Social | December 20 #ArtistHotline Guest Chat: Tackling Creative Block

Creative block: source of frustration, illumination, or both? Tweet with us to discuss.

Many artists dread the coming of creative block, which sometimes feels like a mysterious but inevitable phase, at other times like the direct result of overwork or stress in different parts of our lives. If you were able to untangle this thorny term, creative block, in the company of other artists and arts professionals, what would you say? 

During December’s #ArtistHotline, a monthly Artist Professional Development Day on Twitter, you’ll have the chance to ask questions, vent frustrations, and share advice on this topic. As part of the agenda for this month’s installment of #ArtistHotline, we’ll host a “Tackling Creative Block″ Guest Chat. From 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST ,we’ll hear from a trio of dynamic Guest Tweeters: writer and curator Danielle Krysa, Design Matters founder and host Debbie Millman, and dancer, choreographer, and writer Wendy Perron.

A full #ArtistHotline Itinerary

But wait, there’s more! #ArtistHotline takes place live on Twitter from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST. Warm up your tweeting skills from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM EST, when NYFA staff, partnering organizations, and individual artists will discuss a range of arts career topics during the #ArtistHotline Open Chat. Then, from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST, Krysa, Millman, and Perron will share advice and take questions for the “Tackling Creative Block″ Guest Chat. During the last hour of the day, from 3:00 PM EST – 4:00 PM EST, Anna Ogier-Bloomer, photographer and Assistant Director of Career Development at the School of Visual Arts, will join us for a “Work-Life Balance” Arts Administrator Q&A.

No matter whether you’re participing in the Open Chat, Guest Chat, the Arts Administrator Q&A, or all of the above: just use the hashtag #ArtistHotline in each tweet to participate!

Guest Chat Bios

Danielle Krysa holds a BFA in Visual Arts, and a post-graduate degree in graphic design. She is the writer/curator behind the contemporary art site, The Jealous Curator (est. 2009). Krysa has curated shows from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, and San Francisco to Toronto. In 2014, she published two books, Creative Block: Get Unstuck, Discover New Ideas. Advice & Projects from 50 Successful Artists and Collage. Her third book, Your Inner Critic Is A Big Jerk, was released in October 2016, and she is currently working on a new book, due out Fall 2018. Krysa has also had the great pleasure of speaking at TEDx, PIXAR, Creative Mornings, and CreativeLive, and was interviewed for several video segments on oprah.com. Learn more about Krysa at www.krysa.com.

Find Krysa tweeting @jealouscurator.

Debbie Millman is host of the award-winning podcast Design Matters, the world’s first podcast on design; Chair of the first-ever Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts, a curator for the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), a contributor to Print Magazine, President Emeritus of AIGA, and the author of six books on design and branding. Learn more about Millman at debbiemillman.com.

Find Millman tweeting @debbiemillman.

Wendy Perron (Fellow in Choreography ‘85), author of Through the Eyes of a Dancer, had a 30-year career as a dancer/choreographer and teacher. She danced with Trisha Brown in the 1970s and choreographed more than 40 works for her own company. She has taught choreography at Bennington College and Princeton University, has conducted writing workshops at Gibney Dance and Dance Theater Workshop, and has lectured on dance around the country. In the early 1990s, she was Associate Director of Jacob’s Pillow, and has been Artistic Advisor to New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. The former Editor in Chief of Dance Magazine, she has also written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Dance Europe, Tanz, and Contact Quarterly. She now teaches a graduate seminar at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As Dance Magazine’s Editor at Large, she hosts “What Wendy’s Watching,” a weekly video series on dancemagazine.com/videos. She also writes commentary on her own website at WENDYPERRON.com. In 2011, she was one of three artists inducted into New York Foundation for the Arts’ first Hall of Fame.

Find Perron tweeting @wperrondancemag.

Inspired by the NYFA Source Hotline, #ArtistHotline is an initiative dedicated to creating an ongoing online conversation around the professional side of artistic practice. #ArtistHotline occurs on the third Wednesday of each month on Twitter. Our goal is to help artists discover the resources needed, online and off, to develop sustainable careers.

This initiative is supported by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

Images, from top: Jennifer Schmidt (Fellow in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists’ Books ‘07, ‘17); courtesy Danielle Krysa; courtesy Debbie Millman, photo by Chase Jarvis; courtesy Wendy Perron