Artists U is an incubator for changing the working conditions of artists.
Everything we do is artist-run and open-source.
c o m m u n i t y + c l a r i t y = p o w e r
One-on-one planning sessions with Andrew Simonet
For the past fifteen years, I have been doing one-on-one planning sessions with artists. Here’s how it works:
1) You bring an issue or goal.
2) I ask a lot of questions.
3) Together, we turn challenges and goals into to-do lists.
It is a chance to get the conversation out of your own head and break things down into small, concrete steps. I do not tell artists what they should do. That’s my whole point: I think artists are geniuses. Let’s act that way and solve problems just like we solve them in the studio: by being resourceful, creative, and clear.
not doing it alone
artists on hiring, outsourcing, work trades, and volunteers
insights from 300 artists surveyed, a dozen interviews, and two public conversations (NYC + Philly)
El libro impreso de Construyendo tu vida artísticA
ahorA disponible
The Spanish Translation of Making Your Life as an Artist is now in print
چگونه بدون رها کردن هنر، زندگی کنیم؟
How to Live Without Abandoning Art?
the Farsi ebook of Making Your Life as an Artist is available here
I was part of a national working group looking at how residencies can better support artist parents. Here’s the poster we made, with two sides: What Residencies Can Do, and What Artists Can Do. Read it, print it, stick it on the wall.
Our Best Idea yet
A free structure and tools for artists to organize.
back together, not back to normal:
A 2021 message from Artists U
Dear artists,
We are beginning an unprecedented transition. We are getting back together.
The enforced separation and isolation of the pandemic will begin to end (thank goddess and medical science and everyone steeped in reality).
We are entering a liminal time, a borderland, a long transition where much is at stake and much is possible. We will slowly and haltingly step out of lockdown and into—what? The coming transitions are so unimaginable, so unthinkable, they need the wild and precise attention of artists.
READ MORE
A 2020 message from Artists U:
This is what we train for
Dear artists, this is what we train for.
This moment is a health crisis, a brutal one. It is also a crisis of meaning. It is a crisis of connection, of story. It is a crisis of who we are to each other and the agreements that hold us together. And those are things we artists know how to work on.
The script for how we will be together in this time has not been written. Artists will have a huge impact on that story….read more
