Adam Stennett: Survival Evasion and Escape


Artist
Glenn Horowitz invited us to see Adam Stennett enter the world after a month of living in a self-made shack.  Here he is for the first time making his way out and into civilization.

Shack
Stennett built a 6.5 x 9.5 foot shack to live in and produce his work for a month.  The question being how to carve out time to make art while living and thriving.  He talked about how he came to NYC and worked like a dog in order to make enough money to spend a few years just focusing on his art.  Then the economy imploded and his ability to sell his art did too.  The gallery that represented him closed and he had to return to working instead of doing his work.  The question being, how do you survive as an artist?

Shackin4
His supplies were minimal.  He definitely thought about all aspects including the tick situation out east where the shack was built.  He did research and discovered that garlic and eucalyptus kept away deer and ticks.  The whole project was interesting.

Shackside
He spent some time listening to old radio recordings from WWII. 

Shackin2
I am curious about the work that came from this month.  All of the work will be shown at Glenn Horowitz in East Hampton for the month of September.  Tracey Jackson wrote a great post on happening too. 

 

Comments (Archived):

  1. Janet Hanson

    This is a very cool story — love that you and Fred are supporting Adam’s work and his mission! My artist daughter Meredith was recently featured in N Magazine: http://www.n-magazine.com/a… — Mer is crushing it on Nantucket because she figured out how to create a niche business as an “emerging artist” on the island. She is now giving art lessons to kids as young as 5 right in front of her gallery!

    1. Gotham Gal

      that is very cool. nice one meredith!

      1. LE

        Another way to break in as an artist is to open an art gallery where you rent out working space to other artists and display their work as well as the work of others.I owned a building some time ago where the person who rented from me did just that.It progressed to become a legitimate gallery and they were able to pay the rent and expenses just from the sub renting artists.What surprised me the most was when I found out that there was a waiting list to get in. I dropped in one day and asked one of the artists how they heard about the place and they proceeded to tell me how they lucked out and heard of a space opening up and jumped on it (this was after the tenant was constantly trying to make as if things weren’t good!)This is the place which I may have mentioned before:http://artistshouse.com/

      1. Janet Hanson

        Will give Mer your terrific feedback! Many thanks!

  2. LE

    I guess I look at things like this differently. [1]I look at survival as working hard toward having a skill that you can earn a living from even in a down economy.The idea that you can focus on something just because you like it simply isn’t enough and never has been.I wonder about the impact that examples like this give to young people. Things that we didn’t really have growing up. If you have that marketable skill you can then spend some of your spare time doing what you love.A business neighbor of mine is a dentist. He loves guitar but he realizes he can’t earn a living doing that. So he plays gigs (even traveling to certain venues) when he is not practicing.[1] Of course if this was some well thought out plan in order to gain publicity so he can sell his art that’s great.