It was a roaring success and I want to thank everyone who jumped in!
Now, my inner headlights are scanning the art career horizon for how I can best support your art career right now.
I have a couple of ideas, but what I really need is to hear from you about what youreally, really need.
So, I’m crafting a short survey with questions aimed at just this: how to best support you and your art career.
If you have one or more questions you would like me to ask in this survey, please either 1) send me an email or 2) post a comment here on my Reflections Blog.
Remember, revealing the true spirit of your work…is the work,
even in challenging times,
Your Truth. Your Power. Your Word. Claim it!
P.S. One area I’m thinking about is mindset/stumbling blocks to either your creativity, your production ability, or the business side of your career.
Another is a hands-on workshop to write your Artist Statement, and/or Art Statements for individual collections/installations/or a series.
Ariane Goodwin, Ph.D. An Educator, Editor, Writer, and Art Career Coach who believes artists change the world!
Part 2: Getting Personal, Being Real
Getting personal and being real is really pretty simple when you write about you and your art.
Sometimes, it’s helpful to clear out the writing weeds… so…
First, what it’s not:
It’s not the therapy-style of baring-your-soul.
It’s not the I-love-you-and-need-to-tell-you-everything hashtag.
It’s not the because-I-need-love-I’ll-cut-open-a-vein-for-you hashtag.
Or winging it because you’re going for the informal look.
In an artist statement, getting personal and being real is limited; it’s focus is on your relationship to your art where your feelings, preferences, and vision can offer a potential collector what I call a “peek behind the canvas (or potting wheel, or marble, or cello…).”
The key here is “a peek.” You don’t need much in an artist statement that is only three paragraphs long (best case scenario), or even one page long (not the most desirable, but can work). And your reader only needs enough to feel as if you, like them, are real.
Sometimes it’s as simple as connecting a daily task to what you do:
Waking up before sunrise, rolling out of bed, one of the first imagines to rise in my consciousness is where I left off last night with my newest piece, Sky High.
That’s the spirit of how you want to connect.
There’s also a couple of writing techniques that, by their nature, open the door to getting personal and being real.
The first is the all-important I: first person.
This one can get tricky, especially if you are harboring obvious or hidden places where you lack confidence in your work.
Speaking in the first person, especially when you are writing, is saying: this is me. I stand in my truth wholly, fully, completely.
And sometimes, for some artists, first person be unnerving—anything from a slight discomfort to downright panic. It’s the most vulnerable position you can take.
And it’s essential you do.
Because, if you use third person, your statement sounds like a critic wrote it, and you are not a critic. Or it sounds as if an academic wrote it, but you are the artist (even if you also happen to be an academic).
It’s your work, not their work. So, owning it is actually the first step.
The second technique is specificity.
When you use generalities or overworn language, you immediately become no one (or everyone). Even if your art is fully original, with a well-developed fingerprint, if the language you use in your artist statement contradicts that, you immediately create dissonance in the mind of your potential collector.
Compare this:
As I shape the clay, I’m drawn into the pot as if I’m in a dream.
With this:
As the wet clay cools my palm, the emerging pot draws me into a rhythmic dream where the smell of clean earth rises ‘round me.
With word specificity, you can capture the same uniqueness that your art exudes.
That’s it.
You can interweave these three simple elements—a peek behind the curtain, first person, and specificity—with the core elements of your artist statement—the why, how, and why of your relationship to your art—and draw people even closer to the work that you love to make.
Remember, revealing the true spirit of your work…is the work,
even in challenging times,
P.S. Remember, just for the holidays, I’m offering a HUGE Holiday Bonus when you buy my book, Writing The Artist Statement: Revealing the True Spirit of Your Work.
Ready for more? Click here!
Buy my book by the January 14th deadline:
Writing The Artist Statement: Revealing The True Spirit Of Your Work Ariane Goodwin, Ph.D.
The first & only complete resource book that works for visual artists at all levels: beginning / mid-career / advanced
My artistic partner is dyslexic, with a real writing phobia. Your book is a fantastic teaching air. The floodgates have opened and made him realize that he can write. What a godsend! ~J. Brett, London, UK
Overcome writing blocks
Avoid 7 blunders that tag you as an amateur
Make your statement engaging and compelling
Learn why galleries & collectors love good ones (even if you don’t)
Use the power of sensory connection to help people remember you
Writing your statement has never been so easy! And that’s a promise…
P.S.S. If you already have my book, but still want 10 Tips for a Perfect Artist Statement Presentation, send me an email: ariane@arianegoodwin.com
Revealing what, how and why you do your art does not dismantle either the beauty or mystery of it. Quite the opposite. Your effort to reach out invites others to participate in the mystery and to share the beauty.
Ariane Goodwin, Ph.D. An Educator, Editor, Writer, and Art Career Coach who believes artists change the world!
Part 1: Being Vulnerable
The very nature of an effective artist statement is all about revealing the true spirit of your work. And there’s really no way to accomplish this if you have your guard up, if you’re “armored,” as Brené Brown has pointed out in her talks on the power of vulnerability.
First, let’s dispel that clinch in our stomachs when someone asks us to be vulnerable.
As you can see, I’ve sandwiched it in-between personal and be real because I instinctively wanted to buffer a word that triggers so much anxiety for so many of us. Yes, I’m including myself.
Turns out that Merriam-Webster validates that clinching sensation.
Vulnerable
1:capable of being physically or emotionally wounded
2:open to attack or damage :assailable, vulnerable to criticism
3:liable to increased penalties, but entitled to increased bonuses after winning a game in contract bridge
Oddly enough, it’s No.3 that holds the key to the kind of vulnerability you need in your artist statement: entitled to increased bonuses (more on this in a minute).
Here’s a fourth definition, spinning out of the self-help culture, that Merriam-Webster has neglected.
Vulnerable: the willingness to be open with others.
The key to this kind of openness is paying attention to your emotional boundaries.
Our 1960s counter-culture flooded the emotional landscape with group exercises for the anything-goes self-revelations. Baring one’s soul (and deepest, darkest secrets) was thought to bring down the father-knows-best superficiality of family perfection that demanded everyone in the family be perfect.
During that time, even imperfections had to be screened for their appropriateness according to what the media censors deemed acceptable. The 1960s counter culture was determined to tear down the suffocating walls of personal, and social, superficiality that denied the messiness and zig-zag journey of being human and alive.
In those days, some boundaries were built in: you didn’t have the entire online world watching you writhe in said vulnerability, only a small roomful of willing participants.
On the other hand, there was little to no psychological awareness that self-revelation without safe boundaries could deep-dive a participant into reliving traumas that neither they, nor the group leaders were prepared for.
The current irony of our social media culture is that once again presentation perfect rules the day. Only this time, showing a hint (or more) of “openness” has become part of the perfection requirement.
I watched this in real time the other day as an artist, hawking her online workshops for other artists, used a medical condition of hers to build “connection” and “trust” with her audience. See… if I, with this debilitating condition, can do this…so can you!!
It’s powerful. And it works. The trick is understanding how to set your boundaries. And the trick to setting boundaries is being clear about your intentions.
Okay then, what’s the real intention behind revealing the true spirit of your work?
We’ve gone over this before, that your artist statement is about building a connection with your potential and active collectors that reinforces the connection they already feel from seeing your work.
Why? Because what is more organic to humans than language?
Words are our birthright, for language is as basic to the human psyche as bones are to the human body. First baby words proclaim us even before our first baby steps.
Even when people can‘t speak or hear, they will still create words out of movements, signs and symbols. Remember Helen Keller? A child without words, without language? Lost in a cave of imponderable loss until she was given one word: water.
Your artist statement has the potential to be just as powerful, just as life-affirming.
Step #1: Write out your intention for your artist statement.
Step #2: Decide to pay attention to how you are willing to be vulnerable. What about the how, why, and what you do makes you feel human? Makes you feel alive? Where does your own process touch your heart, your spirit, your soul?
When you get in touch with that, when the words come for that self-revelation, now pay attention to your personal boundary of what feels safe to reveal.
How? By paying attention to your body because it will tell you exactly where to draw the line. Even as your brain/mind wants to dominate the process, be mindful of the little movements in your body. If you’re feeling uncomfortable, a bit off-kilter, that’s probably okay. If you start to feel wary, or anxious, or disturbed, then you need to back up, reveal less, or reveal in a more circumspect way.
It’s an inner gauge somewhere in-between what feels just shy of uncomfortable (that’s okay, that’s normal when we’re revealing something real about ourselves), but not stomach-clinching anxious.
Perhaps a childhood experience underpins your work, but you’re not about to go into detail. You don’t have to. A simple:
I was quite young when I experienced that not all was right with the world. In search of peace, I found solace in the woods behind my home. Today, my photographs reflect the quiet safety I felt curled up in nature’s arms.
In this revelation, there is a willingness to be open with others, but there are no emotional red flags. The artist has been vulnerable, and rightfully resisted over sharing.
Being vulnerable is your ticket to authentic connection with your viewers. Use it sparingly, but use it.
Because (remember No.3 Merriam-Webster definition: entitled to increased bonuses), when you choose vulnerability wisely, the bonus is more connection with people who love your work, greater trust, and by extension greater credibility.
Remember, revealing the true spirit of your work…is the work,
even in challenging times,
P.S. Want the whole system? And my Holiday Bonus– 10 Tips for a Perfect Artist Statement Presentation?
The first & only complete resource book that works for visual artists at all levels: beginning / mid-career / advanced
Overcome writing blocks
Avoid 7 blunders that tag you as an amateur
Make your statement engaging and compelling
Learn why galleries & collectors love good ones (even if you don’t)
Use the power of sensory connection to help people remember you
And get the Holiday Bonus: 10 Tips for a Perfect Artist Statement Presentation
Writing your statement has never been so easy! And that’s a promise…
P.S.S. If you already have my book, but still want 10 Tips for a Perfect Artist Statement Presentation, send me an email: ariane@arianegoodwin.com
Revealing what, how and why you do your art does not dismantle either the beauty or mystery of it. Quite the opposite. Your effort to reach out invites others to participate in the mystery and to share the beauty.
