Beth Pickens with Brontez Purnell

As a teenager visiting the Andy Warhol Museum, Beth Pickens realized the importance of making art. As an adult, she has dedicated her life to empowering working artists. Intimate yet practical, Your Art Will Save Your Life helps artists build a sustainable practice while navigating the world of MFAs, residencies, and institutional funding.

Beth Pickens is a Los Angeles-based consultant for artists and arts organizations. She provides career consultation, grant writing, fundraising, and financial, project, and strategic planning services for clients across the US. Before relocating to Los Angeles in 2014, Pickens was based in San Francisco and served as Senior Program Manager at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Managing Director of both RADAR Productions and the Queer Cultural Center.

Brontez Purnell has been publishing, performing, and curating in the Bay Area for over ten years. He is author of the cult zine Fag School, frontman for his band The Younger Lovers, and founder and choreographer of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company. Formerly a dancer with Gravy Train!!!, a queer electro indie band that gained national prominence in the mid-2000s, Purnell’s other prominent artistic collaborations include his supporting role in the queer independent feature film, “I Want Your Love” (dir. Travis Mathews, 2012). He was a guest curator for the Berkeley Art Museum’s L@TE program in 2012, awarded an invitation to the 2012 Radar Lab queer arts summer residency, honored by OutMagazine’s 2012 Hot 100 List and 2013 Most Eligible Bachelors List, and most recently won the 2014 SF Bay Guardian‘s Goldie for Performance/Music.

What has been said about Your Art Will Save Your Life:

“Offers modest and straightforward suggestions for surviving and thriving in creative endeavors.” —Publishers Weekly

“I’ve already recommended Your Art Will Save Your Life to all my students and friends. I myself consult it regularly, for discipline, inspiration, and wisdom. This book is crucial, and Beth Pickens is exactly the person to write it—tough, friendly, experienced, politically incisive, spiritually wise. A slim, necessary revelation.” —Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts

“A survival guide for the creatives among us.” —Nicole Georges, author of Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home

“I’m so grateful for this book! I’m buying it for every single creative person in my life.” —Ann Friedman, host of Call Your Girlfriend

“If you are a person who needs to make art in order to function, this book is from your best, smartest, coolest, most insightful, wise, learned, practical, savvy, no-bullshit friend who knows you and loves you anyway.” —Lucy Corin, author of One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses

“An electrically inspiring, politically fresh, and class-conscious guide for artists who wish to engage more deeply with their process, their careers, and their lives.” —Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot

“The self-help book every artist needs! Wish I’d had this book my entire life.” —Ali Liebegott, author of Cha-Ching!