FINAL CRITIQUE: Wednesday April 29th and ARTIST STATEMENTS

It was decided by majority last night that Wednesday will be your final critique in GrD3200.
That critique will be the Specialty Item that you've created for your client. 

Monday, April 27th is when I will need to see all the work created this semester boarded.
This will include any work you've revised since the semester began. 

1. Logo board (color and b/w)
2. Stationery boards (with insert on back with mock ups)
3. Advertisement boards
4. Mailer boards (with insert on back with mock up)

*Your Specialty board will not be included for this on Monday since you are still working on it.

As you start to write your Artist Statement for the Sophomore Review let me know if I can assist in any way. Remember this is your personal statement about where you are right now regarding yourself as an artist/designer.

YOUR ARTIST STATEMENT: 

(Explaining your creative and academic self to yourself. This is where I am right now in my life.)

You should write it on your own stationery. The first draft can be on plain paper but the finished draft must be on your new branding stationery.

                      

Question: Why do I have to write an artist statement?

It's stupid. If I wanted to write to express myself I would have been a writer. The whole idea of my art is to say things visually. Why can't people just look at my art and design and take away whatever experiences they will?

Answer: Artist statements are not stupid; they're more like essential. And you don't have to be a writer to write one. And people already look at your art and take away whatever experiences they will. Your artist statement is about facts, a basic introduction to your art; it's not instructions on what to experience, what to think, how to feel, how to act, or where to stand, and if it is, you'd better do a rewrite.

On this planet, people communicate through language, and your artist statement introduces and communicates the language component of your art. People who come into contact with your art and want to know more will have questions. When you're there, they ask you and you answer. When you're not there, your artist statement answers for you. Or when you're there, but you don't like to answer questions, or you're too busy to answer questions, or someone's too embarrassed to ask you questions, then, your artist statement, does the job.

Just about all artists want as many people as possible to appreciate their art.

A good artist statement works towards this end, and the most important ingredient of a good statement is its language.

WRITE YOUR STATEMENT IN LANGUAGE THAT ANYONE CAN UNDERSTAND, not language that you understand, not language that you and your friends understand, not language that you learn in art school, but everyday language that you use with everyday people to accomplish everyday things.

An effective statement reaches out and welcomes people to your art, no matter how little or how much they know about art to begin with; it never excludes.