In this conversation, artist Perry DeVick discusses his art career beginnings, his college experience, and the financial realities of art education. He shares his insights on the value of college degrees in the arts and the changing landscape of illustration careers. Perry also discusses the benefits of smaller art schools and the luxury of traditional art in a digital age. He explores different approaches to expanding income as an artist and the differences between adjunct and tenure positions in art education. Perry also reflects on the concept of learning in art and the motivation to teach. In this conversation, Perry DeVick discusses various aspects of art, including motivation, emotional reactions to incomplete art, the value and perception of art, course design and assignments, qualities of a good teacher, pursuing a master's degree in arts or arts education, finding a market for art, and increasing the price of art. Perry also mentions an upcoming faculty exhibition at the State College of Florida.
- PerrydeVick.com
- Music by Old Romans
You can listen to the episode here (or wherever you listen to podcasts) or read the transcript below:
A Conversation with Perry DeVick:
Chain Assembly: Welcome back listeners. Today I have with me Perry DeVick:, an artist who I have been following for, I guess ever since I met Summer. So that was probably seven or eight years ago maybe. It was when I met Summer, so then I probably met you three or four years ago. And Perry is an incredible, realistic painter. You do lots of still lives as well as lots of fantasy and surrealism, lots of shiny wet surfaces. I'm always impressed by what you're working on. You put a lot of time into each piece you put together and together you and Summer have really kind of been taking the St. Pete art world by its balls, I guess you could say. Yeah, so thank you so much Perry for taking the time to talk to me about your art and your experience as an art educator.
Perry DeVick: (00:33.026)
Hehehehe, I love it. Absolutely, I'm excited.
CA: (00:58.38)
So let's start off by talking about where your art career began and how that turned into a career in education.
PD: (01:11.342)
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Sure. I mean, I have a very similar story to most of the artists that I know that are working professionally, which is just always art, right? It's hard to peg like, when did my art career begin? Because if I think about it, I've always been practicing, I've always been creating, and I was selling pieces in high school. So it's hard to say when it became a career, but I guess after...college. I had a bit of a hiccup in my first college experience. I went to Ringling and it was really hard for me. It took all the confidence that I had in my art and just destroyed it. My experience at that elite private school was pretty negative and I got out of there. I made it through. I got the degree and did the thing but I walked out broken.
CA: (02:09.748)
Well, let's actually pull it back earlier than that. Why did you go to Ringling and what were you expecting out of high school? And also let's talk about the college application process because I still feel like I have trauma from that.
PD: (02:18.091)
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, high school was interesting for me. I was in an arts magnet program. My school had a pilot program. I was in the first year of this arts graphic design program. And I really quickly realized graphic design was not for me. I wasn't really computer prolific. And I still am not. I get by. I do OK. But I'm not great with it. So.
It certainly wasn't going to be a career for me, but I realized that painting and traditional art was absolutely for me. And my mentor in that program had gone to Ringling. And she got, I think she did fine arts there, but she was recommending for me that I go into illustration because illustration was broader. And that was the right choice. Absolutely was the right choice because I needed a broad range. I didn't know what I wanted to do.
And that's a part of the college process that I think is frustrating for high school. Anyone, whether they're artists or anything, that idea that you should know what you're gonna do for the rest of your life by the time you're 17 is bonkers to me. I look at who I was when I was 16, 17, and it's a miracle that I ended up in even remotely the right field. But my high school mentor was like,
you have the chops, like you can do it. And she had this sort of, she had a very different version of a Ringling experience from me. She went in the 70s and it was very hippie and it was very free and fun. And, you know, her stories involved a lot of smoking weed and just painting and socializing, you know. And when I got there, it was much more of a business-oriented, strict, elite.
you know, pipeline to Disney. And so I wish that I had maybe had some other perspectives and not just the one. So, you know, if I were to give advice to young people starting out, ask a lot of people. If you have one person telling you to go to a specific school, try to find other people who've gone to that school and see what their experience was, because obviously not everybody has the same experience.
And I'm sitting here saying my experience at Ringland was really hard for me, but I know a lot of people who graduated there that really got something great out of it. So you really have to ask around and make sure that you're not just making your choices based on your parents' experiences or one teacher's experiences you've got to ask around.
So I could say from my experience with Ringling in particular, that was... So I also went to an art specific high school, a magnet school, and it was focused on graphic design, product design, fashion design, film production, and I was in the film production side. Oh, and drafting and architecture. So I was in the film production side. So like the high school itself was designed to like get you into the arts industries.
And through that, I was obsessed with going to Ringling. I pictured myself working for Pixar. That was my dream at the time. And so I did lots and lots of figure drawing in high school because I know that's really what they needed in the application. And like our high school was lucky enough that because it was an art magnet, we had recruiters from all the big art schools come to our school every year and do kind of like a job fair. I guess it was a college fair.
And then they would look at everybody's portfolios. And based on that, I fell in love with, of course, Ringling, which I don't remember being particularly impressed with whoever the recruiter was, but it was still this, like, growing up in Florida, it is the best art school in Florida. And then I also fell in love with MCAD, because the woman I met there was super sweet, and I'm like, Minneapolis seems fun, it's my favorite level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. And so why not live there?
And so those are the two schools I applied to, those schools I got accepted into. And then when it came to like, okay, here's a bill for $32,000. I was like, oh wait, there's more to this than just getting accepted. And like in hindsight, I don't know why I didn't think that I could take out a loan, but I'm like, huh, the money doesn't add up. I guess I can't go here. I, so I'm glad nobody told me to take out a loan in hindsight.
That, I wish that people had been less supportive of me. My parents were super, super supportive of like, hey, whatever it takes, do it, go there, do the thing, follow your dreams. And the financial aid officers at Ruling were more than happy to help me and get me set up with the loans that I needed. And I'm lucky my loans are at least government loans. They're not private loans. So I can be on income-based repayment and that ties back into the education thing later. But...
CA: (07:34.68)
but you are still paying off those loans at this point.
PD: (07:34.71)
but I wish someone had told me. Yeah, I didn't understand the scope of how much that money was. High school doesn't adequately prepare our young people to understand money in reality. And I walked out and I was fine to just dive into this loan and thinking like, oh yeah, and then I'll pay it back and it's fine bonkers. There's said there's no way I'm ever going to pay off the loans and especially having been gone from wing to getting a master's degree at another elite private art school like a complete idiot. My you know, my debt is astronomical. And what I constantly tell my students is that it's not a it's not necessary to have a private school degree unless you're trying to work for a big corporation. If you're going to be fighting everyone else in the country that graduating year for the three jobs at Pixar or the three jobs at Disney, then yeah, you need that good degree and you need to be the best thing that school is pumping out. But if you want to freelance, if you want to do gig work, if you want to do your own thing in any way, you don't need a degree from a big school. Your portfolio is going to speak for itself and your business sense is going to speak for itself and that's going to be what you need. So
The only reason to get all that debt is if you're going to get that corporate job that's going to pay that debt back. And honestly, right now, I don't think the corporate pay is balancing out the cost of the education. So it really it really doesn't make sense.
CA: (09:14.228)
Yeah, I don't think that's a very wild take either. It's like our generation, and I think we probably graduated around the same time. I graduated from college 2007, high school 2003. Is that around the same time as you?
PD: (09:17.785)
No! High school 2003, undergrad 2008. I was on the five-year plan. We'll talk about that.
CA: (09:32.6)
Okay, so I mean like we're part of this generation that was, I don't want to say experimented on, but we were highly marketed towards when it came to the value of college. Neither of my parents had college degrees, so like they put all of their hopes and dreams in me, and it's like in hindsight a whole generation was lied to about the value of college, but that's really a different thing. And so
PD: (09:59.949)
Yeah.
CA: (10:00.092)
Not that I'm mad about my college degree. I did eventually, I mean, so when I gave up Ringling, because I'm like, I don't have the money for this, it was an easier decision to make because I also had a full paid scholarship to my local state college, as well as a full paid scholarship from Bright Futures. So I got paid to go to college, which not a lot of people can say. So it's like between a lifetime of debt at Ringling, where I might work for Pixar.
or just kind of go my own way at a local college. And I'm very happy with what I did because, I mean, I'm happy where I am in my life, so any small change would probably make me further away from my wife, which would make me sad. But I feel like the most valuable thing I got out of college was work that I put into college. It was not things that I was taught. And looking at my art career now, it's...almost all completely based on stuff I taught myself in the last three, four years. So yeah, college is not necessary at all to be successful in the arts. Yeah.
PD: (11:10.974)
No, not at all. And if you need the degree for the career that you're choosing, if you're trying to do something specific and you need to be able to prove it to get the job, the thing is I think people have this mistaken idea that well the good teachers are at the good schools like Ring and SCAD and RISD and then people teaching at these lower colleges are crappy, they're bad teachers. But that's not the case at all.
because oftentimes what you'll experience is, for example, the past two years I was teaching at Ringling and State College of Florida. So I was at basically a community college and Ringling teaching the exact same classes. And those students are getting the exact same education in that class specifically anyway for me and paying wildly different amounts
PD: (12:10.098)
are getting a lot of support, they're getting a lot of help. They have people trying to mentor them and get them where they need to be. Whereas at Ringling, it's such a fast-paced, competitive, hardcore environment that there's very little actual help. Every student there is an artist, so every teacher is focusing on all the students rather than like a small group of artists getting built up. And the students at Ringling just have so much anxiety and so much stress. And I think that that's
CA: (12:41.932)
Well, I'm glad you say that because just like I experienced the same thing at my state college, FIU, there was an amazing amount of like camaraderie with the fine art degree students. We had our own like we were in the far corner of the campus. So we would have parties every night in that in our art studios, we would spend the entire evenings playing board games, we would make Halloween costumes and do like a Halloween thing. And like that's In my mind, if I went to an art school, that would be more people doing that. But I guess it's not necessarily the case because you kind of, not only say you lose what makes you special, but I guess it's, I don't know, you're probably exposed to less of the other arts. If you're more, I don't know what I'm saying, but just tell me about the difference in environment.
PD: (13:28.598)
There's, yeah, I mean, there's an element of what you're saying to steer it is that like, there's that theory of being a big fish in a small pond versus a small fish in a big pond. You know, if you go to Ringling, everyone there is an artist and everyone there or any private school, any elite art school, your, everyone in your class has also had to submit a portfolio, right? So everybody's coming in at least this baseline level. So just because you get in doesn't mean that you're going to be great, right? Whereas when you go to a smaller school, if you're pretty good, if you're someone who, okay, I could get into one of these private schools, right? I got accepted to these two private schools, but I'm gonna choose to go to this smaller school you're going to be the big fish in the pond. Right? So you're going to get more opportunities within that community because you're going to be the best. Whereas, and I see that at SDF a lot, where some students walk in and they were in a magnet program at high school. They've drawn a lot. And they already, they come in the door quite a few levels above some of the other students. And they get to flourish, and they get to win awards, and they get to get scholarships because they're the best. Whereas if that same student went to Ringling, they would just be like, hey, yeah, whatever, you and everybody else. So, again, it really, it comes down to why you're going to school, right? If you wanna work for Hallmark, you need the degree from a good school because everybody's trying to get that job.
CA: (15:15.262)
Is that a thing that a lot of people say that they want to work for Hallmark?
PD: (15:19.75)
It's one of the big companies that's still in production, or at least, I don't know how big it still is, but if you think about it, every target, every Walmart, every Publix has a greeting card aisle. They're a place that is hiring illustrators still, because honestly, illustration is changing as a career path, right? Everything is motion graphics, everything is concept art.
CA: (15:34.12)
Interesting. Yeah.
PD: (15:45.486)
for films, everything is character designed, everything is based in animation, that's not 2D animation anymore. So the traditional illustrator is that career path is changing dramatically. And one of the few places you can still make money as a traditional illustrator is greeting cards, or honestly, one of the biggest employers for illustrators still is like carters, which they do baby stuff.
CA: (15:53.589)
Mm-hmm.
PD: (16:15.854)
They they do baby clothes and baby bottles and all that, you know, the cutesy baby stuff. So you can go in and illustrate for Carter is your job.
CA: (16:23.704)
So, just a quick anecdote about the Hallmark. So this time of year, my wife and I obsessively watched the Hallmark channel for all their new Christmas movies. And we always laugh because we can identify all the Canva-based graphics on their set design. We're like, oh, we know that template. My wife's become a Canva ninja. But you have to be if you're in real estate. And I keep wanting to teach her Illustrator, but that's a big ask.
PD: (16:41.946)
Roast! Ugh!
Yeah.
PD: (16:52.022)
Right. Well, and I mean, I hate to say it, but is there a purpose to, you know, if you can do it in Canva for nothing really quickly, why wouldn't you? You know, I have a lot of thoughts about that. You know, I'm very torn on the changes to the art industry because of technology, but what I have to remind myself ultimately as someone who is a traditional artist,
CA: (16:55.992)
I'm gonna go.
CA: (17:00.985)
Yeah.
CA: (17:04.328)
Right, no, I agree.
PD: (17:21.19)
I work in oil on wood panels, right? What I do is very, very far from what is trendy and current right now. And I have to think of it as, it becomes more of a luxury item, right? Like if you're gonna go buy a purse and you're buying just some cheap mass produced thing from Walmart or TJ Maxx or whatever, versus if you go buy an Italian leather handmade purse.
Right. They're completely different things. They're not even the same product. Right. And so I have to think of my art as that luxury item, the handmade traditional quality items. And, and I have to remember to market myself differently. I market myself for that and not be trying to keep up with the people who are doing a really, really rad, quick illustration and procreate and doing a cool time-lapse video and putting it up on Instagram.
Like there's a degree of that I can do as an artist and then I need to get better at absolutely and try to stay current with, but I have to remember that I'm not that artist and doing something different.
CA: (18:32.748)
So that also ties me back to this topic that's been coming up in a lot of my recent interviews is if you think about expanding your income as an artist, which I know you don't really rely on that, but if you do picture a future, for sure, for sure. But like if you picture a future where your income as an artist has increased, has it increased because the value of each individual piece has gotten higher or because you're doing more pieces and making more sales?
PD: (18:45.086)
I would like to.
PD: (19:02.814)
It would have to be both. If I were doing more pieces and making more sales, the value of each piece would go up. Absolutely. Um, you know, if, if the demand for my work increases, if it's being seen by more people, then my value could increase. But as of right now, I'm not producing that much and it's not being seen by that wide of an audience. So.
my value stays, I think, approachable, you know, and my prices are still more than a lot of people in this region, but I think for what they are for traditional oil paintings with realism, they're pretty approachable.
CA: (19:50.504)
Yeah, I mean, the product definitely matches the price you're putting onto it. It's not like, you know, you're charging $2,000 for an eight by eight painting of a cat. You know, so it's, it's not anything absurd or unheard of. They're normal prices for normal, for the size and the amount of work you're putting into those. But I just find it fascinating that most of the people I've been speaking with, there's, there's really just one or two ways that they grow their business. It's either get more famous so I can charge more.
PD: (20:00.75)
Right.
CA: (20:19.884)
or sell more units. And I'm definitely on the sell more unit side. Because like, if I can expand my audience, I can sell more books of my illustrations. And I think that also comes down because all my work is digital. So inherently the value is the fact that it is being duplicated so many times. There's no original piece unless I'm selling NFTs, but that's, you know. So it's just interesting how
PD: (20:47.141)
Yeah.
CA: (20:49.508)
so differently from so many other, I guess, generally traditional artists, people who are painting and doing individual things, they don't necessarily want to paint till 4am because they have so many orders, be easier to have a normal, manageable life, and then just charge more for each piece.
PD: (21:08.886)
And you know, I had a thought and it just, it fluttered away.
CA: (21:12.07)
Anyways.
CA: (21:15.496)
Well, I mean, I mostly wanted to talk about your experience with education, because I haven't had any traditional art teachers in the course. I mean, in the course of this podcast. So one thing specifically I want to bring up is at the college I went to, because it was a quote unquote research college, all of the professors needed to have solo shows at least once a year at some gallery around Miami. Is that a requirement at any of the schools you've been to? Or you've worked in?
PD: (21:19.458)
Yeah.
PD: (21:45.558)
Nothing that specific, but we have to be working in our field. It's the equivalent of publishing, right? Exhibition is publication. So we have to be constantly producing. We don't have to bag a solo show because that's harder to do. And it doesn't make sense with what a lot of people do. It does happen to make sense with what I do.
CA: (22:05.793)
Hehehe
CA: (22:09.976)
I guess I probably misrepresented it. I doubt it was a solo show every year. Probably every five years or something.
PD: (22:14.758)
But yeah, it's absolutely a requirement that we be a currently working artist. If I was just resting on my laurels and not producing and not creating new work and getting it out there and not being exhibited, yeah, that would look poorly in my yearly reviews and all of that. I would definitely have to explain why I wasn't and there would have to be a darn good reason. But yeah, it's just expected that you will be constantly.
CA: (22:42.904)
So there are yearly reviews, I guess. So can you just explain what it's like being adjunct versus tenure or what, like if anyone wants to get into art education, what are some things they should expect?
PD: (22:45.866)
Oh yeah.
PD: (22:54.378)
Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because I got, I have a degree in art education, which is not necessary for what I'm doing right now. It is necessary to teach, necessary is not even the right word. It made it a lot graduate school. So after Ringling, I went to SCAD for a year and I did a one year master's program in education. So I have a master's of arts in teaching and that
CA: (23:09.674)
Is it undergrad or grad?
PD: (23:23.002)
involved a lot of student teaching in public schools and other, you know, every teaching scenario you could have, but the majority of it was in public schools. And then when I graduated from that, I was certified to teach K through five. Plus, I had experience with museums and colleges. So I did nine and a half years teaching elementary school.
And that you have to have a certification as an educator, right? At the college level, you don't have to understand education or brain development or how humans learn at all. That's not a requirement to teach college. To teach college, you have to be an expert in your field.
CA: (24:15.7)
Well, I think we could specify that in Florida, you can also just be a veteran.
PD: (24:20.518)
That's true! That's true! And if you have a gun, that helps.
CA: (24:23.892)
Yes.
PD: (24:25.334)
Um, yeah, just be friends with a governor and you can run a whole liberal arts college.
CA: (24:32.8)
Yeah, absolutely.
PD: (24:36.366)
But yeah, so I get very frustrated with other educators who don't understand how learning works usually bring because they're getting most of them paid more than me and they're doing a subpar job and they're often doing their students a disservice because they don't understand learning. And these are usually the professors that students are complaining about, you know, the assholes that nobody likes.
the ones who are failing a lot of students, those are the ones who don't understand how learning works. And every year as an educator you have to do some certain levels of professional development and it'll differ from school to school, county to county. And where I am I have to do professional development, but it can be really broad and I get to choose what that is, right? The professional development could be, oh I took a new Adobe certification.
Right. It doesn't have to have anything to do with teaching. Or if I wanted it to, it could have to do with teaching. I generally focus my professional development on mental health, because as an educator, I have found that is the biggest stumbling block to learning. Is when students are having issues with their mental health, whether it's anxiety, depression, trauma, whatever, all the way from the elementary level, kindergarten, all the way up to
you know, the highest level I've taught in the colleges, students about to graduate, they, if they're struggling, if their Maslow's hierarchy of needs are not being met in some way, they're not gonna learn, right? And so there are a lot of teachers who have really, really strict expectations that don't take any of that into account. And it can be really frustrating. But
CA: (26:28.556)
So with that in mind, this must be an even bigger or even more general question. What is learning in the context of art?
PD: (26:39.222)
Growth, it's growth, right? It's curiosity. To me, it's, okay, I'm here, how do I get better? Right? So especially at SCF working at a school that is a two-year school rather than a four-year school, we don't have portfolios for our students to enter our program, right? Somebody could walk in and they're like, I haven't drawn since I was in third grade. And somebody else could walk in and they have an AP art portfolio, right?
CA: (26:47.136)
Mm-hmm.
PD: (27:07.346)
Both of those students walk into my class and they're starting at different places. And my goal isn't to get them to the same place because that just services this person, right? My goal is for both of them to grow, right? And ultimately, there are student learning outcomes that you have to meet. And each class has a little list of outcomes. And if they walk out the door, being able to do that thing, and I've done my job. But I try to make it my goal to make sure that
If they walk in my door already knowing how to do that thing, then they walk out doing it better. And with art, a lot of it, and you mentioned so much for this practice, it's what you put in. So if you put in a lot of effort toward learning and growing, you're going to learn and grow. My wife and I are constantly talking about the word talent. And people love to tell an artist, oh, you have so much talent.
CA: (27:41.498)
Mmm, okay.
CA: (28:03.376)
I hate that word.
PD: (28:06.59)
And it's a nice compliment, and I can't understand where it's coming from, but it does discount the idea that we have put hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and mountains of tears and frustration and square words into getting where we are today. So if you watch me, my students watch me do stuff all the time and they're like, Oh my God, you made that look so easy. Well, yeah, I've been doing it for 30 years. Of course I made it look easy. Right?
If you dribble, if I dribble the basketball and tried to shoot hoops every day for 30 years, I would be pretty good at it. As it is, I've maybe touched the basketball twice, so I'm terrible, right? And if I wanted to get better at it, I could. I just would have to practice. And art is the same way. If you practice, if you put the effort forward, and when you hit a stumbling block, you ask for help, you will learn and you will grow. So I feel like...
You know, one of the things with art that is tricky with different professors is some people want you to make something that looks exactly like what they do, right? And I ran into that a lot recently, where if those instructors don't know about learning and education, all they know is this is what I do well. Then what they're trying to do is teach all of their students to do what they do well. And some of the big companies like that.
some of the Pixar's and the Disney's, you know, they like, oh, I know if I hire a really student, they're gonna pop out with this style and they're gonna be able to do what I'm looking for. I imagine the same is true of fashion and architecture, right, different architecture schools probably produce students who do things a certain way. And so you kind of know what you're looking for. For me as an educator, that's not my goal. I don't want my students' work to look like mine. I want my students' work to look like theirs, just the best they could do.
Well, I've lost what the question was.
CA: (30:05.256)
No, no, that's good. So what is, I guess, the elevation from, I don't know if there is one, like what is the difference between an adjunct professor versus tenure? Is tenure a thing that still happens in the arts? And then how does it compare between an art school like Ringling and the state college you're at now?
PD: (30:22.923)
Yeah.
PD: (30:31.074)
Um, so most schools will have like steps, right? And adjunct is always the lowest step. Adjunct is just like, yeah, we pluck you in, you're going to teach some classes, you're going to fill in the spaces that we can't fill, that you don't get any benefits and we don't have any support or help, you don't generally have to go to staff meetings, you're just kind of there, right? It's, it's almost the college equivalent of a substitute teacher because you're teaching the whole course. Um, and I did that for.
four years at two different schools. And, you know, it's different from school to school. Being an adjunct at one place meant almost I was just on my own. I would show up at five o'clock and no one else was in the building. I would teach my figure drawing class and then shut down the building and that was it. I never saw anybody but my students. Whereas being at Ringling, it was more of, okay, as an adjunct you still have to go to the faculty meetings. You still have to show off all
And one day I showed up to the faculty meeting and they were talking about all this big stuff that I wasn't involved with. And I was like, was I supposed to be at this meeting? And she's like, yeah. And then she looked into it, oh, you're the only adjunct in the room. There were like 50 people in the room and they were all full time and making the big bucks, which at Ringling is like between 60 to $90,000. And I was there as a little adjunct making like 1850 per course. So the pay is generally way worse as an adjunct and you don't get benefits.
that. But almost every college is going to start you there. And just like many other fields, you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. You don't just get hired as a professor right out the gate. And then most schools that step process will go from adjunct to sometimes it'll be like visiting professor or it'll be lecturer.
Rui-Ling has a visiting professor as the second staff at FDF as lecturer. And again, that's where like, OK, you're kind of full time. You get some benefits. Yeah, you get benefits, but you're still on a.
CA: (32:33.308)
some weird titles.
CA: (32:38.712)
And then once you get your thetas at a certain count, yeah.
PD: (32:42.486)
You're still on like a year-to-year contract and they can just let you go whenever And then it's like most of the time it's assistant professor then professor and then Some places still have tenure tracks. I know that because I was looking at job applications today Some universities still have tenure track positions, but a lot of them don't And that's I don't know if that's state by state or if that's cool by school But I've never worked at a school that had tenure
Um, there are generally some protections. Luckily teachers, you know, teachers unions are generally pretty strong. Um, so being able to be involved in a union or a bargaining unit, uh, helps a lot with that, making sure that people at least, you know, even if you're on a year to year contract, there are some protections, but yeah, tenure, tenure seems like a dream to me. I can't even quite imagine it, but.
CA: (33:42.464)
So you were working at both Ringling and State College of Florida, and now you're just at State College of Florida. So what was the impetus for that transition?
PD: (33:42.67)
Thank you.
PD: (33:48.813)
Hmm?
PD: (33:54.578)
State College of Florida offered me full-time. So I've gone through, I've gone from adjunct to lecturer, and now I'm a full-time instructor. And then I'll be assistant professor, and then I'll be a professor, hopefully. But yeah, Ringling was never going to give me the full-time position because I don't have Disney or Pixar or any of those big companies on my resume. I would, as a gallery artist, I would have to have
you know, Hashimoto in New York or some really cool LA gallery on my resume in order for them to view that as something valuable. What those bigger schools are looking to hire is people who look good in a brochure. They want to say 90% of our professors have worked at Disney and Pixar. They want to be like, oh, this professor worked on this award-winning movie.
because that's the draw, right? Regardless of whether that teacher can teach. And you get some schools where they have all these teachers that are maybe really phenomenal artists, but they can't teach and then they...
There was a big drama last year, halfway through last year at Ringling, where a pair of professors was doing a senior portfolio review for senior thesis and they were looking at all the students' work. Everybody had their 15-minute time slot in a Zoom call, and in between each of those 15-minute time slots, the two teachers just sat there shooting the shit and talking smack, and they were saying all kinds of horrible things about the students, about their work.
there were slurs, there were, it was very inappropriate. And the whole thing got recorded and the whole thing got sent out to everyone that was involved in the call. And those two guys, both of whom were there when I was there as a student, both of them just got a slap on the wrist and that was it. Because what's important is that they have good names, right? They have good reputation.
PD: (36:05.698)
And I had a professor at Ringling who told me, well, I can't teach you to paint. You're going to have to figure it out on your own. To which I wanted to say, what am I paying you for? Um, so it's, it's sort of. It's iffy.
CA: (36:26.125)
So...
CA: (36:29.816)
Did you always know that you wanted to be in art education? Maybe a silly question since you had the masters in art education and now you're an art professor or a art full-time, I guess you'd call it.
PD: (36:44.07)
I'm not allowed to be called a professor, but like the average person doesn't differentiate between an adjunct and an instructor and a professor. Yeah, no. I actively thought I would never be a teacher. I used to say that I could never be a teacher because I didn't have the patience. And then I grew up and I developed the patience. And now I can be very patient in a room full of five-year-olds all just exploding all over the place and just be like, well,
CA: (37:06.721)
Hehehehehehe
PD: (37:14.39)
Here we go. So I don't know where that came from, but no, I had no intention of being a teacher at all. I really, I thought I was going to be a professional artist. And I don't know when I went to college, I don't know if I had a goal really. Like that's what I went in on decided. I didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew I was an artist and I had to follow that path, right? So I went in and followed that path and then I graduated and I didn't know.
I didn't know what I was going to do. As I was saying that experience that rang in was really hard for me. So I came out of there not having any confidence in my work. And I was going to go work at an art center. I had a job planned out. I was going to be just like working at an art center. And then I made a change because of wanting to stay near someone. And instead I opened a gallery in Village of the Arts in Bradenton.
And for a year and a half, I ran a gallery with my partner. And it was interesting. Our goal was to give a place for Ringling students to show their work, because all of the galleries, especially at that time, all the galleries in Sarasota were really old and really hoity-toity. And there was nowhere for cool, edgy young artists to show their work, except in some random warehouse on Wednesday. I don't know.
So we wanted to be a space for that. And it was great. It was great for a year and a half. And then my business partner and I split and I thought, well, this isn't fueling me as an artist. This isn't making me a better artist right now. And this isn't financially helping me. So what am I gonna do? And I wound up, I was just sort of looking around for programs, like what's a short master program that I can do?
And that's when I stumbled on the Savannah one year masters in education. And I was like, well, you know, if what I'm looking for is to make money as an artist and know every two weeks that I'm getting a paycheck and know how much that paycheck is going to be, then this might be a really good gig for me. And it really has been because it allows me the time and the space to create my own work when I'm feeling motivated. But I don't feel like I have.
PD: (39:34.67)
to sing for my supper. I know that I have a paycheck, right? And so I can create art for me instead of for other people and I can create art when I'm feeling like creating art. So for example, you went to our big show, The Female Gaze at the end of last year, October of last year. Summer and I both proposed that we were going
like 15 pieces each, right? We were like, we can probably each do 15. So we'll probably have 30 pieces. I think we had like 72 pieces in that show. We just, once we got going, we were really feeling prolific and I would see something she was doing and say, oh, I like those colors. I'm gonna use those and do this thing. Oh, I like that idea. Let me bounce off of that. And so we really, we just sort of ramped each other up. And in a year, one year, I painted
Like 32 pieces, some of them were small, some of them were this big and some of them were three feet by four feet, you know, really big pieces. So I felt really good about that. And then this year I have painted two I've only painted two pieces this year. I just didn't really have the motivation and I think Chad closing down the regular my spot and opening space really sort of changed my flow.
CA: (40:48.716)
Hehehehe
PD: (41:03.734)
because when he had mine, he was doing monthly shows. And it was always motivating for me to like, okay, let me produce a new piece. At least every month I was making a new work. And then with space, it was only quarterly shows. So it wasn't as often. And I noticed that pieces weren't selling at space because space has those giant walls and you have to have a big piece on the wall in order for it to even show up, right? I had a...
CA: (41:06.718)
Mm-hmm.
PD: (41:34.15)
I think three foot by three foot piece on the wall at the base. And it almost disappeared because it seemed small.
PD: (41:45.298)
And then when...
Sorry, distractions. And then when I create a work like that, it's gotta have a higher price tag. So we were talking about the prices and the perceived value of art, right? So if something is big, for me has to come in more. It can't be $500, it has to be at least $1,000. If I'm doing a big oil painting, three feet by four feet,
CA: (41:51.387)
It's okay.
PD: (42:18.654)
I need to make that back. So I find that in our market, this regional St. Pete market, my work doesn't sell at that price point. Or it doesn't sell in like a single night event. It might sell if somebody has time to think about it, but that's not an impulse buy. $1,500 is not an impulse buy. So I find that my work sells better in either a longer event that's a month, like the pieces used to be at Mies, or
my work sells better at a smaller scale where somebody can be like, I can drop 300 bucks, you know. So I just find that my motivation to create quickly has kind of fallen off this year, but it's nice because I know what my paycheck is. I know that I, you know, my day job isn't getting in the way of my art. It's just not, you know, inspiring me right now.
But on that note, I'm now running the gallery at SCF. And I'm sort of, I'm soft reopening a gallery that's been closed for three years. So the first thing we're gonna do is the faculty exhibition and that'll be a yearly thing as it was in the past. Sort of a yearly exhibition of all the art faculty, you know, what we're doing and why they hired us and what our students can expect from us. And so.
CA: (43:22.52)
No.
PD: (43:44.394)
that's motivating me. I'm excited. I've got a couple weeks off in December for the holiday break and like, oh, I get to create something new and I have a motivation. I have a reason to create something, um, which I haven't had in a little while. But I will say that's the downside is because I know where my paycheck is coming from and I don't have to sing for myself or with my art. If I don't want to paint, I don't paint, you know, whereas if, if that was my livelihood, I would have to paint all the time. Um, and I would like to be better about it.
CA: (44:06.434)
Hehehe
PD: (44:13.276)
forcing myself to pay more.
CA: (44:15.708)
So generally speaking, do you really only create art when there is already a dedicated reason for that piece to exist? Like a Mize prompt, I'm sorry for the listeners, a Mize gallery, a Chad Mize gallery thematic prompt for a show, or you have a gallery thing coming up that that's going to be in.
Or do you find yourself just sitting at a canvas and creating something and worrying about where it's going to live afterwards?
PD: (44:49.642)
If I don't know what it's for, generally I don't paint. Because if I don't have a wall to put it on, then it's just gonna be sitting in my house. As it is, we have a storage unit that we're paying for every month to keep our art safe and climate controlled and out of the way of the cats and the just day-to-day existence. And yeah, if I don't know that it's gonna be exhibited, I'm not creating.
CA: (44:53.952)
I'm the same way. Yeah.
PD: (45:18.894)
And I wish that weren't true. I wish I could just create every day and it didn't matter. And I think if I got more into digital art, which I've considered, I might create more because then I'm creating files and I can just store them for later use. But when it's big paintings, I mean, you can see these big pieces on the wall behind me and they're there and they're just on my wall. Actually, both of these are prints because both of these sold. But.
CA: (45:32.44)
Mm-hmm.
CA: (45:46.824)
Nice.
PD: (45:49.278)
But yeah, if not, I just have a stack of art in my corner. So yeah, I find that for me, I paint better if I have a prompt, a motivation. And some of that might just be that I have ADHD and motivation is hard for me in the first place. So if I have a deadline, then it makes me work. I have five pieces on my easel that I started last year in, I think, December, and they're all just
started and I've had a year and I haven't finished them. I started five pieces that all fit in a theme and four of them are just outlines and one of them has a background and like a little bit of a foreground but it's I would say only a third of the way done and then the rest are just still sitting there as outlines because there's no deadline. They were things that I came up with for myself and don't have a wall to put them on so they're just there for fun and someday I'll finish them maybe.
CA: (46:47.596)
So do you ever feel like, do you ever have negative emotional reactions to seeing an incomplete canvas sitting on an easel in the corner of your house?
PD: (47:01.047)
Um, yes and no. Sometimes if I'm feeling down on myself in other ways, it will translate to that. But in general, no. Because again, it's not my livelihood, so I don't feel like I owe the world that or something, you know? I don't feel like I'm letting anybody down by not finishing them. If I had a commission piece and it was just sitting there, that would be a problem. But generally, if I have a commission piece, it feels like a deadline and I know where it's going so I can get that done quickly and out the door.
I laughed when you said that though, because there is an unfinished painting that I started, I think while I was at Ringling, and my mom has it hanging in the bathroom, and it's framed, and it's just this unfinished landscape. It's not even a little bit unfinished, it's 90% unfinished. I barely did anything on it, and for whatever reason, she loves it, and it's framed and it's hanging in her bathroom. So you never know what someone else is going to value.
CA: (47:59.348)
Yeah, I know what you mean. Like, I did an estate sale at my mother's house last week, and almost all of my old art got bought. Now, granted, everything was priced like $2, but still, I'm like, really? You're buying that self-portrait I did in clay? Okay. It's just weird. I'm like, oh, I thought I'd be throwing these things away after the estate sale, but there's like only two or three of my... Like, I sold so much of my art.
PD: (48:18.155)
Yes.
PD: (48:24.028)
Mm-hmm.
CA: (48:27.456)
But anyways, again, that's all like $2 a piece. But it's just weird. Ha ha.
PD: (48:33.494)
And that's the thing, people really enjoy art. People really will bond with art and respond well to art if it's not about money. As soon as money comes into it, either people just don't have much money and therefore they have to really, really want the piece. It has to really make sense to them. They have to be able to put it on their wall and be proud of it. Or they have a lot of money and then they're thinking about art as an investment, which is a whole different world, right?
And it's hard to find that middle ground where people can afford it and want it.
And then Summer and I both experienced this. A lot of times people will look at stuff and the piece that they fall in love with is not the piece that they buy. I don't know if you ever see that like when you're at markets and stuff where somebody will really love something and they'll respond stronger to one piece but then they buy something that's maybe a little more bland or a little more expected just because they think that makes more sense to have on the wall. Somebody will fall in love with.
CA: (49:37.139)
I haven't noticed that, but I'm going to be on the lookout for that now.
PD: (49:41.17)
Yeah, we see it a lot where people will really like something that maybe more intense colors or more intense subject matter. And then they buy something that's like, okay, well, this is mushrooms. I can put this in my kitchen.
CA: (49:55.316)
Well, I see that a lot, but it's usually like a guy walks into my booth, sees something he loves, and they'll be like, hey, babe, come take a look at this. And she'll be like, no, how about that one over there? And so she'll talk you down into something a little more benign. So let me ask you about course design. What kind of freedom do you have as a teacher to design curriculum?
PD: (50:07.516)
Okay, yeah.
Yeah.
CA: (50:20.824)
come up with assignments and like what are some of the assignments that you've noticed people often react well to in your classes?
PD: (50:30.594)
That's an interesting question. So it depends on the school, how much freedom I have to develop the course. As I said, there's always student learning outcomes. Those are set by generally, they're set at a higher level, right? And then handed down to you as an instructor. And then you have to look at those outcomes and design assignments, projects that you think will help the students reach that outcome, right? So...
A simple one would be perspective, linear perspective, right? If I'm teaching drawing one, my students have to walk out the door with an understanding of how to use linear perspective to create a sense of depth. That's pretty basic stuff. And if students have had a high school drawing classes, they probably already know that. But if they haven't, we've got to nail it down and just make sure they know it. So I can design any kind of assignment I want to get that effect.
But I have to make sure that they walk out the door knowing that knowledge. So that's sort of the leeway that I have. I'm given a skeleton of usually it's like 10 things, 10 to 12 things that the students have to know when they walk out the door. And then I get to figure out how to get them.
than when I was at Ringling. Because I was in the foundational courses, because I was in first year core classes, that everybody takes figure drawing is what I was teaching over there. Everybody takes figure drawing, right? So the expectation is that every figure drawing class will be relatively the same. So we had, we had, I mean, every student that goes to Ringling goes to the figure drawing class. Everyone.
So that's a lot of students and a lot of features. So they had these staff meetings where we collaboratively decided how we were gonna meet those goals and what examples we were gonna show them and what length of assignments were gonna be and all that. So that was much more, you know, we decided it together, but it was, okay, this is the packet you're handed and this is what you have to do. So that really, it can vary from school to school.
PD: (52:44.778)
And I think when you're in an art school where that's the situation where there are five teachers teaching the same course, you're going to have to work with those five teachers trying to figure out how to get the same results. Right. Because it's not fair to the students if teacher A is really good and teacher B is just like, I don't know, do whatever. Right. Which was what I experienced in high school, for example. You know.
CA: (53:08.216)
Well then, what would you consider really good as a teacher?
PD: (53:13.438)
Every student walks out the door with the understanding. Right? Not saying things like, I can't teach you to paint. You're going to have to figure it out yourself. You know?
CA: (53:16.076)
Oh, okay. Yeah.
CA: (53:24.23)
I just feel like that's kind of a low bar.
PD: (53:28.315)
It really is a little more, and yet, and yet, it often isn't met. You know, in high school I had an art teacher that taught most of the studio art courses and photography, and he was checked out. He'd been there for years, he didn't care, he let students do his grading, he let students mix the chemicals in the dark room so they were always wrong. I didn't learn a single thing from that man. That's not to say I didn't learn in his classes.
because I used those classes at studio time when I practiced and I learned on my own, but I didn't learn anything from the teacher, right? Whereas I've had other teachers where I learned a lot from them because they gave guidance and coaching, you know? So yeah, but when you have a collaborative sort of team planning lessons together, I think the goal is just to make sure that like everybody's gonna get the same experience in the course and it's...
it's not going to vary.
CA: (54:28.972)
So, another thing I wanted to ask you too is you said you have a masters in art education. Under what circumstances would you recommend someone else try and get a masters in arts or arts education?
PD: (54:44.83)
Okay, that's interesting too. So I needed a teaching certification to teach elementary school, which I did for nine years, and honestly was, I made more money doing that than I do at the college level. I just didn't enjoy it as much. So I needed the teaching certification. You don't necessarily need a master's degree to get the teaching certification, but I already had a bachelor's degree in art, so I wasn't going to go get another bachelor's degree when I could get a
PD: (55:16.09)
The college level, you need a master's, well, you need a terminal degree to teach at the college level. Art, usually it's a doctorate, right? In most things, a doctorate is a terminal degree, but in art, the last thing that you can get, the highest level that you can get in your field. In art,
CA: (55:23.544)
What's a terminal degree?
CA: (55:28.354)
Oh, okay.
CA: (55:33.224)
Oh, terminal just means like, final, I guess.
PD: (55:42.142)
A Master's of Fine Arts is the highest you can get. There's no Doctorate of Fine Arts, which I think is rude, by the way. But...
PD: (55:51.526)
I'm in a weird boat where there is a doctorate of education.
So technically I don't have a terminal degree because if we're looking at my degree as an education degree, I could go on and get a doctorate. But if you look at it as a arts degree, then a master's is the highest level and there's no doctorate of arts, but fine arts. So a lot of times I slip by with that, but that's another reason that, you know, for me some of those higher
schools, Ringling, for example, might choose somebody else over me because they have an MSA, Master of Fine Arts, which is a terminal degree, and I have an MAT, which is not technically a terminal degree. So for me, I don't know when it would be necessary to have a Master's of Arts in Education. It happens to be the path that I took and what worked for me, but I don't know if it's necessary, right?
CA: (56:44.876)
Hehehe
PD: (56:55.034)
You can teach college without that master's of arts in education, but you do need a terminal degree to teach college. So we're having trouble with that at SCF right now. We're finding that we're trying to hire people to fill adjunct positions, but nobody has an MFA. They're just a lot of people don't get a master's in arts because like it's a lot of money to them to not make money back, right?
CA: (57:23.164)
So when I graduated from FIU, my focus, my MFA was primarily with sculpture. I was doing a lot of wood carving and mold making and casting with fiberglass. And I really wanted a master's in fine art. I applied to University of Alaska Fairbanks because they had a good MFA sculpture program. I applied to a college in upstate New York, I thought it was called, but they actually did
PD: (57:34.988)
Mm.
CA: (57:51.868)
in glass, glassworks, which was pretty darn cool too. I think it was like they were around like the green and green kind of like arts and crafts movement history, upstate New York area. It's a cool history there. And then also VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University, had a good masters in sculpture program. I applied to all of those, didn't get into any of those, and I was very sad. And the next year I applied again, still didn't get into any of those.
And I feel like in hindsight, the only reason I wanted the masters was because I was too afraid to start my life with the degree I had.
I don't know if that means anything for this conversation. I was just thinking about it right now. I had no reason to go for a master's in that. It's not like I would have learned anything new. I was just comfortable in the college environment and wanted some more of it.
PD: (58:36.416)
Mm-hmm.
CA: (58:45.045)
Yeah. Hahaha.
PD: (58:46.922)
I think when I look at people who have a Masters of Fine Arts, because I'm envious often that I don't have that Masters of Fine Arts, because with the career path that I've ended up in, my life would be easier if I had the Masters of Fine Arts. It seems like what people who have that have that I don't have is more of a conceptual mindset. My illustration degree was very, very much about the commercial side of it.
art, right? Illustration is a commercial art. You are in business. You are trying to produce for a boss, right? It's not the famous fine arts. And when I see people with a master's of fine arts, it seems like they have these really high concepts and they can write an artist's statement that doesn't make any sense. And people look at it and go, oh, you're amazing. Right? And I wish I had that because I feel like I'm a little too grounded in reality to really make it in the fine art world. I'm not crazy enough and I would love to be wild and out there.
And I think that a fine arts degree might have helped me with that, made me think a little bit more outside the box. Whereas what an illustration degree gave me was like communicate, right, visual communication. And so I'm always trying to communicate a narrative in my work. And I wish that I had a little bit more of that sort of like I'm going to tape a banana to the wall and charge you an insane amount of money for it.
CA: (01:00:10.348)
Well, I see that division as the same division between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. You know, we are the working class artists who intend to get stuff done with art as a language. The MFAs of the world, they have financial freedom to begin with to allow them to explore that universe.
PD: (01:00:20.125)
Mm-hmm.
CA: (01:00:35.444)
and they don't fall into it. There's only like one basquiat every hundred years and see what happens, you know, when you end up in that world and they don't want you. So I am, I mean, that's also kind of a theme that comes up a lot in my podcast is like, there's always a desire for artists to be recognized in the art world. And I don't want to put any effort into that because I don't really get any financial gain from that.
PD: (01:00:35.927)
Yeah.
PD: (01:00:46.192)
Yeah.
CA: (01:01:06.028)
But I still want it, you know? So I see totally what you're saying. Like it's fun to fantasize living in a world where you, it's like you go into an art show. There's always like a woman with no hair and a woman with too much hair. And wanna be one of those women with big ass chunky jewelry who can talk for 20 minutes about a piece without even having looked at it because it's just kind of the same.
PD: (01:01:07.438)
Hmm
CA: (01:01:31.172)
the same floaty adjectives that you'll usually throw around and people be like, oh wow, that's such great insight.
PD: (01:01:33.242)
Mm-hmm.
PD: (01:01:39.382)
Right, right. Meanwhile, they tune out halfway through and plan their grocery list. Yeah.
CA: (01:01:47.149)
So let's talk a bit about then kind of winding this into something more specific to you. Where is your art now and where do you think it's going to be in the next five years?
PD: (01:02:02.254)
That's an interesting question. My goal right now is to find my market. I don't feel like St. Pete is my market. It's where I've been exhibiting for 10 and a half years and 12 years, I don't know. And it's been really great. You know, I've always been well-received in this community and I feel like I have some really wonderful collectors here who I can count on to buy my work.
But also, how many times can I count on them to buy my work? Because if they've already got five of my paintings, I know they're running out of wall space. These are not millionaires. So, you know, at some point, I feel like I'm going to have saturated the market that is available to me here in St. Pete. So I need to break into a market that's maybe a little more interested in what I have. That's my goal.
that is very hard to do as a fine artist producing work for galleries, it's hard to break into a gallery in a space where you don't live because
CA: (01:03:06.008)
So bringing that up, my day job is market research. And one thing that we're constantly approaching projects with is when you're growing revenue, it's either getting more out of your same existing customers or finding a new audience. And finding new audience is hard. That is what the whole industry is about, is defining that audience, marketing towards that audience, and letting them know you have a product for them. And with that in mind, I highly recommend you listen to my episode with Yael Kelly.
if you haven't heard that one yet. Because one thing she really turned me onto is the value of digital art galleries, which just sounded like a complete waste of time until she explained that this is getting your painting in the inbox of thousands of people all over the country, all over the world, and then they are directed back towards your website. And she has done tons of business as a result of a digital art gallery that she didn't have to mail a piece out to, just had a high quality scan of something.
Anyways.
PD: (01:04:06.982)
Interesting. Yeah. I'm always so wary of stuff like that because it feels like is this a scam? Is this me somehow just signing the rights of my work over to somebody who's not going to do anything with it? You know? And where does this actually go? What am I making from this? It's weird being on Instagram trying to build a market too because you get...
somebody reaching out for a commission and you talk to them for 20 minutes about their commission and then they say, oh, I'd like to pay you in a digital check or Walmart gift cards or whatever. And then you're like, oh, this is a scam. You've just wasted all of my time. Thank you. Please, please go away. So I'm always very wary of that sort of thing, but yeah. But again, is that market something where you're able to make a 15-
hundred dollar sale, a two thousand dollar sale, or is that a market where you're selling prints? Is that, you know, what does that look like? But yeah.
CA: (01:05:07.661)
That's a good question.
And then shipping originals is always a hassle too.
PD: (01:05:15.178)
such a hassle. And so that's been the challenge of me trying to find other markets. I can, I can online, I can apply for stuff all over the world, right? I've shipped things to Philadelphia, I've shipped things to New York, I've shipped things to Vermont and to North Carolina, and then I get them back. Because that market doesn't know me and doesn't have a connection with me, right? So again, people might not be willing to drop that price point. So
Then I have spent $60 shipping something to North Carolina and $60 to ship it back. And sure, I still have my piece, but I, because I'm not physically there, I don't have any way of knowing if that did anything for it. You know, I don't know. Okay. Did that make me the talk of the town? Did everybody who walks through that gallery go, oh, look at that. Let me write that person's name down. Let me, let me follow that person. I don't know. You know, um, so it's.
It's very challenging and gallery owners from everything that I have seen and read, it seems like they really they choose their artists based on connection. They're more likely to take an artist that is recommended to them by one of their artists, then to take someone who cold calls them, basically. So the best way to get gallery representation.
is to go to shows at that gallery every month and get that gallery owner to know you and then to the point where they ask you what you do and you get to show them in a more natural way than just like, here, I shipped you my portfolio or I stepped into your space and stuck my portfolio book in your face. So it's a challenge, but that's my goal for the future is to try to build that for myself.
Or open my own gallery and sing in the near future. But that's a whole different dream.
CA: (01:07:17.34)
Yeah, sell art on your own terms. That's always fun, wouldn't it? Well, I mean, so it's also, I don't know if this really ties to the conversation, but I've learned that increasing the price of a piece doesn't necessarily price you out of your audience. It prices you into a new audience. So it's not always,
PD: (01:07:20.766)
Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?
PD: (01:07:43.543)
Mm-hmm.
CA: (01:07:47.22)
it can often increase the chance for sale if you increase the price of a piece. I don't know if that really helps in this situation, but it did get me thinking about that. So, well, I, no, sorry, go ahead.
PD: (01:07:56.786)
Yeah, yeah.
PD: (01:08:02.178)
I was just going to say, I try not to devalue myself. And it's hard. It's hard as an artist to have enough confidence to put a high ticket price on a piece. But I've hit that point where I do feel confident enough in my work to put the price that I feel like I deserve. But yeah, to then expand on that and push that even higher, it is scary. It's intimidating to do that, but you're right. Maybe I should.
CA: (01:08:28.512)
Well, in that regard, I've had a wonderful conversation with you, reflecting on my art education and finding out where things are now. It's fascinating. Thank you so much. For anyone who wants to see your work, they can visit you at peridevic.com. That's P-E-R-R-Y-D-E-V-I-C-K.com. Do you have any shows coming up or any events that you want people to visit?
PD: (01:08:54.21)
Oh, I mean the next thing I'm going to be in is the faculty exhibition at State College of Florida, which is actually going to be a really, really good show. We have some really talented people working at the school and it should be wonderful. You can look at that at scf.com slash gallery. It probably won't be up until end of December, but yeah.
CA: (01:09:16.559)
So where is the State College of Florida?
PD: (01:09:19.93)
It's in Bradenton. It was formerly Manatee Community College, but they've changed their accreditation. They've kind of graduated to the next step up and are now a full-fledged state college.
CA: (01:09:21.186)
Oh, okay.
CA: (01:09:33.664)
Oh, so it's a good thing you don't have to drive to Ringling anymore.
PD: (01:09:37.618)
Yeah, the drive is definitely better to bring him than to share his data.
CA: (01:09:43.116)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Perry. It's been wonderful chatting with you.
PD: (01:09:47.446)
Thank you.
Outro
Chain Assembly: Art for profit sake is recorded through Riverside FM, distributed through Spotify for podcasters, and edited on Adobe Audition. The music is provided by Old Romans. If you learned anything useful or found this podcast helpful, please rate and review us five stars. If you want to learn more about me or my art, head over to ChainAssembly.com.
