Artist Statements

Every year as winter sets in upon us, I revisit my artist statement. Since a good artist statement is a fluid work, it seems only right to check in and see if it still represents me. Perhaps the biggest obstacle that I encounter is not the writing itself, but the editing it down to meet the word count limit for artist grants. The goal is to say what you need to say in 100 words or less. It sounds fine, until you try to do it. The sparse opening lines above are already 88 words. That may be part of the reason why artists have statements that link together the biggest, most complicated conceptual terms that they can find. These unintelligible statements that we have all produced may be the result of trying to make writing fit in the little white box on the screen.

There has been a growing push to have artists be savvy creative writers, grant writers, and project plan writers. Throw in the writing of budgets and proposals and you will see that an artist needs not only to be a writer, but both a creative and an academic one, on top of what they are actually supposed to be doing which is art. The learning curve is huge. They always say that once you have it written, it is only a matter of tweaks. But for me, someone who enjoys writing, it seems like I spend most of my time butchering my prose into a haiku like 100 words. It is a test of word efficiency. I think that is why so many statements sound exactly alike. It is a matter of proven word power. Some terms have grown to be more useful in saying a lot in terms of describing the creative process. This is also known as talking the talk. The problem is that the "talk" all sounds quite similar, and it has little to do with the work that the artist has created.

So how to we show our true selves to a panel of our peers? How do we appear outstanding in print so that they actually view our work? I decided to turn to the pros and see what they had to say on the matter. I invested in Ariane Goodwin's book, Writing the Artist Statement-Revealing the True Spirit of Your Work.I will spend the duration of my Holiday weekend reading it and I will report back with my findings. To be continued...