The Power of Stories in Selling Art - Part V
The Context Your Art is Shown Within
Artists often say, “My work speaks for itself.”
But your art doesn’t speak for itself.
People do buy the art, not just the story. But the stories do matter. What you tell people about your work will affect how much of it you sell, and how much people enjoy it. However, artists, and marketers often misunderstand what we mean when we say “the story” and mistakenly assume we mean the story of the artist’s background.
What we actually mean when we say “the story” is an amalgamation of many different kinds of “stories”, both verbal and nonverbal, that define the brand, or the vibe around your art.
This series explores these different kinds of stories.
Here are the topics we plan to cover in this series:
Previous Articles in Series:
1. Overview
2. Your Origin Story
3. Your ongoing public story
4. The specific story between you and each fan
Today’s article:
5. The context your art is displayed within
Planned for the next few weeks:
6. The story of each artwork
On to today’s update!
"Words matter. Artists love to trot out the tired line, 'My work speaks for itself,' but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself" - Austin Kleon
The Power of Context
In the book The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, one of Gladwell's observations is that humans act very differently toward the same inputs in different situations.
In other words, context matters.
Here's a dramatic example of how context matters: A few years ago an experiment was staged with world-class violinist, Joshua Bell, who, fresh from a performance at the Library of Congress with the Boston Symphony, panhandled for free during the morning rush at a Washington Metro station. Of the thousand-odd passersby, only a few stopped, or even paused, to listen.