Our Fall Workshop will start in Fall 2010

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GYST conducts its renowned eight-week Getting Your Sh*t Together workshop twice a year at non-profits in the Southern California region. To find out when the next workshop is happening sign up for our mailing list.

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For more information email Tucker Neel at tucker@gyst-ink.com

About the Getting Your Sh*t Together Workshops

Fall 2010: TBA
 
Getting Your Sh*t Together
The Ultimate Career Workshop for Artists

If you are anywhere the LA area and are looking to kick-start your art career, get organized, and learn just about everything it takes to make it in the art world, then this class is just what you've been looking for.

Tuition: $250 (includes GYST software)

Created by artist, curator, and legendary CalArts professor Karen Atkinson, Getting Your Sh*t Together (GYST) is the often-imitated workshop for emerging artists, and for artists who’ve been "emerging" longer than they expected. Over 400 artists have graduated from GYST since 2002 and their continued success and contributions to the art world are what gives GYST such a great reputation.

GYST teaches you the business stuff you should have learned in art school, but didn’t. GYST values self-sufficiency and presents you with information, skills, and strategies to make things happen without necessarily waiting around for some arbiter of culture to validate your work. We’re not concerned with producing slick, commercialized artists, nor is this some new age, touchy-feely "find your inner artist" crap. GYST is a program for artists, by artists that will teach you bare-knuckled, practical strategies for negotiating the baffling terrain of the contemporary art world.

Over 8-weeks, you’ll create and refine your "presentation package," artist statement, bio, resume, portfolio, and more, with the full editorial and technical support of GYST staff.

GYST culminates with Curator Speed Dating. Get real-world feedback on your portfolio and proposals from some of the area’s hottest curators. Past curators have been LA Times Art Critic David Pagel, LACE Director Carol Stakenas, LA Weekly Critic Doug Harvey, Artillery Magazine Editor Tulsa Kinney, Critic Shana Nys Dambrot, and Christopher Russell from the Getty Research Institute.

Students also get a complimentary copy of the new GYST software, which usually retails for $150. The MAC and PC based program is packed with all the organizing tools and information resources every artist needs.

SUCCESS STORIES

In just the past 2 years, our workshop alumni have won over $18,000 in grants, multiple grants from the City of Pasadena.

"Two weeks after finishing GYST, I had a studio visit from Robert Berman. Because I had recently gotten my sh*t together, I was able to send him a portfolio before the visit. I think it really helped - he offered me a solo show. Thanks, GYST! Really, thank you. I mean it."

- Alumni Cameron Gray had his first solo show (ever) in 2007 at the renowned Robert Berman Gallery and sold several large canvases. He's currently represented by Berman’s Gallery.

-Just last year, GYST Alumni Ari Kletzky was the subject of an extensive article on the front page of the LA Times Sunday Arts section. His featured Islands of LA project was developed over the course of our GYST workshop. Kletzky (who has a BA in business) recently quit his day-job at a loan agency and currently is enrolled in Cal Art’s Fine Arts MFA program.

WORKSHOPS AND LECTURES HAVE BEEN HELD AT:
 
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Art Expo, Chicago Cultural Affairs Dept, Chicago, IL
Boston Lawyers for the Arts, Boston, MA
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, CA
California Lawyers for the Arts, Santa Monica, CA
Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA
Chaffey College, Alta Loma, CA
College Art Association Conference
CUE Foundation, New York, NY
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY
Los Angeles County Arts Commission Arts Tune Ups Louisiana Artworks, New Orleans, LA
New Haven, CT
Outpost for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Side Street Projects, Pasadena, CA
Technology and the Arts Conference, Pittsburg, PA
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
Women and Their Work, Austin, TX

Contact GYST To Do a Workshop in Your Area >>
 
Read Alumni Testimonials >>