What Drives Your Pasion for Creating Art?
© Larry Padgett, PhotoBizGuru.com

Have you ever written down your thoughts and feelings about what inspires you to create your art? Have you also done it in the context of what art – not only your art – but the more universal, broader concept of art – means to you?

You may say that you have, whenever you have written your artist’s statement. Maybe so, but it is unlikely. I’ve read hundreds of artist’s statements and very few of them succinctly express the artist’s passion for creating their art.

Using the business model
A successful business has a business plan. It is a written document that guides the business by defining its course through the year and points it toward its three and five year objectives. The business plan begins with a Mission Statement.

Mission Statement: Artist’s Statement
A company’s mission statement is a very concise statement of its passion for existing. Google’s mission statement is only 12 words: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

The mission statement is the first paragraph of a successful company’s business plan. Similarly, it should be the first paragraph in an artist’s statement. It states what drives you to create your art, and what you hope to achieve when creating it. Mission statements are often shorter than this paragraph, less than 50 words.

How does this affect you as an artist?
Am I suggesting that you stop what you are doing and create a business plan before you next press a shutter release, or make your next brush stroke? Not at all.

What I am suggesting is, by creating a tightly crafted paragraph that expresses your passion for creating art, you will achieve greater clarity of purpose, and narrower focus. The expectation is your future work may more closely represent your true, defined passion.

Your mission statement:
I challenge you to write your mission statement as an artist. Keep it to less than 50 words. In it, state what drives you to create your art, and what you hope to achieve by creating it. After writing it, look at the words you’ve used. Get rid of all the unnecessary words and make your statement as short as possible, while clearly expressing your passion for creating art. Use a thesaurus liberally to make one word work for several. Then set your statement aside for a day, reread it, then make your edits. Set it aside again for a couple of days, before editing it one more time.

If you go through this exercise you will improve your artist’s statements, and you will learn something about yourself. Quite possibly you will have a greater awareness and appreciation for your efforts as an artist.

Send me your mission statement
After you have settled on the final text of your mission statement, I ask you to send it to me. Next month I will publish on my website, www.photobizguru.com, those I receive without comment or your name. My hope is when others read them, they will gain invaluable insight, and reading your statements will compel others to write their mission statement. Email your statements to larry@photobizguru.com. I look forward to reading them.

Larry Padgett
PhotoBizGuru.com
Larry@photobizguru.com
Business Development and Marketing Consulting

Did you find this article helpful? Do you have thoughts or comments on this article, I’d like to here from you. Please send me your comments to larry@photobizguru.com

Larry Padgett is a marketing consultant for photographers and photography-based organizations. You can read other articles by Larry at www.photobizguru.com