At the risk of turning this post into an English lesson, I found this article on the correct use of punctuation on WikiHow.

Why is knowing when to use a semi-colon and when to use a colon is important when it comes to your web pages (you use a semi-colon to separate a complex series of items and a colon to introduce a list…just in case you were wondering)? Good writing is part of what gives your web site a professional look. Nothing screams amateur so much as someone who can’t write or spell a proper sentence…and you should also know where the hyphens and apostrophes go too.

Check out the article here.

Take out your artist’s statement and see if you can find the following words…

• really
• very
• extremely
• literally
• actually

If you find them it may be time for a rewrite, Alyson Stanfield from the Art Biz Blog posted an excerpt from publicity expert, Marcia Yudkin’s weekly newsletter, The Marketing Minute. According to Marcia Yudkin, in any marketing piece you should use adverbs sparingly…if a word doesn’t add to your point or even worse…mucks it up…eliminate it.

Ouch…I think I just found a couple in my artist statement.

Check out the rest of Alyson’s post here.

You can also sign up for Marcia Yudkin’s Marketing Minute here.

Starting a blog to help promote yourself and your work can be a good strategy, but it’s pretty hard to know what to write about. You should of course be writing about your work and yourself, but one can only write about themselves for so long and customers have an even shorter attention span. So what’s a would-be artist/blogger to do?

Chris Garrett’s answer is to create “Killer Flagship Content”.

I ran across Chris Garrett’s blog after I downloaded his ebook, “Killer Flagship Content: How to Create and Promote Truly Compelling Blog Resources”. In his book, Chris describes his “Killer Flagship Content” concept like this:

…Walk into a shopping mall and at the ends or in the corners are usually huge big-name stores. These are anchor units, the flagships of the mall. For many people they are a destination in their own right, or a big part of the decision process in choosing where to go. Attracting these big stores can make or break a mall, without them the customer numbers aren’t as great and the smaller stores go elsewhere…

So how can we apply this to professional blogging?

What is your blog known for? Is there anything that you could point to that your blog really owns? It could be a single post, a series of posts, an over-arching “message”. Now think about your favourite blogs. I am sure you go back to these blogs because of good quality regularly updated content but is there also a reference or series that you can refer to again and again?

This is “flagship content”. It is an effective way of creating a powerful blog property using a core of content that you build around…

As an artist, how can you apply this to you and your work? Let’s say you’re an artist working in glass, what kind of information can be a “flagship” to your customers? Chris’ ebook lists several ideas including:

1. Your biggest tip- what is the one thing that customers and beginning glass collectors need to know about buying and collecting art glass?

2. FAQs- what kind of questions are customers always asking you and your fellow glass artists? Can you answer these questions on your blog?

3. Message- are you trying to send out a bigger message in your art? Perhaps you are creating your art to advance a political view or to point to a social issue. Your blog can also be a resource in help people learn more or even do something about it.

These are just to name a few…

I read a lot of blogs and I must say that the ones I enjoy reading the most are the ones that have information that can be classified as “Flagship Content”. One I can think of right off the top of my head is Grace Bonney’s blog Design*Sponge. Grace Bonney runs an online store called Design*Sponge shop that showcases the work of independent designers and artists. Now while she does use her blog to make announcements about what’s new in the store and in the business, much of her blog focuses on her discovering the works of new designers. Every day there’s at least 3 or 4 posts of her featuring the work of a new independent designer (some of whom shows up in her online store), or of a new trend she’s noticed in design, and every so often there’s a post about some design event that her readers might be interested in.

During the holidays she creates a series of shopping guides that focuses only on the works of independent designers. She happens to have a special love for letterpress, so she’s created a Letterpress Guide that has the contact information of small, independent letterpress artists and print companies. She even has a guest blog where every couple weeks a new designer writes about their design picks. I read her blog every day and always find something that interests me and more than once I’ve written in my own jewelry blog about a new designer she’s discovered. Now when the holidays roll around and I’m looking for a nice, unique gift, or if I want to get some invitations printed in letterpress…who am I likely to turn to for information?

That in a nutshell is the point of Chris Garrett’s ebook.

Chris’ ebook is very readable and at about 17 pages, you can read through it very quickly. But don’t be fooled by the size…it’s a very information packed 17 pages. The best part is that you can download his ebook for free if you subscribe to his blog…which is another blog that I find myself reading every day.

Check out Chris’s blog at http://www.chrisg.com/

Deanna Wood, who writes the Artist, Emerging blog has posted her notes from a session called “Harnessing the Power of the Pen: Professional Writing Strategies for Future Artists, Art Historians, and Museum Professionals” at the annual College Art Association conference. The notes includes some wonderful tips on writing artist’s statements as well at tips on writing grants and freelance writing. In the notes, the artist is asked to consider:

1. What kind of materials are you using and why?
2. Where did the initial inspiration for the work come from?
3. What is the central or guiding image in the work?
4. Are there elements such as sound or installation?
5. Any notable collaborators?
6. Where does the piece fit into your overall work or career?
7. Is the work a limited edition?
8. Is there a specific venue that the work is geared for?

If you have a web site, you will definitely need an artist statement, so check out Deanna’s notes here.

An artist statement is one of the most important things an artist or craftsman needs to write, and can unfortunately be one of the hardest things to write. Artist Deanna Wood posted an entry with tips for writing an artist statement in her blog Artist, Emerging. Very informative and easy to understand, be sure to check it out!