Artist statement packages

$750-1000, sliding scale

You get:

• 90 minute studio visit with me, a contributing editor at BOMB and freelance writer for various other publications

• One round of revisions from me, and further permission to adapt the statements as you like

• Two polished versions of your statement:

  • a 100 word-long (one paragraph) version

  • a 250-300 word-long (three paragraph) version

The Process:

I. Discovery & Research (studio visit, acquainting myself with your materials and current applications, and researching related work and movements you are part of): 4-5 hours

II. Writing (drafting two statements): 2-3 hours

III. Revision (discussing feedback and implementing revisions): 2 hours

Every person I’ve worked with has a different relationship with writing—some artists are confident writers who need to zhuz up the statements they’ve been recycling for a decade instead of further frankensteining bits and pieces of it together. Other folks have chosen visual forms of expression precisely because they don’t like or want to use words—for them an artist statement is the antithesis of why they make their work. It’s up to you if I take the writing off your hands, or we work collaboratively in this process.

I see artist statements as an expressive mode, not merely an informative one, for communicating about who you are, what kind of work you make, and the forces that have shaped your artistic vision. In the era of disengaged yet deceptively polished writing by AI, my role is to help you find the voice that feels truest to you, rather than the intellectual art speak you think a statement requires. If you’re making satirical work, your artist statement should have some of that humor and biting criticism to it. If you’re making poetic and evocative work, I’ll help you find that tone in your prose. The job of this form is to do some of what your work does, not just be about it.

Typically, we have three meetings spread over the course of two weeks. The first is a 30 minute initial consultation so I can get a sense of how you feel about your materials currently. The second is a longer 60-90 minute virtual studio visit, so that I can become more intimate with you and your work. After I conduct addition research and draft the short and long versions of your statement, I send them to you to read and we schedule a final time to discuss what sits well with you and what might need to be adjusted. I send the revisions back to you, and the statements are yours!

Why Work Avec Moi?

I’ve always been a nerd about the entanglement of art and words. For decades, I felt torn between the worlds of visual art and literature, thinking I needed to choose one path, one area of focus in my own work, until I’ve realized that was a bonkers (and false!) paradigm. I was initially trained as a visual artist in NYU’s BFA program, studying photography and sculpture, before deciding to chart my own more messy and expansive trajectory. I added poetry and philosophy into the mix, crafting my own major called The Intersection of Text and Image. [Fun fact: I asked my advisor if I could call my major “Books” because I was making a lot of work with torn up books as material and was given a solemn no.] Five years later, when I got my MFA in Creative Writing I attended UC San Diego, a program founded by Eileen Myles that had a robust connection the visual art department and was known for throwing out genre categories in workshop. This winding career trajectory has made me perfectly situated to support people doing one of the most dreaded activities creatives have to do: write artist statements.

Art is my life force. I am fed by museum visits, library books, and long meandering conversations with friends about their creative impulses. I began working as a critic over a decade ago at Glasstire, a local publication dedicated to the art scene in Texas, because I was already spending so much time seeing art and reading, I figured why not take another couple hours to write down some of my reflections. Criticism is an act of devoted attention, a way to harness my knowledge about art and love of language to honor how I’ve been changed by what others make. I love looking long and slow (I recently finished a novel about a young woman who works as a museum guard). I feast on books (my ideal Sunday is laying in bed all day reading through my bedside pile). I can’t live without art and literature. Your art enlivens me, and I want to enliven how you talk about it. The goal is to make it juicy, not dutiful.

Artist Statement Workshops:

For the last five years, I’ve been teaching artist statement workshops at places like the Textile Arts Center, Boston University, and Wellesley University, working with practitioners from painters and sculptors, to graphic designers, theater artists, and weavers. If my fees to work one-on-one aren’t within your means right now, I ofter public workshops online that help you revitalize your own writing about your work, whatever form it may take.

You don’t need a statement to bring to the workshop; all you need is a stack of post-it notes or index cards, and a marker (or any other writing utensil). I’ll share some examples of what I consider great statements (and a few websites that buck the instinct to be purely informational), we’ll dissect what makes them stand out, and I’ll offer a series of prompts to help you find your voice. You’ll generate a lexicon of words related to your creative practice and have a chance to play with drafting different kinds of statements, all within two hours.

Monday, August 4
3-5 pm EST, Zoom

$55-75, sliding scale