Why Join The Abundant Artist Association?

Last week I asked the members of TAA Association why they joined. Here’s a brief rundown of what they said. Here’s my live video that I did last week.

“I signed up for the Association to be part of a wider community” was a common refrain heard through out the discussion. When I asked what this means to them, this was one artist’s response.

“I sometimes feel isolated with questions that my non-artist friends and acquaintances may not understand and/or be unable to answer. In an association, there is a commitment, a support network focused around common interests, the creative process and other topics which matter to artists wanting to go professional.”

I don’t think I could possibly sum up what we’re trying to do here better.

I’ve been running TAA for 8 years. When I started it was all about the knowledge. I wanted to teach online marketing to artists, because that’s what they were asking me to teach.

But over the years, I noticed that artists were saying, over and over again, that they were isolated. They didn’t know other artists. They couldn’t move to NYC to be a part of the scene there because they had family or other commitment where they were, and they didn’t know how to find a local scene.

Several artists said they wanted to see “how other artists are succeeding,” or to “find a community of working artists, so we can share tips, successes, failures, and generally support each other.”

I also like what one artist said about wanting “to engage a community of artists (to advance the awareness of upcycled art).” If you make a type of art that is a bit unusual, you have to make people aware of it and educate them a bit on why it matters. A community of similarly interested artists certainly helps with that.

In our presentation on how artists use community last week, I talked about how, in 1867, Claude Monet saw that the fine art business was tilted against artists who were doing original, innovative work. He got together with then-unknown artists like Degas, Manet, and others to put on their own show, outside the French Academy, and it was a huge success, birthing Impressionism. It was called the Co-operative Company of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, Engravers. Movements like this happen over and over again, with the American Armory show, the Young British Artists, and many more.

One artist said that she liked our idea of “emulating the impressionists and actually building something new for ourselves. With the internet, we can get artists together from all over the globe, and we can all share ideas and support each other. I always loved the thought of the old salons, and it would really be something if we could build something like that here.”

That’s the goal.