Wednesday Recap #12 26.06.24

When I think of an agent, I think of a secret agent: James Bond, George Smiley, Johnny English, you get the idea. Or less excitingly an estate agent. But the arts also have agents.

So what is an agent? Or what does it mean?

In Latin, where we get the word from, it means ‘doing.’

While the Oxford English Dictionary says, “a person who acts on behalf of another person or group.”

And a few synonyms are: representative, negotiator, emissary, envoy, go-between. There were a good few more but I just liked these ones!

But the arts also have agents, so what is an arts agent? Well I had to go and have a wee look to find out, and I got this from GradIreland a graduate jobs site:

“Arts agents/promoters work to create and maintain contacts, for example gaining media coverage and exhibitions in galleries, to promote an artist and their work. Arts agents have strong interpersonal skills: they establish close working relationships with their artists to understand their needs and must negotiate with other agents, gallery managers and media representatives.”

While the main work activities are: “Dealing with queries regarding clients; Negotiating contracts with agents and gallery managers; Contacting and meeting with journal, newspaper and gallery representatives to gain publicity; General administration tasks.”

Over this last while I’ve been doing my best to promote my own work, so I’ve been trying my best to be my own agent. So maybe I need to pretend to be an agent, who represents me!”

Lesson

“Be your own…”

Diary

1. I’ve been trying to still reach out to people and groups etc, this has been having varying levels of such. I got some new ideas to work on. Though I think I might have to become very innovative!

2. I’ve been reading my children Bear Gryll’s children books lately and I’ve realised that my books could look better: better font; better layout; better (more) pictures; better titles / headings, so with this knowledge I’ve started to go through my children’s books.

3. Thursday (tomorrow) is set for a day long retreat. I will be going through some important questions and trying to evaluate what I should be focusing on. I want to finish the day with a page long document I can come back to: what I’m doing; why I’m doing it; what I hope to achieve.

4. Funding I’ve started looking at funding to deliver some of the programs I’ve constructed. I’m saying this here to force myself to look harder. The groups that would benefit most are also normally the groups that can’t afford programs like this.

Tasks for the week ahead

• Thursday Retreat Document
• Literary Agent: list of media outlets.
• Literary Agent: Strategy Posting / videos.
• Start Sketching.
• Continue reformatting children’s books.