Chris Tyrell gives artists a bit of business-savvy in new book

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Chris Tyrell is sitting in front of a coffee shop on Davie Street. A woman walks toward him. They’ve never met before, but that doesn’t stop her from asking him to look after her designer dog while she shops.

      It’s evident that Tyrell’s face and demeanour communicate trustworthiness. Even if you knew nothing about his background, which includes decades of administrative and volunteer work in Vancouver’s visual-arts and theatre communities, he’s the kind of guy you would look to for help.

      And let’s say that situation is this: you’re a visual artist, freshly graduated from a fine-arts program, impassioned, impoverished, unprepared. Now what?

      “Success in the visual arts, no matter how you define it, comes more readily to artists who manage their careers professionally,” Tyrell says. And he also says it in the foreword to his newly published book, Artist Survival Skills (C.T. Productions, $34.95, available at www.artistsurvivalskills.com/ and Opus Framing and Art Supplies).

      Subtitled How to Make a Living as a Canadian Visual Artist, the book addresses what Tyrell calls a “knowledge deficit” concerning the pricing, promotion, marketing, and sale of art. This was something he noticed while working in the foundation and development office of Emily Carr Institute (now Emily Carr University).

      “We would hire students there to do various jobs and when it came to paying them, I’d ask them if they would send me an invoice,” Tyrell says. “And there were several who didn’t know what that was. And others, although they knew the word, didn’t know how to do it. I thought that pointed to a shortfall in their understanding that they were going to operate a small business, potentially—if they were going to follow one of the many models that I was aware of for life as an artist.”

      Tyrell’s awareness has deep roots. For almost two decades, he wrote and edited the Opus Newsletter, which reaches some 50,000 artists across the country. Readers addressed hundreds of questions to him, sending him on research expeditions.

      “I would go looking for information about professional development for artists, and I could find all kinds of information about operating a small business or accounting or inventory models or things like that.”

      Much of Tyrell’s knowledge is summarized in Artist Survival Skills, whose 15 chapters address everything from securing commercial representation to tax considerations.

      As well as running his own cultural consulting business, Tyrell has held administrative positions for groups from Presentation House Theatre and Gallery to the Alliance for Arts and Culture. In 2000, he oversaw the temporary revival and restructuring of Artropolis, the huge exhibition of contemporary B.C. art.

      “Running Presentation House Gallery and working with Artropolis, I saw how artists presented themselves—and how they handled rejection,” Tyrell says.

      Rejection is one of the subjects he writes about in his book: “If you have annual losses declared in your income taxes as an artist, you face an increased risk of being audited by Revenue Canada. The rejection letters can attest to both your professional ambitions and the reasons for your losses.”

      Tyrell comments: “Nothing impresses a tax inspector more as proof that you’ve tried beyond your successes to operate your business.” Then he smiles his trustworthy smile.

      Comments