Dawn identifies with being an 'outsider artist' as she is self taught and lives with a disability. This is not the stuff of arts establishment. Most revered outsider art is undiscovered in the artist's lifetime. Their lifes work is only uncovered when their dwelling is cleaned out after they have died. It's not unusual for hundreds or even thousands of drawings and paintings to be discovered at this time. It's only then that the world finds a treasure trove of beautiful art. Together, Dawn and her husband Chai, are working to ensure this does not happen to her art, and are beginning to share how they are going about this with other outsider artists.
There are pertinent lessons here for all artists wanting to make a living from their creations.
Once upon a time, Dawn was a hairdresser. Now her art is in many collections throughout Ballarat. How has this been possible? First, let's step sideways a little, and I shall explain.
The government is encouraging artistically inclined people who are on a disability pension to market their art, get ahead with their work and get off the pension. And so Dr Caroline Ellison of the Department of Disability Studies at Flinders University is researching how this might be possible for people to achieve. She has travelled the globe seeking stories of how artists with a disability manage to make a living from their art. Out of all the examples collected from Hong Kong, China, Scotland, England, America and Australia only one other artist came close to pulling it off, an artist in New York.
What do Dawn and the New York artist have in common?
Help.
The disabled artist in New York, who is finding some success, has achieved this by paying a lot of people a lot of money to look after the website and promotion side of art. Dawn does it with the help of her partner Chai who supports her by taking care of her website, blogging, SEO, competition entries, gallery shows and general promotion.
According to Dawn and Chai, in all the stories Dr Ellison collected, the only artists experiencing success were the two who were receiving marketing help. The conclusion is that an artist needs a mentor or promotional business partner, they cannot do it on their own. Many people have the artistic talent but not the skills to talk to radio stations, make websites and promote their work. They can only make the work. Ideally every artist needs a partnership in order to concentrate on their art, while another person markets their art. That's the secret to an artist getting ahead.
And what about Dawn's artworks? Her artistic ability grew from her careful childhood observations and ongoing experiments with drawing people and animals she saw around her, checking visual references for accuracy in the library. Up until she entered university for a fine arts degree, Dawn was a realist painter, having never been exposed to abstract art. She had grown up in a house without art books (and before the internet) so she was never exposed to the history of art and all the variety of artistic styles that exist.
When she first laid her eyes on abstract art, it was love at first sight. This is what she wanted to do. The free and gestural qualities of the works of the Cobra group and Willem de Kooning were a revelation. Andre Breton's manifesto of make marks and see where they go became a guiding principle. Dawn's art style is 'abstract expressionism'. Standing in front of a blank canvas with some sketches of compositions already worked out, she concentrates on ensuring her mind is in a good space to ensure what bubbles up from the psyche is good and not evil. Then the mark making begins. Often it is not possible to know what the work is about until after it is complete.
To see more of Dawn's art, check out her website or her upcoming exhibition at 100th Gallery in Porter St Prahran during the first two weeks of December.
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University of Ballarat, Post Office Gallery
The Former Ballarat Post Office is located on the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets.
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