How to communicate effectively
Penny Harris reveals her tips for improving your writing and communication skills, which will help you to reach new followers and, hopefully, collectors of your work
Penny Harris reveals her tips for improving your writing and communication skills, which will help you to reach new followers and, hopefully, collectors of your work
At Parker Harris we meet artists on a daily basis – at galleries, in their studios and now, mostly online. After the introductions, the conversation usually kicks off with ‘Tell me about your work’, which can produce extraordinary replies! Even the most articulate and accomplished artist, who has made perfect sense up until this moment, suddenly adopts a whole new language that results in a cryptic description that any man on the street, let alone an arts professional, would be hard-pushed to understand.
Talking about your work isn’t easy: most artists find it very difficult to write and speak about their practice. If you feel like it’s a challenge, be assured you are not alone! But to succeed in your career it is a skill that you should hone, so I hope these tips will help you along the way.
Communication is key
If you feel intimidated to talk about your work, remind yourself that people want to hear about it – there is an appetite to understand process, the source of materials and the underlying concept. Being able to talk about your practice opens up a window to the work and, in some instances, can make it more accessible. We don’t advocate dumbing down your work or spoon-feeding viewers, but there is a degree of peripheral information around your practice that can really enhance the experience of looking at art. Help your audiences to understand the underlying ideas. For instance, if you are a landscape painter, you should be able to explain briefly why you choose to work where you do and how you paint. Believe me, viewers will be interested! And it will enable them to connect with the work, which is what you are ultimately trying to achieve.
Hone your elevator pitch
On a basic level, being able to summarise your work for ‘elevator chat’ is really important. This is a quick summary of your practice that should include simple facts: is your work large or small scale, is it figurative or abstract, does it have a theme, what are the materials you use and what inspires you? It’s useful to put things in this order so that the person you are speaking to can envisage the work before you start talking about the more abstract concepts of your work. As an arts professional, this quick summary of your practice will tell me everything I need to know – I will have a picture in mind of the sort of work and practice that you have. Don’t be frightened of referencing other artists’ work if they are similar or if they help contextualise your practice.
Listen and learn
The best way is to read as much as you can of other artists, critics and collectors, via print and online resources, such as podcasts and blogs. Good reviews of exhibitions and artists will help you see how it’s done and the tone that you should adopt.
Another thing you can do is talk about your work to friends and family, then ask them to summarise what you said. You’ll soon find out whether someone understood you or not! Talking to other artists and arts professionals about your work is also a very good way of clarifying your ideas.
Adapt to your audience
Another consideration is the platform that you are writing for and each channel’s specific audience. The text you use on your website is not going to be the same as the posts you write on Twitter or Instagram – think about who you are talking to and adjust the way in which you communicate with them to pitch at the right level. Spending a bit of time really thinking about the individual audiences, how and why they are going to engage with you will help you write the appropriate text.
Get your applications in
Another situation in which you’ll need to explain your work and process is when applying for a commission, bursary or opportunity. This could be a key factor in the decision-making process and a well-written proposal will always win out. The common issue with the responses is always around clarity. Rather like the tip for summarising your work, think of this as a series of answers to the questions what, how and why. What you make, how you make it and why you make it should be answered in equal parts. So often we see quantities of text declaring a ‘passion’ for something but the artist never actually says what it is they create and how they do it. Bear in mind that you are speaking to a more informed audience, so you can go into much greater detail.