
This year Michael and I are working with some friends on a new book featuring the assemblage and collage work that we do. I can safely say none of us are writers. It has been a huge stretch doing the writing for the book, but it has been a good stretch, none-the-less.
We are having to gather photo images of past and present works, and write about each of the pieces that will be in the book. This equates to an artist’s statement on 20 pieces of art each. Writing a statement for an exhibition is time consuming, but 20 statements is a monster. The one thing I must say, is that after writing and rewriting and editing down and building up, by about the 15th description, for me, I feel like I am hitting my stride.
It’s kind of like making art, I guess: you have to do the work, you won’t get better without putting in time in the trenches. In this way I am enjoying this task, not ready to write a novel, but I feel like a short statement is within my reach.
The greatest help I have had on this task comes from the book, Art-Write: The Writing Guide for Visual Artists, by Vicki Krohn Amorose. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to spruce up their writing for presentation of their art. And thank-you, Vicki, for giving us non-writers tools to remark intelligently on the art that we do.