No, you must help me.
I am sure you can. All you need to do is answer a question.
I need your help because I cannot see clearly what is in front of my eyes: I have been staring at it for too long. It happens to all of us: we become blind to our own qualities and flaws.
And let me tell you straightaway: I will return the favor. If you read to the end of this post and write your advice in a comment, I will answer any question you have about your website. All you need to do is ask.
So – let me explain.
Who do you blog for?
It all started because I never go on vacation in the summer. I try to learn something new instead.
(I do take vacations at other times. Last spring I went to the USA, lucky me).
This summer I planned to take a blogging course. The course asked me several questions that I kept thinking about, even after I answered them here and here. Was my ideal reader (that’s you) really a more perfect version of myself? And did I honestly write to connect with my artist friends?
Yes and yes.
But didn’t I also talk about getting a wider audience? (Hello, who would not want that? Right).
I realized that a question was missing.
Before thinking about my ideal reader I should actually think about my ideal blog.
Being nothing if not impulsive, I had plunged in headlong into the blogosphere in 2009 and liked it there. And stayed. But why? What is the purpose of my blog?
Had I not acted as a journalist (albeit non-paid) again instead of as the owner of a small art store?
Were the amount of hours I spent blogging in any way justifiable? Did they, say, at least result in four figure online sales every year?
No, they didn’t.
Doing shows and art fairs did.
So should I not reconsider the time spent on online activities and start putting my entire focus on the Real World?
(I am theorizing here for I love you, my online friend, just as much as I love my real life friends, who by the way never read my blog.)
Who do you sell your art to?
It was clear to me that I needed different information. It seemed clear that I had NOT done certain things, or may be I had been doing TOO MANY? Out went the blogging course.
I started to spend a lot of time looking into online marketing – at all the obvious places: Copybloggers‘ Art Marketing For Smart People, The Internet Business Mastery Academy, Artists Helping Artists- which by the way has a great weekly podcast. Leslie Saeta of the podcast gave me a very useful review of my website. Leslie, who has a marketing background, told me that for customers it was pretty hard to find how and where and even if they could buy any of my art online.
Oops. She was right too. As soon as she told me I knew.
Funny for a writing teacher who teaches people to think of the READER all the time, I had not been thinking of THE CUSTOMER while writing my blog.
So in between things I have been making a lot of changes to my website already.
Finally I found Cory Huff’s e-course at The Abundant Artist. His site is pretty unaesthetic for a marketeer who caters to artists, but he was an online marketing specialist before and his reasoning is sound. Huff ‘helps artists sell more art’ and ‘wants to dispell the starving artist’s myth’.
His 8-part course is straightforward an packed with practical tips about SEO, mailing lists etcetera – all the things that come with being a professional artist in 2011.
I get all that.
It is the very first assignment of the very first course that I cannot seem to do.
Which is: find out what makes your art unique.
Smart man, Huff.
He tells you to think first and act later.
Ha!
Define your USP and then build your website around it.
I did it the other way round.
Nevertheless, here I am.
Stuck.
This is what I have already done: I have focused more. I am not illustrating a lot, so I have scratched it out.
Of all my activities it is the mixed media images I like doing most. I can still do portraits without mentioning them in a tagline. So mixed media should be the core. And although I do Utrecht pieces, I plan to be making art about women’s lives most of the time.
I came up with ‘mixed media art about women’ as my focus.
I know, boring. It says nothing about the texts. Or about irony. Or compassion.
Cory told me to ‘dig a layer deeper.’
‘Kitty – this is a great start. I would suggest you go a layer or two deeper. What is the purpose or intended purpose of your work? Do you do it for social change? Justice? Humor? For example, one artist that I worked with did a lot of portraits, so I asked her these questions, and eventually it came out that she was most interested in helping people discover their smile. That was her artistic goal, it’s what made her tick, and it’s what her audience responds to as well, so she calls her work “The Art of Smiles.” I think there’s a tag line in there somewhere about portrait work.
There are lots of people doing mixed media work, and I would venture that there are even a fair number of people doing mixed media work about women. The thing that makes it unique is the element that you add.‘
So here’s the question – how would you describe my mixed media artwork to someone who’d never seen it, so that he’d get it?
Remember, I will glady help you back!
Take a minute to write your answer in a comment. I will be really grateful. And if there is any feedback you need on your own work or website, just ask.
You may not know this, but I am pretty good at analysing and selling other people’s things.
Thanks!
Tags: art marketing, help kitty find her usp, usp
Hey Kitty
They are all questions that we all wrestle with, who is our target audience, what does your customer look like, even my 8 year old niece was at it at the week end, asking me who buys my art. I am always quite vague in my answers, is it fear or is that part of the magic? Will it help you sell more work online if you can accurately describe your customers, I don’t know. But its never a bad idea to think about who we are selling to.
Knowing what you’re usp is quite important. So back to you, how to describe your work – quirky, thought provoking, I would say your journalistic background adds something too, analytical is another word, your work its seems to me, looks beyond the obvious to see something deeper.
I don’t know if that helps, if I think of anything else I will come back.
Now its your turn, how would you describe my work to someone who’d never seen it?
cx
Hey Claire, thanks! I think if you have found a few good words to describe what you do, you can then think up a tagline to add to your website. The tagline should be surprising and different and it should not necessarily describe what you do exactly, but it should point in the right direction and it should make people curious. It is in a way a conversation starter.
Your work is all about paper cuttings of birds and you use old maps to cut them from. They are beautiful but that is not interesting for a tagline – because people first have to go see them before they will judge for themselves.
To me the old maps give your work a classical feeling, and also a feeling of things gone by, ethereal, lost in a way and yet partly retrieved. But only just. The paper itself and the cuttings are both fragile, which also leads to the same sort of feeling of things delicate and almost lost but saved.
To put that feeling into words I would use a line like
‘cutting free the souls of birds’ or something along that line.
Would it make people wonder and go to your website?
I would.
Btw, to make a tagline work the last syllable is best emphasized.
Marie-Jose left a comment on Twitter that I am copying here.
Hi Kitty, hier een poging voor je blog-vraag: ‘multi-layer muses’. Veel succes met je toch al mooie site/blog/art!
I love the alliteration! Kitty Kilian’s multi-layered muses ;-)
Multi-layered is an interesting way to describe it..
Thanks!
Claire has articulated her thoughts just as I hoped I might to : ) Quirky and analytical are too key features of your work. You manage to translate not just how the subject looks but what the subjects thought process is too. By using words with your collages it helps the viewer get that added perspective that they may not have thought of if left to their own preconceived ideas. So I guess I would call your work insightful too. Come to think of it I think your work is not just quirky .. but edgy in the sense that you’re not afraid of challenging the norms or what is considered politically correct in some cultures. eg. the pic of the conservative looking lady of yesteryear who we see sticking her finger up at us beyond the border of her photo frame. Your work is both beautiful and non conformist all at once! The element of non conformist is fantastic because it will distinguish you from other collage artists. When you created the picture of Jolie I had total confidence that I would like it because of your ability to choose lovely colour combinations bu also because I knew it would be something I could never find anywhere else. .. hope this helps Kitty!
Thanks Chantal!
You actually remind me of something I had forgotten.. I do like to think of those quotes I use as people’s secret thoughts. The things we think but never say out loud, or only in private maybe. Inner thoughts. Not always politically correct, true, I like to provoke a little but just for the fun of it.
Secret thoughts.. yes! A pity I don’t just paint, otherwise I could say ‘Painting people’s secret thoughts’.
I need to think about this..
Thanks Kitty, I like the idea of cutting free the souls of birds and what you mention about capturing the ethereal nature of the paper and the cutting. I will think on that.
Back to you.
Chantal is right, the non conformist and provocative nature of your work is what makes your work individual and different, what about ‘capturing secret thoughts’, as that’s what I always think we are doing when creating art – capturing a moment and saving for ever.
In fact I might use that for myself – capturing the souls of birds in paper.
You’ve certainly got us all thinking Kitty, thank you.
Yes Claire, ‘capturing the souls of birds in paper’ is perfect for you! Because it tells you what you do – cutting paper birds – and adds an emotional direction plus the delicacy of it all.
A pity it does not end on an emphasized syllable. Try if you can manage that, too. If not, tant pis.
As for me – capturing people’s private thoughts is too vague. That can be done in any medium.
Also – my fans are usually women, so I can talk to them. ‘Painting your private/secret thoughts’ would be OK I guess if I were just painting. Or how about ‘painting our private thoughts?’ as if I were talking to my sisters..
Hm..
Ik lees je blog soms hoor.
Your “USP” is that you don have to cater to a certain group with a “USP” because your work is consistent in quality yet versatile enough that it appeals to a broad audience. I may not always be 100% enthusiastic, but whenever I see one of your things I can see work has gone into it, because they’re pleasant to look at as a rule, fit well in almost any space, and are really funny in a certain way as well.
Thank you Frits! Son of ‘the artist who does not need a USP’.
Your art combines compelling photographs with witty sayings and lovely color combinations. They each make you think.
Who do I sell my art to? I have sold some to friends. I have sold some to friends of friends, and also a few coworkers. but the most interesting source of sales that I have had have been from forums I am a member of. One is political and the other is about bicycling!
So come visit me now.
And what do you want me to think about, Mimi?
Oh, i figured you would do the same for me as I did for you!
OK! I will come over to your website ;-)
Oef….have been stuck myself on this question for a year now….i’ll try a little brainstorm:
mixed media art about…
…undiscovered women
…inner realities
…friction
…frictioned females
…real women
…real women released
…old fashioned women dreaming of a modern life
…being real
…talki
art of irony
art of truthfullness
art of having ones heart on ones sleeve
…
…
Ha ha, one’s heart on one’s sleeve!
I like the brainstorm, Ellen. Brainstorms are good.
Friction.. yes.. there must be some dissatisfaction or conflict, otherwise nothing is happening in a mini-story.
You also come back to inner things and reality. I.e. the things we really think.
‘Painting women’s thoughts’
‘Painting people’s private thoughts’ – 3 p’s!
‘Mixed media art about real women’ (less interesting)
Thanks!
Ha Kitty!
my god ja, USP…
Heb cursus ‘schrijven voor internet’ gevolgd aan de hogeschool, en dat
ging ook over USP, en dat dan ook nog vertalen in UB (user benefit), kreun
grrr… ik ga niet vertellen hoe lang ik al bezig ben met de homepage van
mijn website :(, zucht wat doe en wil ik op deez aardkloot?
Marketingtaal, heel leerzaam, en wat een goeie mooie poëtische reacties op
je vraag! Maar die taal is ook een mal, de werkelijkheid is vaak niet zo
in een kader te dwingen of kristalliseert zich pas uit na een proces, en
dat is vooral zo als je een creatief beroep hebt natuurlijk. Is niks
nieuws voor jou, je schreef ook dat het een soort trigger moet zijn, het
is omdat ik zelf weerstand voel bij die marketingmal en er zelf mee
worstel. Hoe in taal te vatten wat je werk uniek maakt en wat het de
kijker ‘opbrengt’ (fuck off)? Show, don’t tell?
We ontkomen er niet aan, aan de taal.
Op mijn koelkast prijkt jouw ‘quiche je niche’. Humor, relativering,
eigenzinnigheid, en dat het ook gewoon leuk en lekker is om je eigen ding
te doen: dat is wat het mij zegt. En wat de burger weer moed geeft.
Je werk: voor mij is het een soort ‘playing comment’, met humor en ook met
veel liefde (daar heb je dat woord alweer). Liefde en aandacht voor de
omgeving, de omstandigheden, voor wie we zijn geworden, en tegelijk een
kijk daarop die me doet glimlachen, het is net of je even met een
helicopterview ons mensjes bezig ziet, zo van ‘achhhh jaaa kijk nou’.
smiled second thougts -in mixed media
pictures on inner talk
pictures with a view
beloved pictures
Groetje! Liesbeth
Thank you so much for thinking along, Liesbeth! If I really disconnect myself from my own work/website.. I think what I really want to achieve and what most of you have also hinted at.. is make art that makes us (women, people) smile about ourselves. Or feel a bit better, because really deep down we are all the same and our thoughts and lives resemble those of many others.
But it sounds so pompous to state it that way.
‘Art that makes women smile about themselves.’
And may be smile is not close enough either..
There is some consolation to be had. That at least is what I would like to happen.
Yay! I found a great tagline for my website! Or rather, Jennifer Abrahamsohn did. She sent me an email this morning saying:
re: your request for help on your blog for an art mission statement: I thought a good tagline might be something like, “100% cynicism free”.
I had to laugh so loudly that I am sure this is it. Not too sweet. Exactly my kind of humor.
Thanks Jennifer! I am sending you my non-cynical print about Things they never tell you about the past rightaway and change all my profiles!
Yay! I found it! Or rather, Jennifer Abrahamsohn did. She sent me an email this morning saying
re your request for help on your blog for an art mission statement: I thought a good tagline might be something like, “100% cynicism free”
I had to laugh so loudly that I am sure this is it.
Not too sweet. Exactly my kind of humor.
Thanks Jennifer! I am sending you my non-cynical print about Things they never tell you about the past rightaway and change all my profiles!