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Throughout her career in the arts, Paddy Johnson, a writer and now founder of VVrkshop, an organization that offers professional development services for mid-career artists, has observed a consistent, disheartening reality: incredibly talented artists creating work for audiences of virtually no one. As she puts it, “It felt crushing that there wasn’t enough prose in the world to bring these artists more attention.” This frustration reached its peak with Impractical Spaces, a collaborative national project, and anthology designed to document defunct and active artist-run projects across the United States. The ambition was substantial: engage fifty cities in fifty states and compile the results into a book charting the national significance of the artist-run scene.
On paper, the project fulfilled Johnson’s vision. “It brought people together, gave exposure to unsung artist heroes, and historicized events I believed needed historicizing,” she recalls.
The reality was far less fulfilling. Outside of the participants, very few people seemed interested in reading the books, and the project lacked a funding model that would make it sustainable. Yet, recognizing the project’s shortcomings sparked a new idea. Johnson realized that connecting people on a larger scale—across states, across disciplines—was not just necessary but possible. This led to the creation of membership for mid-career artists, Netvvrk.
Over three months, Johnson meticulously developed and launched the membership. She remains grateful for the artists who trusted her during those early, uncertain days when the vision was still taking shape. Now, she views her role as building the systems and support artists need to achieve their aspirations. “It sounds salesy,” she admits, “but I really believe the Netvvrk tagline—”Get the shows, grants, and residencies of your dreams.” Netvvrk now connects artists across the United States and abroad, expanding their networks and opportunities. Members have collectively received over a million dollars in grants in two years. Beyond the numbers, Netvvrk offers a platform that addresses artists’ challenges, helping their work to gain visibility.
Tell us about yourself and your experience as an artist, writer, and educator, and how these experiences eventually led you to create Netvvrk, a membership for mid-career artists at @vvrkshop.art.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the art I made in undergrad. They were massive realistic paintings depicting the interiors of department stores and for the last 25 years they’ve lived in my parent’s garage. I’m still really proud of that work, but two weeks from the time I write this I’ll go home to throw them out. They are too damaged to keep.
So many of the artists I work with need to think about this, too, and for them there’s a lot bigger weight. Not having proper storage for art you haven’t been able to sell feels like failure to a lot of artists. That’s understandable.
When I was twenty, I didn’t have the skills to know how to share the work. My mother didn’t either, but she was so proud of a piece I painted of a factory worker, she tried to sell it to the factory. It wasn’t a flattering picture so I wasn’t surprised when she told me they didn’t want it.
By the time I was 24 I moved from Canada to the US for grad school at Rutgers University, with the idea that I’d better be able to pursue a career in the arts in New York. When I graduated, I moved to New York and within five years founded the blog Art F City. A lot of the writing and editing I did on the blog in the late aughts was about teaching myself and others those skills. I didn’t want my mother to have to represent me!
I knew if I gained a better understanding of the world I was participating in and figured out how to get visibility for myself and others, I could have an impact. And for me, that was more important than my art.
I never had as much to say through my art as I did through my writing, and since I cared about impact, that’s what I pursued. But I’ll tell you, learning that was a surprise. I have far more technical skill as a draftsman than I do as a writer.
Art excites me. Writing drives me. And supporting artists through the Netvvrk membership, which offers group coaching, community, and curriculum, is how I’m able to revel in the ideas I never had for art, while still participating in this world. It’s a gift artists have given me, and there isn’t a day when I’m not thankful for it.
These experiences led me to create Netvvrk, the commonality in everything I’ve done connects to helping artists get recognition for their work.
You discuss the Imposter Syndrome—how does it differ from self-criticism? And for artists who experience it to some degree, can you suggest a coping strategy?
Imposter syndrome persists in the face of success, which distinguishes it from its more localized sister, self-criticism. It’s one thing to say, “I can see now that my work is on view that I should have made this corner of the painting red.” That’s applying a critical eye to your work and you can learn from the practice. It’s another thing to wonder if you belong in the show in the first place because you made that corner of the painting red. The thought masquerades as criticism, but it catastrophizes a situation such that bleeds into other parts of your life. Unlike applying a critical eye to your work, even when you solve the problem, the self doubt remains.
Imposter syndrome is the brain working to make you feel bad. And there are good reasons for the brain to do that albeit self defeating ones.
In Gay Hendricks’ book, The Big Leap, Hendricks talks about how self-doubt can become especially acute when you’re about to make a major change or decision. Your ego doesn’t want you to fail, so the minute you decide to take a risk, suddenly your mind comes up with all kinds of reasons why you shouldn’t make any changes. Suddenly, just when you’re on the verge of a major breakthrough, you feel like a total failure.
I talk about imposter syndrome a lot because I’ve experienced a lot of it. I’m not particularly money driven, so it was illuminating to see how much of it was lifted once I started making enough money to pay my share of the rent. Never underestimate poverty as a driving force of imposter syndrome. Nobody wants to admit this, but the less you have, the more you doubt yourself. And that’s because every part of the culture is telling you that you’re not enough.
Given the degree to which so many artists experience imposter syndrome, inside the Netvvrk membership this month, we’re focusing on self-doubt and how to combat it. There are entire books written on the subject, so I won’t go into everything we’re doing at Netvvrk, but a big part of what we focus on is identifying what you have control over and what you don’t. Because the source of a lot of anxiety has to do with the areas of our life where we don’t have control and if we can recognize the source of anxiety, and refocus our energy on what we do control we’ll be a lot happier.
What do you see as major mistakes that artists make?
In my free webinar I identify the mistakes as trying to do everything, not getting professional help, and not telling people what you want. These are pretty common mistakes, so you’re probably familiar with them, but I want to walk you through each so you have a better understanding of where artists struggle.
Trying to do too much. Normally this takes the form of participating in shit shows because you’re afraid you’re not good enough for better shows. And of course there are all kinds of shows where, as an artist, there’s enough gray area around whether it will actually help your career that it’s easy to take on shows that have large opportunity costs.
Not getting professional help. Artists often don’t get professional help because there’s a stigma attached to it. The art is supposed to be so good you don’t need help. But has anyone ever found a painter by googling “best paintings”? Of course not. They find paintings through friends and followers.
Not telling people what you want. A lot of times artists don’t do this because they believe they’re not supposed to, or they’re too shy to make these asks. Netvvrk is about to introduce a step by step program you can follow that helps solve the problem of doing too much, exists as a solution to the second problem, and offers custom support on how to phrase the questions you don’t want to ask so you can actually send the emails.
Nothing we do is rocket science – most mid-career artists will recognize the recommendations. But they gain a bit more transparency of the process. How to manage gallery relationships shouldn’t be a mystery, and when you’re in a community of 1000 artists who are all talking about it, it’s not. I will add that running a non-profit blog (Art F City) on fumes for more than a decade made me an expert at asking for things. So, I’m glad to be able to share those skills with artists, because they need and deserve more resources than they are typically allotted.
Travis Diehl’s article in the NYT gives Vvrkshop a significant mention. He observes that “with ever more artists vying for limited galleries and grants, there has been a recent flush of subscription-based, web-powered coaching and marketing programs” for artists. MFA programs in the USA have been in trouble or shut down altogether in recent years. How do you see Vvrkshop in that context and could this signify a broader shift in how artists are relying more on digital platforms than conventional educational institutions?
Diehl’s article takes a skeptical look at the recent rise of coaching programs and in particular the marketing around them. I can’t say I blame him. The marketing is aggressive.
What got lost in that article, though, was the full context of why places like Netvvrk exist. Why should an artist need a membership if they haven’t needed them before?
But artists have always needed more support than they get, and part of the reason for this lack has been the small scale of the industry. If there’s not enough money to justify professionalization then it doesn’t happen.
There’s a lot more money in the art world now, and technology, for better or for worse, has made it a lot easier for artists to make a living. And the big secret nobody seems to want to talk about is that artists who sell on their own, without the help of a third party like a gallery, tend to do better financially. The trade off, of course, is that artists who take a more retail approach, tend to get far fewer, if any, institutional opportunities.
Whatever route you take now, though, there is so much more to know then there ever used to be. Part of that has to do with the necessity of learning how to promote your work online, part of that has to do with the increased scale of the industry, and part of that has to do with modern life in general, which is just a lot more complicated.
What’s interesting about the questions around the efficacy of MFAs is that the same conversations are happening around MBAs. Do you really need one if they cost a fortune and most of what you will learn comes from working in the industry?
Perversely, this conversation comes out of a devaluing of education. On the one hand, if you can’t get work from a degree, why would you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get one? On the other hand, if you treat post-secondary education like it’s not worth anything, how can it deliver more than that?
Let me tell you, I wish more than anything that Netvvrk provided the solution to the problem of artists not getting paid what they are worth. But structural inequity is beyond what we can solve. What I can do is offer a path to a life that’s more fulfilling. That means teaching artists how to define success for themselves and pursue that life to its fullest.
What are your predictions for how social media, particularly Instagram, will work for artists by 2025?
Instagram is many things, but its strength is not fostering thought and reflection. And as a culture, we’re thirsty for that, which is part of why social media doesn’t have the importance it once did. We’re burnt out on the constant promotion, we know it has harmful effects, and we’d all leave it if we could. But the truth is, we can’t—at least not yet. Social media destroyed most of the press, so we don’t have the infrastructure to distribute information without places like Instagram. But that’s also why independent sites like yours are so important. Without you, we’d have even less discourse than we have!
I predict more of the controlled decline of the internet we’re seeing and an increased importance of the independent sites that bring us together. Long live Art Spiel!
In your interview for the Arts to Hearts Project podcast, I believe you said you can’t wait to be 50. That is quite unusual. Why is that?
For men, 50 represents a major milestone – a symbol of the knowledge and power accumulated over those years. For women, the number can evoke a sense of loss. We are past the child bearing stage and thus past our prime.
Well, that’s just bullshit and I refuse to play into a cultural narrative that doesn’t acknowledge my wisdom and my power.
What if we viewed 50 for what it really is – a new beginning, an awakening, a milestone that tells us the best is yet to come?
I don’t want this question to be a hypothetical. I’m treating my 50th as a time for celebration. I have a lot more to do in this life and it took me this long to get the skills I need to achieve it. I’m excited for this new phase and I hope that other women will feel as energized as me when they hit it too.
A small but important aside: In my experience, people have no idea what 50 looks like and assume you’re 10 years younger. I’m looking forward to a decade where I can fuck with people’s ideas of age.
How do you envision VVrkshop in five years?
Artists need more access to the wealth they generate for others and I think they can have it. In two short years, VVrkshop has helped artists secure over a million dollars in grants, but we can do more. That’s why we’ve been making improvements to the membership curriculum, assessments and portal to make it even easier for artists to access the information they need. This new tool kit will give artists a clear path and the tools that return agency to its rightful place — artists.
Ultimately, my vision is to create a world where mid-career artists have the knowledge, skills, and support to thrive financially and creatively. I want VVrkshop to be synonymous with artist empowerment, driving a shift in how the art world operates and ensuring that artists receive their fair share of the value they create.
About Paddy Johnson: Paddy Johnson is the founder of VVrkshop, a company that helps artists get the shows, grants and residencies of their dreams. Netvvrk, the company’s flagship membership, connects artists across the United States and abroad to broaden their professional networks and opportunities. Over the course of the last two years, members have received over a million dollars in grants.
Johnson has a long history in the arts. In 2005, she founded the acclaimed contemporary art blog Art F City (2005-2018), and in 2018 she co-founded Queens-based community public art program PARADE (2018-2019). She is co-founder of the collaborative national publishing project Impractical Spaces (2017-present) and the host of the Art Problems Podcast.
She was the first recipient of the Arts Writers Grant for blogging in 2008, and a two-time nominee for Best Critic at the Rob Pruitt Awards in 2009 and 2010. She won the Village Voice Web Award for best Art Blog in 2010 and in 2011. Paddy has contributed to The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Economist, CNN, VICE, Gizmodo, Observer, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic. She was a columnist for Artnet, The L Magazine, and Art in America. In 2014, she was the subject of a VICE profile. She lives in New York.