Last week I presented to 85 artists as part of Queensland Arts Council’s efforts to support creativity on the Sunshine Coast. It struck me that artists have a distinct advantage over the rest of us in that they are innate content creators. While I often struggle to make my daily output tangible, artists should find it much easier.
I always struggle to find a blog post image that represents ‘advice’ (basically, advice is what I do) so I was really excited to share some thoughts on social media with the audience because I knew they’d be able to take action straight away. I’ve had some conversations since with Natalija Brunovs, Kim Schoenberger, Wyn Vogel and Evangeline Cachinero and they all confirm my instincts that artists have a natural grasp on social media.
Artists have always formed communities – think of Paris or London in the 19th Century and the movements that were created to explore and progress fine art. There were groups like the Nabis or Pre-Raphaelites that came together and shared their approaches, furthering their theories and practices through close collaboration, mutual influence and discussion. This kind of collaboration was across different art-forms too. So there was, and still is, respect for individuality and social media honours those principles too.
I mentioned a few resources for artists and promised to list these for follow up so here goes: Etsy, Ravelry, Patternfish, Foliotwist, FineArtStudioOnline, Wet Canvas, deviantArt, Yessy and eBay’s art selling guide. And here’s a list of other resources that are interesting for artists and creative types: kickstarter, etsy alternatives and behance. The Creative Alliance were mentioned on the night by another speaker and I should plug them too because we produced their website*.
Thanks to Tim McGee for inviting me along to speak at the event. I wish him all the best for the ongoing programme.
*Note: this site is now administrated by another Sunshine Coast agency in an effort to share the love throughout the region.