In the Chair:   President Jennifer

Guests:  Andrew and Daphne Whitehead and friend Kane from Urana

               Annette Wade and Jan Munro

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How to Become an Artist

What a treat we had to meet Andrew Whitehead, a bearded gentleman in a bib n brace boiler suit from Urana.

Andrew spent more than 17 years in the Army mostly with the Lancers (a cavalry unit). This particular army unit had a long and prestigious history.

After retiring from the safety of an Army career he became a “stop & go” man for the Urana Shire Council. A crunch came when he was divorced and entered a period of depression and mental health issues. Believe it or not he then went on to meet Daphne and went on to be married. Daphne was quite artistic and recognised that Andrew also had an artistic streak and also some autism. Daphne encouraged him to start some sculptures using scrap metal and enter sculptures in the Lockhart Spirit of the Land Festival.

After producing a sculpture of Ex Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fisher, he went on to undertake a period of self-assessment of his art to see whether he was producing art for himself or art for others. In this assessment he realised that there were only 3 groups of people who spent serious money on art - the super wealthy, the professional class and NFP groups who wanted serious sculptures for the town or parks. For him to sell to these buyers he needed to become known!

To this end he donated a spider to the Urana Shire Council to be installed on the water tower. Not only did he have to make it, but he also had to install it.

Andrew then had a journey and a plan. This meant 

• Entering multiple Art Shows

• Waiting your turn - it wasn't fair, but you had to let others who were already in the game make a name for themselves before it was your turn

• Deciding whether to market the art that was your own passion or art that was enjoyed by others 

• Never to throw out your dream or give the project up

• Build a dream - inspired by Pat Dobson's black hat and an image of an older man in a beer ad he decided that his image was the trusty bearded man in a bib n brace wearing the hat that he had made by a milliner based on the Carlton Draught ad

  

• Get on to the internet using Web Forums. Encouraged by his daughter Andrew posted pictures of sculptures on every Forum that he could access. He now has what he calls a modest 14K followers. Andrew has found that in that very large group statistically there are some not nice people, however, one still need to be nice to that small group. One follower from Canada, came to Australia, waited until he and Daphne were in Wagga, invaded his house and shed and took selfies that were posted on the web GRRRR!

• Improve your own luck by buying tickets in every event possible

• The advent of social media has also been a help. The image of a privately sponsored sculpture of a woman at a sewing machine had 1.8M views in 24 hours. He figured that many of the views were from women all over the world who were still tied to a sewing machine

  

• Sometimes you have to come forward and put your own case. After displaying in Coolamon for many years he asked a committee person “what does it take” to get the local town to buy a sculpture. He was then given the task to create a sculpture for the town square this led to 3 other small towns to request further commissions.

• Once you are better known you have to learn to beware of a loss of trust in the world after meeting up with a small sector who take you for a ride by promising the world and providing nothing

• Invite the local community to be involved with your work. The examples given were the Shearing of the Ram at Lowesdale and A Man Throwing a Sheath of Hay at Coolamon. The Lowesdale work has items of cogs and tools etc from the farms of children at the school. Andrew then inscribed the initials of each child on their gift which now gives them a sense of ownership

• Give every type of media a shot. Andrew has done podcasts, had articles in the written press etcetera etcetera

• The threat today to the Art World is AI. Andrew showed a computer-generated cat that was displayed on the net that is not authentic. This image can be sold worldwide and yet no one will ever get the product. GRRR again

• Enjoy you fame while you can!

Andrew engaged in a Q&A session that indicated that his audience was rapt. A general feeling was that his art was anatomically and physiologically so true with the ability to have amazing expressions and yet it is just pieces of metal.

Thank you, Andrew.