6-Week Series: Understanding and Sustaining Your Creative Practice

This six-week workshop series, led by multidisciplinary artists June T Sanders and Mary Welcome, offers you the space to develop your artistic identity alongside core materials of your artist portfolio, including artists statement, biographies, and documentation of your work. By gaining a better understanding of who you are as an artist, you can gain a deeper relationship with your studio practice, a clearer picture of where you want to take your work, and ways you can sustain your practice for creative longevity.

This workshop is for artists of all disciplines and career stages.

Please note, this is a 6-week series, that meets every Monday 6-7:30 pm, from October 20-November 24 via zoom. Your ticket purchase covers attendance for all sessions.

Topics

• Identity and Values

• Researching Opportunities and Ways Artists Support Themselves

• Artist Biographies and Artist Statements

• Work Samples and Documentation

• Building Networks and Community

• Talking About Your Work

About the Instructors

Mary Welcome is a multidisciplinary cultural worker and rural avant-garde artist based in Palouse, Washington. For over two decades, Mary has developed art projects that nurture local culture, reflect a sense of place, and deepen community relationships. As an artist-organizer, her projects are rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address equity, cultural advocacy, visibility, queerness, and imagination. She brings a nuanced perspective to the contemporary field, as an organizer working in service to small towns, as a cultural producer across American geographies, and as a facilitator of place-based arts programming.

June T Sanders is an artist, curator, writer, and educator living in rural Eastern WA — and is currently an Assistant Professor at Washington State University. Her interdisciplinary practice includes photography, sculpture, writing, pedagogy, social practice, and cultural work. She has been the recipient of the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts Curatorial Prize, the New Hampshire Institute of Art Teti Research Fellowship, and the High Country News Western Communities Photo Grant. She has taught at Lightwork, the New York State Summer School of the Arts, Emerge Art Center, and has worked with arts organizations including Artist Trust, ArtsWA, Pullman Arts Foundation, Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Union Docs, and the Society for Photographic Education. Her work has been shown at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Amos Eno Gallery, Tropical Contemporary, The Bob Mizer Foundation, The Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, and Lawrence University — and has appeared in Vice, Paper Journal, Leste Magazine, Humble Arts Foundation, Are.na Annual, Strange Fire Collective, and Physique Pictorial.

About Artist Trust

Artist Trust is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and encourage artists working in all disciplines to enrich community life throughout Washington State. Since its founding in 1986, Artist Trust has invested over $15 million in individual artists through grant programs and provides a comprehensive suite of professional development training and resources to help artists achieve their career goals. Learn more at artisttrust.org.

Presented with support from Artists Up in partnership with City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and 4Culture.