
Show Notes
In this episode of The Creative Kind I’m joined by curator, writer and arts mentor Amber Creswell Bell. During the year I have been collecting a whole lot of questions from listeners, so in this Q&A epsiode, we cover a wide range of things: from galleries and art prizes to pricing your work and building a career independently.
Some of the questions came in around knowing when inspiration becomes too close to copying, developing your own visual language, what to do with a studio full of unsold work, and how to manage relationships with galleries. Amber has a very practical way of looking at these things, and there are lots of good reminders here about doing your research, asking questions and being clear about what you actually want.
You can find my previous episode with Amber here: What Matters (and What Doesn’t) for Artists in 2026 with Amber Creswell Bell
Find Amber Creswell Bell here on instagram and here on her website Find The National Emerging Art Prize here on instagram and here on the website Find The Emerging Art Fair here on instagram and here on the website
Recommendation: Genevieve Carroll at King Street Gallery, Sydney website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from The Creative Kind
In today’s episode I'm talking with Joshua Brew, an Australian artist working on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja country in Perth. Joshua explores contemporary masculinity in his graphite drawings. His practice looks at identity & vulnerability, often turning the focus inward and using his own body as his subject, examining what it means to see and be seen.
This week I'm joined by two returning guests, Sarah Birtles and Rachael Parsons, who answered questions that have come in from listeners over the past year. Sarah is an art dealer and director of Sarah Birtles Gallery, who recently opened a new space in Springwood in the Blue Mountains. Rachael is the director of the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM), marking 10 years in the role this year. We get into a lot of ground: what question emerging artists should actually be asking themselves, whether you need formal art training to be taken seriously, what happens when work doesn't sell at a gallery, and the sometimes-blurry line between decorative and fine art. We also talk about how much artists should share of their personal lives online, how to navigate working across different subjects or genres without losing collectors, and a discussion on AI, where it's a useful tool and where it isn't. We finish with practical advice on how to approach a gallerist or curator for feedback. This season is going to be made up of interviews plus a few Question and Answer episodes from different artists and arts professionals, and like Sarah and Rachael, they will all bring really different vantage points.
Anita Phillips is a West Australian landscape painter raised on a Wheatbelt farm, who spent close to four decades as a home economics teacher before painting became her full-time focus. In this conversation she talks about selling her Perth home, resigning from teaching, and moving to the Bellarine Peninsula near Geelong and what she expects to change, and not change, in her and her work once she's away from the landscape she's painted for most of her career.
In this episode I talked with Amy Stapleton about changing direction in her art practice. Amy has moved from painting gum trees and landscapes towards more abstract and experimental work. We discuss the difficulty of moving away from work that has been successful and how she has facilitated her practice to change.
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