Your Personal Stories Help Your Dreams Come Alive
Personal Storytelling is not sales talk. Someone in a gallery or at a show may refer to something about an artist’s story when presenting art, but that is incidental to Personal Storytelling. No matter what artists want from the process of creating art, they need the assistance of other people.
What Do You Want to Happen When You Make Your Art?
It is most natural to have dreams for your artwork. While your aspirations may share similarities with others, they are as one-of-a-kind as is your creativity. One thing all artists share is they have unique personal stories. How well you tell yours makes a difference.
To Get Where You Want to Go, You Need Help
Whether you want to get into a gallery, a school, a show, or a museum, someone opens the door for you. Most of the time, that person will have as much interest in the artist as a person as they do their art. By learning to convey your personal stories to those key people, whether orally or in writing, you improve your chances of making your dreams for your art come true.
Making Artwork Is Not Always about Making Money
Of course, it’s nice to get paid to send your art into the world if that’s what you want. But making sales is not the top priority for many artists. They have other goals for themselves and their art. To achieve those goals, regardless of what they are, it takes help. Your personal stories influence:
- Patrons
- Admission registrars
- Gallery owners
- Curators
- Jurists
- Journalists
- Licensors
- Publishers
The first thing you need from them is their attention. Your art will speak for itself, but it doesn’t speak for you. Applying personal storytelling skills to any communication gives you an edge. Stories make you more appealing, which makes your art more intriguing. Stories create human interest, which is a powerful tool and emotional driver.
A brief few sentences that relate an anecdote or shed light on you as a human works wonders and will help to open doors for you.
Personal Storytelling Doesn’t Mean Performing
Sometimes the vision artists put in their heads when they hear “Personal Storytelling” is they need the snappy monologue skills of a late-night host. You can relax, it’s not so. Storytelling is nothing more than relating something about your life, career, experience, or perspective in your words—simple stuff.
20 Questions to Help Your Personal Storytelling
Here is a list of 20 questions you can ask yourself. The point of the exercise is to stretch your brain, revive your memories, and help you become more aware of the uniqueness of your story. Answer them and weave the answers into your stories appropriately.
- What is your superpower? That is, what is something at which you excel doing?
- What struggles did you overcome to become an artist?
- Who is your most significant influence as an artist?
- What is your favorite color combination, and why?
- What person made the most impact on your life?
- How did you get your given name? Do you have a nickname? How and why did that happen?
- Where would you choose if you could travel abroad to live somewhere for an extended period?
- What is your favorite film, and why?
- What makes you most afraid?
- Who is your favorite musical act?
- What kind of pet or pets do you have and why?
- What book had a profound influence on you?
- What dreams did you have for yourself when you were a child?
- How would you like to be remembered?
- What is your biggest dream for your future?
- What are some interesting things about you that few people know?
- What inspires you to make art?
- When did you realize your talent for making art was beyond what most others can do?
- What is the wildest dream you have for what happens with your art?
- If you could do anything for the rest of your life, what would you do?
These questions are not a test. They are simply ways to prod your memories, plumb your desires, and open your mind and heart to things you can share in the form of Personal Storytelling.
Discover How You Can Use Personal Stories
You will, on occasion, meet a natural storyteller. These folks need little prompting to wind up and tell a spellbinding story. That’s not what you learn in the Personal Storytelling for Artists & Creatives course. You learn how to tell your various full and partial stories in both spoken and written words.
Join the Personal Storytelling for Artists Course
The course is priced to make it available to all. What’s cool about it is although you can complete the course work in days, the skills you learn last a lifetime. Join today.