It’s important to try new things.
As the co-founder of wearabl, I’ve been using Shopify for a while and find it incredible helpful in terms of selling t-shirts online, but I wanted to try another approach with my paintings because, one, it can seem expensive when you’re not making money (and selling art takes time), and two, because I want a better understanding of what works.
So I went back to the drawing board and thought, tinkered, and procrastinated.
A new approach
It hit me.
I was reading a post Christopher Jackson of FuelYourWriting wrote about the power of the first lady’s ability to level and connect with people during her Democratic Convention speech, and it got me thinking.
We enjoy story time a lot more throughout the day than we realize.
As my mate pointed out, it can be used in politics, but It can also be used in religion, business, news, and sports … so why shouldn’t it be used in art?
It is.
Lifestyle storytelling
Aside from their creative work, what does the world know about Leonardo, Michelangelo, Picasso, Pollack, Warhol … ?
The world knows their story.
It’s what set them apart from others and clash with, and entertain in some cases, society.
This isn’t always the case if you think about certain artists, like Bansky, who’s lack of story is his story. But most artists will provide the world with two things categorized by society as two different things even though they’re very much connected:
- Their creative work
- Their perspective of life
The latter is what sets artists apart, resonates with people, and what your customers will be trying to capture when buying your work. Because while something might look pretty or stunning, it’s the perspective of life behind it — and your different lifestyle – that really matters. This is especially important in the abstract world, but can apply to representational works of art as well.
You need lots and lots of pages to tell a story
Because Lifestyle storytelling inherently involves a heavy focus on publishing, I’ll be working with WordPress to create a new home for my work.
Without getting into the details of why WordPress is awesome and perfect for lifestyle storytelling, let me just say it gives you the capability to create a beautiful portfolio for your work, create an unlimited amount of pages, implement video, photos, contact forms, and so so so much more I can’t even tell you!
Did I mention it was free and awesome?
Moving forward from the drawing board
I’m already a few steps into the process, but I’ll be sure to post what I’ve done so far so you can tag along and create a similar home for your own creative work if you feel it might work for you.
If you’d like to follow along … you can do so using the following four links:
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Image by Gaelic’s Art
