Reaching Goals and Crafting a Career: A Conversation with Tina Garrett

Hi John,

Tina Garrett, an ARC Living Master and BoldBrush Signature Artist, just sold two pieces in the 2021 ARC Salon at Sotheby's in NYC. She joined BoldBrush for a candid conversation about her career, some of the people and ideas that helped her reach these achievements, and where she'd like to go from here.

Enjoy today's selection,

BoldBrush Studio Team

Reaching Goals and Crafting a Career:

A Conversation with Tina Garrett

You came to painting as a second career, but in the years since you started painting you've reached some major milestones in any artists' career; you've won many exhibitions, you're a respected teacher, and you've had several pieces acquired by the permanent collection in the Art Renewal Center. What's your perspective on your career now that you've achieved these goals?

I'm coming up on my tenth year of being a painter and so much has changed in those past ten years. Now that I've had my work collected by several museums and the ARC, I'm feeling like there are fewer and fewer of those milestones to check off and I'm feeling more and more freedom to just do what I want to do, for the sake of doing it- I have a philosophy of life that's based on feeling fulfilled and satisfied, and I feel like when you've done enough, everything else is just icing on the cake; when I had the first place collected by the ARC, I thought, I've done it, I'm in a permanent collection, I'm going to go down in history - what else is there to achieve? Everything else is just icing on the cake. That takes a lot of the pressure off and makes the rest of your journey really fun. Essentially I make the work I need to make; I'm very internally driven - in a way I'm a selfish painter, because I'm not really thinking about what the world needs to see but about what I like and want to paint.

What has changed in your painting now that you feel more freedom to just do whatever you wish?

I'm not killing myself the way that I was at first; the first five, even seven years, I was working so hard, mainly because my husband was supporting me during that time, sometimes working up to three full-time jobs, and I felt a great deal of guilt about not contributing to our family income. So being in a position now where I am making an income and contributing to the family again, I feel way less pressure.

What do you say to your students who struggle with that?

I do several types of teaching, and that particular conversation happens with my business mentees; when I'm working with them I tell them they need to make an assessment of the actual time that they spend on things in their day-to-day life, so that they can see whether they're even doing what they think they're doing with their time. A lot of people say "I think you have to paint every day to be successful," but when you ask them to show a calendar of what they've actually done in the last 60 days, they've painted only seven days. So they don't actually do what they believe they do, and they're failing according to their definition of success. They can choose to do one of two things: actually do what they believe to become successful, or change their belief. Because I don't think you have to paint every day to be successful. I can't paint every single day. On a good year I travel 26 times in a single year. But I am thinking about painting every single day, either painting or marketing or connecting with people. The biggest misconception people have about being a successful artist is that you just have to do great work and somehow everything else will unfold. There's not a single other business on the planet where all you have to do is make the product and the money will just come flying to you. You have to talk to people about it, to make it easy for them to understand what you offer and why and how to get it. All of these things are business - an art business is like any other business.

It seems like you really value personal relationships, with your students and with mentors you admire. What role did that play in getting you where you are today?

100%. I could be me, understanding what I do about business because of my past experience, but if I hadn't taken workshops with the painters I admired, I don't think I would have been successful. I owe 100% of what I have done to my amazing teachers - including Richard Schmid, Michelle Dunaway, Daniel Keys, Jeremy Lipking, Romel de la Torre, with whom I've taken seven workshops as well as private lessons. Really all of this leads back to Schmid, because when I started learning to paint at the Scottsdale Artist School, they gave me a great scholarship for Romel de la Torre. I had no idea who he was, or anyone in the fine art world for that matter. It wasn't until that day, when I saw Romel bring a person to life on canvas before my eyes and I was just dumbfounded and had to learn more, that I started asking questions. I went to one of the students in the class and asked him why oil paint was such a slimy mess, and he told me to buyAlla Primaby Richard Schmid and do the color charts. I did, and it made all the difference. I worked so hard finding teachers that were either heavily influenced or directly taught by Richard, because he wasn't teaching any more. And ten years later, here I am having met Richard and Nancy, spending time in their home, blessed that they took me under their wing - but that happened because I went to the Scottsdale artist school and started putting the dots together, looking at all of these successful painters connected to Schmid, and going to the source.

I'm often asked how I advanced so quickly; you can look at my work from my first or second year painting and it's not that great but by my third year I'm starting to get international recognition. First of all, I worked at it like a 40-hour week work job, like my income depended on it. Many people don't get to do that - they have other jobs they're working while they study - but I was lucky that my family believed in me and supported me while I was studying. But then also I was smart enough to recognize that instead of bouncing around to various classes and styles, I stayed very focused on oil painting, studying only with people who had studied with Schmid. I know myself, that my brain has a limited capacity and if I load it with other things like watercolor or different painting styles or what-have-you, I'll loose the information I need to retain. So I put my blinders on and focused.

Let's talk a bit about the focus. Schmid has a very distinct style and you can easily see who has been a student of his. What made you decide to pursue that specific route?

When the Scottsdale Artist School gave me Rommel as a teacher, he was too advanced for me and his class was way over my head. I needed to go home and do the color charts, like I was told. So Schmid's book Alla Prima really helped me and having that 'bible' of art lessons in front of me made it easy for me to see that this was thorough enough for me to learn painting well, and I saw that all of his students were successful professional painters - and then I saw in this trail from Schmid a tremendous generosity of knowledge. When Schmid received his Lifetime Achievement award from the Portrait Society of America, he got up and pounded the podium and said, "You don't own this information. You have the responsibility to pay it forward." And I know from experience that each one of his students has that attitude that they learned from him. They care about great work. Because if you want there to be great artwork being made 200 years from now, you have to share that knowledge so future generations can make the great work. Above all that was the key, that generosity of knowledge. Too many painters are afraid of sharing everything they know because they don't want to be surpassed, and that doesn't make any sense, because no one can be a Daniel Keys or a Dan Gerhartz, they are themselves and no one can be them.

So we discussed your main goal, becoming a recognized painter. How did you set the smaller goals and steps along the way, especially finding the right exhibitions to show in?

Well I was looking at ways to advertise my work and it's expensive to pay for advertising; that wasn't financially tenable for me at the time, so I had to find other ways for getting work in front of people that wasn't so expensive up front. And when you enter a competition, if you win, they do the advertising for you; as a winner you're being announced in magazines and online and all over the place, you're actually getting more press than if you're paying for it yourself, so that was my strategy. I found competitions that had the kind of work I aspired to make, and started following them and paying attention to who won and what their rules for submission were. Making sure my work fit into that scene before I entered it so I wasn't wasting time. Make sure you understand the show and don't break rules when you're entering, that's important! I looked for the places where I would get not only prize money but recognition in the press.

And the other benefit of that process is being associated with your peers in the competition who are doing the same kind of work.

Yes! My husband always says "Go where your people are." When you're talking to other artists about art, you're essentially talking to your market. I would say about 70% of the people who buy my work are also artists. And 100% of the people who take my workshops are artists! Artists love art, they love to collect it and make it and talk about it, so they are the main audience you should go to.

You seem like a planner; how much of the success you've reached would you say has been a result of planning and how much has been unplanned serendipity?

That's a great question. I've had certain things happen that seemed like chance but at the same time weren't: I'll give an example. The first series I did was a series of figurative works called Vintage Nouveau - those paintings only happened because I as at another painting show and I saw this beautiful figure of a woman from the back, with hair all the way down to her calves and I could just tell from her posture how lovely she was. And so I went over to her to ask her if she would mind sitting for me, maybe we could go outside and we could get some pictures or something - when I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to me I saw she was about 80 years old, this gorgeous old woman wearing 7-inch stiletto heels and long flowing hair! And me going up to her and starting a conversation turned into her coming over to my home for a day and giving me access to her great-aunt's collection of original 1920s and 30s clothing and making an entire series based off that clothing. In a way that was serendipitous, but it took the spark of my own audacity to talk to a total stranger and ask them something they might say no about. I guess I don't believe there's much that will just fall into your lap; that you have to at least try to make your own destiny. You have to take the risk of being told no.

That's a great answer, you took initiative and something genuinely unexpected came out of it. What is the best part of reaching this stage in your career, when you already have recognition and you don't feel like you're working as hard? And what's a challenge?

Well, I think if I had any kind of an ego issue I'd be in trouble. If I started worrying about what people thought of me, I'd be in trouble. That one's hard for me. That's something I watch in myself, to accept the fact that my work may not be everyone's cup of tea. I think that's something that can hang up a lot of painters, feeling like your work needs to be loved by everyone or you're not good. You have to figure out what your "enough" is, and my "enough" is making a living for my family. I kind of surpassed my goal of being collected; anything that happens beyond that is just icing on the cake. The best part of being at this stage of my career is the relationships that I've made along the way. I love the people and the group of artists I've met in the past few years. I don't know of many other jobs where your colleagues genuinely cheer you on and they are a part of your lives like this. Sharing the excitement, painting together, learning, I always feel so energized after I'm with them. Being a painter is a very lonely job, it can be isolating and I counteract that with the teaching that I do and the shows I attend. That circle of friends that "get" you that's the best part of being a painter.

I can see that dealing with negative opinions could become more of a challenge as you become more well known. Do you still deal with not being satisfied with your work yourself, and what do you do with that, since people expect great work from you now?

I'm actually more terrified that people will expect me to make a greaterquantityof work then about the greatqualityof work. Because I believe that given enough time I could make a masterpiece that could make you cry, but ask me to make ten and I might have a breakdown! I'm concerned about the time factor. I've learned to build a community of friends and mentors who can tell me when a painting is done. When I'm reaching the end of a piece I'll reach out to a few and ask them if it meets the standard they'd expect from me and more often than not they'll tell me I've overshot it! So I'm learning more and more to reach out for that kind of input. Successful painters keep their ears to the ground and listen to what their market is telling them, and the market includes not just collectors but your students and mentors too. Because you are the commodity, so if your community is telling you something, take it with a grain of salt, but listen to it. And I'm hearing from my community that my perfectionistic tendencies are slowing me down, so I'm working on that. You might ask how to find that kind of mentor; when you're out at these events and you meet such-and-such and learn they work for this magazine or curate for that museum, you say "I would love to get your input on my work, can I get your business card, can I give you mine?" and then you actually do that, send them an email with a picture and say "This is what I had on my mind, I'd love your input but I know you're super busy so if you don't get back to me it's fine." As long as you're super gracious since you're bothering them with something they don't get paid for, then you should get some feedback that you can decide if you want to use or not. That's how I move past my indecisions; I have my set of professionals that I trust who have years of experience behind them. It's only a bad situation if you get stuck inside the feedback loop of your own head and you tell your self it isn't any good or it will never be finished and then you end up believing it isn't any good and never finish.

What is a big goal that at the beginning of your career that might not have seemed possible and is still a big goal for you?

Well when I first started painting my husband took me to the Prix de West, where Jeremy Lipking was showing some paintings. I didn't even think until this year that I would ever ever be allowed to show in the Prix de West. But this year I submitted an application and I'll find out in August if I'm admitted. The Prix de West is the best of the best in Western American Art and for me it's a huge achievement to show there, so that's my next goal. I've been self-represented the entire ten years I've been painting and adding the Prix de West on to the sales I make on my own would be just the right level of representation, where I would show just once a year but have access to a huge collector base. I'm really excited to hear back - it's incredibly exclusive, so it might take a few years to get in, but I finally had the guts to apply so that's a start!

Last question: Who are three of the most influential artists for you from the past and from today?

I could go on and on, there are so many great painters today that I follow. Top of the list is Richard Schmid; he painted everything consistently well, there's stellar quality throughout his career; he has pieces from the 1960s to 2015 and none of it feels dated, he's always Richard and the quality is always there. Also not just his paintings but his entire philosophy of painting is very influential for me. And then his wife Nancy Guzik; she has a very tender sensibility in her work that I hope to get to in the next 25 years. It's my goal to take people into the same atmosphere that she's able to create. And Jeremy Lipking; I love the way he's able to create portraits of his children and 'unportraitize' them, make them iconic and timeless. As a mother, Lipking has shown me that you can embrace your family in your work in an authentic way, and genuinely celebrate what's happening in your daily life through your work while making a living out of it. His work remains very authentic and personal but also very marketable, and I think that's a masterful perspective for any artist working today. Working with so many artists, especially women, I hear this dilemma all this time, the balance between being a parent and being a painter. I look at Lipking and I think, "There's how to do it!" If you're immersed in this portion of your life, why try to paint something outside of that and apologize to your kids for not being with them, or separate your family from your work life?

For painters in the past, I really love Isaac Levitan; he is where I want to be in my landscape painting some day. I hesitate to name Sargent and Sorolla, because everyone likes them, but I have many books on them - although in all honesty, when I sit down at the easel, the book I turn to most frequently is still Schmid'sAlla Prima. Right now I'm working on a big 54'' portrait of a lady riding a horse so I'm looking at Remington. I keep a folder on my phone called "How the masters did it" and when I'm starting a new painting I'll take the new concept I have and compare it to the masters I want to be like, and immediately, even at the concept stage, I can tell where my piece is lacking; it's very eye opening. Fantin-Latour and Boldini are two more favorites; they're magic on the canvas. When I saw a Boldini in person at the Clark, I bawled like a baby. Anybody that has control of composition, control of light and dark, and dynamic brushwork has my attention.

One last Schmid story, because this made all the difference in the way I look at artwork I admire: I was sitting at the kitchen table one night, Nancy and I were getting ready to go out, and I was looking over his shoulder at this little painting he did of a pine tree on a grey evening. And I said to him "Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful, I feel like I can feel the wind rocking through the trees, it's so romantic. And he replied, "My darling, that's nonsense." And I was so embarrassed, thinking "Oh no I said something horrible and stupid to Richard Schmid!" But he said, "Look at it again and tell me in practical terms,what do you see?" So I looked again very carefully and said "Well, I see lots of grayish green but nothing truly green; and I see pine needles everywhere but not a sharp edge anywhere; everything's very muted and harmonized, there's nothing standing out," and he said "Exactly, so none of this nonsensical conversation with yourself when you're looking at the Masters. The Masters showed you exactly how to do it in the work, so when you look at the Masters' work ask yourself in practical terms what they did, instead of just oohing and aahing over it." And that moment changed how I made my own paintings and how I compared it to the work of the masters - it helped me take a practical approach to understanding the elements they were actually using and where those elements are missing in my work. And the great part is that any artist can figure that out, and each one of us will observe and pick out different elements in the work of the masters to use, because each one of us has individual taste. So I'm literally crafting my own work as I look, because I'm selecting the specific elements to aspire to.

Many thanks to Tina Garrett for this interview! You can view her websitehere or follow her on Instagramhere.

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