The Conscious Artist Membership is on a break, as of October 2023.
Reach out if you need any support that relates to this project! <3

The Conscious Artist Membership is a virtual plattform to freely discuss all aspects of artmaking. It’s a place to connect and share your stories, to learn and unlearn what’s required to live as an artist.

The Conscious Artist Membership is a highly affordable platform to discuss all aspects of contemporary artmaking.

It offers

  • weekly group coaching calls (plus access to all previous recordings),
  • two private discussion groups (Facebook and Discord), access to which you keep forever,
  • an international network of artists,
  • a realistic, hands-on approach to artmaking and the art world,
  • a place to share your experiences, your story and progress — enabling you to empower your peers, but also to be empowered by them.

Do you struggle in your art practice?
Is it impossible to connect to a gallery?
Are you unsure how to price and sell your work?
Do you need help in your art practice, your business and personal development?
Are you looking for a place to discuss your work and struggles in a deep, complete way?

Then this is the right place for you.​

The Conscious Artist Membership also offers specific services for free, so everyone can connect and share their story.

 

In addition to the paid layers, the Conscious Artist Membership offers free services as well: there is a FREE Zoom call every month, and a PUBLIC Discord server to discuss your art practice, business and personal development experiences.

You are the Conscious Artist — and this is your membership.

How will the Conscious Artist Membership empower me?

Based on my Handbook for Emerging Artists, years of offering workshops, as well as solo and group art coaching sessions, the Conscious Artist Membership is an affordable, no-nonsense way to step up your professional game — independently of where you stand today.

The membership offers weekly group calls, plus discussion groups that are available 24/7.

Through deep dives into any topic that comes up, the Conscious Artist Membership supports you in carving an authentic, personalized art life — to find your way through art, both inside and outside of the creative process.

The membership is home to artists from all around the globe — sharing their successes and mistakes in full vulnerability. Professionals, hobbyists, students, established and emerging artists from the US, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, India, Nicaragua and various European countries.

The membership helps you understand the connection between work and network, and how to find a holistic balance between these poles — your balance. One that helps you stay focused producing work, and to connect that work with the world.

Click here to subscribe

[ Click here to scroll to testimonials, dates of the upcoming group calls, and an ever-growing FAQ ]

How do galleries work?

Including pay-to-play, gallery representation, and how to manage a professional life without gallery representations

How does art pricing work?

About the dynamics of discounts, how to invoice -- including the structures of NFT and art auctions

How to generate an income?

How to sell, including selling beyond the original pieces

How to exhibit?

About organizing and insuring exhibitions, organizing transports, and what to do once works get damaged or lost

How to organize your professional life?

Improving your website, social media and CV; setting up a work archive, using TODO lists and your calendar efficiently..

How to live as an artist?

About the fact that you are human first, and artist second: about getting a clear understanding of your core values

Jump directly to..

The Conscious Artist Membership helps you to deal with, and transcend your uncertainties.
It increases your chances to succeed as an artist:
emotionally and economically.

Benefits

Weekly Group Coachings

Access to weekly group coaching calls (90min each, via Zoom). These work independently of your time zone: send in questions upfront, and watch the recordings whenever you want.

Virtual Community

Access to private, moderated discussion groups of fellow artists (Facebook and Discord), where members can ask questions and communicate directly and in real-time.

Share your Experiences

In an industry often built on secrecy, here's a safe platform to share your stories and experiences -- without taboos.

Non-hierarchical Knowledge Exchange

We get stronger by learning from each other. Instead of lectures, it offers moderated, open discussions.

Recorded Knowledge

Access to the recordings of all group calls, as long as you stay subscribed (even those recorded before you entered).

Holistic Approach to the Art Life

The artist's life is complex, with challenges beyond artmaking -- benefiting from knowledge of fields like psychology, philosophy, aesthetics and more: this membership is one of a few that discuss artmaking holistically.

Embrace your Vulnerability

Increase your sensitivities and courage, so you can make your most intimate, vulnerable and relevant work yet.

Stay in the Family

Cancel anytime, but keep your access to the private discussion groups (Facebook and Discord): once a member, always welcome.

"I'll accompany you on your path to dig deeper into your work, and to build a stable emotional and digital infrastructure."

This will become your base to explore and create your work, and to show that work to the world.

Let's grow together:

Share your experiences with an international group of peers.
Learn from their successes and mistakes.
Experience the universal timelessness of our challenges.

Who is this membership for?

The Conscious Artist Membership is useful for all artists — independently of your age or cultural background, your nationality or time zone, or whether you pursue (or already have) an art school degree. You do not need to strive getting accepted into art school, in order to want to live making art.

The membership is beneficial to artists of all media — independently of whether you work traditionally or digitally, whether you paint or sculpt, whether your work is time-based or not: the topics that are given space are often timeless (because they are connected to the human psyche), or deeply connected to the art world (which works independently of specific media).

This program is for those who want concise answers to their challenges, even if they can’t always phrase them into clear questions. It is for those who want structural analyses in addition to specific pure art world anecdotes.

It’s for those who want to share their experiences, and who want to increase the appreciation for their own expertise (which so often feels natural and little to ourselves). It’s for those who want to connect to other artists internationally, and grow by sharing vulnarabilities and openness.

It is for those who want to live making art — who want to consciously embed artmaking into their lives.

  • No matter where you stand in your career
  • No matter where you live
  • Affordable membership
Are you looking for a space to safely discuss all the situations you need to solve as an artist?

From art practice to business, to personal development?​

How does participation look like?

Participation happens on two levels:

A. There are weekly group calls via Zoom

On differing days and times, so everyone gets a chance to tune in — independently of their schedule or time zone.
If you cannot participate, you can always watch the recording later on.

B. There are two discussion groups, available for you 24/7

One of the groups is on Facebook, the other one on Discord. This enables you to choose your preferred platform.

Understand that your active participation in these discussion groups is entirely optional. The idea of the project is to offer platforms to connect, and for you to do so whenever and however works best for you. If you want to learn by silently reading and listening, then that’s OK too.

The private groups are only available to members of the Conscious Artist Membership. You will keep access to them, even if you decide to end your membership.

The membership's private Facebook group
A group call on Zoom; you get two of these per month.
The membership's private Discord server, with topics split in different channels: art practice, business, personal development, etc.

Here are anonymized snippets from the closed discussion groups, to highlight the diversity of topics that emerge and are discussed:

Increase your knowledge on how to begin, how to take breaks, and how to continue.

How to expand and explain your work
to laypeople and gatekeepers --

and yourself.

About me

  • I had over twenty solo exhibitions since 2010, in the US, France, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic and Austria.

  • I studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (amongst others in the master classes of Daniel Richter and Harun Farocki, graduated 2011), where I also did my PhD thesis (finished in 2015).

  • I have years of experience giving solo and group coachings, based on “having done the work” (deep dives in the relevant literature, focussing on art world dynamics, psychology and philosophy, marketing and negotiating, etc).

  • I curated over thirty exhibitions, from solo exhibitions to group shows including dozens of artists. Many of these exhibitions included studio visits and public artist talks.

  • I wrote dozens of in-depth texts about artists and their work (here’s one on Mauro Martinez).

Here’s the promo video for my 2021 “Living the Art Life” online course at Julian Tejera‘s virtual art school “Pushing Colored Dirt” (PCD). It was watched over 12k times on Instagram, and received oder 1000 likes <3

PCD is defunct by now — it offered classes to an international audience, hosted by people like Milo Hartnoll, Lu Beltran, Mostafa Darwish, Dennis Dalesio, Angel Ramos or myself.

My course was the most popular, received the most positive feedback from students, and had the highest completion rate of all recorded lessons.

Become a Member (monthly or yearly subscriptions)

The MONTHLY subscription costs €15.

It gets renewed automatically, but you can cancel the renewal anytime.
There are no refunds.

The YEARLY subscription costs €150 (16% discount).

It gets renewed automatically after each year, but you can cancel the renewal anytime. There are no refunds after 7 days from your sign up.

Reduced Membership Fee

The reduced membership fee is for anyone who cannot afford the full-price membership. You get exactly the same value, yet pay less.

No justification is needed to become eligible — the idea is that your economic stability shouldn’t keep you from joining.

Judge whether you can afford the full membership fee — if not, then the reduced fee might suit you better:

  • you might be a student,
  • unemployed,
  • recently graduated (still without a decent income), or
  • come from any other less/low privileged background.

The REDUCED subscription costs €5 (66% discount).

It gets renewed automatically, but you can cancel the renewal anytime.
There are no refunds.

The REDUCED YEARLY subscription costs €50 (66% discount).

It gets renewed automatically after each year, but you can cancel the renewal anytime. There are no refunds after 7 days from your sign up.

Once a member, always welcome:

Cancelling your membership will
leave your access to the
private discussion groups
(Facebook and Discord) intact.

Testimonials

Here’s a variety of feedbacks for solo and group art coachings, as well as workshops on the art life that I’ve given over the last couple years.

Scheduled Group Calls, 2023

One free Zoom call each month

The Conscious Artist Membership offers one free call every month, to let everyone test the waters, and increase the project’s reach organically.

Feel free to join this call to discuss your current situation, get to know others, or simply listen to fellow artists discuss their joys and challenges. You are welcome to share this event <3

Participation doesn’t require registration — you simply:

  1. use the calendar widget (below) and open the “Public” date you want to join
  2. this date’s event details include the Zoom link and password.

This is a free public Zoom call.

  • Anyone can participate.
  • No registration is required.
  • The call is recorded and will be published via YouTube.
  • By joining in, you agree to the recording being published.
  • It’s your responsibility to anonymize your video and name.

Upcoming Zoom calls

The following dates have been scheduled (the calendar dates include all login details):
Upcoming weekly calls:
 
  1. Tuesday, July 18th, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time) PUBLIC
  2. Saturday, August 5th, 2023 (3pm CEST / Vienna time)
  3. Tuesday, August 15th, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time)
  4. Saturday, September 2nd, 2023 (3pm CEST / Vienna time)

Convert the above times to your local time zone with these links:

Past calls:
  1. Saturday, January 21st, 2023 (1pm CEST / Vienna time)
  2. Tuesday, January 31st, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time)
  3. Saturday, February 18th, 2023 (1pm CEST / Vienna time)
  4. Tuesday, February 28th, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time)
  5. Saturday, March 18th, 2023 (1pm CEST / Vienna time)
  6. Tuesday, March 28th, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time)
  7. Saturday, April 15nd, 2023 (1pm CEST / Vienna time)
  8. Tuesday, April 25th, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time)
  9. Saturday, May 13th, 2023 (4pm CEST / Vienna time)
  10. Wednesday, May 24th 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time) PUBLIC!
  11. Wednesday, May 31st 2023 (noon CEST / Vienna time)
  12. Saturday, June 10th, 2023 (3pm CEST / Vienna time)
  13. Tuesday, June 13th, 2023 (5pm CEST / Vienna time)
  14. Tuesday, June 20th, 2023 (6pm CEST / Vienna time) PUBLIC
  15. Thursday, June 29th, 2023 (5pm CEST / Vienna time)
  16. Saturday, July 8th, 2023 (3pm CEST / Vienna time)
  17. Thursday, July 13th, 2023 (5pm CEST / Vienna time)

Frequently Asked Questions

The Conscious Artist Membership is a membership program for people who want to enhance and improve their artmaking life.

It offers monthly group coachings via Zoom, and access to private discussion groups (Facebook and Discord) that act as conversational hubs: everyone can ask questions, offer expertise, and let other’s know about their upcoming events. In addition, members get access to all previous group call recordings.

As such, it’s both a guided tour through your art life, as well as a platform to connect to other artists. It’s a platform that can accompany you as long as you want it to — your membership can be cancelled at any time.

You get access to two monthly group calls, all previous group call recordings, as well as access to the private discussion groups (on Facebook and Discord).

More features are planned (as of January 2023), but not implemented: if the above doesn’t sound like a good deal, I’d advise you not to become a member.

The base language for this membership is English, since this enables most everyone to participate, and offers the potential to establish an international network and platform.

My geographical basis is Vienna/Austria, where the native language is German. There are German-speaking artists who fear that an English program might create a conversational barrier for them: if that applies to you, please know that in the many bilingual courses I hosted (sometimes with dozens of participants), this has never been mentioned as a problem in feedback rounds.

Maybe it pays off to commit to the membership for a month, to see whether any actual language troubles arise — or whether it turns out to be stimulating and positive.

This platform conveys knowledge through open (but moderated) Zoom calls, and mostly unhierarchical discussions in the private Facebook group.

This is not a hierarchical learning platform. It doesn’t use lectures to transfer knowledge; instead, it uses open, moderated discussions via Zoom and a private Facebook group.

This reflects that every artist has their experiences, and has important ideas to share: this program wants to embrace this diversity. This helps people understand their peers, and enables them to see that challenges are often universal. It helps foster personal ties, and expands everyone’s network — not by discussions happening between lectures, but through the knowledge exchange that the platform is built upon.
 
In addition, this platform isn’t solely about learning; it’s just as much about organically expanding your network, about reaching out and connecting to fellow artists internationally.
There is no required time commitment for a membership.
 
The schedule for the calls can be seen upfront, right on this page. If you can’t participate, you can send in questions/topics upfront, and watch the recordings whenever you have time. It seems realistic to accept that not all calls can be experienced personally.
 
There is also no expectation in regards to using the private discussion group. You are not required to participate, to pose questions or reply to other people’s topics. Yet doing so will likely support others, and also increase your knowledge. It will expand your network organically. Yet whether you are in the platform once a week, or thrice a day, is entirely your choice.

There are no alternative payment options at the moment.

For now, there is only one payment option: PayPal. This has to do with the structure of the membership, that allows you to cancel your membership at any time; PayPal enables me to automate access to the content, depending on your payment status.

Yes, your membership renews automatically via PayPal, unless you cancel before the day of the auto-renewal.

This happens once every month, or once every year — depending on which membership option you chose.

When you cancel the membership, you lose access to future group calls, and access to the group call recordings. Your access to the private Facebook group will stay intact though.

Please understand that cancelling the membership is a planned interaction — the idea is that you stay a member for as long as you need a challenge to get discussed/solved; depending on your life phase, you might stay a member for many months. Yet once you want to focus elsewhere, you should feel comfortable to cancel: the membership and its members, and I, will continue to do our thing — and if you ever feel the urge to return, we’ll be curious to hear how life went for you 🙂

I offer one-on-one deep dives, but at a higher price level than this membership.

This membership offers the weekly group calls, and 24/7 access to the private Facebook and Discord group (in which I participate). If you are shy about posing questions in front of others, please reach out: you can send questions (for the group call) upfront, and you could simply participate in one of the free monthly Zoom calls — or try the full membership for a month, to see whether it helps you.

By joining the Conscious Artist Membership, you accept that I will record all live calls (video and audio). These recordings are my property. They are saved in order to show them to you (and other members) through the archive.
 
If you want anonymity during calls, it’s your responsibility to anonymize yourself, eg. by switching off your camera, and anonymizing your name.
 
Parts of the calls might be published in other media. Participants of the calls will NOT be visible and will NOT be heard, so that full anonymity is granted, independently of your anonymization settings during the call. The exception is if you explicitly allow me to use a specific snippet for public purposes.

Exerpts of the written conversations that happen in the discussion groups can be published in other media, to highlight the diversity of discussed topics.

Such excerpts will be anonymized, eg. by blacking out names, images and any other identifying/personal information.