HOW TO WRITE AN ARTIST STATEMENT
Instructor: Liz Sales | Dates: Saturdays, May 4 & May 11 | Time: 10AM - 1PM (EST)
Tuition: $310 (Members) $365 (Non-Members) | Requirements: N/A
Course Overview
Your artist statement is a link between you and the rest of the world. This statement accompanies your visual work when you submit proposals to funders, cooperative galleries, or publishers. It may also be read aloud at speaking events, included in press releases, or used in exhibition texts. That is why you must know how to contextualize your work in words.
Whether you are starting from scratch or updating an existing statement, this course will give you the skills to clearly articulate your process and concepts both in the written word and in conversation. Through a presentation with examples, writing exercises, group conversations, one-on-one meetings, and a class critique, you will learn painless writing techniques for crafting clearly and creatively written artist statements and project statements from start to finish. By the end of this workshop, you will walk away with a well-written statement, as well as the tools and techniques to produce new statements in the future.
If you have any questions about this class, feel free to ask via email (elizabethjanesales@gmail.com) or schedule a 20-minute Zoom meeting with the instructor using this link.
Image © Liz Sales. Courtesy of the artist.
Schedule
Day 1: 3-hour live Zoom artist statement workshop session, including a presentation with examples, writing exercises designed to help you identify and articulate the concepts in your work, and a question-and-answer session.
Between Classes: 30-minute one-on-one meetings with the instructor.
Day 2: Class critique with your supportive fellow classmates focused on polishing your final artist statement.
After classes: Access to presentation materials and exercises.
If your desired tuition option is unavailable, please email info@penumbrafoundation.org and we will do our best to accommodate you. If the entire class is sold out, we can add you to the waitlist.
“This class is fantastic, and I highly recommend taking it!
Writing about my work was always a challenge and something I avoid until absolutely necessary. But during Liz's class, I learned to break down the writing process to make it less intimidating while finding my voice. The class assignments get you thinking long before you start typing anything, which takes the pressure out of writing about your work. This approach helped me gain confidence. I now not only can write about my own work but also publish articles about other artists' works.
Liz is an amazing, encouraging, and highly organized teacher. I recommend taking this and other classes with her!”
-Galina Kurlat
Liz Sales is an artist, writer, and educator based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the founder of I Write Artist Statements—a writing service for artists’ statements, résumés, project proposals, press releases, and whatever else an artist might need to make their practice viable. She has been a faculty member at the International Center of Photography, the City University of New York, the Penumbra Foundation, and the University of Connecticut. She writes for Mercuria Magazine, LensCulture, and Foam Magazine. Sales is the author of This Folder May Contain Clippings and Other Ephemeral Material (Conveyor Editions) and I Write Artist Statements (Daylight). iwriteartiststatements.com
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