The Big Chill

Hear that? That's silence, something you haven't heard since way back before the flood, like maybe mid-December. The TV is finally off, Grandma isn't getting run over by a reindeer and there's no one in the house, not even that not-stirring mouse. Scary isn't?

And while we're talking about scary stuff, let's really bring out the chills, artist statement.

I know, I should have said get the kids out of the room and send the weak stomached off to the kitchen. There's nothing scarier than having to write an artist's statement or a resume.

I don't know why, there's just something about having to say good things about myself that sends chill down my spine. I wish I could blame it on the nuns, but my parents didn't follow that faith and I was raised with just a smattering of Protestant guilt, nothing like as serious as Catholic guilt and certainly not as bad as Jewish guilt, but guilt all the same. The part about not hiding my light under a bushel got lost somewhere around the part about “the less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.” (I always paid more attention to Shakespeare than I did to Sunday School.)

But that was then and this is now and I'll be...you know perfectly well what I'll be so we'll just move on past that and say, a whole bunch of juried and non-juried shows want an artist's statement or a resume. And I've never come to terms with how to write one that doesn’t sound a lot like boasting.

Sure there are those among us who only need to sign their work to make a whole, full and complete artist's statement. I see boats I think Dutch Mostert, when I see a David Castleberry work I know it from fifty feet away, birds, depends, oil Kim Wurster, photography Kelle Herrick, collage Susan Lehman, portrait, Susan D'Amico, you get the drill. I do not however fall into that happy club. I have to grind my teeth, close my eyes and actually say something about who I am and what or why I do what I do.

Which brings me to the hard truth, you have to do it. If you want to present an adult, mature, successful image to the art world you need a resume. Even if you'd just like to sell what you have on the walls you need an artist's statement.

What's the difference?

A resume, just like the one you learned about in Mrs. Pochutnik's freshman English class, is a brief description of who you are, what you have accomplished and why you are the right candidate for this position. Still scares the...

An artist's statement is a less formal document doing much the same thing except it allows for those of us who have not achieved international fame and fortune to fill a page and not look like a lying dog. You can put your statement of why, how and because why you do what you do on the top of the page and then under it list all of the shows you have been included in or won awards or sold work or just got to play.

I know, I know, where's the State of Utah when you really need it. They allow the condemned to choose between hanging and a firing squad.

So when the gray days between the holidays come and the house is silent, sit down at the word processor, open up a new document and sit starring at a blank screen until beads of blood form on your forehead, (My apology to Gene Fowler for the paraphrase.)