6 Tips for Visual Artists
Jane Frere is a visual artist living in Scotland who has recently joined our platform Visit My Studio.
After trialling her first virtual visit with the team of Visit My Studio she has some sound advice for other artists who are wanting to offer their fans a virtual visit to their studio.
Here, in her own words, are Jane’s six tips:
Having offered to do a pilot “Zoom” with the Visit My Studio team I found that bringing visitors virtually into my studio needed more preparation than I had anticipated.
Of course everyone’s studio is different, and although it is a multi-purpose / utility space, often it is so much more. The studio for some is a sanctuary, a place of refuge, turned into a laboratory for exploration and experimenting. Whether the result be in failure or success, a sort of alchemy takes place.
It’s a space where the detritus of everyday life gets stored and possibly over time recycled and transformed into something new. In fact that’s its glory. It’s a chosen place to make something that didn’t exist before. This closed space of solitary practice for many, no matter how large or small, is a place to externalise the life that otherwise resides inside the heads of artists and make it physical.
In my case my studio is set up almost like a theatre set filled with an assortment of materials and props alike. The space itself contributes and influences the creative process as much as the materials that are stored within.
Works through different phases of process and activity can take weeks, even years to progress and cannot be explained away on a digital platform within a limited time slot. So how to approach and make the best of a virtual visit and tour? I decided to offer a few thoughts and tips for those who are about to go through the same process.
Tip 1: Prepare a brief
Do not assume the visitor has too much background information about your work. Prepare a brief introduction at the outset, explain the areas that you would like to focus on and the main points of your practice, keeping description succinct and to the point!
Tip 2: Do a trial run
Practise using the device of your choice, so the visit can flow smoothly and professionally. Give consideration to the lighting of the studio so that you know how much detail shows up on canvases or other works. Map out the journey across your space into areas that will give a sense of how you use it and how you arrive at the works you want to show.
A practice run with friends will make it easier to relax during the visit giving a better and friendlier connection with the people on the other side of your screen!
Tip 3: Remember it’s a conversation
Work out timings of the talk, avoiding garbled words or speaking too quickly, it’s not a lecture as such but more of a conversation. By slowing down, pausing over areas or pulling back to see the whole work, you give the viewer time to absorb and appreciate it all the more. Find the best way to encourage and manage Questions and Comments, but remember there may be more than one visitor so don’t get too stuck on just one point or area.
Tip 4: Be authentic and remember it’s online
Preparation for the studio visit doesn’t mean a massive tidy up. After all, you know what they say about overly tidy studios, and how tidy are our studios really when we are in the throes of inspired activity?
Think of Francis Bacon!
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t prepare for the visit keeping in mind the differences between an “actual” visit and “virtual”.
That wonderful age-old smell of turps and linseed oil is gone for starters. In some ways we have to make up for the absence of the presence of a real human being within our vicinity, that chance of the whole experience using all five senses is gone.
Tip 5: How to navigate around with a iPad or phone
Be inventive with hands-free gadgets. Carrying an iPad can be tiring, and a distraction, while you’re talking. I recommend you find a couple of spots around your studio to rest your iPad or phone, especially if you’d like to show a technique that requires two hands. Just make sure the devices sit at the height you want them to! If that doesn’t work for you, you could always ask a friend or partner to quietly hold the device for you.
Tip 6: What impression do you want to leave?
Think about the impression you want your visitor to go away with once the OFF / EXIT button has been clicked. If by chance your charm and work has beguiled them and there’s an interest in buying, let the mention of potential to buy come at the end, with a subtle reference to the place on the website or another online platform.
If you’d like to see some of Jane Frere’s work, here is her website and Instagram.
Want to find out more about Visit My Studio? Check out this article where we explain our missions and ambitions!
You can also just drop us an email if you’re wondering about who we are or what we do: hello@visitmystudio.com
