Musings? A longtime customer inquired about my owl artifacts. I plan to use them in a small shadow box series. (The boxes are small, not the series!) And some people have asked to have pins made with them, and I’ve obliged. This customer wants a necklace. Oooh, I never thought of that! Sometimes my best ideas come from what other people “see” in my work!
Shaman Mask
I started out avoiding anything that looked like people in my artwork. Probably inspired by the earliest cave paintings. The Lascaux Cave in France had only one image of an odd-looking, bird-headed human. So I didn’t make any, either.
Eventually, I made a few faces, and used them in my shrine series. I imagine a shaman, singing, eyes closed, eliciting those beautiful images in those prehistoric caves, surrounded by an entire community of people: Men, women, children. Guiding them through difficult times, with even fewer resources than we have at our fingertips today.
20200424_160326
Owls!
But in the end, it still seemed intrusive. Shamans–healers, teachers, artists–did not put themselves into those paintings. We don’t know why, and there are paintings/carvings with people. But it’s not my thing. For now….
And so the shaman masks became owls.
I don’t know the story behind the owls yet. Sometimes it takes awhile before I find my own personal meaning for them.
Until then, “I have to sit with uncertainty every morning, until Clarity makes her presence known.”
If you liked this newsletter, let me know! If you know someone else who might enjoy it, feel free to pass it on. And if someone sent you this newsletter, and you’d like to get more, you can sign up for it here.
This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….” For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.
Sometimes changing our perspective helps us see better.
I’ve been making little animal artifacts for more than two decades. I make them one at a time, shaping each lump of layered clay by hand.
I use various tools, repurposed, handmade, found in situ, to add details and designs. But I only use my hands for the actual forming.
They’ve changed a lot over the years. The bears got less “formidable” and a little sweeter. They have ears now, and a tail, too. The birds now have real eyes instead of dots. They look more alive.
All my animals are more three-dimensional. When I first made them, they were button-like adornments on my 2-D fiber collage work. Now they are thicker, rounder.
Even my horses have changed. Sometimes they reflected real changes in my life, like the year or two when I had several big surgeries: They lost their signature ‘handprint’! It took awhile for me to figure out why. I finally realized I was in so much discomfort, I didn’t want to be “touched”, and neither did they! (Bears started out with handprints, but then they “told” me they were not domesticate animals, so ix-nay on the handprint thing.)
At some point, there was another shift in my horses. For some reason I still can’t figure out, they became shorter. Not as in “less tall”, but as in “less long”. In a way, they couldn’t be ridden.
It took a long time to see that. The turning point came when I made a necklace for a wise woman in my life. She’d picked a horse from my stash, one that spoke to her. But when I tried to turn it into a pendant, I couldn’t get it to “hang” right. It was “front heavy”, and I could not fix that.
That insight, when shared with her, ended up giving her tremendous insight into her own turning point in life. As in, a big decision she’d made had thrown her life out of balance. (Which was a tiny miracle in its own right! Once she “saw” that, she changed her mind, with amazingly powerful results.)
It also made me look at that batch of horses and see the imbalance.
I’d used a large black, faux soapstone horse to make a large Shaman necklace. (I try to make one every year or two, to remind myself to “go big” in my work, even though I only sell one ocassionally.) It was on display in my studio. I decided to photo it to list in my Etsy shop.
When I saw the photo, it was easy to see the difference in how much my horses have changed in four years!
It took awhile for me to really SEE the difference!
I still love those “stubby” horses, and so do a lot of people. But I can’t keep making them that way.
So I made a new big horse, in a green shade of faux soapstone. I love how it looks!
Of course, there are lots of tricks to “seeing” our work in a different way, one that can help us more easily see the errors in composition, lighting, color choices, etc. We can not only take a quick photo, we can hold it up to a mirror, or view it upside down. I once asked former Fine Art Views author-and-artist Lori Woodward to look at a large wall hanging I’d made. Something was ‘off’ but I couldn’t see it. She saw it instantly! (Fortunately it was an easy fix!) Thank you, Lori!
And just like we can improve how we really “see” our art, we can improve how we see ourselves. And not just ourselves, but how we view our art, how we can encourage others to “see” it, and how we “see” ourselves in the world.
This is crucial to extending our online marketing, too.
I remember the first workshop I ever took on marketing and self-promotion, at a polymer clay guild in Keene, NH. A member’s spouse was in marketing, and his presentation was mind-blowing!
The first question he asked was, “What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about selling?”
Most of the responses were eye-opening. “It’s like a used car salesman’s pitch!” “You gotta twist people’s arms to get them to buy something!” “First you bait the hook and then they bite and you reel them in!”
I couldn’t stand it any longer. I said, “First I make something, with all my skills, and time. Then I show it to someone else, and tell my story. Then they take their hard-earned money that they earned with their skills, and time, and we trade.”
Needless to say, I got an A! (Figuratively speaking.)
Many people today still hesitate to self-promote, especially if we weren’t raised to put ourselves out there. Posting on social media can feel like “bragging”. Asking a good price for our work can feel “pretentious”. Even calling ourselves a “real artist” can feel presumptuous.
But we are simply people who are just like everybody else. We have things we really care about, we choose a creative path we really love, we make stuff that makes us happy, and we do our best work.
The next step is simply sharing our work with the world. Sharing with images (if our work is visual), or words (if our work is a poem, or story), or recordings (if our work is musical, or verbal), or videos (if our work involves movement, such as dance, or acting, etc.)
If nothing happens, that doesn’t mean our work is no good. It can simply mean we haven’t found our audience–yet!
And getting it out into the world is a huge part of that process. From email newsletters, to tiny short films on Instagram, to sharing our latest artwork (or column!) on Facebook, and Twitter, etc. is how people get to see it.
The beauty of social media is, you don’t have to wait for a publisher to choose your work, or a gallery to represent you, or a record producer to record your music, or a studio to hire you as an actor. In fact, the chances of any of these typical ‘markers of success’ may improve simply from our own efforts to show the world what we do.
So maybe we can learn to see ourselves better, too.
We can choose to see ourselves as a human who has chosen visual work as their favorite format. A human who has chosen oils, or acrylics, or colored pencil, or clay, or bronze, or fiber, or any of the thousands of “media” that are creative paths.
We can choose to see ourselves, and our art, as worthy. As ‘good enough’, right now, and ‘even better’ down the road.
As a dear friend said years ago, when I said how embarrassed I was by my earlier work, “Did people love what you made then?” (Um…yes.) “Did they buy it?” (Yeah….?) “Then there will be people who will still love them, too.” (Thank you, Ruth P.!)
We get to choose. We can accept, and respect, every step of our creative journey. Or, like I did this week, we can update, rotate, recreate, refresh, or even set aside the work that doesn’t reflect our best.
There’s no right-or-wrong there. Just what we want to do.
That’s the insight I gained today, by looking at my life’s work from a different perspective. Looking backwards (like a mirror) at where I started, where I’ve been, where I am.
And forward, to where I’m going next.
Do you have artwork you still love, even decades later? Can you still feel the fierce joy it brought you then? Are there pieces you’ve reworked for the better? Are you open to finding out what you can do better in the months ahead?
And can you find yourself worthy of respect for what you do? So you can share it with the world with pride, and joy? Let me know in the comments!
If this article inspired you today, please pass it on to someone else who might like it, too. And if someone sent this to you today, and you liked it, you can see more advice on art marketing at Fine Art Views, more of my articles on FAV, and subscribe to my email newsletter at my website at LuannUdell.com.
I love this necklace even more. And the “old” horse has been returned to my stash for a future project, perhaps.
This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….” For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.
SHOW YOUR WORK #3: Share Your “Affiliates”!
Whose work do YOU love, and whose work goes well with YOURS? Share!
More in this series on “baby steps” (and a few giant steps) to get your work out into the world and grow your audience online.
I’ve had some delightful conversations in the last few months with one of Fine Art View’s newest contributors, Thea Fiore-Bloom. Our life outlooks are similar, and we both love each other’s writing. And recently, Thea added me to her own artist resource page.
I was not only honored, but also impressed with this page. I’ve already bookmarked several of the sources she listed, and I urged her to write about this. Because it is an awesome idea, and one I’d never considered doing on my own website.
Then Clint Watson posted his article about how email is still the most powerful way to reach more people, advice in how to expand your current email newsletter list, etc. I thought about asking my subscribers to share with their friends, and their friends’ friends. Another idea I’ve already incorporated into my blog posts, but not in my newsletters. Hmmmm.
Then the two ideas came together into one insight, one that could work well right now.
What if we looked for opportunities to cross-promote? (Like I just did with Thea and Clint, for example.)
As I was thinking about that, a reader posted a comment on my last article, which I republished on my blog. Their website name leaped out at me: EquusArtisan! Why? Because not only do we share a love of horses, we both use horse imagery in our art.
Suddenly, Thea + Clint + Lisa = Novel idea for cross-promoting in the time of the coronavirus storm!
I’m treading carefully here, because these are everyone else’s insights and articles. But the notion of using our work and websites/newsletters/social media to help promote and support like-minded people, who not only have similar interests, philosophies, and wisdom, but who also have similar audiences hit me like a ton of bricks.
And though the simple solution is to reach out to people like this, to see if they’d be interested in cross-promoting from time to time, other ideas piled on.
Example 1) I volunteered a year ago for a local horse trainer whose major work has grown into rescue work: Rehabbing/retraining/healing horses whose owners have to give them up, for all kinds of reasons, and finding new homes for them. But this person isn’t a writer by nature. So when I came across an organization that was taking nominations for their annual “horse heroes” award, I volunteered to write one for her. (After all, usually when someone else sings our praises, it can “land stronger” than we are promoting ourselves.) I could create a resource page on my site and share her biz with my audience. And maybe I should ask her if she’d be interested in adding my horse jewelry/sculptures to her own email newsletters, and donating a portion of any sales I make from that.
Example 2) Another rescue group I admire and support, the American Wild Horse Campaign, came to mind. I contribute in a small way, buying a couple calendars from them every year. But what if I came up with a way for them to “point” to my website, and I found a way to “point” to them not only by adding them to a resource page, but supported them by donating a portion of any sales I get from referrals from a mention in one of their newsletters? After all, I already have to pay such portions to galleries and even my online shop. Supporting people and organization who do “hero’s work” in the world would be just as good.
Example 3) What if I reached out to EquusArtisan and we both referred our audiences to each other’s websites in our email newsletters?
People who love horses, people who paint horses, people who rescue horses, and people who make horse jewelry. Surely our audiences overlap a little?
My first thought was to add such referrals and such to my own resource. But it feels awkward asking them to do the same for me.
On the other hand, mentioning each other in an email newsletter seems lower risk, lower “load”, and simpler. Each “partnership” could be limited to one newsletter (on both sides, theirs and mine) and the resource page can be a one-sided thing on my part.
Obviously, there’s a little more thinking and experimenting before this becomes something I can recommend to you.
But for a “what if” opportunity, especially in this time of knowing our galleries aren’t opening anytime soon, art fairs are out of the question, and open studios are not happening, this feels fairly positive and manageable. It certainly doesn’t cost anything upfront, either.
I’m actually grateful that three amazing people crossed my path and opened my eyes to new possibilities.
What cross-connections and affiliates come to YOUR mind? What conservation groups would benefit from your landscapes, wildlife work, seascapes, and still lifes? What artists do you love and find inspirational, who loves and is inspired by yours?
When we lift each other, not only do we both benefit, but so does the entire world. Because our being a force for good in the world is what EVERYBODY needs, right now.
If this article inspired you today, please pass it on to someone else who might like it, too. And if someone sent this to you today, and you liked it, you can see more advice on art marketing at Fine Art Views, more of my articles on FAV, and read/subscribe to my blog at LuannUdell.wordpress.com.
And if you’d like to see this in action, you can sign up for my email newsletter, too! (Er, don’t be surprised if it takes a while, I’m affected by the shut-downs and shelter-ins, too!) 😀
I’ve made more little critters than ever!I’m sharing a tiny gift I’ve found in this hot mess.
Bear with me, because it comes from a bunch of random issues, problems, frustrations, idle research on the internet, and resulted in my new-found work enhancer.
First: All my life, from the very first 45rpm record I bought (“Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds), I love to play a favorite tune over and over and over. (I can hear some of you screaming already…)
Also, when I am writing, or even reading, I can’t listen to music with words. It just jangles the connections in my brain. Soon I’m singing along, not aware that I’ve also stopped reading/writing.
So I can’t listen to lyrics during those activities. Put a pin there.
More on music: I have a CD player in my studio. Old school, I know. I also have Pandora radio, and I tried to use that, especially because CDs only give 45 minutes to an hour of playtime. I got the internet radio because my husband has had one for years. How many years? Let’s just say it’s a century in “internet years.”
Because he’s used it so long, it now automatically plays even random music that suit his tastes. Mine, not so much. I tried searching for artists, songs, music genres, etc. But it never complied anything I could listen to for more than five minutes.
So I quit using it, and went back to my CD player. At least I can play discs of music I love and have collected over the years.
But there were problems there, too. First, as I said earlier, I’m one of those obnoxious people, the ones who fall in love with a song, and play it over and over and over and over and over until everyone around me wants to scream. (Have you stopped yet?) (I have my reasons why, but I won’t bore you with them today.) (Unless you ask, of course.) 🙂
So I have to constantly hit “replay”, which means I have to push a button every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Or constantly skip over the songs that annoy me.
I worry about driving my neighbors crazy, especially in my “one-song-repeat-a-thousand-times” mode. (Put a pin here, too.)
Also, I’m in a huge building with dozens of other artists. We all have our individual workspaces, and fortunately, we don’t share air systems or even heating ducts. (No heat.) But I can hear their conversations from time to time, off-key whistled accompaniments to their own music, etc.
I ended up wearing ear plugs, which work great. But now I can’t hear my music, right?
If I play my music loud enough so I can’t hear them, it’s actually TOO loud (because the ear buds don’t fit.) And if I play my music loud enough so I can hear it no matter where I sit in their studio, well, then I’m bugging THEM.
And after the shut-down orders came, I was a little stressed even in my happy creative space. It was harder than usual to focus and dig into my projects.
Put a pin there.
Around the same time, I was complaining to my husband how all my ear buds suck, because a) I can’t get them inserted adequately to get the best sound unless I hold them in place, which is not conducive to doing my art work because I NEED MY HANDS TO WORK; and b) they hurt my ears.
So he gave me his old headset, an inexpensive refurbished model he’d bought for his work’s online conferences, but never used because it didn’t have a microphone.
I love them. The sound is great, they are comfortable, and I can plug into my phone, tuck my phone in a pocket, and move about the studio easily. (Before, I would forget I was “plugged in”, jump up from one work station to move to another, and nearly destroy my phone and everything on my desk in the process.) (Pin!)
A couple months ago, I found a delightful little video by Ainslie Henderson online. I can’t for the life of me remember how. I think someone posted it on Facebook?
I fell in love with it. He mentions how his little animated figures carry a bit of sadness, and when the little one pulls at the arm of a larger one who’s stilled already at 2:00 minutes into the video, I felt that.
I also fell in love with the music. When I looked up more of his film shorts, I saw how he has collaborated with various musicians over the years.
So I looked up Poppy Ackroyd, who did the music for that little video, and found more of her music. Her work sounds simple, but it’s also complex. How she makes it and puts it together is astonishing.
Then I realized I can “sample” Ackroyd’s album “Leaves”, which has three of my favorite songs on it: “Salt”, “Timeless”, and “Roads”.
They have NO WORDS.
They are hypnotic.
They repeat, in order, over and over and over.
No pushing buttons. No being tied to a three-foot leash. No noise to bother my neighbors. No noise to bother me.
And now I’m hooked.
I get to my studio, set up my phone for Acroyd’s playlist, put on my headphones, and get to work.
I work steadily for hours on end, happy, heart-lifted, and soothed.
All these elements and issues combined and resolved by a $14 headset, and….
A beautiful collaboration between visual artist and music artist.
I never would have found Henderson’s work without surfing on Facebook, which can be a huge time-waster and a hotspot for fake news, etc.
I never would have found Poppy Acroyd’s music without finding Ainslie Henderson’s video.
I never would have found Poppy’s music if they had not collaborated.
I never would have found such a powerful way for me to get deep into the ‘Zone’ without my husband’s suggestion of using a headset.
Today I’m going to send some money to Poppy Ackroyd. I figure I owe it to her.
And I am so grateful all these random little elements, missteps, personal quirks, etc., came together and gave me just what I need right now to reinforce my creative work time.
What have you found that helps you get into that deep creative space that’s so important for our work?
P.S. Another earworm you might enjoy: Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Emmy Lou Harris collaborating on “Speedway at Nazareth“. (Headphones or whatever gives you the best sound quality. Worth it!)
P.S.S. I was going to apologize for dragging you through tons of “little bits” that all came together to tell a story. Until I realized this is the heart of all my creative work.Little bits that get sewn/knit together, all carrying something intriguiging to me, with lots of tiny details, braided into a story that lifts my heart.
How much do I share without destroying the mystery of my finished work?
SHOW YOUR WORK #2: What Is Your Process?
4/14/2020 by Luann Udell This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….” For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.
SHOW YOUR WORK #2: What Is Your Process?
Share what you want, not what you think you “have to”
Some thoughts on what to write about, photo, and share on social media.
I’m a double-juried (in two media) craftsman member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, a well-established, well-respected organization that supports and markets the work of members in many ways: galleries, events, exhibitions, and its prestigious Annual Craftsmen’s Fair held in August every year. (I achieved tenure, so even though I now live a few thousand miles away, I still retain my membership.) I eventually volunteered to become a member of the Fair Committee, because I was so curious about what went on “behind the curtain” to produce these incredible 9-day long event.
One feature of our annual outdoor fair was demo booths. For a reduced rate, a juried craftsman got a super-sized booth (about 20’x30’, if I remember correctly) to not only display their wares, but to do demonstrations of their craft for the public. When I started, there were three such booths at each year’s fair.
And every year we had to beg people to sign up for them.
The reason was, sales at these booths were horrible. Even with the savings and prominent placement on the grounds (an off-season ski resort), people knew they would struggle to make any money that year. It just wasn’t worth it to them.
I can’t remember why I decided it might be something to try, but boy, did I do my research. I checked in with past demonstrators, and asked if it were worthwhile. Almost everyone said, “Not that year, but my sales afterwards steadily climbed!” So, okay, consider it a loss-leader in the short-term, and investment in a bigger audience down the road. I could handle that.
But my superpower is gathering as much information as I can from every conceivable source. And so I also checked in with Bruce Baker, a jewelry-maker and gallery/gift shop owner who traveled across the country for years giving workshops on all things craft/art business related: Display, sales techniques, pricing, etc. (Bruce has retired this part of his biz and returned to jewelry-making full-time, but his CDs live on.) He lived relatively close, so I was able to attend many of his workshops, and even served with him on panel discussions and with traveling craft biz-building workshops for a year.
I called Bruce, and he graciously gave me the insights and advice I was looking for.
My first question was, why do sales tank at demos? He replied that demos tend to be “edu-tainment”: Free, educational and entertaining. And when it’s over, there goes the crowd, on to the next fun thing (music, raffles, food, etc.) So demo booths are unconsciously filed away under “fun to watch” and not “fun to shop”.
Add to that another unconscious element: When the “edu-tainer” artist sees people actively shopping, of course they stand up and move over to assist them. And the “magic” of demonstrating turns into, “Uh-oh, here comes the car salesman pitch!” and people scurry away. “There’s a disconnect,” he explained. “And once that ball is dropped, it’s hard to get back.” Hence, maybe crowds, but no sales.
He shared insights and gave suggestions. Like setting up my demo booth on the outer border of the big tent, so people didn’t have to “commit” to coming inside. “Don’t put it in the back of the booth, because then people have to make a conscious decision to enter a big, dark tent. Put it right there on the fairway!” I did, and it worked.
Second, he said I should NOT do sales. What??
“Not “no sales”. I mean youyourself should not do sales. Hire people to do that,” he said. “Keep that divide between the creative maker and the “car salesman”.” So I hired/bribed/cajoled a team of friends to help. (I lent them all CDs of Bruce’s selling techniques. But instead of telling them what I say about my work, I encouraged them to share what they love about my work. I felt it would come across as heart-felt and more authentic, and I was right.)
The proof of Bruce’s insights? At one point in the week, all my volunteers were at lunch at the same time. (Slow day.) Some people came in, I demo’ed, they watched. And when they started shopping, I walked over to them – and they nearly ran out of the booth! Lesson learned. (No, I’m not that scary in person, the dynamic had changed just as Bruce had described.)
I made my highest sales ever that year, and the next (as I got to choose to demo again, if I wanted to, and I did.) In fact, from that year on, there was actually competition for those sales demo booths, and their number increased to five! Because every other artisan saw what was happening, and wanted in on that, too.
But one of the biggest hurdles yet remained. And it took a friend’s insight to solve that problem:
How much do I share without destroying the mystery of my finished work?
This has been a “hurt place” for decades for me. My work has been copied (although badly, I’m ashamed to admit I’m happy to say). Showing exactly what I do, and how I do it, felt too risky. Also, think of how explaining a magic trick takes away the magic. The last thing I wanted to do was to unconsciously give others permission to copy. (Most of my techniques are well-known and not original to me, but the way I put them together and the stories I tell are.)
Again, just the right person showed up.
I met Alisha Vincent when she was the show manager for the Buyers Market of American Craft (informally called “The Rosen Show” for the company’s owner, Wendy Rosen) and now known as the American Made Show.) She was/still is one of my super heroes in life, for her intelligence, her powers of observation, her wide range of experience in the world, her courage, and her sense of humor. She actually came to NH that year to work in my demo booth, and I am forever grateful she did, for countless reasons. But especially for today, this one: When I expressed my fears, she was quick to find the solution. “Look at your neighbor,” she said, gesturing toward the guy who made beautiful Shaker boxes in the tent next to me. “He says his process has 29 steps.”
“He’s demonstrated nine of those steps.”
Oh. OH. OH!!!!!! Got it!
Next week, I’ll share the other learning points from this experience we can apply to social media. For today, just this: When I say “show your process”, know that it means you can choose how much to share.
Take pictures (or ask someone to help with that) that show your work (and you, if you like) at various stages of your process. Share, with comments. (I did this with my email newsletter recently, and the response was the best I’d ever gotten.)
Some people do share every single step. Hats off to them! They are secure in the knowledge that their skills have taken time and effort, and are not easily mastered. And that their own aesthetic and color choice are unique to them.
Me, not so much. I totally know this comes from my own insecurities and past experiences.
And so Alisha’s insight helped me pick interesting aspects to demo, but not a start-to-finish process. She helped me find my comfort level, so I could start there and go forward.
That’s the big idea for you, today. There will tons of insights, advice, statistics, and information about art marketing in the weeks ahead on Fine Art Views.
Keep note of the ones that interest you.
Note what feels like “too much” vs. what feels like a challenge you can handle.
And as you get comfortable with it, take on the next challenge.
Remember, there are oodles of steps to help us move forward in our art biz.
The gift is, we get to choose what ones, how, how much, how often.
As always, if you enjoyed this article, let me or my editor know! If you’d like to read more, you can either read more of my articles on Fine Art Views or subscribe to my blog at LuannUdell.wordpress.com. You can visit my older articles in the wayback machine at Radio Userland. (They are harder to search for, but they are also shorter!)
If you think someone else would like it, please forward it to them. And if someone sent you this, and you liked it, ditto!
Start with what you know. What platform are you already somewhat familiar with? Facebook? Email? Start there.
SHOW YOUR WORK: Introduction
4/7/2020 by Luann Udell
This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….” For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.
SHOW YOUR WORK: Introduction
Now is the time to up your online marketing!
As our paradigms shift, and “shelter in place” takes over, the time to master online marketing is here.
For those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to have a partner who takes care of the “busy work” of art-making, FASO is here to help.
I will bow to the experts on those strategies and techniques. One thing I do have is a partner who can help me through tech glitches. Beyond that, it’s up to me to do any social media stuff.
But if I didn’t, then it would feel pretty overwhelming to take this on. As I imagine you might, too.
So my advice for you today is:
Tiny, baby steps.
You didn’t learn to drive in a day, it took more than a week to master your craft, it takes a lifetime to learn how to be a good person in the world.
Take the same approach with your social media stuff.
Start with what you know. What platform are you already somewhat familiar with? Facebook? Email? Start there.
I have a separate page for my art biz, but have to admit I often cross-post to my personal page, too. After all, friends of friends of friends on a personal page, especially if made public so everyone can see our posts, can widen our network.
And pictures are the easiest thing to post! We are hard-wired to “see”, even over reading. A beautiful pic of your latest work will be an attention-getter.
But there are a jillion ways to work that pic, and tell your story. You aren’t limited to posting a picture of finished work. So my first tip today is:
Do it more often.
Like many people, I have “good intentions” for making online marketing a daily practice. But even when this all started, I let the ball drop.
Part of that was tying down what we needed to shelter in place.
Now I’m realizing that with so many “daily tasks” taken off my plate, there is no excuse not to share my work more regularly.
Do it better.
The best way to “do it better” is to do it more often. But I’ve also realized I need to get better at my picture quality. I’m experimenting more with light and composition. (My 3D work can be really hard to get right, and my latest jewelry line with gemstones means I had to update my lighting to catch their best color.)
I’ve even gone back to digital cameras, which have more tools than my 5-year-old smartphone and can create images with more megabytes.
Then go deeper.
People love to see our creative path.So instead of just the final project, how about sharing your process? Show the steps you use along the way: How you set up to start, from beginning sketches to final coat of paint. Even errors that get corrected will fascinate your audience.
We can go even further back, too! How about a photo of what inspired you? This can be an image of the original view/object/landscape/person, along with the sketches that were inspired by it.
Further back? Where are you making it? In your studio? A rough sketch in the field? Your new studio at home, as you shelter in place?
How about even further?
Tell your story!
I remember the first time former FAV writer Lori Woodward gave me a peek into her landscape painting process. I had no idea it was “normal” to adapt a sketch or photo to improve the composition! (I thought landscape painters painted only what they could see.) A small insight, probably, for most painters, but a huge one for us non-painters. Suddenly, my respect for such people (already high!) went higher. I realized there were levels of production I hadn’t even imagined.
The same for another artist friend, Nicole Caulfield. I knew she uses digital photography to set up her still-life subjects. But in an online post, she also shared how she corrects for lens distortion in her finished sketches. I had no idea this was a “thing”, and it increased my already-profound respect for her work.
In act, recently I wrote a blog post on my own website sharing my experience in a friend’s vineyard painting party in Learning to See.
People were delighted! And I’m sure there wasn’t a single point in that story that every painter doesn’t already know.
That’s the trick of story-telling: Stepping outside our accrued knowledge and expertise, and thinking about what looks magical to others. Too often, we think of “other artists” as our audience, and think and act accordingly. (And yes, often other artists are a great audience and collectors, because they know what’s amazing about how we do it.)
But to a bigger audience – ‘ordinary people’ – we are the folks who ran away to join the circus. Everyone has their unique interests and skill sets, but we tend to admire those we aren’t familiar with. (As in, “OMG, you know how to put my knee back together?!”) (Er, actually, I don’t want to see pictures of that.) Hence, the “magic factor” we take for granted in making our art.
In this series, I’ll continue to share ways to tell your story: How to get to the heart of you, what you do, and why you do it.
But for today, think of one thing you could post on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram, any platform you are already familiar with.
What is one thing you can share with your current audience, and your potential audience, today?
If this article inspired you today, please pass it on to someone else who might like it, too. And if someone sent this to you today, and you liked it, you can see more advice on art marketing at Fine Art Views, more of my articles on FAV, and read/subscribe my blog at LuannUdell.wordpress.com.
This little work of art taught me so much about color.
Today I found a little mixed media art pin in my “treasure trove”, aka “Luann’s Big Pile O’Stuff”.
I can’t remember when or where I bought it, though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an art/craft show. A gift shop or gallery, maybe?? It’s signed “Joan Considine” on the back, and “winter ’95/’96”.
At this time, I was on the cusp of stepping up to my art career. I was a) making doll quilts and fabric toys for my kids; b) knitting sweaters for my kids; c) making beaded jewelry; d) buying odd/broken bits of vintage jewelry from thrift shops and antique stores, and reworking them in new, refurbished pieces; 3) buying odd fabrics at thrift shops and antique stores and embroidering them into Victorian-style “crazy quilted” Christmas stockings; and f) beginning to work with polymer clay. I was beginning to rethink these “individual” craft categories, using polymer to make buttons for quilts, adding beads to the mix, and expanding my ideas about jewelry. A sea change was coming!
I have never liked some of the more popular color combinations. Pink and purple, for example, or magenta and teal together. They just seemed too…exuberant?…for my taste. I still shudder when I browse through the Sundance catalog at the jewelry pieces that combine lapis, coral, rose quartz, amethyst, and labradorite. It just feels like a riot of color to me.
When I started making art quilts with my little faux ivory horses, I actually stuck with the actual cave art palette, too. Rust, red and yellow ochre, black, brown, white. I wanted to be true to the real history of these cavees echoed in my work. And when I began to make jewelry with the same theme, I limited myself to this same palette, too.
But one day, as I was browsing my old college art history books, I remembered lapis was a pretty popular color with artists throughout history. I thought, “I bet if those artists had had access to blue, they would have used it!” That was my first step outside of the “rules” I’d followed. I realized my work, to be truly mine, had to have authenticity and a mystery of its own.
And yet, I still resisted using purple, even though its cultural heritage as a hue was almost as deep as those other “authentic” colors.
And then this little pin showed up.
What’s so special about it?
Hmmmm….the subtle beauty of the artist’s use of color.
This is a rectangle of good-quality matboard or cardboard (the deep muted gradient purple), a layer of heavy paper painted slate blue, and three smaller rectangles stacked, of olive green. The beads reflect these colors perfectly, with subtle jumps: Deep indigo, steel blue, olive, deep plum, taupe. And the beads are beautifully stacked, with subtle but balanced combinations in color and shape. Even the jump rings that attach the dangles to the pin are deep blue. And the two largest round beads are hung separately, a dangle on the dangles.
So. Color. Gradient. Complementary hues muted to work with each other in a way that doesn’t jar. Beaded structure. Movement. Subtle sheens in paint and bead coatings to play with light.
My studio supplies–fabric, beads (glass and gemstone), paints–now reflect almost every color of the rainbow, though similar to this pin. No neons, except to mix with other colors to get a little “pop”.) I’ve gotten past “matchy-matchy” and strive for “look how this color makes that one sing!” I still prefer a warm palette.
I still don’t like “color riots”, and I still prefer colors that play well together.
But now I do use blue.
The last few days have reminded me of that fateful day in 2001, the day I questioned why I even bothered with my art, making something as meaningless as “little plastic horses.”
And like that day, not only am I restored to myself by making my art, and hearing from others that my words and work have helped them, I can’t help thinking about this jewelry artist. I can’t find them online, and so have no way of knowing them or their work.
But their little paper pin has brought beauty and joy into my life for over 25 years. It helped me step outside my (color) box comfort zone. It broadened my horizons, and still I marvel at it today.
Know that what we do, whatever creative work that’s in us, is important. Not just to us, but to someone else out there in this wide, sometimes scary, often jaw-droppingly beautiful and kind world. Someone who will be inspired by what we do. Encouraged by what we do, or say. Someone who will find solace and/or joy in our music, our dance, our designs, our gardens, our words, our vision.
Whatever is in us that heals us, will heal someone else.
Do your work, and know that it is a gift to the entire world.
Do your work, and get it out into the world.
Do your work, because it is yours, and this is why this gift was given to you.
Some work still calls for those “old colors”.My son loved the color orange when he was young, and I grew to love it, too!
Luann Udell 