Resumes and bios are essential for every Artist.
They are a great way of sharing what you have accomplished and where you accomplished it. They are not a great vehicle, however, for showing people who you are or why you do what you do. You are so much more than just your accomplishments listed in tidy, chronologically-ordered columns on a sheet of paper. An Artist Statement is a fantastic way to show the world that your summer at such-and-such-a-program or that masterclass with big-name-conductor-person are not the only things that define who you are as an Artist. Artist Statements are versatile and can be formatted to be slipped into your bio or stated at the top of your resume, to give those dry documents more depth and meaning to the people reading them.
An Artist Statement shows the world who you are as a person and as an Artist, why you make the Art that you do, what your Art means to you, and what you want the outcome of your Art-making to be. Those things can be daunting to put to paper, however, and I have started so many of them myself, only to crumple them up and toss them in the bin. They never flow right, they're too clunky, they're too mushy, they're too sterile...they're too unlike what it is that I truly want to say. They're a tricky thing to pen down, and they change constantly as you grow and change as a person.
As part of our OOPS-Proof series, we asked Pablo Siqueiros to host an Artist Statement workshop. He carefully guides everyone through questions and prompts that make you think about yourself and your Art. Through the course of the seminar, those thoughts eventually become the clay that will be molded into your Artist Statement.
Give it a try! Even if you don't come up with your 100% perfect statement in the first go-around, you will have a better understanding of the who and the why you want to share with the world. Even if you already have an Artist Statement, I encourage you to try this fantastic seminar. It may just help you breathe some fresh life into what you already have. You can find the entire seminar on our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIi-qC2-8yo
Once you complete the seminar, be sure to follow the link in the video description to fill out a brief survey to be entered into a drawing for a free 90 minute recording session with Carson Rose Schneider.
If you want to share your Artist Statement with others, comment below!
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