We are all faced with the task of creating an Artist Statement as part of an exhibition, a submission or as a capstone to a project we have created. Being visual artists, we are not really keen on creating something with words. I felt this way for a long time. Then I developed a method for creating an artist statement. Here it is:
To write a great Artist Statement one must first write a whole bunch of really bad Artist Statements.
This is not a joke, or humor or anything of the like. It is a simple fact that one cannot do something great on the first try. No golfer’s first shot is a hole in one. No baseball player hits a home run on their first pitch ever. Writing Artist Statements is a skill, and it must be practiced. Practice means doing something wrong, figuring out what is wrong, correct that mistake and do it over… and over and over and over until the result is the best that can be done.
False starts, missteps, writing oneself into a corner, running up against a dead end and unsound premises are just part of the process. Keep writing and persevere.
Then you will have an excellent artist statement.
Simple, but not easy.
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