Artspeak

[Magnolia Mud Research]

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 5:28 AM, yappystudent said:

I've never been able to come up with a satisfying artist's statement for my own work. 

 

Here is a useful set of statements from Vince Pitelka, a ceramics professor at Tennessee Tech's Appalachian Center for Craft, about writing your own "artist statement".  This is the best guide I have encountered for understanding, using, or writing an artist statement.

http://sites.tntech.edu/wpitelka/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2016/01/How-to-Write-an-Artists-Statement.pdf 

LT

[yappystudent]

That is indeed a useful link, it clears up many doubts I've had over the years about my own and other's artist statements. I've seen a lot of the "don'ts" he mentions used in or as statements of other artists, and always wondered why they made me uncomfortable to read, such as listing your former art education and jobs related to art and where you were born: basically giving an artist bio in place of a statement about your artwork. I could never compete with that because I'm largely self-educated.

Also the endless sunny platitudes about childhood and dreams and rainbows as inspiration, my inspiration is about the opposite of that and I just figured nobody wants to hear a bunch of dark opinions about how stupid humanity is as a race, apocalypse and whatnot. I'm still grappling with how honest I should actually be about my feelings and inspiration, although the author in the link says just do it regardless, it seems it would just turn people off from actually buying anything, better I let them figure out that for themselves by looking at the work, hence the mystery part. That remains figuring out what is left that sounds good to include, materials and such, seems a bit dry by itself.  Anyway, it's high time I wrote an artist's statement, this topic has me thinking. 

[Rae Reich]

Go ahead, @yappystudent, write like a mighty wind! We'll let you know if it sounds like you