Services
Exhibition Placement
For the benefit of the individual artist, I offer Exhibition Placement with galleries and museums to help the artist advance their careers and roles within the visual art community. To that end, the Exhibition Placement will provide artists the opportunity to work and exhibit with museums and galleries who have high quality visual arts exhibitions.
Exhibition Placement provides a wealth of cost-effective, high quality exhibitions for the artist with an array of possibilities. In addition to the gallery or museum’s own promotional material, I will provide for each exhibition some or all of the following promotional material: complimentary catalogues of artist’s work with essays, announcement cards and other pre-written press material.
One-on-One In-Studio Evaluations and Career Development Consultations
During an initial evaluation, I offer specific and appropriate advice that is tailored to the artist’s unique career objectives. I will first gauge how far an artist’s artwork and career has proceeded towards his or her goals, and then project what can reasonably be accomplished through new initiatives.
Some of the areas covered during the consultation include: promotional presentation materials, marketing strategies, and goal structuring. I outline the opportunities that are suitable to the artist’s style and level of achievement. I also explore other statewide and regional opportunities for the artist’s work, such as museums and art galleries on college and university campuses, corporate collections, working with architects, designers and interior designers, and public art projects.
Promotional Services for Museum & Gallery Placement
Promotional services can catapult an artist into the kind of success that enables them to focus solely on the production and quality of their work.
Through my experience and expertise in the gallery/art market, I have gathered together some of the most respected names in the business, from gallery owners, designers and dealers to work together with myself in promoting the talents of artists and the exposure of their work in a positive and tangible way to the art community.
I will assist in the development of an artist career, while maintaining the integrity of the artist’s work, through promotion.
I offer promotional services to the artist as follows:
• Design and production of marketing and promotional catalogues and brochures, including representation of artist’s artwork on my website.
• Public Relations and Promotional Services surrounding exhibitions.
• Professionally produced written support materials for artists, including artist statement, biographical summary, promotional cover letters, press and media releases, and critical essays and interviews for promotional value.
Design and Production of Promotional Materials
Catalogues and similar promotional materials provide high quality marketing tools for artists. For artists, presentation and promotional materials are considered necessary for establishing direct sales and representation. For galleries and museums, these materials will provide all the expository and educational information necessary to fully document and enhance sales of an artist’s exhibition.
Catalogue Design
All artists will have a catalogue produced which will have my contact information printed on the back of the artist’s brochure. Brochures are designed in conjunction with the artist’s artistic vision of how they wish to have their work represented in the professional market.
Professionally Produced Support Materials for Artists
With a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Redlands and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Vermont College, I have been fortunate to have had a successful career as a writer of contemporary fiction and essays, with publication of two short story collections and several artist essays published in various magazines and periodicals.
Professionally produced support materials provide the most effective presentation of the artist’s work to prospective clients and exhibition venues. Writing services include essays, artist’s statements, promotional cover letters, biographical summary, press releases, media releases and pitch letters.
Basic Art Writing Services Package
I. Artist Statement: Approx. 250 words
The artist's statement is based on an interview and a review of their artwork. I interview the artist in person or by telephone, conduct research (placing the artist's work on both an art historical continuum and in a contemporary context) and prepare an objective and highly descriptive statement.
II. Artist Biographical Summary: Approx. 1 page
I summarize the overall career accomplishments of the artist in the areas of exhibitions, reviews, collections, honors and grants, education, and travel related life experience in an artist biographical summary. Its purpose is to communicate that the artist is “substantial and significant.” The biographical summary is a necessary component to the press package and can be used in lieu of a formal resume.
III. Promotional Cover Letters:
I compose effective, market-directed, and “personalized” cover letters to assist the artist in the professional presentation of their materials. These cover letters target separate venues or areas that are appropriate for the artist’s work (e.g., commercial galleries, museum curators, corporations or pitch letters for the press including general media, art critics, radio and television). The thrust of each letter is directed towards a specific reader and situation. The focus of the letters is to encapsulate pinnacle achievements in a career so that the reader will carefully review all materials submitted. The close of the cover letter will set a series of events into motion that will stimulate a follow-up situation.
IV. Press Release:
Press releases are created in conjunction with an exhibition, event or award. The press releases are written by myself and are designed to maximize the impact of the career opportunity for the artist.
V. Art Press/Media Package:
A set of tailored digital, online marketing materials will be created. Online components may include promotional CD’s with images of artist’s work, email blasts for exhibitions and assignments, biographical profile, fact sheet, and additional story angles targeted to on-line markets. An artist bio and several images of artist’s work will be presented on my website at www.yvettehatrak.com/art.
VI. Artist Essays
For artists, an essay, combined with the above promotional materials, serves as a valuable tool to further enhance an artist’s career. For art organizations and businesses, an essay can serve to place an exhibition or a collection in its proper perspective.
The artist essay is intended as a general description and short lively discussion of the artist work for use by the agent, gallery, dealer, museum or other art professional. It is ideal for use on the web or inclusion in promotional material in support with an exhibition or event.
Below is an example of one of my Artist Essays published in the Desert Entertainer in 2007. For more examples of Artist Essays, please visit my website.
Artist Essay by Yvette Hatrak
Artist, Bret Philpot, calls from LA to tell me he got a parking ticket. “77 bucks,” he says and then laughs, “making art is expensive.” As an established artist, who has been painting and selling consistently for almost a decade, his humorous and humble attitude may surprise those who meet him. “I was picking up my show in LA when I got the ticket.” I ask him how the show went, and he laughs again, “Didn’t sell a damn thing.”
Later, surrounded by his art in his home-slash-studio located in Joshua Tree, I ask him if he was disappointed in the results of his recent show at Bert Green Fine Art in downtown LA. “It’s always disappointing, initially, when your work doesn’t sell. But I’ve been at this too long to think that sales are in direct connection to either how the work affects people or how good the painting is. For instance,” he points to a large painting entitled “Thunderbrain,” which is a figurative-abstract in classic “Philpot” style, an acrylic painting with texture and depth that portrays a disturbing image of psychological-social commentary balanced with human compassion, “this piece generated so much feedback and excitement, but here it sits.” I ask him how he reconciles that kind of response to his work without having the dollar signs behind it. “The key is to keep painting – keep working through the art itself.”
Make no mistake; Philpot is a successful artist with pieces all over the world. “I remember when I got a commission piece from a couple in Tel Aviv,” his eyes fill with more animation and fire, “ I thought I had ‘arrived’”, and then that contagious laugh again. “But there have been many ups and downs since.” It is hard to believe that an artist who’s had 13 solo shows and been part of 13 group exhibitions, as well as having been a featured artist at Palm Springs Desert Art Museum in 2003, does not have an ounce of pretension surrounding him. “I’m finally able to handle success now, and I realize that only successful people fail.”
Failure, when looking retrospectively at Philpot’s career, is hardly a word one would use. After 14 years as a civil engineer drafter, a career that Philpot says later informed the rational side of his paintings, giving them control when they were “wild,” he opened R&B Gallery in Palm Springs in 1997. “There were no preconceived ideas of success for me as an artist or for the gallery. We [Philpot and his business partner] were just kids acting on instinct. My work was passionate and spontaneous.” That passionate-spontaneity led to a sold out show for Philpot in 1999. When I ask him how that type of success so early on in his career affected him as an artist, he takes a deep breath and those bright eyes go reflective, deep. “It was a strange time for me. I was innocent in that I had yet to be affected by the relationship of commerce and art. Having my own gallery allowed me to be daring, but I think I was too arrogant then to handle it all.”
After making the decision to close his gallery in 2000, Philpot received an exclusive contract with an El Paseo gallery. “R&B had a great run and put, in my opinion, edgy art on the map in the desert when everyone else was selling ‘condo art,’” a term Philpot reserves for anything to do with flowers, beaches or bunnies. His time with the El Paseo gallery brought yet another of what Philpot considers many painful but necessary lessons. “They censored my art,” and he’s not speaking metaphorically. The gallery inked out the word “heroin” from one of his paintings with a one-dollar Sharpie the night of his reception. “I was hurt and angry. I didn’t think the art world worked in that way.”
Needless to say, Philpot moved on, and the pendulum swung once again. “From that experience, my productivity was slow, but my work was strong, provocative and rebellious.” Philpot has had many experiences since that have taught him about the reality of art and politics, which all have influenced his work. Furthermore, his work is now more representative of the emotions society experiences as a whole. “Though my images of war, urban blight, poverty, and addiction may be dark, what I want to present is the shared human experience that is one of both pain and hope.”
As we sit staring at a few paintings in his new series which explore the highly emotional religious and political state of the world today, I ask him why, unlike many other artists out there, he’s so willing to share this vulnerable, ugly side of the profession. “When we talk about art, we’re used to talking about what is pretty. I don’t care about pretty. I care about honesty, integrity. I paint what I can be proud of. That’s my salvation.” As I take one last look at his work, I see the reflection of the artist in the art: honesty, intensity, rebellion, and restraint, all in perfect balance.
Philpot has another busy year in 2007 with a solo show at Slaughterhouse Gallery in the spring and a group show with Modern Masters Fine Art in Palm Desert. When I ask what’s next in his ascending career, he says, “To become a much better artist; I’m just scratching the surface.” And for a final time, he laughs, “and to pay my parking ticket.”