Crafting Your Brand Voice to Boost Newsletter Engagement

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A Guide from Valle Creative Consulting, by Arianna Valle

If your inbox is anything like mine, newsletters can sometimes feel like a snooze-fest. 

Yet, when done right, they have the potential to engage, entertain, and even convert. If you’re ready to ditch the bland and level up your newsletter game, your brand voice is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. A strong brand voice doesn’t just set you apart from your competitors, it also builds trust and keeps your readers coming back for more.

Your newsletter should be as unique as your business. So, let’s talk about how you can craft a brand voice that resonates with your audience, boosts engagement, and keeps your subscribers eagerly awaiting your next issue.

Understand your brand voice

Your brand voice is the personality that shines through all of your communication. Just like how you talk to friends, your brand should have a tone and style that feels authentic. When your newsletter reflects your unique voice, it builds a stronger connection with your audience.

Here’s the kicker—newsletters don’t have to be dry and corporate. In fact, they shouldn’t be! 

Whether you’re snarky, inspiring, playful, or formal, find a tone that suits your brand and speaks to your audience. Ask yourself:

  • Who do you want to read your content?
  • What makes your perspective unique?
  • How do your friends describe you?
  • If your business could talk, what would it’s personality be?

These questions will guide you in defining your voice and ensuring it aligns with your overall brand strategy.

Identify your audience—speak to the right people

Identifying your target audience, aka the specific group of people you want to reach with your products, services, and marketing is crucial to every aspect of your brand. 

So it’s no surprise that it also plays a key role in shaping your brand voice. Your audience will guide how you craft your content, what language you use, and what stories you tell.

To make sure your newsletter is resonating with the right people, ask yourself:

  • Who do you want to read your content?
    Imagine a real person when you’re creating your content. This is your ideal reader, and every word you write should be directed toward this person. This vision will make your writing feel more personal, relatable, and genuine.

  • What are your audience’s interests?
    What’s your audience passionate about? What topics are they constantly engaging with? If you understand what matters to them, you can align your newsletter with their interests to create content that truly resonates.

  • What are their desires, and how do your offerings meet those desires?
    Every audience has a deep-seated desire they want to fulfill. Whether it’s gaining more freedom, improving their work-life balance, or finding the best solutions for their business challenges, your brand must speak to those desires.

  • Describe your favorite clients to work with.
    Think about the clients you enjoy working with most. What makes them tick? What kind of personality traits do they have? By envisioning your favorite clients, you can start shaping a voice that connects with people who share similar qualities and characteristics.

By identifying your audience, you can fine-tune your brand voice to create a more meaningful connection with those who matter most to your business.

Find your differentiators

To help solidify your brand voice, you must understand what sets your brand apart from the competition. Why are you different? Why should your audience care? Uncovering your brand’s differentiators will help you identify your tone and position your brand as a unique solution for your audience. To dig deeper, ask yourself:

  • Why did you start your business?
  • What motivates you?
  • What are your core values?
  • How do your offerings benefit your audience? 

The answers to these questions will give you clarity on how to infuse your brand’s unique personality into your newsletter content. Maybe you’re a designer who’s passionate about sustainability, an artist who loves documenting your inspiration, or a consultant who thrives on helping businesses unlock their potential. Whatever it is, let it shine.

Write with intent & repurpose like a pro!

When it comes to crafting content, working smarter, not harder, is key. Your newsletter doesn’t need to be a full-on production every time. Think of it as a recap of what’s going on in your business. You’ve already created plenty of content, so use that to your advantage!

 Here’s how:

  • Intro Story/Hook Paragraph: Start with a personal anecdote, a recap of what’s been happening behind the scenes, or a recent discovery. Don’t be afraid to get personal! Newsletters are an excellent form of nurture marketing, where the foundation is trust-building. People want to connect with you as a human, not just a business.

  • Repurpose Blog Posts: Share a brief recap of your latest blog post, along with a link. This lets your newsletter subscribers stay in the loop and drive traffic to your website.

  • Social Media Highlights: Give your subscribers a peek into your recent social media content. Be sure to include a call to action to follow you on those platforms to stay connected.

  • Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek: Show your subscribers what’s in the works. Transparency builds connection and keeps things fresh! Whether it’s a new project, a studio tour, or something inspiring you, share it.

  • Event Recaps and Teasers: Got an upcoming event? Or maybe you’ve just hosted something exciting? Share it in your newsletter! Offering exclusive updates will make your audience feel like VIPs.

  • New Products or Services: Let your newsletter subscribers in on any new products, services, or offers before anyone else. Give them first dibs! Remember, your newsletter is a marketing tool, so treat it as such.

Link it all together with a common thread

One of the most effective ways to engage your audience is to weave a common thread throughout your newsletter. Think of this thread as the unifying idea that ties all the different sections together. Whether you’re talking about a personal story, upcoming events, or repurposing social media content, keep the tone and theme consistent.

For example, if you’re sharing about a new service offering, your intro could be about how you’ve been inspired to add this service after hearing customer feedback or discovering a new passion. This approach creates cohesion and keeps your readers engaged from start to finish.

Don’t forget a CTA to drive action! 

A well-crafted call-to-action (CTA) can be a game changer for your newsletter’s engagement. Whether you’re directing readers to your latest blog post, encouraging them to follow you on social media, or inviting them to an upcoming event, make your CTA compelling and aligned with your brand voice.

But here’s the trick: don’t be afraid to have fun with your CTAs. Instead of a simple “Follow me on Instagram,” try something playful like, “Come see what’s going on behind the scenes on my Instagram—you won’t regret it!” Play around with your CTA language to keep it consistent with the tone of your newsletter.

TL;DR: 

When you craft a brand voice that’s distinct and authentic, you create a newsletter that your audience actually wants to read. Your newsletter will be engaging when you: 

  • understand your brand voice, 
  • position your brand’s differentiators,
  • speak to your ideal audience,
  • and keep things authentic.

 

From our guest:

At Valle Creative Consulting, we believe in helping businesses like yours connect with their audience through thoughtful, creative marketing.

By implementing these tips, your newsletter will stop being just another email in the inbox and become an eagerly anticipated communication tool. So, let’s get to work—your next great newsletter is just a few clicks away!

Do you need help finding your brand voice or perfecting your newsletter strategy? Let’s chat! Reach out to Valle Creative Consulting, and let’s make your marketing as vibrant and unique as your business!

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Is Social Media Dead for Artists? (Is Email Alive?)

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Network television is nostalgic. But there is a generation alive today that has no idea what it is. They likely cannot fathom that, at one point in time, there were only three television stations. Like network television in 2025, is social media dead for artists?

Not so long ago, everyone knew CBS, NBC, and ABC. Companies’ demand for the limited supply of commercial airtime on just three channels made the opportunity to get in front of a television audience very valuable. 

Technology changed. Now no one can count how many channels there are, nor are there television sitcoms singularly commanding the zeitgeist like Dallas or All in the Family.

Maybe more familiar to an artist today is Facebook. 

How social media platforms make (and break) artist careers

I jokingly ask now, “What is Facebook?” when someone brings it up in conversation in 2025. But even in my own recent memory, it is numbing how much time was invested, devoted, or wasted collecting “friends” and posting memes to Facebook pages. 

Eventually, everyone seemed to have left for Instagram—the fix is quicker and possibly more aesthetically pleasing.

Then more recently, murmurings and conversations now lament artists’ vaporizing plans for finding new audiences or growing relationships on Instagram. The technology is still relevant and the presentation of content top-notch, but the cultural and political implications of using the platform have changed in 2025. Audiences and creators are leaving.

Who owns an audience?

It is a philosophical question. Realistically, no one owns an audience. However, if you do not own the platform—or the connection details to an audience member on a given platform—you can’t control how quickly an audience can appear or disappear.

Business is relationships. If your means of connecting to another person, like your customer, disappears, your business will disappear. 

If not social media, then what?

We at Burkholder Agency enjoy social media platforms. But our experience suggests they may not be the path to an enduring business. Audiences are becoming harder to reach organically, algorithms prioritize paid content, and the mental exhaustion of constantly “playing the game” is serious.

We find ourselves strongly encouraging people to look at “old-fashioned” methods—wherever the contact information remains relevant for a longer time.

Email, for example, may still evolve. But we speculate that it won’t go extinct at quite the pace of your current favorite flavor of social media. (BlueSky, anyone?)

Hint: Snail mail and the phone probably have even more staying power. 

How is an artist supposed to use relics of the digital age to bring in the future-bending power of art?

Is social media dead for artists?

Social media will probably not die soon. It’s too big. Creators will continue to both win and lose at it’s hands. But the artists who invest in “old-fashioned” strategies like email to own their audience will be best positioned to adapt and thrive.

Here’s one idea—instead of ending all social media use, focus on using it to capture subscribers for elsewhere. “For the real content, subscribe to my email list, newsletter, online zine, etc.” Even prioritizing platforms like Medium, Substack and Patreon you can own more of your audience (but still not all of it.)

We have lots of thoughts on growing relationships through the email inbox. We often explore them in our free virtual co-working sessions and even welcome email professionals to help show our community how to build audiences and foster lasting engagement.

 

Mexican News (1851) shows men reading a newspaper, maybe asking: is social media dead for artists today?

Banner Art Credits: Mexican News, 1851, engraved by Alfred Jones after a painting by Richard Caton Woodville, captures a moment of intense anticipation and information exchange. This engraving on wove paper depicts a group of men gathered around a freshly arrived newspaper, reflecting the power of media, the spread of information, and the political climate of the time. Digitally recontextualized here, it parallels the way artists must stay informed and adapt to shifting cultural and economic landscapes to sustain their creative careers.

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Email: The Canvas of Art Business Communication

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A key lesson in art education is understanding the relationship between form and content in creating meaningful works. Just as a great artist doesn’t need to disrupt the fundamental structure of painting to express genius, they benefit from recognizing the value of how those structures support their vision. Forms are familiar. Forms and mediums communicate without words, providing a framework that guides the audience. Within those forms, content is deployed with personal variation that allows creativity to emerge.

Email is no different. It’s a communication tool—a canvas—that can convey vision. Email has its forms to lighten the cognitive load for both writer and reader. It has ample opportunity for broad content, an array of colors, styles and personal voice, that allow innovation to emerge. It doesn’t have to feel like spam or, even worse, a generic “blast.”

Aligning Form with Your Art Business

Just as an artist’s use of form reflects their personal abilities and desires, email forms work best when aligned with the abilities and goals of your art business communication.

Ask yourself:

  • Do you think out loud about your concepts?
  • Do you have routines for finding your muse?
  • Do you study works in progress to find the next steps?
  • Do you appreciate viewing your finished work from different angles?
  • Do you benefit from visiting other artists’ studios?
  • Do you love celebrating your friends’ work?
  • Do you like celebrating your own?

These joys and creative processes can become part of your email communication. Every email can include sections devoted to these treasures, helping you connect authentically with your audience.

Structuring Your Communication

For instance, a scheduled email might include:

  • A Concept: Share something you’re researching for your next work.
  • A Studio View: Offer a glimpse of your workspace.
  • Celebration: Highlight a colleague or collaborator you recently connected with.

This structured form makes writing emails easier while also defining what you need to do for your sales and marketing efforts between newsletters.

If the process feels dull, maybe you’re working with content that’s not aligned with your vision. Choose themes you could explore on repeat. If you need novelty, mix it up with quarterly variations. For example, create four unique formats and rotate them each quarter, repeating the cycle yearly.

The Audience Comes First

Remember, your emails aren’t just for you—they’re for your audience. While your monthly studio updates might feel everyday and pedestrian to you, it is novel to your followers. It may even be a source of inspiration or intrigue for them. 

Significantly, consistency in your communication builds your brand, solidifying your identity and values. Repetition isn’t boring; it’s essential for creating a strong, recognizable presence and brand.

Success Through Form and Content

Success in art—and in art business communication—comes from using forms effectively and knowing the content you love.

If this process feels overwhelming, give yourself space to reflect. Join a coworking session with the agency, or let’s collaborate over coffee to make space with you. 

Banner art credits: The Letter, 1890–1891, is a color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper by American painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt. The artwork depicts a young woman seated at a writing desk, sealing an envelope—a moment that captures the intimate, personal act imprinted on each correspondence. Cassatt’s use of delicate linework and soft, layered tones lends itself neatly to digital interpolation, as the textures and subtle gradients translate seamlessly into modern digital media, bridging the tactile intimacy of traditional printmaking with the precision of the graphical form.

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Simple Email Rules are Creative Opportunities

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Generally speaking, there are no rules for what goes into an email. You can write an epistle, share a daily dose of sunsets, or pass along your favorite memes endlessly. However, there are a few simple email rules of etiquette to keep in mind, especially if you plan to use someone’s inbox to share your latest creation.

Consent is Key

We cannot use someone’s email inbox for solicitation without their permission! Email consent requires that the recipient decide they want your email. Our audience must sign up to receive our business correspondence.

This is a good thing—those on your email list are ready to grow a relationship with you. This means we shouldn’t add an email address to our list just because it was personally given to us five years ago—or even last week.

We most certainly cannot harvest an email address from someone else’s poor email use, like when a great aunt includes your address in the open carbon copy of 35 other folks you don’t even know. The proper process is to personally thank someone for their email address and direct them to a signup page to receive regular correspondence. Without consent, you risk losing not just one audience member but also access to your email service provider.

Consistent But Comfortable

To build a meaningful relationship, even in business, requires regular communication. An email schedule is a smart move to grow an audience. Structure is comforting for many people; it subconsciously sets expectations. Erratic email habits can feel jarring, like saying, “Hey, look at me!” or “Hey, I need something from you.”

Artists are notorious for only sending emails when they have a show—“I need your attention.” Consistent communication, however, can keep you present in your audience’s mind.

Consistency can be defined in many ways, but it’s probably more often than once a year and less than daily. That doesn’t mean sending junk. Just as friendships grow through thoughtful interaction, so does your audience. And while email allows for significant amounts of information to be conveyed, it’s probably not appropriate to regularly ramble and rant—unless that’s your brand!

Clean the Contacts

Although there’s no postage required to send an email, it does cost money and isn’t great for the environment. If an email consistently bounces or is left unopened, it’s a waste of resources.

Email platforms also use the statistics of your emails (deliverability and open rates in particular) to decide how to treat them. For example, this is how Google determines what goes into your inbox, promotions, or events without you telling it what to do.

Removing contacts that don’t engage with your communication may seem counterintuitive to growing your business, but it saves resources and improves the experience for your engaged audience.

Creativity Within the Rules

These simple email rules can be our friend:

  • Consent ensures your audience is genuinely interested in you and your work.
  • Consistency keeps you present in their mind, even without a major announcement.
  • Cleaning contacts saves resources and enhances the quality of your communication.

If you pause to think about these rules you likely have some creative ideas on how to utilize them for your own business vision.

If you’re curious about how to grow your business through email, consider joining a future coworking session. And if a conversation over coffee feels more meaningful, reach out, and let’s talk about how to help you spend more time creating.

Banner art credits: A Lady Writing, c. 1665, is an oil on canvas by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. The painting portrays a young woman, quill in hand, pausing as she composes a letter, her gaze meeting the viewer’s. This intimate scene underscores the timeless significance and simplicity of written communication, offering a serene contrast to the rapid pace of modern digital interactions—much like the contrast between the soft glow of Vermeer’s brush and the hard light of images on backlit screens.

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Email for Creative Business: Old Tech or Lost Art?

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Generational exposure to technology often relegates good methods of communication to the dustbin. There was a time when grandma’s letters got barely a passing glance with the rise of Messenger and Blue Mountain. But now, handwritten notes and cards hit harder in the age of passing snaps and soon-forgotten DMs. I collect and revere the love people have shared with me through “snail” mail.

Email might belong to a similar category of sacred communication (yes, lots of folks utilize and even revere their inbox). With good strategy, email can be harnessed for more efficient growth than pen and paper—especially for an artist trying to grow a creative business.

Email Offers Agency

First and foremost, an email address can be collected and used as you desire. Messaging through platforms depends on those platforms existing and being used by your audience.

Anyone still using AIM, MySpace, Foursquare, even Facebook and Snapchat? Email, by contrast, offers consistency and independence from these trends. AIM is no longer a thing, but plenty of people still have an AOL email address.

Email Encourages Creativity

Instagram and TikTok (still in use—but for how long?) are built for visual spectacle and attention, not for meaningful communication. Yes, there are captions, but their formats aren’t designed for depth.

Email, on the other hand, is a media-rich medium built for quality communication. It’s built for words but accommodates broader creativity with design, images, videos, and even sound. Why not use a method of sharing your work with your audience that doesn’t encourage them to move on without thought or feeling?

Building Relationships Through Email

Beyond agency and creativity, email offers other values that make it a smart choice for building meaningful relationships—something your artwork needs and deserves.

Many folks revere their inboxes. If something is there, it’s likely because they’ve chosen for it to be there. We have far less control over what appears in our social media feeds. The email contacts you secure (when done properly) belong to you. Unlike social media handles, email addresses are platform-agnostic and can move with you from one service to another. You can’t take handles off-platform.

Most significantly, email affords a degree of experimentation social media platforms typically don’t allow. A good email service makes it easy to analyze the quality of your communication. It provides data on engagement beyond just “eyeballs”—which is the currency of the attention economy.

Rediscovering the Power of Email for Creatives

If you haven’t blown the dust off your inbox lately, consider how this “relic” might actually be a meaningful tool for your creative business.

Curious how to start building your connection with your audience and using email for creative business growth? Join us for an upcoming marketing coworking session.

Prefer to connect in person? Let’s meet for coffee and talk about how email marketing might be a tool that gets you into the studio more.

Banner art credits: The Love Letter, 1750 is an oil on canvas work by 18th century French painter François Boucher. The work depicts two young women in a verdant garden, one tying a ribbon around a dove’s neck to send a message. It reflects the enduring significance of personal communication and its delicate, intimate style sets it in a curious juxtaposition to the stark digital world—much like old and new communication technologies.

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Narrow Your Focus: Using a Matrix to Improve Art Marketing and Sales

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Time in the studio is typically not the hard part for professional artists. But finding the time is. Marketing, generating interest, and pursuing new opportunities (grants, residencies, shows, sales) are the parts of sustainable art business that feel like a grind. If you’re overwhelmed by the pressures of online marketing, you’re not alone. Social media, email campaigns, your website—it can feel like you need to be everywhere. But the truth? You don’t. The key to getting a practice off the ground is to narrow your focus on what actually helps you improve art marketing and sales. 

Here’s where a Focus Matrix can help.

Start With Clear Goals

First things first—what do you want to achieve? Are you looking to build followers, increase sales, or just get your work in front of more people? You need clear goals to know how to focus your time and improve art marketing and sales efforts.

Marketing Goals: Growing your leads, engagement, and getting people to act (signing up, clicking, buying).

Sales Goals: Turning those leads into buyers and building connections that convert.

Make them specific. Not “more followers,” but “100 new followers by the end of Q4 2024.” Not just “more sales,” but “sell 10 pieces through my online store by the end of the month.” The clearer, the better.

What’s the Focus Matrix?

The Eisenhower Matrix (aka Impact-Effect Matrix) was originally used by President Eisenhower to prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance. This “Focus Matrix,” adapted from this, is a decision-making tool that helps identify where to narrow your efforts. We adapted this concept to art business activities based on two criteria:

Performance: How well is this working right now? Is it delivering results that improve art marketing and sales?

Impact: How much does or could this contribute to your goals now or in the future?

Here’s how the quadrants break down and some examples we commonly see for each, (assuming, for example, that the primary goal is to make sales—these may differ for you):

  • High Impact / High Performance: This is where you want to be. These are channels where your efforts are working and directly generating sales. This might be in-person meetings, gallery events, or your email list where people respond and buy.
  • High Impact / Low Performance: Lots of potential, but not delivering yet. Maybe your website shop is set up well, but it’s not getting the traffic you need to sell prints of your work.
  • Low Impact / High Performance: These work but won’t change your world. This could be that local art show you enjoy going to but rarely make a substantial sale. Or, if your goal is more sales, it could be your Instagram—you’re getting tons of followers, but it’s not translating to impactful sales, and it’s not clear how it would.
  • Low Impact / Low Performance: The time-wasters. A Twitter account for visual artists that gets little engagement. Ads that don’t create conversions. A specific gallery/broker relationship that takes tons of maintenance and produces no impactful sales.

Apply the Focus Matrix to Narrow Your Efforts

Take stock of everything you’re doing. Instagram, LinkedIn, Etsy, email newsletters, blog posts, local fairs—map it all out on your Focus Matrix. This will help you see where you can improve art marketing and sales by identifying what’s working and what’s not.

If your goal is more sales (hopefully more specific than that), ask yourself:

  • Where are sales coming from?
  • Which platforms are paying back the most on your investment?
  • What’s draining your energy without giving much back?

Create an Action Plan

Now that you’ve plotted everything out, it’s time to act:

High Impact / High Performance: Put more energy here. If Instagram is driving sales, invest in better content or engage more with your followers. If email marketing works, send more newsletters. For example:

  • “Post three engaging Instagram stories per week highlighting the behind-the-scenes process of my art.”
  • “Send a biweekly email newsletter featuring new artwork, upcoming events, and exclusive discounts to my subscribers.”

High Impact / Low Performance: Worth your time to fix. Optimize your website for SEO. Commit to posting regularly to drive traffic to your site. These areas have potential if you put in the effort to improve art marketing and sales strategies. For example:

  • “Invest time in optimizing my website store with SEO keywords related to my art niche.”
  • “Create one post a week about a piece or product available on my website.”

Low Impact / High Performance: Maintain these with minimal effort. Attend local art shows that give a good return or are easy to go to, but no more. Start recycling content on your social media accounts.

Low Impact / Low Performance: Cut it out. Free up your time and energy. Don’t be afraid to drop that platform that isn’t working.

Prioritize Your Action Plans that Improve Art Marketing

Start with High Impact / High Performance first. That’s where you’re already seeing results and have the best chance to improve art marketing and sales even more. Then, move to High Impact / Low Performance—these could be big winners with more effort. Don’t get stuck on low-impact tasks; they’re distractions.

Side note: Be honest with yourself about your motivation to invest time into low-impact channels. Does social media impact your sales or provide a confidence booster? Do you feel respected among peers? Neither of these are bad things, but identify exactly how they impact your goals before investing too much time blindly.

Final Thoughts

The Focus Matrix isn’t just about eliminating what doesn’t work—it’s about putting more energy into what does. Regularly revisit this process, refine your action plan, and watch how much more intentionally you can improve art marketing and sales.

If you want more guidance on how to apply this to your work, join us at one of our coworking sessions or schedule a chat. Let’s build a focused, effective path towards a sustainable art business and practice.

Banner art credits: Jael Killing Sisera, c. 1460 is a pen and ink with watercolor on laid paper piece by an unknown Austrian 15th century artist. According to the book of Judges, Jael invited Sisera, the commander of an oppressive army into her tent and killed him with a tent stake. The demure pleasure depicted in what is otherwise a graphic story, captures the ideal spirit for letting go of low-impact channels wasting valuable energies.

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The Art of the Artist Statement (How to Write an Artist Statement)

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An artist statement serves as a written expression of your artistic practice, providing insight into your work for audiences who may encounter it in various contexts such as exhibitions, grant applications, or teaching positions. Artist statements are an extension of the art itself. It is similar to an abstract, something that summarizes the concept, influences, labor, and purpose of your work. Compelling statements often reflect a similar vulnerability as the work itself. Just as there is no right way to make art, there are different ways to write an artist statement.

Here’s a breakdown of what writing an artist statement might look like, when it’s used, and how to craft your own.

What is an Artist Statement?

Here’s a blurb taken from the Creative Independent that gives a great, concise definition—“An artist statement is a not-too-long series of sentences that describe what you make and why you make it. It’s a stand-in for you, the artist, talking to someone about your work in a way that adds to their experience of viewing that work.”

  • An artist statement is a piece of writing inspired by or directly from you, offering insight into your artistic work. 
  • It is written in the first person, distinguishing it from artist bios, which are typically written in the third person. 
  • Both artist statements and bios represent you as an artist, conveying your artistic identity and intentions even when you’re not present.
    • Your “artistic identity” may be different than your bio or personal narrative. There is a difference between the “you” in your bio and the “you” of your artistic identity that people can decipher from experiencing your artwork. When you write an artist statement, you get to decide how much or how little of your personal narrative is connected to the artwork.

Let’s take an example scenario.

Alicia is a life-long cross-country swimmer who enjoys taking trips to tread international waterways. She also works as a photographer of marine wildlife for National Geographic while maintaining an active art practice making photorealistic graphite drawings of the rising water levels and pollution she encounters along her travels.

Alicia’s artistic bio might highlight her role as a photographic journalist, her love of swimming, and her climate consciousness. However, when she writes an artist statement for her drawings, she may underscore, along with the media and processes, her concerns for our environment and the health of global marine ecosystems. Her “why” is to raise awareness for marine life and waterways. Her “artistic identity” is the part(s) of herself that defines her art-making.

Writing an artist statement requires space to reflect, analyze, compose, edit, share, and revise. It may include sources, ideas, and materials relevant to your current artistic practice. It will evolve as the artist evolves. Processes change. Interests change. Perspectives change. Feelings change. Skills change.

When to Write an Artist Statement

An artist statement can accompany a single work, a body of work (or series), exhibition, or entire practice. 

  • Some instances where you need to write an artist statement include:
    • Exhibition submissions,
    • Grant applications,
    • Teaching position applications,
    • Fellowships,
    • Magazine and catalog features,
    • Websites,
    • Personal studio practice, distilling
    • Selling a work of art
  • They are a point of connection, and for many, an entry point into your work. 
  • They provide guidance to audiences, publicists, curators, and critics, directing attention to the key ideas and concerns in your work. Writing an artist statement can also be integral to your creative process, helping you articulate your artistic vision, work out your intentions, and even suggest the path forward in the studio.

Though it presents a challenge for some artists to write an artist statement, these statements hold immense value for creatives. Sitting down every so often to translate the silent or solitary artistic labor, which consumes countless hours, into words is something you can weave into your weekly or monthly professional dashboard. Taking time consistently to identify specific audiences, feelings, and efforts will help you to verbalize the essence of your creative journey and effectively convey the importance of your piece in as many words as can fill one paragraph.

The Recipe for Writing an Artist Statement

Take inventory—gather your ingredients.

  • Identify the content of your work
    • (This is like a formal analysis, call out what we see, the visual subject matter)
  • Explain the form of your work
    • (Including materials, processes, and traditions)
  • Describe your artistic process
    • (And provide visual or auditory descriptions)
  • Discuss influences on your work
    • (Whether cultural, historical, theoretical, personal, or biographical)
  • Key ideas, issues, struggles, and goals within your work
  • Clarify the thematic focus of your work
    • (Setting it within a specific time and space)

Put it together. Expand on the chunks of information you compiled about the work. Think about it in three parts:

  • Formal content—visual analysis, what you see, what you used to make it, how you made it, how long it took
  • Contextual Information—what inspired you to make the piece, did anyone influence your work, what was happening around you that could have had an impact on the work,
  • Interpretive Moment—why did you make it, who or what is it for? Do you want to tell the audience something to take away?

You can organize these parts however it feels most natural to you. You’ll see in some examples that artists weave the components together depending on what they are using the statement for.

Tips for Writing an Artist Statement

Keep your artist statement on file and update it as your practice evolves over time.

  • Consider your audience and aim to make your work more accessible and understandable. Don’t dumb it down, but DO use language that most people can grasp without a PhD.
  • If you’re uncertain or exploring new ideas, don’t hesitate to express it in your statement.
  • Be authentic and avoid overly complex language or jargon.
  • Keep your statement concise, straightforward, and honest.
  • Make the reader want to learn more about your work without over-explaining. Leave room for the audience to want more or to insert their own meaning.
  • Avoid relying too heavily on quotes unless they are directly relevant to your work.

Editing and Refining Your Artist Statement:

  • Seek feedback from others, including friends, colleagues, faculty members, (or us!)
  • Read artist statements and writings of artists you admire for inspiration.
  • Keep a journal and integrate writing into your artistic practice to facilitate the process.

Wrapping Up

Learning to write an artist statement is an ongoing process that evolves alongside your artistic journey. By following these guidelines and continuously reflecting on your practice, you can create a statement that effectively communicates your artistic vision and engages your audience.

If you are ready to work with a team that can help you get into the studio doing what you love, let’s chat. Or join Coworking with Creatives, a series of free virtual workshops to help artists and creatives build sustainable businesses.

Banner art credits: Martha, c. 1835 is an oil on canvas piece by an unknown 19th century American artist. From the folk art tradition, with its flat, two-dimensional rendering, typical of many self-taught or primitive artists. This simplicity of form makes it easier for digital processes to create clear lines and blocks of color that frame and draw out the rich texture.

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Enhance Desire for Art: From Status Quo to New Life

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A patron is a customer, and a good one at that. Museums are in that category too. If we allow ourselves to see that even as artists we are in business, we can utilize the tools of business to grow our creative practice. We need to communicate that we exist to enhance desire for art—our art. 

We may not like to see ourselves as marketers or even worse, sales people, but we are. Being good at business means more time in the studio. 

Thankfully we don’t have to come up with new concepts in sales and marketing in the same way that we do for our masterpieces. We can harness the hard work of folks who study messaging to build our strategy and develop our plan. Billy Broas has provided a simple framework to do just that. The five lights bulbs are a powerful blend of obvious, versatile and easy to implement for any business to build an effective messaging strategy.

A critical step in any relationship is to recognize where someone is at. If we don’t know where someone is presently at in their journey through life, it is hard to intersect and connect with them. Your voice is heard when it is directed to where someone is. In the case of a customer the two locations we are most interested in are the starting and ending position, pre- and post- acquisition of your art.

The two light bulbs that speak to these two places are the customer’s status quo and new life.

Market New Life

It might be easier to think about the new life first. The post-acquisition experience includes the value your work brings to the audience—and your work has a litany of value. A deep eye roll may be warranted but we need to get serious about considering the “value” of art, more particularly your art. Your art enriches others by offering new perspectives. It expands thinking. Your art enhances feelings others chase. Potentially, your art is pleasing to the eye. 

Not to mention, someone owning your art titillates your senses too. Joy is a mystery of present science in that it isn’t conserved. Giving joy to others also brings joy to the giver.

The new life your customer will have with your art might be: 

  • Nuanced, with added perspectives
  • Vibrant and playful
  • Confident and powerful
  • Elevated in status, envied by peers
  • Filled with beauty

Your audience will experience something with your work and you can communicate through your “marketing”—words and images. Good messaging should enhance desire for art by showing your audience the present for what it is and a path towards a new life that includes your work.

Upset Status Quos

If you have clarity on the new life that your audience will have with your work, you likely have some idea of what is missing in their present status quo. Their walls are boring. Their mental framework may have gaps in understanding. They may be missing the fullness of a life of emotion. They may not be seen by others. Your message can kindly (or not) remind folks of where they are presently.

The status quo of your customer without your art might be:

  • A home devoid of energy
  • Unable to say what’s on their mind
  • Eager to express frustration but unable
  • Sensing others don’t understand them
  • Feeling less then on top of the world

Your work is incredibly valuable if your customer is in a place like this. You can bring them out of it. Although this list feels sad and salesy, with some thoughtfulness about your value you can find messaging that empathetically speaks to your audiences’ lot in life, and shows them you want to help them move to a better place. 

It’s sometimes hard to express how, but your work adds value to the world. The better you can communicate how it upsets the status quo, and creates new life for your audience, the less salesy “marketing” will feel.

Better messaging is a critical part of converting inventory on the floor into artworks on someone’s wall. 

Keep Going

Do you want to move beyond the frustration of seeing your artwork not sell? Read on for more social media strategies to enhance desire for art—your art—and take you towards a more sustainable business and more time in the studio.

You can also join the Burkholder Agency for our next Marketing Monday session. We work with you to let people know your great art exists and increase the desire your audience has for it.

Banner art credits: Textile Merchant, c. 1840 is an oil on canvas work by an unknown American 19th Century artist. The piece is presumably a commissioned portrait of an unknown textile merchant from the Northeast. It is a good example of the style of American primitive painting, although “primitive” is an unnecessarily diminutive classification. The paintings appear flat because of the figuration and consistent (unrealistic?) lighting in addition to the fascination with background details, even if they distract from the subject.

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Why doesn’t good art sell? (Sales messaging.)

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Every year 1.3 trillion dollars of bad products and services are sold.* Is there that much value in innovation for one specialized task that only takes 3 seconds without it? Does that “inventor” really make a living that way? We have all bought some snake oil in our lives—but why doesn’t good art sell?

This likely fuels frustration for you as an artist. So why is bad art selling when mine is not? 

Why does bad art sell?

Less than stellar creativity likely sells for a few reasons. 

First and foremost, people know that it exists (even if it isn’t good). They see it. They hear about it. They experience it for themselves. A message about the work has gotten to the audience to let them know that something was made. The artwork is being marketed.

Secondly, they desire the object enough to part with their hard earned money to bring that poorly composed artifact into their home. A message has moved them to the point of a transaction—even if it’s not a wise decision from our perspective. The artwork is being sold.

Great art still needs good sales messaging.

Why doesn’t good art sell? It probably doesn’t have good sales messaging.

To sustain yourself as a creative person, your messaging is a very important part of your practice. First, we need to communicate that we exist (marketing) and we need to communicate the distinct value, and cause for desire, that our work produces (sales). There is a good chance people know that you and your work exist. If not, that is a good place to start. Let people know that you are making things. And yes, there are ways to expand who knows about you. But, how do we enhance the desire for our work?

Next, your practice should have a strategy for increasing the connection your audience feels to you and your art. This includes patrons, collectors, customers, fans, and even curators and museums. You have an opportunity to create more resonance with the way you present yourself (e.g. on social media).

Start with a framework to simplify sales.

There are many tools to help you develop a plan and draft tactics for your marketing and sales. Billy Broas has been studying messaging for years and offers a simple framework he calls the 5 light bulbs. Each bulb helps illuminate distinct values to customers. He is bold enough to say that nearly every effective piece of commercial communication includes at least one of the bulbs.

The five light bulbs of Billy Broas’ effective sales messaging are:

  1. Customers Status Quo
  2. Things they have tried (to move to a new life)
  3. Your approach (to move them to new life)
  4. Your offer (How they can get your approach)
  5. Customer’s new life

Briefly, the light bulbs expose a journey that a customer is on. At the start they are in a less than satisfactory position and at the end they are in a better place with your product or service. Each bulb can be translated into simple statements and images or can be an involved conversation and meeting. The bulbs can help you show your audience where they are at, what they desire and how they can get there.

Keep going.

Do you want to move beyond the frustration of seeing your artwork not sell? Read on for more steps about marketing art that can take you towards a more sustainable business and more time in the studio.

You can also join the Burkholder Agency for our next Marketing Monday session. We work with you to let people know your great art exists and enhance your audience’s desire for your art.

* A completely fabricated statistic. Few would fund a study that likely undermines the economy and embarrasses many. AND it makes for good messaging. 🙂

 

Banner art credits: The Peddler, 1632 is an etching by Dutch artist Johannes van Vliet (born c. 1610). Originally created for reproduction, the digitalization and reinterpolation of 16th-century etchings aligns with an original facet of their purpose. These works were intended to be viewed primarily as reproductions, rather than as the ‘negatives’ of the plates themselves. The final images were subject to the various materials, collaborations, and limitations inherent in the reproduction process. Returning to these etchings with the digital tools of reproduction could be one simple way to reawaken them with integrity.

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Social Media Strategy for Creatives: 3 Steps Toward Success

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Social media strategies for creatives can be overwhelming, but don’t need to be. Major social media brands have been built on the impression that everything—and anything—of importance can be found on their platforms. This is overwhelming and not entirely true. Nevertheless, markets, buyers, and potential customers (of any industry) still look to social media to assess quality and value.

As an artist, your “brand” is very personal. Is it possible to build an authentic social media presence and meet your business goals?

Here are three foundations steps toward building a successful social media strategies for creatives.

Your Social Media Mindset 

Before we get to those steps, let’s begin with a simple mindset check.

Do you agree with any or all of the following statements?

  • “Social media is how I will get discovered.” 
  • “Social media is the most important validation.” 
  • “My social media following determines my value.”

Not only are these not the whole truth, but they can be debilitating. These ideas can paralyze entrepreneurs (especially creatives) with self-doubt.

Instead remember:

  • “Social media is one tool I use to build my audience.” 
  • “Social media gives people who already love my work one more way to engage with it.” 
  • “My audience and I determine the value of my work together.”

Don’t confuse being a successful creative business owner with being a social media influencer. Being an influencer is not a bad thing, but it’s a different business model. A sale is a sale, and a following is a following. Is your goal to sell art or sell influence? The models may overlap at points, but ultimately the value of an artistic legacy is unlikely to be measured by likes.

The right mindset makes social media a tool to use, instead a tool that uses you. It will be easier to build campaigns that drive purposeful success and audience growth.

Now, let’s explore important steps for successful social media campaigns. 

Step 1: Understand Your Audience 

Social media is vast, but an artist’s biggest impact is typically among niche or local audiences. (This is not a bad thing).

Identifying niche audiences helps entrepreneurs to think strategically (and realistically) about how social media can be used to achieve business goals. The better you know your audience, the better you can create meaningful connections and tailor your content to them.

Choose one existing audience and unpack their identifiers. If you haven’t defined an audience or thought about a marketing plan before, you must (for growth in any domain).

Start simply with everyone who owns one of your works. How did they find out about you? If it wasn’t on social media, was there a specific point when they used social media to interact or learn more? In traditional marketing speak, this is called a “touch point” on the “customer journey.” If an artist can identify details about how and why existing collectors used social media to learn more before purchasing a piece, they can use insights about those “touch points” to encourage collectors on their journey toward a purchase.

From here, work more broadly to group existing collectors and prospective clients into larger audience segments based on shared interests or demographics. What do they engage in on social media? What are they looking for?

Ask questions, using polls or surveys on social media, to collect information to start with. The simplest things provide helpful feedback even if the response is low.

Identifying how an audience is focused on a particular aspect of an artist’s work doesn’t mean they don’t see the work’s true or “whole” value. No one will see your work the way you see it. Be prepared to cultivate a social media expression that may take time. Accept the challenge to see your work from different perspectives. This can be constructive, not destructive.

Step 2: Create Good Content (Messaging and Calls to Action) 

With an audience in mind, unpack your brand and value proposition. Start from the broadest statements of value and work, and narrow in on how your target audience(s) might relate most strongly to specific aspects of your work based on their unique identifiers. 

Create content by breaking it into two pieces: the message and the call to action.

The message should be the part that comes naturally from you, your story, and the story of your work. The message answers “What do I do?” “How did I do it?” “What do I want to share?” “Why is it important?” “Why should others care?” This is the part where you offer your audience value whether it’s a tip, an accomplishment to share in, or an anecdote to enjoy.

The call to action comes less naturally, but it is an essential part of good content. Calls to action (CTA) are not desperate pleas for attention when you’re engaging with the audience who already values your work. This should be a nudge to show audiences how they can support an artist they follow.

Define your desired outcomes of the content.

Create measurable goals. If the goal is to sell work, does work sell because of post likes? Or because of face time spent with prospective collectors? Encourage the forms of engagement proven to help achieve the desired outcome.

Ultimately, the message provides value to the audience, the call to action guides how they reciprocate that value to the creator. 

Step 3: Plan, Post, and Repeat 

A great campaign is made up of good posts, but how are they put together? Social media algorithms are complex, even mysterious. But throughout the algorithm’s evolution, all successful content has shared one thing: consistency.

A consistent social media plan will be built on structures that already exist for the business. If there is a schedule for your studio that includes events, deadlines, or even personal events, that schedule should dictate content. Work backwards from events to create stories focused on the journey to the event. Connecting the content to the actual work makes it easier to create calls to action with concrete impacts.

Determine a post frequency objective that’s based on the amount of time you can invest in creating content. Don’t anticipate every day will open up for a spark of inspiration. If it takes 30 minutes to create a valuable post, and scheduling a 2-hour content creation session per month is all that’s reasonable, then your objective should be one weekly post. If it’s possible to schedule a 2-hour content creation session weekly, consider making your objective 4 weekly posts.

Frequency is unique to each individual’s resources, but consistency can be achieved at all levels. If social media is a persistent challenge, consider investing in a content calendar or scheduling tool. The best tool for organization will be the one you use. However it gets done, setting aside time to plan out and create valuable content ahead of time will be the best way to create a consistent social media presence.

Once planned content is in place, check back and use comments and messages to organically deepen engagement with your audience.

Collaborate and Grow

Art has been around for longer than social media and modern markets. Social media is now an essential for building a successful creative business in the modern world. Artists must keep adapting. Creative businesses have a unique opportunity to use these tools in ways to grow the influence and impact of art.

Like studio schedules, social media strategy for creatives will be unique to each artist. But all good content creation is built on simple concepts: target audience, messaging, calls to action, and planning for consistency. Master these basics and start connecting.

If you’re struggling to discern your expression, look to peers whose content you enjoy. See what’s working for them and ask how it may or may not work for you. Our co-working sessions are an opportunity to connect with creative professionals with different approaches and goals across a full spectrum of experience. Our fellow creatives help us grow and adapt to industries like social media which change quickly and often.

 

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