Gabe Fernandez and Antrese Wood talk about how to craft a compelling artist bio, the importance of social skills, and why community among artists is so important for your development – and sanity.
Gabe Fernandez is an artist from Portland Oregon who paints environments – he captures the essence of places: empty rooms with chairs, suburban landscapes and the occasional still life. There is a peace and quiet about his work, and I get the sense in many of them that something just happened, or is about to happen.
Recently I had a long conversation with Gabe. I’ve been reaching out to some of my listeners to get a better feel for where people are at and why they listen to this podcast. Gabe had taken my feedback survey, and I followed up with him to get more details. So if you hear me say, we talked earlier about such and such, its because I want to share with you some of the topics we discussed.
Gabe and I talked a lot about the genesis of his work, gallery relationships, and the concept of abundance vs. Scarcity in an artists life. I’d encourage you to go to his not only to look at his work but also to read his about page. I think he did an excellent job of telling the story behind his work. Its a good example of a well written bio that pulls you in and helps you interpret his work.
Books and Documentaries:
David Hockney – Secret Knowledge
Tim’s Vermeer:
See Gabe’s work:
gaba, i love your work, great images. louie an artist from new jersey.
Hi Antrese- Love your podcasts. I grow each hour I listen. Wow- you look so young- I’m impressed with how much you know and understand artists at a young age. Boy are you on the right path! I do have one comment to make here: I make a living ONLY doing art, and have for 30 years. I raised 4 kids on it. Because I married a man who became jealous of my work and had a family I lost years of working as much as I would have like doing art. But I have caught up to where I want to be. I don’t think I sold out or lost myself- it just took a long time to be able to say I only paint what I want.
I can so relate to this, I also have to work full time to support my family and painting has always been on the back burner. I agree too that having a group of painter friends to hang with can be a huge benefit. I finally found my “tribe” and the encouragement I get from them is priceless. The chair paintings and the story behind the making of them was wonderful to hear, I enjoyed the back story so much, they are so beautiful and thought provoking to look at.