In order to form a reputation as a woodturner, a few simple steps must be taken. For the purposes of this journal, I will describe only one of the many routes that can be taken.

     First, it is paramount that an artist have a decent body of work. The market for woodturning is often a fickle one, and your work must be unique to be noticed among the thousands of sculptures and wood pieces already on the market. Therefore, an education on the art styles of the past can be helpful in aiding you, the artist, in determining what the art styles of the future will be. The key here is progress. Any machine can produce a thousand identical bowls, (and though you can argue that the bowl created by the individual may have more 'soul' than a mass produced copy) it takes an artist to create something unique.

     So how can a aspiring artist hope to 'get out there', so to speak? I won't pretend to be the expert on the subject, but a good start would be to start submitting work to juried shows. A juried show is an art show, as the name suggests, with the simple difference being that the art within the show is submitted to a panel of judges before it can be entered. These juried shows attract the attention of both your fellow artists, as well as collectors. The more your work is visible to the public, the more your reputation will grow. Who knows, you might even catch the eye of someone who has never even considered buying your style of artwork in the past!

     A word of warning: always show some sort of progress. Rarely can an artist survive through repeating the same work and style, over and over. There are some exceptions, and those exceptions are either extraordinarily skilled, or quite lucky. Most of the artists in my sample were teachers. As I have said in the past, this allows you to pursue directions in your artwork that may not sell too well. William Moore once brought up the example of Van Gogh, as an artist whose work was not appreciated during his lifetime, but after his death became widely respected and influential. Depending on who you are, this may appeal to you. There have been many artists whose 'groundbreaking' work has been completely forgotten.

     But I digress. How can you actually make a living from your work? Well, for the most part, you can't. At least, you cannot expect to garner a decent wage from your artwork alone. Some of the woodturners that I respect the most, including William Moore, Bihn Pho, and John Jordan, along with many others, make a respectable career out of both taking on commissions from clients, traveling and demonstrating for clubs and organizations, alongside whatever new work they are pursuing.  Especially in this economic climate, it is next to impossible to simply sit back and expect money to roll in.

This concludes part 1 of this blog post. The next portion will be posted tomorrow.