My friendly and holistic approach to working with artists that involves deep listening and responding with practical suggestions, knowledge, kindness and critique to help you develop your practice in line with your aims and objectives.
My work involves signposting and providing you with contextual information and links to other services and organisations that would be able to help you on your creative journey.
I have worked together to facilitate emerging, mid-career and established artists. I have experience of running mentoring schemes through my past work as an academic lecturing in Visual Arts within higher education and more recently I have been working as a mentor for the Artist/Mother international community to deliver their Crit Group Programme. I also have experience of publishing, promoting and selling artists work through the Maternal Art project that I established in 2020.
Contact me if you would like to discuss the service, find out more, or to book an introductory session. I have a sliding scale of fees for artists so that this is an affordable and accessible way that you can help yourself to develop your practice. I recommend working with me for a block of 6 sessions over a duration of 3 or 6 months. I can also adapt my service to meet your individual needs.
The fee for your mentoring session includes an in-person one hour session and I will also spend up to 30 minutes outside of the session responding to specific tasks that we are investigating within our meetings. Sessions take place via ZOOM and in-person mentoring can be arranged if that is your preference. Meetings on-line are recorded and you will also receive an email including notes, suggestions, a list of jobs to focus on and any relevant signposting.
Subjects
- Planning, managing and structuring time
- Developing your voice and confidence through exploring your artist story
- Artist Statements and Biographies
- CV’s
- Preparing to give an artist talk
- Creating a newsletter
- Managing a new project
- Preparing for an exhibition
- Networking, Communities and Building an Audience
- Applying for open calls and opportunities
- Marketing and Selling
- Critical thinking
- Research Strategies
- Social Media
- Building Websites
- Signposting to organisations and professionals who can assist you with Funding applications.
Sliding Scale of Fees:
Low Income: £40 per hour
Middle Income: £50 per hour
High Income: £60 per hour
Please contact me at maternalarthome@gmail.com with the subject line Artist Mentoring Service if you would like to find out more or contact me via my mobile 07811337355
Testimonials
“Helen is a remarkable mentor, her kind easy communication skills mixed with keen observation has helped me develop both my practice and understanding of my work. She has motivated and inspired me with her joyful enthusiasm and deep knowledge, she is attentive and curious. My time working with Helen as a mentor has deeply enriched my art, I highly recommend investing in yourself and your art by working with her.” -Amanda Jammes
“My Mentoring Sessions with Helen Sargent had such a positive impact on my Artistic Practice but also on my own well being. She was friendly, knowledgeable and gave great insight into my practice as well as drawing out from myself targets and goals. I really valued the time we had together during the sessions, productive, focussed on my needs, and lots of fun at the same time.” -Lynda Sterling
“It has been an absolute delight working with Helen Sargent as a mentor for developing my artist practice.She offers constructive feedback while being supportive and nurturing. Her knowledge of art history, invaluable insights about my practice, and extraordinary critiques make for a rich conversation. She asks the right questions, that have very often led me to find my own answers.With Helen’s help I have become more confident and self assured in the work I make. I would recommend Helen’s mentoring to anyone seeking gentle and thoughtful support from an incredibly knowledgeable, creative and patient listener.”-Shweta Bist
“I discovered Helen’s mentoring when I was at a crossroads with my art practice and she absolutely helped me find a way forward. She’s an inspiration in her own work and our conversations were fun and down to earth, managing to rationalise the jumble of competing directions in my head. She really took the time to create a structure that was specific to my needs. Our sessions were filled with refreshing perspectives and practical advice, allowing me to implement relevant practices for organising my time and ideas. Also her recommendations for reading and artists to explore helped make sense of myself in the bigger picture. All in all having Helen as a mentor grew my confidence about my art immensely and equipped me with the right tools for making a future for it.”- Sophie Hammer
I had the privilege of working with Helen as a mentor in the fall of 2021. I chose to work with Helen because of her research-based art practice, engagement in critical art discourses, and exploration into feminist themes and the maternal. Working with Helen was a wonderful experience. Her calm and caring nature made me feel seen and heard. She did not shy away from asking hard questions about my work but did so in a way that provided constructive solutions. I really appreciated her knowledge of contemporary art as well as her ability to provide direct references to artists engaging in topics I am interested in. Helen is very generous with her knowledge and practice. – Kelly Marshall
Aside from being a really interesting artist, Helen is an incredibly insightful and and attentive mentor. She will point out aspects of your work that you hadn’t yet considered and ask pertinent questions to make you explore further. She will always have a reference at hand or an interesting read to suggest. Most of all, Helen is a very warm and encouraging person who makes you feel safe and seen and who will give you confidence in the importance of your own art practice. I feel deeply grateful to have had the chance to work with Helen.- Linda Williams
Helen has given 200% to our crit group. She is like a private tutor for four of us at the same time, I do not know how she is able to manage it. I have had so many critiques from so many different kinds of artists, I fairly recently graduated from CALARTs, so I have been inundated by feedback and am sort of a connoisseur of artistic critiques. She has so many apt recommendations for artists for me to research, and she is able to help each of us figure out what we want our art practice to look like. She understands that we all will have different paths and is able to move us forward without prejudice towards a certain vision. This is quite a difficult thing to do, but it makes for a much higher quality experience. She is a subtle thinker and just a lovely woman to know and to be around. I have had the gamut of extremely rigorous crits that might be overly curt to the point of being mean, to overly soft crits where I am craving more direct feedback. She is able to provide the rigor in a digestible way. – Morgan Ogilivie
Please contact me at maternalarthome@gmail.com with the subject line Artist Mentoring Service if you would like to find out more or contact me via my mobile 07811337355