Category Archives: TIPS & TOOLS: Resources for Artists

Internet for Artists: Why We Only Recommend Two Website Services

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Steve Lambert's website, created with WordPress
Steve Lambert’s website, visitsteve.com, was built in WordPress.

There are dozens of services and software to use in building your web portfolio, but Creative Capital’s Internet for Artists (IFA) team only recommends two.

It’s not because we’re unaware. We research every tool we come across and we’re told about them all the time. Still, we recommend that participants in our workshops use either Squarespace or their own installation of WordPress software (not WordPress.com). Nothing else.

We have good reason for only recommending these two solutions and we think you will agree with our reasoning below. However, if your site is currently serving your needs and goals well, we are not necessarily encouraging you to immediately rebuild with these better options. Just know that these options are available when the time comes.

There are many factors we weigh when making these recommendations. Here’s a few high points:

No. 1: We want you to have flexibility.

Many artists we have worked with are unable to maintain their own web presence because they have no control, no support, and no where to turn but to a “webmaster” who has disappeared. They’re essentially stuck and we don’t want that to ever happen to you. Continue reading →

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A Page from Our Handbook: Building Your Internet Presence

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Every few weeks, we’ll be posting tips straight from the Professional Development Program’s Artist’s Tools Handbook—a 200+ page resource we give to Core Workshop attendees, written by PDP Core Leaders Jackie Battenfield and Aaron Landsman. The book covers everything from writing to budgeting, websites to fundraising, elevator pitches to work samples. Similarly, each post will be packed with practical ideas to make your life run more smoothly, leaving you even more time for your creative practice. Learn more about our PDP workshops here.

Building Your Internet Presence
Because the Internet is contemporary culture’s primary means for communication and information dissemination, having an active online presence is essential for artists. The web continues to rapidly evolve, so what follows are some basic ways to think about building and refining how you represent yourself and your work online.

Keep in mind that more is not always better. Some artists use nothing but a Facebook fan page and Twitter feed as their online presence and do just fine, while others have six blogs, three websites and many social media outlets, but it’s hard to understand what they do. What’s most important is for you to find the best way to communicate the clarity, force and excellence of your work and put that online.  Continue reading →

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A Page From Our Handbook: Creating Your Artist Resume

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Every few weeks, we’ll be posting tips straight from the Professional Development Program’s Artist’s Tools Handbook—a 200+ page resource we give to Core Workshop attendees, written by PDP Core Leaders Jackie Battenfield and Aaron Landsman. The book covers everything from writing to budgeting, websites to fundraising, elevator pitches to work samples. Similarly, each post will be packed with practical ideas to make your life run more smoothly, leaving you even more time for your creative practice. Learn more about our PDP workshops here.

Resume Basics: An artist’s resume is a listing of your professional experiences, achievements and credentials, organized into categories for easy scanning by the reader. A resume lists the facts that place you in your discipline and reflects where you have already received support.

Length: A resume can be from 1-3 pages depending on your experience and who will receive it.

Best Practices:

  1. Maintain a list of everything you have done in your career (a Curriculum Vitae or C.V.). It may not be the document you distribute, but it will reflect your entire professional history, so it’s an important document to keep.
  2. Unlike a C.V., your resume is a fluid document that can and should be tailored for a particular opportunity. You may also have different kinds of resumes: one will be shaped for exhibition/performance/publication opportunities, while another may be used to apply for jobs or freelance situations, or to stress your activities as an educator, producer, curator or critic.
  3. As you accumulate professional experiences, begin to eliminate lesser listings. Choose only the most important and title the category “selected.” This alerts the reader to the fact that you have done more than what’s listed. Continue reading →

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The Journey From PDF to Book: How To Find the Best E-Publishing Service

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eteam, Buzz Cut

Our friends at Eyebeam asked alums eteam (2009 Emerging Fields) to write a blog post detailing their experiences with e-book publishing. We wanted to repost their findings here to help others who may be going through their own research process.

In the beginning it seemed so easy, or at least so much easier than editing a video. Easier in terms of technological and space requirements. But as it is with pretty much everything we do, things don’t turn out the way they appear at first. And writing a book was no different. Instead of three weeks, it took three months for a pocket book of 58 pages to be written, composed and finally printed.

And this is where video and printing share very similar qualities. Getting the digital file from our editing tool into a “permanent” form was equally challenging for print as it was for video, with it’s codecs, frame sizes and output formats. So when we finally thought, “that’s it, just make a pdf and send it off to the printer,” we were faced with reconciling our vision for the book with the limitations of our default print-on-demand choice, LULU. We have no idea why we only thought of LULU initially, but we had used its service before and were satisfied with its result. Only this time we weren’t looking for bright white pages and optimum color reproductions, but for a simple pocket book in a paperback format, 5″ x 8″ with black text and b/w images, on off-white, natural or cream paper, perfect bound. Nothing fancy, just the basics. Continue reading →

How to Raise Funds for Your Socially Engaged Project, Part 3: Funding from Other Sources

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Stephanie Bleyer presenting at the 2013 Creative Capital Grantee OrientationStephanie Bleyer presenting “Fundraising 101″ at the 2013 Creative Capital Grantee Orientation

Last December I shared my tips for finding foundations and philanthropists to support your socially engaged art projects, and in November I shared tips for writing and submitting the proposal. Today’s post will cover other ways to source funding for your project.

Individual Giving
I’ve yet to meet an artist who is comfortable asking for money. If it makes your skin crawl, here’s an easy alternative: When you meet a potential donor, ask them to invite some friends over and host a gathering for you at their house or office. You can help them organize a salon discussing the issues in your project, you can show a screening of your film in progress or a preview of your next installation. At the event, you do not have to ask their friends for money. Be prepared to stand up and present your project and, more importantly, the issue you hope to affect. This is called a “friendraiser.” Collect cards and follow up with these new “friends” after the event is over.

If you’re on the festival circuit or you’re touring a show, take advantage of each city you’re visiting and find someone to host a gathering while you’re in town. I prioritize getting my clients into festivals in second-home communities like Palm Springs, Fire Island, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, the Hamptons and the Berkshires. Once we’re in, we work our network to find someone to host an intimate gathering for the filmmaker. If you want to be even more focused, target second-home communities that will be most interested in your issue. For example: if the project is about the Chinese-LGBT community, I’ll try to set up parties in the most popular second-home communities for Chinese-LGBT. This may seem a no-brainer, but over and again folks I work with are missing this opportunity. Continue reading →

A Page from Our Handbook: Best Practices for Artist Work Samples

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Welcome to the third post of our series “A Page From Our Handbook.” Every few weeks we’ll be posting tips straight from the Professional Development Program’s Artist’s Tools Handbook, a 200+ page resource we give to Core Workshop attendees, written by PDP Core Leaders Jackie Battenfield and Aaron Landsman. The book covers everything from writing to budgeting, websites to fundraising, elevator pitches to work samples. Similarly, each post will be packed with practical ideas to make your life run more smoothly, leaving you even more time for your creative practice. Learn more about our PDP workshops and webinars here.

What exactly is a work sample? A work sample is a representation or document of your work. It introduces your art to the world in the form of still images, manuscript excerpts, sound and/or video clips.

Length: The length or size of your work sample will depend on where you’re sending it. Organizations accepting work samples often specify the format in which they would like to receive your samples. Read application guidelines carefully, and ask for clarification if you need it.

Some general tips:

  1. Get a second opinion, and then a third opinion. Have your work samples regularly reviewed by other art professionals. They can help clarify how successfully your images represent the best qualities of your work, identify a compelling excerpt from your novel, or capture the essence of a time-based piece.
  2. High quality is essential. You’ll often have less than a minute to impress a panel, presenter or other professional with your work samples. This means that budgeting for high-quality documentation is a must. In dance, installation, theater and performance art, it may be all that remains of your work after the show closes. Continue reading →

A Page from Our Handbook: Writing About Your Work

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Welcome to the second post of our series “A Page From Our Handbook.” Every few weeks we’ll be posting tips straight from the Professional Development Program’s Artist’s Tools Handbook, a 200+ page resource we give to Core Workshop attendees, written by PDP Core Leaders Jackie Battenfield and Aaron Landsman. The book covers everything from writing to budgeting, websites to fundraising, elevator pitches to work samples. Similarly, each post will be packed with practical ideas to make your life run more smoothly, leaving you even more time for your creative practice. Learn more about our PDP workshops and webinars here.

Writing About Your Work
Many of the materials you produce on behalf of your work—from artist statements to media releases to proposals to simple emails—involve a good bit of writing. In some cases you are writing about a project or series that you haven’t yet made. This is daunting, we know.

What you need to know in a nutshell is this: writing about your work is essential, but you can find a way to make it great, useful, more fun and easier. Remember that you can always get help—hire a professional, barter for services, or ask a colleague or friend. The sooner you start, the better off you’ll be.

A General Tip Regarding Tone
Artists often fall into one of two traps that can be easily avoided: Aggressive writing is language that claims to know what the viewer’s response is going to be (i.e. “the viewer will be forced to reconsider his notions of community, war, poverty, and the color “blue”). The great thing about art is that you can never quite predict how it’s going to affect someone. If you try to override the reader’s subjective response, they will trust you less. Passive writing is when you as the artist are not clear and direct about your own intentions (i.e., “I seek to explore some of the seemingly myriad possible connections between art and the color blue”). Neither of these examples answers the essential questions of what and why, nor do they help the reader get to know your work on their own terms. Instead, write directly and assertively (i.e. “I am making a series of paintings about the abstract and literal connections between war, poverty and the color blue in American history”). Continue reading →

How to Raise Funds for Your Socially Engaged Project, Part 2: Writing the Proposal

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Still from the film American Promise, which will premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January. The author, Stephanie Bleyer, is producing a transmedia engagement campaign for the film.

Last month, I shared my tips for finding foundations and philanthropists to support your socially engaged art projects. This month’s post will cover writing and submitting the proposal, and what to do after you get the grant (we know you will).

Writing The Proposal
Here are just a few generalities to keep in mind when you start writing:

  1. Don’t say it’s urgent. It’s probably not. Unless you’re a few dollars away from curing cancer, no need to use the “now or never” card.
  2. For the most part, don’t write in first-person singular. Exceptions include individual fellowship applications.
  3. Don’t say that all you want to do is raise awareness. If that’s your goal, don’t ask for engagement funding.
  4. Save the art-speak for your next book. If your proposal is so muddled with art-speak that the funder can’t understand what you actually propose to do, you’re not going to get funded.
  5. Personalize the proposal. Don’t submit a template. Show them you’ve done your homework and that you know exactly what they fund and why you are a perfect fit for them.
  6. If you have to fill out an online form, copy and paste all of the questions from the form into a Word document so you can work off-line and not risk losing your master draft. Continue reading →

A Page From Our Handbook: Elevator Pitch

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Welcome to the first post of our series “A Page From Our Handbook.” Every few weeks we’ll be posting tips straight from the Professional Development Program’s Artist’s Tools Handbook, a 200+ page resource we give to Core Workshop attendees, written by PDP Core Leaders Jackie Battenfield and Aaron Landsman. The book covers everything from writing to budgeting, websites to fundraising, elevator pitches to work samples. Similarly, each post will be packed with practical ideas to make your life run more smoothly, leaving you even more time for your creative practice.

Learn more about our PDP workshops and webinars here.

So what is an elevator pitch?
The term “elevator pitch” comes from the advertising world. It is a pitch that sells your idea or product to someone in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Imported to the milieu of the arts, it is a brief oral statement about you and your work. It can be general or project specific. Once you hone your elevator pitch, you can use it at parties, meetings, networking events, or any other situation where you have a brief opportunity to get someone interested in your work or your project.

Length
Fifteen seconds to one minute.

Getting started
Jot down three basic points you want to get across in response to the questions, “What is your work like?” and “What do you do?” Now spend some time figuring out how to make those points in a way that you feel good about, in one minute. Don’t forget to include obvious details like the title and medium of your project, as well as the juicier stuff like why this project is so important to you and what it’s really about. If you’re having trouble, start with the most basic, concrete details—is it a series of paintings, a dance piece, an installation made of wood chips and string? Continue reading →

How to Raise Funds For Your Socially Engaged Project, Part I: Finding Foundations & Philanthropists

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The author, Stephanie Bleyer, is working with Creative Capital grantee Matthew Moore (2008 Visual Arts) to plan and fundraise for his Digital Farm Collective project.

I support artists across disciplines creating social advocacy artwork. What ties them all together is that they are trying to use their creativity to affect change. I have raised millions of dollars for my clients’ production budgets and engagement campaigns––without the help of crowdfunding, which from my experience, can take over your life. In this three-part blog post, I will tell you how I do it.

A Note About Fiscal Sponsorship
If you don’t have 501c(3) status, you’ll need a fiscal sponsor to receive most grants. If you are unclear whether a sponsor is necessary, call the foundation. I once won a $400k grant for a client, which I applied for through a fiscal sponsor. I later found out that fiscal sponsorship was unnecessary for this grant.  As a result, I lost three percent of the grant to the fiscal sponsor.

In general, be prepared to turn over three to eight percent of each grant to your fiscal sponsor. Having said that, you can (and should) negotiate their percentage. Some will serve as simple pass-throughs; others will do your taxes, manage your books, review your contracts and provide backend support. My absolute favorite fiscal sponsor is Sustainable Markets Foundation. Fractured Atlas is also a good one.

Note: Some government grants will not fund a fiscally sponsored project. Continue reading →