I don’t think it does. I can only speak for myself. My biz model is
that I do custom work for people with a retail outlet. I don’t like
people enough to work with them directly (that’s a joke…sort of).
Some of my customers are traditional retail jewelers, some are
designers, some are artists.
I have a system that works for me. They have someone who wants
something that they don’t have, I have given them a custom worksheet
that asks all the questions I need answered, when I get that I do
several colored sketches to scale with estimates, the customer picks
one and I make it. It’s a beautiful thing.
But I’m not making what suits my fancy, I’m making something that I
know someone wants. I’m directing what is made because I’m designing
it, but it’s fulfilling someone else’s dream, not mine.
Honestly, I find this personally very gratifying. Often people have
a great deal of emotion tied up in this dream of theirs. Fulfilling
that is enormously satisfying. It’s also challenging, I am often
making something that’s outside of my comfort zone to make. Problem
solving that project and delivering it can be very rewarding both
personally and professionally.
I belong to a cooperative gallery with a wide variety of work and
clientele. I’ve noticed that many people simply want to know who an
artist is, how an artist thinks, what makes an artist do the work
they do. “Whatever made you thing of doing this?!” is a common
question. A statement makes the work more accessible. A person may
"like" something, but a statement about it often helps anchor that
attraction. And yes, it often does result in more sales.
People aren’t just buying the work, they’re buying a small
connection to the person who made it.
Plus a good, honest artist’s statement sometimes has unexpected
benefits.
Another metalsmith wandered into my coop gallery some time ago and
read my statement. Apparently it spoke well for me and my work, being
neither BS nor artsy fartsy. The long and short, my statement led to
one thing which led to another. We’ve been together ever since and
the statement still resides on his refrigerator.
Think of it as education. Hardly any of your viewers are
professional artists, and few are connoisseurs. Help them appreciate
the fine points of your work. Let them know what you were thinking as
you created the piece. Teach them what they should look for.
I’m a wine drinker, but don’t have an expert’s palate. I appreciate
an expert telling about the subtleties they experience, and hopefully
can learn to experience the same enjoyment.
This thread is so sad to me… Why artists’ statements–all
artists’ statements by implication-- must be characterized as BS is
beyond me. This topic is beginning to sound like anti-elitist
rhetoric. Why are so many afraid of the existence of artists’
statements? What else but some sort of fear can cause such righteous
indignation?
Don’t fall into the trap of writing an artists statement as if you
are trying to convince other artists that you are a worthy member of
the club. Write it to the audience that you actually expect to own
you work.
Back in the 1970s you used to hear the question a lot, “What are YOU
trying to prove?” It was usually sort of a tongue-in-cheek putdown
of anything odd, showy or pretentious. But I think it really gets to
a fundamental issue about actually sharing an important lesson with
emerging artists.
If you are in art school or making your art within a peer group with
the shared values of art school, sales and money are treated with a
certain sour-grapes attitude. Sales are still good, but to keep your
artistic creds authentic you have to appear to be motivated by a
higher calling than trying to make a sale at the end of the day. If
this is your world, the most important thing is to be recognized as
an “artist” and your “artist’s statement” is written towards that
goal.
But if you are trying to sell what you make, being perceived as an
“artist” is one way you might achieve that goal, but now you have to
prove yourself to a different group of people. The people who are
going to buy your jewelry will probably like it if they think of it
as “art”, but they really are not likely to make their decision to
buy or not based on what other jewelers think of you.
So my lesson for the emerging artist, if you want to make jewelry
that will sell so that you can have a real career at it, is not to
get caught up in trying to gain the praise of other artists, but to
speak to an audience that will become your customers.
I am not a big fan of artist statements. When I read what Andy
Cooperman wrote about his work, it gave me insight into how he came
to work in the direction he was going, and I had more appreciation
for what his motivation was. I had no idea by viewing his work what
it was based on, I did not see the connection.
I read someones artist statement on her website, and shey made a
statement about the emotional connection between the stone and the
silver. She was not relating about her emotions, it seemed to me she
was implying that the objects had emotion for each other.
I have worked with gems and metals for over 40 years and I have an
emotional connection to objects, but I have never thought that the
metal or stones felt anything for each other.
Sometimes I hear a song and then I hear an interview with the artist
who describes what their process was in writing the song, what they
experienced, and what the lyrics mean and I have a deeper
appreciation for what I am hearing.
Theresa, I agree with you. People buy art jewelry because of the way
it makes them feel. They pay not only for the jewelry, but the
feeling it gives them.
The absense of verbal directions would also allow each viewer to
arrive and his or her own personal interaction with and
interpretation of what the piece was about.
It’s not just bashing, there’s a real point to be found here. When I
want (generic) your advice, I’ll ask for it. The last gallery opening
we went to, we left and both agreed that it was the most pretentious
affair we’d ever attended. No, that doesn’t mean everything is
anything, it was just that everybody there was trying to touch the
ceiling with their noses, particularly so. Thing is, there was only
one piece there that was worth looking at. All the rest was the same
old standard recycled things. But the people involved don’t t know
that, because they are immersed in that world. It makes no difference
what anybody writes about what was there, it was what it was. I don’t
even read statements, and I also don’t read the blurbs next to
paintings beyond “oil on canvas, 1946”. Or “this was found in an
Etruscan cave in the early 1800’s and is thought to be…” I
just don’t care if an artist got up in the morning and was inspired
by a bird outside the window. What I DO care about is if and how the
work (there is only the work) makes me feel. And if the attitudes
don’t match the quality, I’m outta here. That doesn’t make me “wrong”
or “right”, it makes me John. I do get it, I’m just not (generic)
your fool. Jo said it on this thread long, long ago. If it needs to
be explained, it’s at least unsuccessful and at worst not even art at
all, in any real sense Deal with it…
Artist statement generator:
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/19d
I too found it very amusing. If asked to write another statement
I’ll use it. I guess that I’m also easily distracted and have a bad
attitude to boot. Thanks.
Of course Orchid has members who run the entire spectrum of
jewelers from the most amateur to best sellers to the upper strata!
But it costs money to eat, to buy more stones, more metal, etc.,
etc., etc. Let alone for health coverage and prescriptions! So lets
not get too uptight.
So what about the emerging jeweler and metalsmith who has made the
decision to support themself with a day job–which they are happy
with-- and make metal work at night and on weekends? Work that is not
designed to sell but rather to exhibit in juried or non-juried shows.
Work that is free from the constraints of the marketplace. Work that
is driven by something within the maker–addressing a topical issue,
expressing a point of view or exploring a new material or process.
Work that is no more or less valid than any of the work the amateurs,
best sellers and upper strata of Orchid create but is simply not
created to sell. (Although it would certainly not displease this
person if the work did sell.) This person has structured their
lifestyle to allow them to pay rent, eat and buy more stones and
metal without having to concentrate on selling what they make (the
aforementioned day job).
A former student of mine is doing just that. She is making work that
she feels is important and she is showing it at exhibitions that she
applies to or is invited to participate in. Sometimes she is asked to
write artist’s statements and she does so. The venue requires it and
she writes honestly and from the heart. I applaud her decision to not
make a living at her work but pursue it with all her heart in another
way. It is great work. She is happy.
There are great artist’s statements and horrible ones. Ones that
rely on academic rhetoric that in the end makes no sense and ones
that try to come from the soul by using words like “passion” and
“fascination” which, in my mind, is just as bad.
There are so many reasons–all valid-- to make jewelry or build
objects. How has this conversation come down to making a living
versus simply making? What does making a living have to do with
writing an artist’s statement? Not all work needs a statement or
benefits from one. But some does. Why judge all work–custom and
commission, production, one- of-a kind, exhibition and museum
work–by the same yardstick?
This thread is so sad to me...... Why artists' statements--all
artists' statements by implication-- must be characterized as BS
is beyond me.
Since I am the one who used the term BS I will try to respond to
this
This topic is beginning to sound like anti-elitist rhetoric.
I do not feel it is rhetoric but I definitely see a significant
issue here with elitism. There is an assumption, nay a requirement
that if you enter your work for a competition or exhibition you must
include an artist statement or otherwise it is somehow not ART.
Which is terribly elitist. This to me is one of the worst aspects of
the academic ART scene, that you must write some “meaningful”
statement about what you are doing to somehow validate that what you
are doing is actually art. To my view this comes from the attempt to
make art an academic field rather than a visceral essential aspect
of human existence.
Why are so many afraid of the existence of artists' statements?
What else but some sort of fear can cause such righteous
indignation?
Andy, you are the one who keeps suggesting that there is a fear
issue here. It is not fear but it is looking at a situation that has
become a formula. If you are an artist you must have an artist
statement because somehow a piece of work cannot stand on its own as
a “serious” art work with out an artist statement. And that is what
I find to be a load of BS.
A lot of advertising copy sounds the same and is not especially
effective because the advertiser is trying to make what sounds like a
“real” commercial. There is a tendency to write ads that are
predictable because the writers or advertisers are insecure about
deviating too much from what they perceive as the norm. Advertising
gurus are constantly railing against the tendency to write ads that
sound like ads.
Artists Statements are a lot like advertising copy that way. The
perceived norm gets repeated regardless if it actually accomplishes
anything. Many of these statements, odd and pretentious as they may
sound, are written that way in order to fit in to what the artist
imagines is the cultural expectation. This thread certainly
reinforces the perception that a lot of this is BS.
What you say about your work can do a lot to help you sell it.
Artists statements and advertising copy are the same that way.
Writing either gets better results if you talk straight to the
audience or customers and forget about impressing your peers.
So what about the emerging jeweler and metalsmith who has made the
decision to support themself with a day job--which they are happy
with-- and make metal work at night and on weekends? Work that is
not designed to sell but rather to exhibit in juried or non-juried
shows. Work that is free from the constraints of the marketplace.
Work that is driven by something within the maker--addressing a
topical issue, expressing a point of view or exploring a new
material or process. Work that is no more or less valid than any of
the work the amateurs, best sellers and upper strata of Orchid
create but is simply not created to sell.
I have a book in my library “Faceting for Amateurs”. The authors
write that the difference between an amateur and a professional is
that a professional turns his time into money, and an amateur into
perfection. From this angle, I can definitely relate to the above.
I also would like to go even further and state that the only work,
which worthy of discussion is the work which was created without any
regards to market place. There are simply to many compromises needed,
to make work palatable to average consumer. The interesting thing is
that once you decide to go that route, you may find that there is a
demand for such work.
That said, I understand why so many have problems with artist
statements. In a nutshell, there is nothing wrong with it. But very
often we see work deficient in each and every aspect of artistic
expression, and invariably such creations are accompanied with
lengthy, vacuous, self-serving platitudes, extolling non-existing
virtues, and trying to pass incompetence for originality. It is
these encounters that influence our opinion about artist statements.
The absense of verbal directions would also allow each viewer to
arrive and his or her own personal interaction with and
interpretation of what the piece was about.
If you believe this to be true, then don’t read the statement. Why
should everybody lose the possible benefit of additional insight into
work because some feel that it is wrong?