This is part of a speech I gave today at a forum in Concord NH (Creative Work Opportunities for All: New Hampshire's Statewide Forum on Careers in the Arts for People with Disabilities). I was invited by Bobbie Herron, Interim Director of VSA arts of New Hampshire, who is a wonderful woman I'm very grateful to have met! You can find out more about VSA art here:
http://www.vsarts.org/ and more about the New Hampshire chapter here:
http://www.vsarts.org/x321.xml
Putting Self-Promotion in Perspective
When I first started teaching workshops on self-promotion, I tended to focus the WHAT and HOW—WHAT it is, and HOW to do it.
More and more, I found I had to also talk about the WHY. People quickly get the WHAT, and HOW was a little harder, but still accessible.
But people really get hung up on the WHY.
The simple reason why is, no one else will do it for you. Galleries will do a little, but they aren't able to do what YOU could do. Even published authors find they have to step up to the plate—their publishers won't do it all.
No one else will do with as much passion, as much dedication, as much authenticity as you. You may end up so rich and famous you have to hire a publicist. But the actual energy/story/material will have to come from you.
But the big reason why is more complicated.
It has something to do with our human nature.
As an artist, I think a lot about what it is to be human. I believe there are a handful of thing that sets us apart from other living creatures.
One is our creativity. We make things.
We make stuff. (gardens, foods, buildings, paintings, clothing, sculpture).
We make music (sing, dance, play instruments, whistle)
Some people make things better (they make the world safer, healthier, happier).
But even these are just variations of the ultimate thing we make:
We make stories. We are the animal who tells stories.
We tell stories about everything. We tell stories to make us happy. We make stories to get out of trouble, like my 14-year-old son did several times last week.
We tell stories so we won't be afraid. We tell stories about how the world works. We tell stories to make sense of the world. We tell stories about how the universe began, about how we fell in love, about how we came to this place we are now, and about where we will go next.
What is the ultimate story?
YOU are the ultimate story.
As artists, what we make, how we make it and why we make it, is the ultimate story.
We all have a story to tell about our art. In fact, our art IS the story.
Self-promotion is simply telling this ultimate, unique story about ourselves to others.
It's the process of getting your story about your art out into the world.
Why should we tell that story?
Because it is why people will care about buying our work.
The story is what will create the connection between us and our audience.
Corollary: We also tell ourselves stories. We tell stories to make sense of our lives.
We tell stories that make us heroes, but we also tell stories that hold us back from being heroes.
When I listen to artists, the biggest obstacle they face is not lack of money, or lack of talent, or lack of ability, or lack of knowledge or lack of opportunity.
Their biggest obstacle is the stories they tell themselves that hold them back. (note: Bobbie says all these stories start with, "yeah, but...")
Look at whether the story you tell yourself is moving you forward, or holding you back.
Learn to believe in yourself.
Learn to believe your art MATTERS.
The second thing about being human is, we have two powerful desires driving us:
The desire to belong, to be accepted, to be just like everyone else
and the desire to be different—to be seen as our unique selves.
Artists are unique because we see things and hear things and understand things a little differently than others. We make art as a way to share that perception, that interpretation with others.
Our art makes it possible to share that different perspective with the world.
I believe we can be happiest when we embrace and use what makes us different to enrich the world.
The story of us, of who we are, and what we do, what we make and why, OUR ART, is the ultimate story we can tell the world.
And we should share that, because it makes the world better.
The world needs your art. Why?
Because the world is filled with hate, and terror, and loneliness, and sadness and despair.
Art is the antithesis of that. Art heals the world. Art offers hope, and beauty and insight and understanding and tolerance and joy.
So go make something today.
And then come and tell us about it.
