Andy Graydon Studio Mentoring

One-on-one studio advising for artists and filmmakers developing a body of work

Sustained, one-on-one attention to your practice. Close and unhurried guidance to help you begin a body of work, or carry it forward with greater clarity and purpose.

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Approach

I consider art to be speculative thinking done with your senses, and the studio — whether the work is an object, an image in time, a sound, or a situation — is the space where an artist allows the speculative and the sensory to interact and grow organically. My mentoring practice starts by attending closely to this interaction in an artist's work. By listening in to what a work is doing and what it is reaching toward, we are able to cultivate the results of this evolving conversation between maker, work, and world.

I work with artists at the university level and beyond to develop their practice. This includes studio technique, creative and critical writing, and the sustained dialogue required for the articulation and critique of serious projects. I guide artists in building their own creative and critical vocabulary, and in developing techniques for productive self-questioning. Through this process, the studio becomes a truly generative and liberatory place, rather than an anxious one.

I had many professors while studying to complete my MFA, but Andy is the artist I learned the most from in terms of planning for exhibiting artwork, and how to read and critique the work of my peers. Andy has the unique ability to provide feedback that is highly constructive and affirming to the artist at the same time. Any critique I have received from Andy has left me enthusiastic about making my work and provided me with meaningful pathways for changing and improving it.

Montana B. — painting and sculpture

The Program

My mentoring is built around a considered sequence, tailored to each artist, that becomes a unified program: fifteen 90-minute sessions, paced weekly across roughly a semester or bi-weekly over a year. This sequence allows for the fullest engagement in the studio: attending closely to where the work is now and where it is reaching; then building momentum and sustaining it over a term.

We unpack a work's conceptual stakes, its material decisions, and the personal and historical contexts from which it emerges. Making and thinking are not separate processes, and I work at that intersection — toward the goal not only of making better work, but of honing your ability to inhabit and command an artistic practice that is fully your own.

The sequence includes:

  • Fifteen scheduled 90-minute sessions, in person or by video

  • Brief between-session correspondence — a question, a reading, quick replies

  • Close attention to the work in the studio, in writing, and in critical conversation

  • Help building your own creative and critical vocabulary, and techniques for productive self-questioning

After the sequence, ongoing work can continue in consultations — single sessions or short blocks, paced as you like — a way to keep momentum or return for a focused push toward a portfolio, a statement, or a body of work nearing resolution or exhibition.

I also work directly with MFA and BFA programs on per-student mentoring, arranged separately by conversation.

Engagement

Complete fifteen-session sequence — $6,000

  • Shorter consultation blocks are available for artists who want a more focused engagement.

    The sequence begins with a non-refundable deposit (20%), with the balance set out in a short letter of agreement.

    In person or by video.

Andy is one of the few mentors or professors who can help you deepen your practice and expand your understanding without filtering out your own voice, interests, and values.  He is a delightful, inspiring, and validating art sage!  His feedback is always useful. I always left our meetings feeling motivated and ready to work.  

Tara T. — installation and video

  • I came to mentoring through my own practice, where I learned to treat a medium not as a box of genres but as an ecology of processes that keep transforming each other. I work with artists the same way — following what a work actually wants to become across whatever forms it asks for, rather than holding it to the category it started in.

    I work with artists and filmmakers in any medium. My areas of depth are:

    • Film and video — narrative, documentary, and experimental

    • Sound and listening as creative practice

    • Media installation and time-based work

    • Interdisciplinary projects at the boundary of the arts and other fields — the natural sciences, ecology, writing, performance

    In person or remotely.

  • I've mentored and advised graduate and advanced student artists for over a decade, in programs at Harvard University, MIT, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Lesley University.

    My own practice is as wide-ranging as the areas of my mentoring, with exhibitions and screenings at the Honolulu Biennial, MASS MoCA, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, the New Museum, and the Berlinische Galerie. I'm currently a fellow at the Harvard Film Study Center.

  • To see the work behind the mentoring — my own practice across moving image, sound, and installation:

    andygraydon.net

Andy Graydon embodies the rare combination of accomplished artist, rigorous intellectual, and deeply effective educator. He neither imposes stylistic dogma nor seeks to produce replicas of his own artistic voice; rather, he cultivates independent thinkers capable of developing authentic and sustainable creative practices. Students respond to him not only because of his expertise, but because they recognize in him a profound respect for the creative process and for the vulnerability inherent in serious artistic development.

Kevin R. — painting and sculpture

Begin a conversation

I'd welcome a brief conversation, to talk through where your work is and what my mentoring program might have to offer it.