January 2017
 

 
Happy New Year! Welcome to In the District: news from the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. 

Josh Blanc

Artist Mentors: A Hidden Asset
by Josh Blanc and Karen Wilcox


Mentoring in the arts community is a valuable, but sometimes hidden asset that has helped countless artists find their footing professionally and personally.  I spoke to three NE mentors: Deborah Foutch, Carolyn Halliday and Dougie Padilla, and one former protégé, Annie Hejny to get the low down on how mentoring works. 

There are many different approaches to mentoring. Finding the right mentor requires careful consideration, and can lead a burgeoning artist to a path towards becoming a professional artist. 

The Women's Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) has one of the most established and effective mentoring programs for women in the country. For more info:  visit the WARM website.

Carolyn Halliday
Carolyn Halliday
Carolyn Halliday and Deborah Foutch ( NE artists and WARM mentors) explained that mentoring has a lot to do with sharing information.  Mentors help a protégé find her footing, build skills and confidence, connect to resources, and refine her work and how she talks about it. "Part of mentoring is learning about my protégé's goals, passions and dealing with the potential letdown  of not succeeding when entering competitions or shows, or not getting the grant they applied for," remarked Carolyn.

 Deborah Foutch
Deborah Foutch
Getting a  protégé to focus on one or two key ideas and clarifying her work, both visually and verbally, is an important part of Deborah's mentoring process.  An artist needs to be open to what it is they are trying to do. Carolyn asks her protégés, "Are your ideas really being communicated through your work?" Her philosophy: " You have to know what is inside your head and commit to knowing yourself." 

Swami Dougie Padilla
Dougie Padilla
Dougie Padilla focuses on an artist's spiritual and psychological challenges.
  He t eaches meditation to help his students understand how the mind works, and to use that experience to move in a positive direction. Dougie proclaims, "In America there is no formal ritual for boys to become men and girls to become women. Your peer group is not a mentoring group: they are an echo chamber. We think we have the answers, but we do not have (a broad) perspective.  To move through the world you have to know the world." Dougie encourages his protégés to live outside of this country  before they reach the age of 28 . He explains that this helps young people become more mature as well develop other cultural perspectives. "Your world has to get bigger and it pushes you."

"The art world they are exposed to through art school is not the real art world," he contends. " Art schools don't mentor: they tend to teach techniques. The great blessing is suffering.  If you don't experience your suffering, you don't move.  One of my jobs as a mentor is to make it harder for my protégé to get to where they want to go, not to go in a direction I want them to go." 

Annie Hejny
Annie Hejny
Annie Hejny confirmed that the WARM Mentorship Program helped her set the foundation for her career and develop her own answers to her  big questions, such as: "How do I sustain and support myself as an artist, build a network of clients, and create presentations?" "School was practice," she says. "Now in real life it is the heat of the moment. I have to perform.  I have learned the w e cannot do this without (a supportive) community."
 
Any arts community can offer opportunities for artists to meet and get to know each other. That is just the beginning. Carolyn summed up the mentor/ protégé relationship well by stating that in order to be an effective mentor,  "It takes a self-aware artist that wants to give back. That comes from a place of humility. Listening to other people's struggles affirms your own struggles. You have to be more interested in the other person than in yourself." 

There is always a need for more artists to offer mentorships and apprenticeships for emerging artists. Thanks to the rich resource of mid-career artists working in the NE Arts District, our creative community will continue to grow and flourish. 


Northeast P.E.E.P.s
(People, Events, Exhibits, Places)

Artist Leslie Barlow featured on MN Original

Northrup King Building artist Leslie Barlow
Northrup King Building artist Leslie Barlow

Call for Writers
Peter Vanni
Peter Vanni
The Art District is looking for voices to describe the arts district. With 600 - 800 artist creating and roaming around the district we want to document those stories and adventures. The art district does pay a small stipend $25 for stories used in the newsletter. Please contact us if you are interested and we can give you the parameters. 
 
Three Main Goals 
of  Arts District Planning

1. Continue to discuss who we are as a community. 
2. Continue to define the v ision of the next 10 to 15 years, in order to drive the decision making.
3. Start a framework on how we can finance the goals of the district. This goal is only possible to discuss if the other two goals can be met.
    
Recent studies to consider reading: 
5.   Take the survey for the  CREATIVE MINNESOTA
ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY OF MINNESOTA'S ARTISTS AND CREATIVE WORKERS
http://creativemn.org
Issue: 57
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