Writing My Artist Statement
I need to write an artist statement for a project coming up in November 2021 (Don’t worry, I will spam everyone with much more on this in October!). One could make a pretty compelling argument that I ought to have written one much sooner than this—and not just for my poetic stuff, but for visual, musical, and sci-fi creative efforts, too. Nonetheless, I’m happy for a specific reason to put one together that involves satisfying an existing need within the literary community.
What makes a good artist statement? As a particularist, I say that it depends on the purpose of the statement. The purpose of this statement is to persuade a literary-minded stranger that my work and that of a specific publisher are worth sponsoring at the financial level of a few bucks; I’ll be using my poetic craft to solicit donations for an independent literary press that I think is doing important cultural work. Which brings me to a perfectly good starting point for such a statement. Here goes a rough cut!
“I do not create for myself alone, but toward the benefit of all human beings. My daily practice as an artist is to figure out how to make this aspiration tractable at the scale of my individual life. My approach is to harness the local power we each have, knowing that its effects could be more far-reaching. I consider the world with honesty so that I can better understand its problems and work toward solving them with both practical insight and compassion. This is a serious task! Humor, surprise, joy, and playfulness are indispensable tools as I get down to work lest I expire from sheer loftiness.
My work has a crush on beauty but raises its eyebrows skeptically at glamor. Wants to breakdance but knows that it will start out looking like an uncoordinated fool; enthusiastically takes up juggling, aware that most throws lead to drops. Wants not only to unicycle but play freaking unicycle basketball. Blows the hair out of its face while digging in the yard. Insists on going rock climbing when expedience demands: Why not just use a ladder?”
Is this gold? I don’t think so, though I also don’t think it’s bad. Maybe this statement would be improved by more specificity. We’ll see. But the delay of a flight home created an open moment to start building momentum on the problem of how to effectively write about why I write. It was at least a wise use of time.
Reader, it did occur to me that I could be cute and write my statement explicitly in the form of a poem. But I think the result of trying to kill two birds with one stone here would result in either a bad poem or a bad argument, and I want to convince folks that I write well. Not a great starting point for that interaction!