Quitting my newsletter update: why that was a good thing and also not. (Alternative title – new email list!)
Six months ago, at the spring equinox, I closed down my email newsletter. It was a decision I’d been thinking about for a while and felt aligned with where I was personally (against the backdrop of ongoing polycrises) and professionally (within the wider context of figuring out my role outside of my craft work).
Breaking up with my email newsletter (and new things)
Tldr: I’m ending my email newsletter in March. I’ll be starting something different on substack. I don’t know exactly what that will be like, but I’m hoping some of you would like to come on that journey with me. Whatever you decide, thank you for being here over the last 7 years. Sharing.This has been […]
A poetic response to objects
Something I’m particularly drawn to, is the possibility for objects to be inspiration for other art work, not just responding to their aesthetic or formal qualities, but the emotional response. I’d love to see more poetry written about pots, paintings inspired by blown glass, photography exploring jewellery. Mostly I’d love to see more people who work with or create objects talk about them in a sensory and emotive way. I’d like to hear beyond the usual materials and techniques, beyond processes and finishes. Beyond, even, the conceptual underpinnings of the work. I’d love to hear how looking at an object makes people feel. How handling it or using it alters them slightly. I’d love to hear about the myriad thoughts that spin off from that object like dominoes out into space. These personal experiences of objects are things no archaeologist can uncover, they are often unvoiced, even now. Ever curious, I would like to know more.
What is my creative practice?
I am not sure that the work I do with makers and other creatives, in supporting their creative practices, counts as my own ‘creative practice’. There are many things I do which stretch me creatively, and there are certainly things which I consider I have created, which would not exist otherwise. But is it the same as a creative practice where I make things – objects or ideas? Over the past couple of years I have struggled to reclaim my making practice (I’ve blogged about that here and here), and there’s still a long way to go on that front. But I also have a writing practice and that sometimes feels overlooked, undervalued.
4 tricks for writing an awesome artist’s statement in the 3rd person
It’s been a little while since we talked about writing-specific issues here on the blog, so I thought I’d return to something I’ve mentioned before and which I get asked about again and again – whether to write your artist’s statement in the 1st person or 3rd person. In my opinion it doesn’t matter which you choose so long as the writing suits the audience you are writing for and the work that you make (see my post on this topic). You can write a superb artist’s statement, that sounds professional and engaging, in either.
So, let’s assume you’ve thought about who and what the writing is for, and have decided which point of view works best for your work… and it’s the 3rd person. Now what? Here are some tips to help you get started and write that awesome artist’s statement.
Writing great social media: do your hashtag homework
In the last post on social media promotion, we looked at creating a range of content for your various social media platforms. I thought it might make sense, now, to take a quick look at hashtags and how you can harness the possibilities they offer.
Tell it ten ways: tips for writing social media promotion
So, you’ve got a show coming up, or maybe you’re just about to reveal a new collection. Perhaps you’ve updated your website or have an online shop to launch. Quite rightly, social media is going to be high on your list of ways to promote this event, but how to keep it from sounding rather same-y after a while, and saturating your audience with the same information?
The non-writing approach to writing
I am going to let you in on a secret here, one that is going to sound odd coming from someone who spends a lot of her time asking people to write more. The thing is, to write about your work you don’t even have to write at all.
Artist’s statement dilemma: 1st person or 3rd person?
This seems to be a perennial problem for makers. Faced with having to write an artist’s statement, it can be hard to know what to do – use the 1st person ‘I’ or the 3rd person ‘she or he’. Lots of us have been given the advice that the 3rd person sounds more professional and that the 1st person sounds a bit ‘school project’, but I think that’s an over-simplification, and one which doesn’t help with the whole point of writing your artist’s statement: communicating about your work in the best possible way for your work.
Does your writing reflect your work?
I like to think of words as another material at your disposal. That the writing you create, about the things you make, is just as much your ‘work’ as the physical objects. If we think of writing like this, then it makes sense that your writing should look and sound like the things you make- it should reflect your work.