HOW TO OPEN STUDIO #8: How Not to Write an Artist Statement

(Disclaimer: You may not agree with my take on this subject. No worries, do what works for you! But do consider this approach if you want your artist statement to stand out from the crowd.)

I’ve written a lot about artist statements. A LOT.

This is one of my favorites.

OK, like a parent asked to choose their favorite child, I love ’em all! They all have a nugget of truth. But this one combines my frustration with most artists’s statements, the lack of creativity, the banality, the focus on materials and process over our story, yadda yadda yadda.

I know this is a huge homework assignment. But at least one of these articles could get you to reconsider taking on the “traditional” artist statement.

And again, check out ArtyBollocks.com for starters. It will prove that “arty” “pretentious” “obscure” artist statements are ridiculous, I hope. Here’s another fun site if your creative work takes a different form: The New Age Bullshit Generator

And this artist’s response to generic artist statements is good, too. Thanks and a hat tip to Beth Secor!

You may be tempted to use a template to create an artist statement. It may feel safe, and easy. And if it gets you started, okay then. But as a friend told me years ago, “You cannot fill in the blanks with passion.” (Wherever you are in the world, thank you Nicci Walker!)

You may be tempted to use hoity-toity words and phrases, (aka “artspeak”) like other famous artists. But this article on the down side of IAE (International Art English) is terrific at uncovering the very (pretentious) aspects that could alienate our potential audience. (My hat’s off to you, too, Carol Ober!)

Avoid anything that reeks of complacency:

“I love color”.  Um….who doesn’t love color??

“I am drawn to light and color”. Um…even worse? How can anyone capture an image of anything without light? (More on this to follow….)

“I am inspired by nature…” Um. So is every single landscape painter ever. And probably 95% of the rest of the world.

“I explore form and composition…”  Just stop right there. Every painting has forms, shapes, lines in it.

I could go on, but it drives me nuts. These are just a few sentences that most artists believe makes them “unique”. But they’re just the opposite. They sound like every other artist on the planet. Case in point: I could say this about my art, and I’m willing to bet that my work looks nothing like yours.

When artists list the “famous artists” they’ve studied with, I want to pull my hair. All it means is, you had enough money to pay their fees. I get that really popular famous artists can be very selective about who gets into their classes. But I also know that a “famous artist” in one part of the world may be totally unknown in another part. When I moved to California in 2014, I knew only two artists in Sonoma County. Actually, in all of California. And neither of them are painters. (Okay, Jane Garabaldi and Marge Margulies, and only because we were all in the same gallery in New England.) (And yes, they are both stellar at their work!)

An artist statement is not the place to brag about your art degrees, your reputation, to explain your how-to process in-depth.

It’s about sharing something about you, and your work, that will make your visitors want to go back and look at your artwork again.

JoAnne Russo, a highly-acclaimed Vermont basketmaker, was the first person to share this insight with me. I was already doing that, but this made it clear why we cannot afford to muck up this important piece of paper. Because even if our work doesn’t blow them away, our artist statement can.

Here’s my best example: At an art exhibit years ago, I saw what I thought was an awful work of art. Crumpled foil, squished fabric. WTF?? I thought.

Then I read their artist statement, and I almost cried.

It was made by a woman who had been a talented painter for most of her life. Now, in her final years, she had lost her sight and could no longer paint.

But in her heart, she still wanted to “make”. She still wanted to share the things that fascinated her. She was still an artist, even though vast changes had to be made in how she created it.

So she worked with interesting bits of materials with great texture, arranging them in ways that literally and figuratively “felt right”, and urged people to touch them.

OMG. OMG. She wanted to still have her voice in the world. And even going blind was not going to stop her. 

Yes. I went back and looked at her work again.

Instead of seeing someone who had no idea how to make “real art”, I saw someone with so much courage, so strong in their heart, that even losing their superpower–a great painter–shewhat believed she still had something to share with the world.

My next example was an artist statement I wrote for a woodworker the year before we moved to California. Here’s my rant about that experience. 

The part I wrote that they didn’t value?

Like people, trees respond to what happens to hem. What they live through creates their character. Sunlight and soil, ice and wind…all these things leave their unique mark on the inside. I work wood’s diverse color, grain, and texture, patiently and meticulously, to real the “inside story”.  And like people, the story hidden beneath the bark is beautiful, unique, and forever astonishing.

In fact, just read that article if you’re short on time and don’t have the bandwidth right now to go deeper. (And to be fair, that person did include that part in their statement. I didn’t know until a few years later, when their work was featured in a magazine.

Yes, your process is important. But keep it simple.

Yes, your education helped you get to where you are today. I get it.

Yes, art degrees mean you were serious about your work from an early age. Good on you! But not all of us had that privilege or option.

The most powerful story we can tell about our work is why it matters. To US.

It could have been a life-long passion, or it could have been a treasure we buried out of perceived necessity. Until we realized how vital it was to our soul.

Be willing to go deep, to share who you really are, and how your art helped you discover what really matters to you.

Trust me. And trust yourself: If you’re doing it right, they will want to see more of your artwork, your studio, and you.

Questions? Comments? Bring ’em on! I’ll do my best to answer them.

(No snark, please. Feel free to gritch on your own platform, okay?)

 

 

 

 

 

NEWSLETTERS 101 #7: Why Your ‘WHY’ Is So Important

Do we all have a deep mystery to discover?

9/29/2020  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.

NEWSLETTERS 101 #7: Why Your ‘WHY’ Is So Important

(Hint: Because it is the heart of everything you do, every decision you make, and everything you make!)

(6 minute read)

Welp, somewhere along the line, this series shifted from “how to create an email newsletter” to “how to find your creation story”. I would apologize, BUT –

In my defense, knowing our creation story is the foundation of everything else we do.

Yes, we may end up making our creative work for years before we find it. Yes, it may not be a story you are comfortable sharing with just anyone.* Yes, it can changed or modified, to align with a new series of work, or for a special exhibit, etc.

But that story is in us, even if we can’t find it – yet. It is what drives us, guides us, in a thousand small ways, every day.

Knowing our creation story is a form of self-empowerment, a direct conduit to the inner passion that drives to make the work we make.

Someone reached out to me recently about this, with really good questions we may all have:

Do we all have a deep mystery to discover?

Yes, we all do. Everyone. Everyone has a story that gives some sense, some insight, into the choices we make.

Of course, many of our choices become such a habit, we forget the reason we made them in the first place. Hey, I’ll go first!

Why do you sleep on that side of the bed? (Me: I want to be closer to the bathroom in the middle of the night!) (Which is also why that changes every time we move.)

Why do I hate tuna fish casserole? (Me: I used to really hate ‘mixed’ food, I hated strong flavors like tuna fish, and my parents gave me grief every time I tried to bow out of eating it. Almost every dinner was a fight about food. Tuna fish casserole brings up bad memories, and mentioning it is a running joke between my hubby and me.)

Why do you make your artifacts out of polymer? (Me: Because I want them to look ancient, worn and damaged by time, over thousands of years. I can recreate that look with a faux ivory technique in polymer clay. Also, there’s no need to harm animals to make them, in this day and age, so polymer is more ‘life neutral’ for me. And how cool that this material began to soar in popularity as an art medium in the world at the same time I took up my true art?!)

Why the Cave of Lascaux? (Me: I have always yearned for a horse to love, I have always dreamed of riding a galloping horse, moving freely forward, flying in the wind, at one with these marvelous creatures. They were a metaphor for my longing to be an artist from my youth. The mysterious Lascaux paintings fed this longing. Now that we know more about the makers of those paintings, the synchronicity is even more astonishing!) (Recent findings on women as shamans in prehistory; that all members of this community participated in the ceremonies; that these paintings were created during the onset of swift, debilitating climate change.**)

I think I am waiting until I am an authority on (making my art) to try to look for the why.

This is not necessary to find our ‘why’. We are just postponing asking ourselves this difficult, but ultimately empowering work. Remember: We are already ‘good enough’, there is no diploma for ‘being human’, and we are all a work-in-progress.

Where does passion for working come from?

From our heart. The desire to be seen, heard, loved in the world. To be seen as an individual, and to be part of a community. To be remembered, long after we are gone. We want to make our mark in the world. Many factors guide/hinder us along the way, from how we were raised to what we perceive is valued in our culture. That’s why finding our way to this work can take time and effort for many of us.

Although I do like the idea of being a powerful force for good in the world. Who, me?!

Yes, YOU! And me! And about 98% of the rest of the world. (I’m leaving out the sociopaths and narcissists of the world, although sometimes even they often create good work in the world in their pursuit of their passions.) (Just don’t date or marry them!)

Here’s my favorite metaphor for “do I matter?”:

When we put the work of our heart out into the world, it’s like tossing a pebble into a large lake. We may not see where all the ripples go, but they are there and they go SOMEWHERE. (Look up The Butterfly Effect.)

Our art is like that.

It may take time for it to be seen. Maybe not even in our lifetime. Van Gogh died in despair, craving to be seen in the world. If only he could see his own validation now! Or it could disappear eventually. But what is left is how it affected US, and others in their own good time.

(Again, the power of the internet, and the legacy of the art we leave behind.)

The cave paintings of Lascaux were a powerful message that was not addressed to us. But that cave deeply, deeply impacted all the people who were able to see it before it was closed, and even long after. And it changed my life.

For millennia, we have had some very strict rules about who can be an artist, and who can’t. Rules about what ‘real art’ is, and what isn’t.

Rules and laws have kept women, people of some religions, people of color (outside of their own origins and present communities), people of ‘other-than’ gender, in a box, and usually not a very pretty nor kind box.

But things change. We are not in a perfect, accepting, loving world yet. But it is even more possible to have our voice in the world. The current shelter-in-place orders may force us to stay home. We may feel paralyzed, overwhelmed, anxious about the state of the world right now. But the internet, and social media marketing***, allows us, and our art, to roam the world. Access to a smart phone, a computer, a library (eventually!) give us this perfect freedom.

We do the work we feel compelled to make, and hope someday, somewhere, somehow, someone else will feel its message.

And when WE know our message, we are empowered now, no matter what happens later.

I told this person they’d inspired this article! One person’s words, even shared with self-doubt, shared with courage, and with the hope that I might answer, lit up my heart.

I hope my words today light YOUR heart, and theirs.

*You can share the gist of your creation story, if the details are too personal or uncomfortable to share. Just knowing it is huge!

**And as a side note, everyone who says, “My art speaks for itself”, the story of the Lascaux Cave paintings for years was, men-and-boys-practicing-target-shooting. New evidence now shows that “story” is completely wrong, on so many levels. We were seeing these images through the lens of our own time, with all the cultural prejudices that can block our “view”….) (To which some will counter, “Cave art is about survival!” and I reply, “So is a cathedral.”) (The power of our choices.)

**”Social media marketing” of course, is simply using the internet to get our work in front of other people, who may love it, be inspired and uplifted by it, and hopefully, even love it enough to buy it!

NEWSLETTERS 101 #4: Know Your Creation Story

 The moment you chose to live your life and make your art with intention is the heart of everything you do, write, say.

(4 minute read)    

Last week, I shared how introverts can shine in the world, thanks to email art marketing newsletters.

Today, I had a long article planned. But, lucky you! I realized it was about two different topics I had squished into one:

Your Most Important Story of All

Before we get to suggestions about this, let’s talk about the most important topic of all of this:

The Story of YOU.

Here’s the biggest obstacle when it comes to every aspect of marketing and selling our art:

Sooooo many people don’t know their own story!

Let’s back up a little. There are two powerful stories in every creative person.

The first is what I call the ‘creation story’.

The second is our artist statement, which I’ll tackle next week. Because it helps to know your creation story first.

What’s the difference?

Your creation story marks your first step, the moment you knew you were meant to be an artist. It’s that aha moment when we realized we had to be an artist. The moment where we completely embrace what we want, regardless of whether we even know how, or why. It’s the point in your life where your deepest intention occurred.

Dave Geada, FASO’s marketing guru, talks about this story in almost every webinar I’ve watched so far. He phrased it perfectly: After a near-death experience, he vowed to live his life with intent. With INTENTION. I’ve called it our “hero’s journey story” for years, and Dave calls it that, too. (Whew! I love it when the experts and I are on the same page!)

That’s what your first step was: Your intention to make your art. Here’s mine. It’s what made me take the leap, and it still resonates with me today.

Unlike your artist statement, it doesn’t have to be public (though there are ways to modify it so it can, so don’t rule that out.)

You DO have to know it. Because once you realize it, it will provide the foundation of everything you do, write, make, talk about, going forward with your artwork. It will ground you when you are lost. It will reassure you when you are discouraged. It will lift you up when life gets hard.

Knowing it will help you lift others, too. Because when we speak our truth, it not only resonates with others, it can inspire them to see theirs.

Years ago, I created a workshop designed to help people write their artist statement. It was powerful, and eye-opening. I got to hear how several dozen people got their start, and why. My favorite was the artist who started with, “I had a baby. I nearly died. Everything changed…” I exclaimed, “THAT’s your artist statement!” What I meant was, this was the foundation of her artist statement.

To frame this better: That may or may not be what she decides to use, publicly. But it was that point in time where “everything changed.” It would inspire her artist statement, however she chose to frame it. It was her creation story, it was powerful, and she knew it.

Another great creation story was one I’ve written about before, which illustrates that our creation story will evolve. It’s about long-time artist who lost their sight late in life—and everything changed. Did they stop making? Nope. But it’s different, now. Because everything changed. But it was compelling enough for me to go back to that ‘weird crappy’ piece of “art” hanging on the gallery wall, and find something beautiful in it. Courage. Perseverance. Letting go of what was, and embracing the new ‘what is’.

Your homework: What is your creation story? Write it out, if only for your private use.

If you enjoyed this article, and know someone else who might like it, too, feel free to pass it on. And if someone sent you this and you did like it, see more of my articles at FineArtViews.com, other art marketing topics at Fine Art Views art marketing newsletter, and my blog at LuannUdell.wordpress.com.