Sharing Artlife

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

This is an interesting topic for a blog and for me it raises the question around where do you draw the line when you are blogging, vlogging, podcasting or just generally documenting your journey on social media. It seems like a nice and harmless thing to do, but I think you need to think about the future, where the future is going and what information you are happy to have out in the public domain. I’m not saying you shouldn’t share anything, but I think you should have a plan about what you do share.

Any marketers would tell you the best way to promote yourself as an artist is to let the world in, show them around your studio. Tell the stories behind your paintings, show them behind the scenes creations in your studio. Because as the ‘audience’ finds you more relatable and builds a connection with you that they are more likely to buy your art.

Most collectors know about or have met the artist behind the work. People do buy art for the art, but they also buy to support the artist in some way. Or because they feel some connection with the artist. Maybe they come from the same town. Maybe they share the same political views. Maybe they represent something that they align with.

So sharing your story as an artist is a great way to build your community. I just think you need to think about what things you feel happy about sharing online. The entrepreneur Gary Vee is a great example. He has thousands and thousands of hours of podcasts and videos all over the internet and on every single social platform. However you just hear about him, his mom and dad, growing up. But you hear virtually nothing about his family. Casey Niestat had a daily vlog on YouTube. He lets you right into his life and some episodes does feature his wife, but you see very little of his kids. I think all of these are conscious decisions made by the creators as to what they want to keep private and I think it’s great to figure this out before you start documenting your thriving Artist journey.

I’ve had a daily vlog, YouTube channel and now a daily blog and I try to only share things that are 100% mine to share, and I keep other people and details out of it, even if they might help the story be more interesting.

I suppose what I’m saying is feel free to keep some of your life private, everyone doesn’t need to know everything. But I do think a very important part of becoming a thriving artist is sharing your art and some of your related life online, to let people in, form relationships with and build your creator and collector communities.