ASSIGNMENT BACKGROUND / WHY WE’RE DOING THIS
As Battenfield explains in The Artist’s Guide, rarely will someone viewing your work ever have the opportunity to see it in person, let alone the chance to sit with you one-on-one to discuss your thoughts, process and final outcome. As such, our ability to document our work through visual samples and written records is of the utmost importance. Good documentation can elevate the initial impact a work might have on its audience.
For this assignment we will be focusing on the written aspect of documenting our work, specifically the artist statement.
Talking about our work can be one of our greatest challenges. During this assignment we will spend time thinking about and discussing our work as we write a coherent and concise artist statement. This statement will be referred to in talks, applications, interviews, websites, and conversation.
OBJECTIVES
By the time we’re done with this project, we will be able to do the following:
- Think critically about our work.
- Develop answers to the most common questions posed to artists.
- Edit our thoughts into concise and clear artist statements.
STEPS
\\\\ READINGS
First, read the following item:
- ‘The How-to’s > TOOL #2: ARTIST STATEMENT’ in Chapter 02 of The Artist’s Guide
\\\\ REFLECTING ON YOUR WORK
After reviewing the section labeled Getting Started: Collecting Information and Composing the First Draft, open a new Word document or get out your sketch- / notebook, sit down in front of your work and begin writing out answers to the 11 bullet-points found in this section:
- What does your work look like? (Visual description.)
- Why do you do it? (Inspiration and drive to create this work.)
- What are the concepts behind your work? The important themes? The emotional qualities?
- Is there a central image or idea within your work? (Through line.)
- What are its different elements and how do they interact within the work? (May be physical, visual or conceptual elements.)
- What kind of materials are you using and why?
- How is it made? What is your process? (The steps you take from ideation to completion.)
- How does it use space or relate to the surrounding space? (Might be physical space or implied or invented space.)
- Where does this work fit into your development as an artist?
- How does it relate to other artists’ work? Who inspires you? (Be specific. If you do not know or if you haven’t thought about this, then talk to other artists. Even if you haven’t been looking at other artists while you create your work, you will need to be aware of other artists who are working in similar visual styles or concepts.)
- What questions are you asked about this work?
- This is quite literally just a brainstorming phase. Do not edit yourself. Allow your answers to take as many words or as much space as necessary to get your ideas written down. It is much better to have too much information at this stage than too little.
- Once you have finished answering the above questions, create a PDF with your answers. If you are working in Word or some other word processing software, export a PDF. If you are writing by hand, scan in your pages and create a multipage PDF using either Acrobat Pro or Preview. (Both are available in the lab.) This PDF will need to be submitted via email.
GRADING
- Submit a PDF of your answers via Blackboard – 5 points
///////// AUTOMATIC FAILURE
- PDF file does not open
- Missing required elements