KNOWING YOUR ART FOR VISUAL ARTISTS

Knowing Your Art - Pushing Your Boundaries!  WORKSHOP: Arts Court 2 Daly Ottawa ON, Sun Nov 4, 2-5pm. Registration by October 31st, $50. shawkins@rogers.com http//:www.sandrahawkins.ca/workshops

Knowing your art is the first step to confidently being able to locate and market to the appropriate audience. More importantly, the process for understanding the unique authenticities within one's art research, creation and production can be key to the artist's confidence and ability to push their aesthetic boundaries. This is an ongoing process and not something someone else can do for you. Here are five strategies for better understanding your art.

1. Look for trends in your art over time, noting shifts in direction.

2. When looking at art by others, analyze aspects that resonate, and ask one's self if there is a relationship to one's own artistic concerns.

3. Keeping a journal while in the studio or in unrelates situations can provide inspiration and deeper understanding of everyday influences and philosophies.

4. Photographing your artworks allows distance looking through the camera lens, as if through another's eye.

5. Exhibiting the artworks is an opportunity for feedback and for the artist to observe connections within the body of work.

Business of Art Training inc. gives hands-on workshops like this to assist the visual/media artist to access the appropriate audience while maintaining artistic integrity.

Knowing Your Art is also the first chapter of the Book, The Business of Art for Canadian Visual Artists, by Sandra M. Hawkins. It can be purchased at the workshops, at Wallacks Art Supplies Ottawa $36.25, at http://www.sandrahawkins.ca/book, and at Amazon.ca http://www.amazon.ca/Business-Art-Canadian-Visual-Artists/dp/0973104910