Would I follow me?

 As mentioned here, I am have been pondering things like my creative brand and social media platforms and marketing and....all the stuff I struggle with. I am however committed to working my way through things and understanding it all better, so the other day I sat down to assess my Instagram account.

And one of the funniest things I wrote down was "Would I follow me???".

It came about because I was thinking about what I am looking for when I follow an Instagram account as it is one of the questions that Kim asks in the workshop. For me I think it is a combination of things:

• The art work and style have to appeal to me
• I like the look of an account to be consistent - that sense of when I go there I will find the sort of things I like on a regular basis
• I don't enjoy too much irrelevant information or imagery - food, travel, people etc
• However it is nice to have those occasional moments of life outside the art revealed.
• I like to see the person, the maker on occasions
• I like to see the process as well as the outcome
• I like to see close up details of things and the whole
• I don't like to see  a heap of promotion for events, mostly because living in a small country town I am unlikely to be able to see any of them!

I was surprised by the number of things that fed into an account's appeal and I wondered how my own account would stack up against my collection of 'criteria'.

And as I imagined, I was a bit disappointed and not entirely sure that I would follow me at all!

The first full screen from my Insta account (on my phone which is where I mostly look at Insta) when I did this check, had some book-ets, a close up of paper, some jewellery a stack of books, a promotion of the garage sale, a silver wire nest, promotion for Libris Awards, some cards, a black and white shot of some artwork, more promotion this time for for the pop up show in Scotland, some earrings, and black and white photo.

So I didn't give myself many marks for consistency, lack of promotion, or images of the artist or works in progress. And personally I just really don't like yellow and it felt 'ick' to see it on my page!

The next full screen of images was a bit better. The colour palette was more consistent, there was a photo of me, a bit of promotion and a real sense of the exhibition Hame which was the main focus at this time. Also a couple of random domestic arty moments which may or may not work.

Going further back, things were a bit hotch potchy, but the palette was soft and soothing, a mix of my work and others, and a lovely domestic moment (the vases) which seemed to complement the arty things.

I went back one more screen and the colours and paper-based nature of things worked well, the artists' books and the cards. I imagine the pax was for the International Day of Peace. The earrings sort of stood out a bit as different. I liked the pop of gold leaf int eh Circles of Concern.

My learnings from this were to really consider what I posted - both the why and the what - and to see if I could get the mix right of consistency with variations and interest, colour groupings that pleased the eye, and to use promotion very carefully. Especially when the colours don't suit me! I noticed some folk would have their art for a show on the front and the last image in the carousel would be the promotional image. The text would talk about the exhibition or show or whatever it was, but the promotional material wasn't the number 1 thing.

I am also now testing and trialling reels and stories - making short videos from images and adding music here and there. It is all a bit hit and miss at the moment, but a worthwhile thing to pursue I think.

The process is also making me think about, and try to understand, what I do where (like here on this blog) and what I do on Insta and what the website is trying to do and how they all fit together.  Fun times!

Bits of teaching, marketing and sharing

 Life as a creative, as an artist, is full of all sorts of weird things that are tangential to the making, yet make for a full and arty life.

I count amongst these the work I do researching, planning, thinking and prepping for teaching. Recently I wanted to update some thoughts about how to progress work when it feels stalled; or where you think you might have got the perfect solution really quickly. I came across some of my learnings from a workshop six years ago and refreshed them, added to them and printed them. 

 

And as I so often  do - I reckon I got the its v it's thing wrong again here! Why oh why doesn't it have an apostrophe for the ownership bit??? A do-over won't hurt. Sigh.

Fixed it!

And today I got to use the cards as I taught another workshop on Building Narrative in Artists' Books. It was such a joy and delight! It's a small group - only four folk - and we get to go deep, think hard, and explore a lot.

I get to teach in Kim Herringe's beautiful space The Studio here in Maleny, with so many lovely things around us how could we not be inspired?

One of the things I teach is about how to read an artists' book and we have some lovely, lovely examples to dive into.

A few weeks ago we did a short evening workshop with Kim on Marketing and Social Media for Creatives. It's never easy for me to do the marketing thing, but Kim offered sensible and clear ideas and information about how to go about it.  And I think I can do some of it!  It was so good in fact that I started my homework the very next morning!

And to share some small good news...the State Library of Queensland recently purchased my small Grief is  Stone book-ets. In fact they bought two of the editions so that one could go in the Education Kit to share with visitors, school children and the like. I am thrilled to know they have a public home; and will also get the chance to be shared and talked about more.

So I packed them up and posted them!

An artistic life is full of this and that, and oh what fun it can be.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?” 

Lawrence Durrell

As I work away on my book of silences, this quote popped out as having real meaning to me this morning. 

My sense is that this is really quite a profound way of looking at and understanding our existence and our world.  It really took me aback to think of things this way.

I daresay that words have equal impact - of course they do; but perhaps he suggests that we hear those and understand them and that they are available to most of us to interpret. Of course, they can be layered and confusing and misinterpreted too!

But with this thought I think he suggests that the silences around us are ripe for misunderstanding and our ability to interpret and possibly translate silences; to fully understand the subtle messages they reverberate out into the world, is a kind of superpower. An ability that elevates our understandings.

Silence can be understood so differently between people - for one it is a pause, a moment to gather thoughts; to another it appears as rejection and disagreement.

I have been gifted so many amazing silences for this book and from within them I am discerning so many more silences than I would ever have imagined knowing for myself...

Practising calligraphic silences, 2015.