Power Up Your Artist Statement

It’s so easy to deride Artist Statements. I’ve done it myself countless times. It’s pretty hard to resist when you come across one more pompous, self-congratulatory, or badly written and trite, trite, trite artist statement.

But like the About page on any website, people are drawn to an artist statement in the hope that they will get to connect with the artist.

That’s all any of us want anyway: connection, which is why the Information Highway has become a footpath and Social Media has us all in the fast lane.

But long before Twitter and Facebook, you had…artist statements.

Artist Statements & Social Media = Same Essence

Both play the same edge of personal mixed with professional, and like that infamous bowl of porridge, the tweet or post or statement has to be not too hot (personal), not too cold (professional), but just right.

To be effective, both have to be more invested in the audience they’re engaging than any narcissistic rush.

A artist statement, like social media, connects your audience to the “you” behind the art, or behind the tweet/post.

And both artist statements and social media do better when the “you” reveals authenticity and personality, someone you’d like to get to know.

What is it that happens to you as you are painting, or sculpting, or potting, or making tapestries or jewelry?

Try keeping a notebook by your side as you work and pay attention to those fleeting thoughts, jot them down – just key words, fragments, anything that can bring the whole thought back later on.

Practice this for 3 weeks and I guarantee that you will discover a whole you that’s just been waiting for the pressure cooker of the artist statement, or daily blog posts, or tweets, to come out!

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Want more ideas to Power Up your art career? For this week only, the smARTist Telesummit 2009 Audio Home Study version is on sale for $60 off the regular price!! But the sale, and the 2009 material, all disappear at the stroke of midnight on Halloween!