Graeme Smith

Courses and Workshops Graeme Smith

Teaching is a commercial option for an artist. This can be in addition to painting and other artistic activity. There are many people specializng in helping people understand art better. You can choose whether to become involved in teaching or not. If you're in business then business principles apply to your activities. Musicians, poets, salespeople, accountants, hairdressers all are the same. John Hill (UK) says it's difficult to paint and teach without compromise. John says successful teaching requires creativity and hard work. Often this can be to the detriment of the teacher's own art. Student needs influence technique, style, palette, subject matter of a teacher. Some established artists also teach, based on their personal painting skills. Whether to specialize or not, is a choice artists have. Teachers can do the same but you can't both specialize and not specialize. The beginning artist tends to try all ideas, media, subjects and so forth. A beginning teacher often does this too!They have to do this to find out what they like best. Some artists even do this for a very long period. They become life-long students and there's nothing wrong with that!But many discover that certain things interest them more than others. Maybe it's various combinations of media, colours, or subjects. They tend to follow this interest and there's nothing wrong with that either. Teachers can do the same. Because of their focus, they get better at their specialty. They apply knowledge and experience with greater depth and understanding. Business is not prejudiced towards, or against, any particular sort of art. Realist, facile, studious, contemporary, all can be a professional career. That could be as an artist, teacher or both. Sound commercial orientation is complementary to artistic endeavour. An artist who has a need to create, a need to sell and a need to teach. Can do all of them, without compromising any of them. Yes it's possible but due to time constraints it may not be easy.