Extraordinary Creatives

Artists – most of you who take your first public art commission lose money on it. Not because the budget was bad, but because nobody told you a public commission is not a bigger version of a private one. It is a different job, with a different shape, and the work that does not appear in the brief – procurement, contracts, maintenance, stakeholder hours – is what quietly eats your fee.

By the time you realise what you have signed up for, you are eighteen months in, with years still to run, and no honest way out.

Here is what I want to give you today: the six things that genuinely change when you step from a private commission into a public one; the hidden costs inside the budget that almost no commissioner spells out, and that you have to know to ask about; and the support structure you need around you before you accept the commission, not after, because by then it is too late.

This is for artists invited to apply for their first public commission, and for artists already inside one who can feel the ground shifting and have not yet been able to name what is happening.

This episode is part eight of a nine-part series on commissions. Last week we covered what public art is, the five reasons it gets commissioned, and the six roles an artist might play inside a public commission. If you have not heard that one, it sets the foundation for today, so start here - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-six-roles-artists-get-hired-for-in-public-art/id1709105337?i=1000776044291

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Public art is not just a bigger version of what you already do – it is a different job, with different time scales, different power dynamics, and a different kind of authorship you step into for decades, not months.

The number in the brief is never just “your fee” – it has to cover engineers, fabricators, insurance, installation, maintenance planning, everyone’s professional time. If it does not, you will be the one underwriting the project with your labour.

Build a small, smart infrastructure around yourself, so you can hold the integrity of the work through years of stakeholders, contracts, and weather, without burning out.

BEST MOMENTS

“Read the brief, do what the brief asks, no more, no less.”

“Public commission budgets sound large and often aren't by the time you have to account for everything they have to cover.”

“You'll need public liability insurance, often at significant levels of cover.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

Episode 7 of commission series – https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-six-roles-artists-get-hired-for-in-public-art/id1709105337?i=1000776044291

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Ninety-six per cent of Black British adults don’t swim regularly. That's the statistic from the Black Swimming Association that my guest came across while she was deep in research about bodies of water / about what they hold, what they absorb, what they promise.

Phoebe Boswell is a Kenyan-British artist whose work has been shown at the Venice Biennale and in major institutions and collections worldwide.

In this conversation, Phoebe talks about her latest large-scale commission for Art on the Underground, we move through scales of blue, now running alongside the escalators at Notting Hill Gate and Bethnal Green subway stations in London. She shares how she works with communities without extracting from them, why she stopped painting for twenty years and what brought her back, and what she has come to understand about figuration, freedom and the responsibility that comes with the work. You will leave with a deeper sense of what it means to make work that holds rupture and joy at the same time - and the courage it takes not to resolve them.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Phoebe holds two things at once - A figurative practice that she describes as lovemaking - a sustained attention to the body, particularly the Black female body, as a way of truly seeing. And alongside it, a refusal to stay in the language of identity alone.

Making work that holds rupture and joy at the same time isn’t a flaw to be fixed. It’s a way of working: that stays true to pain, history and politics while refusing to let go of tenderness, nuance, and beauty.

Phoebe’s approach to figuration, community and public space asks us to think more deeply about how we see who we work with. What we owe the people in and around our work, not just as subjects or audiences, but as co-holders of meaning.

BEST MOMENTS

“Art became a way of coming back to myself… it was a process of trying to re-see the self that had been kind of shattered. It was proclaiming myself, reminding myself that I’m still here.”

“Art is this place for me to sense, to taste, or to test the borders of my own truth in a way that I don't think is always possible in real life. I think you go through seasons.”

“Trust the porous borders between your projects. To return to what you left, changed. And to keep making work that is for the people in it, before it is for anyone else.”

“I don't want to be free off the back of anyone else.”

EPISODE RESOURCES
https://www.phoebeboswell.com/
https://www.instagram.com/phoebe.boswell/

HOST BIO
With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**
Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!
https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course
Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.
https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today
To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**
Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity
Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Artists if you've ever been invited into a public art commission, here's the thing nobody tells you. Most of you assume you've been asked to make a single artwork.

A sculpture, an installation, a piece. You usually haven't. There are six different roles you might be playing inside that project, and getting the wrong one means you've quietly accepted a job you didn't sign up for. Worse hours.

Different fee structure. Different scope. The same brief, with you doing the wrong work inside it.

This is the most expensive mistake that artists make in public art. And almost nobody is told the roles even exist.

Here’s what I want to give you today: the five main reasons public art gets commissioned, the six roles’ artists are actually hired to play and how to recognise which one you’ve been invited into), and one question to ask any prospective commissioner that reveals in 30 seconds whether they’ve properly scoped the project or are asking you to finish their thinking as well as the work.

This is for artists curious about public art who haven’t yet made the move, and for those already working in it who’ve felt a commission go quietly wrong without knowing why.

This episode is part seven of a nine-part series on commissions. The first six cover everything from mindset and pricing through to the legacy package - the foundations you need before you take a single enquiry into public art. If you haven’t done so yet, hit follow so you don’t miss an episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Understand which role you've been invited to at the start of the conversation.

Ask yourself which of those five commission types is closest to what you make already and how you work - that tells you which kind of public commission to be looking for.

If you’re new to public art, treat temporary and meanwhile work as laboratories. They’re lower risk for commissioners, and they let you test how your practice behaves in public

BEST MOMENTS

“Done well, a single public commission can shift the trajectory of an entire practice. Done badly, it can swallow two years of your life and leave you broke, exhausted, and quietly furious.”

“Sometimes it's worth recognising you might not be able to be all things in public art.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

1st episode in series - https://open.spotify.com/episode/3GoxWpKkkdZQE9pvvrGSNt

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Imagine setting fire to half your art budget before lunchtime. Seven hot air balloons grounded in a field. Fourteen speakers. The Birmingham Symphony Orchestra waiting to be paid. And a city council expecting you to reach a hundred thousand people by the end of the week.

That is the kind of corner Luke Jerram has found himself in. And it is also the corner that produced Play Me, I'm Yours - pianos in the street for anyone to play. Two thousand of them. Seventy cities.

Welcome to Extraordinary Creatives. I'm Ceri Hand. Follow the show so episodes like this land in your feed every week.

Luke Jerram is the artist behind Museum of the Moon, Gaia, Helios, Park and Slide, Sky Orchestra, and Glass Microbiology. His work has been seen by tens of millions of people. Close to a thousand exhibitions across forty countries. Pieces held in over eighty permanent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Wellcome Collection in London. And he has built all of this from a studio in Bristol, with a team around him, without gallery representation.

In this conversation you will hear how he funds projects nobody has made before, why he turned down Red Bull and Coca-Cola, and what he calls stamina of dissatisfaction - the last five percent that lifts a piece from good enough to worthy of people's attention.

I hope you find this as inspiring as I did.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Most artists make a piece, show it once, and move on. Luke lives with a piece across a hundred installations and refines it. That last 5% of refinement makes the work land, turns it into something enduring that funds the next project and the next.


Being an artist is a marathon, not a sprint. A diverse practice takes longer to build. But that willingness to keep reinventing yourself creates adaptability.


Don´t underestimate your ability to solve problems and learn from failure.


It´s up to us to decide on the rules we play by.

BEST MOMENTS

“I like creating artworks that leave space for other people to be creative.”

“If you knew you had to be rejected 100 times before you were a millionaire, you'd be really excited to get your first rejection, wouldn't you?”

“There's no such thing as luck. You've got to be ready … when the phone call comes … make it easy for them to say yes.”

For the text version of the topics, we cover each week in the Beat the Block Shorty episodes, straight to your inbox, head to http://cerihand.com/subscribe.

RESOURCES

https://www.lukejerram.com

https://www.instagram.com/lukejerramartist

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Artists — if you take commissions, here's the number that should frighten you. Scope drift, the polite, gradual expansion of a commission beyond what you agreed, eats twenty to thirty per cent of the original fee in unpaid work on most commissions I see. That isn't a margin problem. That's your profit. Gone. On every job.

And it isn't because you did bad work. It's because nobody taught you how to manage what happens after the deposit lands.
This episode is part six of a nine-part series on commissions — how to prepare for them, respond to them, deliver them, and stop them burning you out. If you haven't followed the podcast yet, hit follow so you don't miss an episode.

Today we cover three stages. Managing the making - which is where most commissions go wrong, and almost never for the reason artists think. Delivery and the story of the work — the bit that quietly funds the next commission if you do it right. And the legacy package — the stage almost every artist skips, and the single most commercially valuable thing you can build into your practice.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Once the deposit lands, you’re managing 2 things: the work and the client’s psychology. Build in named updates and review points so they feel heard, without turning the project into an open invitation for endless tweaks.

Treat the legacy package as your quiet sales engine. A simple bundle—certificate, process images, care instructions, and a short narrative, turns a buyer into a custodian. Custodians come back, commission again, and quietly introduce you to your next three clients.

Ceri´s tried and tested but simple 11‑stage process means you stop rebuilding your practice from scratch for every enquiry. Instead, you run each commission through the same calm, repeatable structure.

BEST MOMENTS

“Scope drift … eats 20 to 30 per cent of the original fee in unpaid work on most commissions I see. That isn't a margin problem. That's your profit. Gone.”

"Saying no to a commission that doesn't pass the filters is not lost income, it's preserved capacity."

You can get a text version of today's episode plus new practical guidance every week if you subscribe to my Beat The Block newsletter – Access it here - https://cerihand.com/subscribe/

EPISODE RESOURCES
First episode of 9-part series - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/designing-the-way-you-want-to-work-the-mindset/id1709105337?i=1000769915059

PODCAST HOST BIO
With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

****
Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!
https://cerihand.com/membership/

****

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course
Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.
https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

****

Book a Discovery Call Today
To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

****
Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity
Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/