keep a folder on my phone called "How the
masters did it" and when I'm starting a new painting I'll take the new
concept I have and compare it to the masters I want to be like, and
immediately, even at the concept stage, I can tell where my piece is
lacking; it's very eye opening. Fantin-Latour and Boldini are two more
favorites; they're magic on the canvas. When I saw a Boldini in person
at the Clark, I bawled like a baby. Anybody that has control of
composition, control of light and dark, and dynamic brushwork has my
attention.
One last Schmid story, because this made all the difference in the way
I look at artwork I admire: I was sitting at the kitchen table one
night, Nancy and I were getting ready to go out, and I was looking over
his shoulder at this little painting he did of a pine tree on a grey
evening. And I said to him "Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful, I feel like
I can feel the wind rocking through the trees, it's so romantic. And he
replied, "My darling, that's nonsense." And I was so embarrassed,
thinking "Oh no I said something horrible and stupid to Richard
Schmid!" But he said, "Look at it again and tell me in practical terms,
what do you see?" So I looked again very carefully and said "Well, I
see lots of grayish green but nothing truly green; and I see pine
needles everywhere but not a sharp edge anywhere; everything's very
muted and harmonized, there's nothing standing out," and he said
"Exactly, so none of this nonsensical conversation with yourself when
you're looking at the Masters. The Masters showed you exactly how to do
it in the work, so when you look at the Masters' work ask yourself in
practical terms what they did, instead of just oohing and aahing over
it." And that moment changed how I made my own paintings and how I
compared it to the work of the masters - it helped me take a practical
approach to understanding the elements they were actually using and
where those elements are missing in my work. And the great part is that
any artist can figure that out, and each one of us will observe and
pick out different elements in the work of the masters to use, because
each one of us has individual taste. So I'm literally crafting my own
work as I look, because I'm selecting the specific elements to aspire
to.
Many thanks to Tina Garrett for this interview! You can view her
website here or follow her on
Instagram here .
Tina Garrett, Bravado, oil on canvas, 2020
Tina Garrett, Bravado, oil on canvas, 2020
Tina Garrett, Hell's Belle, oil on canvas, 2019
Tina Garrett, Hell's Belle, oil on canvas, 2019
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