Artist The Working
To promote your art, you need to learn how to write about it briefly and clearly, says our columnist LAURA BOSWELL
Are you a natural when it comes to writing? All artists will need to do a little writing at some point, even if it is just a quick post on social media. The way you write can make the difference between catching your audience’s attention or losing it.
Here are a few tips I have learned along the way. Firstly, be yourself.
It is important to relax and let your writing be authentic. If you keep it simple and honest, you are most of the way there. No need to worry about developing a writing style; you have that already, even if you don’t know it.
You may need to polish it up a little, but that is easily done once you have your initial writing finished. Read your work aloud to highlight any issues like awkward sentences or over-repeated words that need correcting. Follow that up with careful proofreading to check for spelling, grammar and typos. If you can rope in some help with these checks, even better.
Writing needs to be tailored to fit the task. Think about why you need to write and plan for that goal before you start. For marketing, social media and captions on a website, keep writing as short and simple as possible.
Try imagining you are writing to a scatty best friend on a small postcard with a fat pen: a reader in need of brevity, wit, and clear information.
For longer pieces such as an artist’s statement or a description of your work for an exhibition, picture someone entirely new to the information with limited time.
This will help you to avoid jargon, tell the whole story, and stay on point. Imaginary readers really help in this context; they keep it personal and take the fear out of having to write.
A great deal of your writing will be skimmed by your readers. This is a harsh truth, but a real one. When you are sharing important information, such as details of an exhibition, never make people hunt for the information. The dates, times and address need to be front and centre. The same goes for your contact details and website. Better to repeat the information several times than expect people to navigate to a new page on a website or hunt through a leaflet to find what they need. Lastly, if you have a word count, as I do here, do your best to meet it as closely as possible. www.lauraboswell.co.uk
All artists need to write at some point, even if it is just a quick social media post