My Attempt at the 'Artist's Statement' Exercise

Please note that with the "Artist's Statement" suggestion, I'm only proposing it as an exercise. You don't need to critique the whole genre or develop an ideological position about artists' statements in particular or the art world in general in order to benefit from it. Just write a short paragraph that provides a positive description of who you are as a photographer and what you care about.

Consider it a paragraph-long introduction to you...for people who don't know you. I'll quote a sentence from Steve Caddy's Featured Comment to the "Catch Fire" post: "The statement is a stab at helping to shed a little light to help orient the viewer."

And yes, write it in the third person. That's the genre. Go along.  :-)

Civil War generals
I actually took my own advice and tried the exercise yesterday evening. I'm not suggesting you share yours, because perhaps such exercises work better if they don't have to be displayed to the world and opened up to criticism. But I'll share my attempt just as an example, as a topic for discussion, and also because...well, it surprised me what I came up with! Honestly, I had no notion of where I was going to go with it when I sat down to write.

I started with "Mike Johnston is interested in..." and look what came out:

Mike Johnston is interested in portraiture and portraits of all types, especially informal, candid, and environmental portraits. This interest first showed itself at age six when he vandalized his parents’ collection of old National Geographic magazines by cutting out portraits of all the U.S. Presidents to make a "collection," a transgression for which his parents, generously, decided not to punish him. As an older child he became a great aficionado of the Civil War and decorated the walls of his bedroom with portraits of Civil War Generals and other historical personages. Books of Civil War photographs functioned as his introduction to the medium of photography, though not consciously. His first published photograph, taken at age 16 or so, was a portrait of a French restaurant owner and her chef in Holiday magazine, in an article written by his father. His first "show," in the dining room of the prep school he attended, consisted almost entirely of casual portraits of faculty members and fellow students. When he worked as a photographer for hire in the '80s and '90s he was mostly commissioned to do portraits. He most enjoyed making portraits of kids and young people, often with their parents or other family members. More flexibly, the concept of "portrait" can often be detected lurking behind other photographs of his, from family snapshots, to pictures of cars or dogs, to depictions of interior spaces or even trees or found objects.

Hmm. Well, apparently my first thought, when my mind is a blank, is that I'm a portrait photographer. I don't think it would have occurred to me to describe myself that way if someone just casually asked me.

I'm going to have to think about this. Was that just an easy way to go when I needed to come up with a sample "artist's statement" for publication here? I don't do portraits any more, largely because no one really needs them any more, at least at my level. People take selfies now.

But when I think back, there might be something to this. Portraits were the only specific thing I ever marketed as a pro. Generally I advertised myself as a lower-level jobber photographer who would do any sort of work, and I mostly got "any sort of work," but whenever I "asked" for the sort of work I actually wanted, it was portraiture.

I earned the most money from portraiture. I charged $675 for a sitting back in D.C. And that was more money then than it is now.

...And I got it, too, which is a crucial point! It doesn't matter what you ask for your services; what matters is whether someone pays it.

I photographed some famous people—at least, famous in the context of D.C.'s prevailing political culture back then. Including a U.S. Supreme Court judge, and a television talk show host.

It also seems to have been the only area in which artistic creativity on the one hand and commercial ambition on the other intersected for me—I developed several distinct styles I liked, and devised at least one specialty—the "engagement portrait," by which I meant a casual portrait of a couple just before their marriage. (I didn't like photographing weddings, but I liked the challenge of making pictures of couples that hopefully showed a little bit about how they felt about each other.)

Genius idea
And when I sat down to write, I was thinking of a particular long-ago circumstance. When I first got into photography, I took a job moonlighting at a framing shop so I could learn how to frame my own work. There I met a co-worker named Judy, who would idly talk about how she was going to open her own frame shop one day. At the time, I dismissed it as daydream-talk—Judy was not a hard worker as an employee. But Judy was made of sterner stuff than I thought—she did indeed open a frame shop, only a block away from where I lived in Georgetown. And it prospered, too.

At the time, I'd been having a peculiar problem. I had purchased a display advertisement—offering portraits—in the Yellow Pages (the commercial phone book, if anyone is too young to remember). And the ad drew customers. But I soon realized that I had little idea what these customers envisioned from the word "portrait." Which wouldn't have been a problem, except that everybody did seem to have something in mind! Everybody had their own conception of what a portrait was, yet few of them could put it into words. So what would happen is that I'd make a portrait, and they'd be dissatisfied because it didn't match their expectations, their preconceived idea about what they assumed I was going to do.

To counteract this, I asked Judy if I could put up some of my favorite portraits in her Georgetown shop, and she agreed. I only hung "personal work"—the kind of artistic portrait I most preferred to do, in my chosen style. My deal with her was that I'd send prospects to her shop to look at my work (it was my marketing portfolio, you might say), and, in return, I'd drop off the finished product at her shop and instruct my clients to pick it up there. Which would of course be a perfect opportunity for them to go ahead and get it framed, giving her a sale. I think she even agreed to give me a small percentage of the profit.

Examples of what my customers would pick up at the frame shop. Fiber-base prints, dry mounted and matted, in plastic bags. Not coincidentally, ready for framing.

I thought this was a genius arrangement. Along with all its other advantages, I really did want my clients to frame my work, the better to protect it for posterity.

And it worked great, as long as it lasted. Prospective clients saw exactly the kind of portrait I most wanted to do. Not only did they want me to do the same sort of thing for them, but sometimes they could tell me which specific picture they liked best and why. Compared to what happened with the Yellow Pages ad, it was night and day. I went from getting clients who had mystery expectations they couldn't communicate to me, to getting clients who wanted precisely what I could most easily provide.

Unfortunately, I had a traumatic life-event not long after, which triggered a relapse of my alcoholism, so the portrait enterprise fizzled. But it was the closest I ever came to being able to do exactly what I wanted to do and get paid for it.

I guess the next thing to think about is whether any of this should have any implications for the future. I'll go ponder that....

Mike

ADDENDUM: Finally identified the comment that inspired the "Catch Fire" artist statement post. I think I might be the one who lost it—I think I added it to the "Access" post as a Featured Comment but then got my wires crossed in publishing it and it got lost. Anyway, it was from Dave Jenkins and this is what Dave said:

Sometime after my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era was published in 1996 and became an instant best-seller, I received a letter from the well-known art photographer Maria von Matteson, who proposed arranging a joint exhibit with her and the great Florida Everglades photographer Clyde Butcher. The show never happened, but one thing that Maria said to me stuck: she said 'You need to write an artist's statement that defines you.' So I did, and this is what I came up with. 'My domain is the old, the odd, and the ordinary; the beautiful, the abandoned, and the about to vanish away. I am a visual historian of an earlier America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.' As a commercial, architectural, and occasional wedding photographer, I've done a lot of things that don't fit within that statement. Yet, for the past 22 years I've known who I am as a photographer and have sought to work as much as possible within that vein, including magazine articles and my most recent book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.

I wrote about this on my blog A Life in Photography.

Thanks to Dave and my apologies to him (and, er, to everyone) for misplacing his comment in the first place.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Keith: "Now I'm seriously thinking of having a go at an artist's statement. Not that I'll publish it anywhere. Before I read your blog on the topic, I thought such things were an act of artistic pretension; a demonstration one could do 'artist talk.' Now I see it should be more an act of definition, of helping the viewer understand what they're about to see."

Comments

[Steve Rosenblum]

Which of the Supremes did you make a portrait of?

[David Souter. --Mike]

[Kirk Decker]

It's a bit morbid, but The Artist's Guide by Jackie Battenfield suggests writing your obituary as a clarifying exercise.

[John Krumm]

John Krumm likes to take photos of the everyday city environment, usually human structures and the occasional human as well. While not a "street photographer" in the classic sense, some of his photos lean towards that genre. Part documentarian, part admirer of shadow, light and circumstance, he's in no great hurry, but slowly accumulates images of neighborhoods, buildings, streets and the people who live there. He lives in Duluth, MN.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Well that’s interesting, Mike. But it’s not really an “artist’s statement”, at least as I know them. It’s more of a bio sketch that you’d put in the jacket of a book of your portrait photos.

Come to think of it, although I don’t follow many portrait photographers I can’t think on one for whom I’ve seen an “artist’s statement”. They usually just offer bios (like yours) and, sometime, boasts. (Greg Heisler’s is a good example. ) I don’t think portraitists really need much pretension or explanation. Their work is pretty self-evident.

[How about "personal statement" as a term for it then? I don't think it's useful to get hung up on semantics in this case. I conceive of it as something to help photographers either understand themselves better or stay clear about what it is they've decided to be committed to. Maybe "artist's statement" is just the wrong term. --Mike]

[Herman Krieger]

Artist Statement

I take photographs to amuse myself as well as the occasional spectator. Exhibiting photographs for mutual pleasure is similar to a comedian telling jokes to an appreciative audience. But comedy is more serious than photography. Viewers who see more in my photographs than I do probably have better vision. Those who see less than I do may be right, and I remain partially open to their criticism.

[I like it Herman! --Mike]

[Dan Khong]

Mike

From a helicopter view, I could surmise that you are a people photographer, and have a preference for B&W. That means - it's a wild guess now - you like to capture the "soul" of your subjects.

Dan K.

[Rodger Kingston]

Mike –

Here’s my artist’s statement, modified and updated from one that appeared on TOP a number of years ago.

Rodger Kingston has been a photographer for over 40 years; in no particular order (as they occur to this writer), he’s owned a photography gallery, been a dealer in 19th and 20th century photographs and books, taught photo history in a couple of good art and photography schools, spent nearly 30 years working in his own darkroom printing his own Cibachrome prints and earning a living printing for others.

He’s photographed weddings, done commercial work for universities and corporations, appraised photo collections, curated exhibitions, run a print matting business. He’s worked as a volunteer professional photographer for candidates in several state and national elections. He’s tutored and mentored beginners of all ages.

Kingston has built two important photographic collections, one consisting of over 4,000 historical vernacular photographs, and the other publications and ephemera by and about Walker Evans; he’s written a major Evans bibliography.

Kingston has had many solo and group museum and gallery exhibitions, a couple of museum catalogs, and has published three artist's books of his images. His work is in many museum, corporate, and private collections.

In 2019 BD Studios, a NY book publisher, issued "Train To Providence," with photographs by Kingston and poems written about them (called “ekphrastic,” meaning derived from visual works of art) by William Doreski.

Kingston is currently working on “Close To Home,” a documentary project photographing daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic. What he sees from his front window and in walks and drives around his neighborhood and the town of Belmont, MA, are people isolated from one another like figures in a Hopper painting, yet united as never before by this universal medical threat. He suggests that engaging in this project has converted the pandemic from being a terrifying experience to being an adventure.

Kingston states, "My life has been an unbelievable rollercoaster ride through the history of late 20th and early 21st century photography. I've met many of the modern photographic masters; a few of them have been my friends. I've lived my life in the company of countless artist contemporaries - photographers, painters, writers, poets, actors, musicians - who have greatly enriched and enlivened my life.

"More recently I've switched to digital photography, and if I haven't yet mastered it, I've at least immersed myself in it thoroughly enough to thrive and grow toward mastery. And even though I haven't become a 'famous photographer' by any stretch, I'm told (often enough to continue believing it) that I and my work have had an impact on people's lives. Many people have told me that they see the world differently after discovering my work, that now they see 'Kingstons' everywhere they go. When I get reactions like these I know that for all these years I've been on the right track. The culture of photography, for all its outward manifestations, is within me. I'm a happy man.”

[Steven Ralser]

Why do people write their on artists statements in the 3rd person? When I read such a statement I don’t feel the same connection as when I read one that is in the first person. I find reading one in the first person is more personal; in the third person it reads more like an obituary.

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

I've always felt a discomfort with the idea of writing one of these for myself but have always been very curious what would be written by someone who looked through my work and formed an opinion of what they see. This is something that I want to get done but I feel like i need external help for some reason.

I've occasionally needed some type of statement and often asked a client or two for some thoughts, but that often involves the ability to provide what a client wants. That is very different from what I want and need. I'm seeking, from a person that I respect as a commenter on photography, that person's interpretation of my photographs. I feel that it almost takes an external viewer to provide this? (I believe I may have asked one Mike Johnston if he was willing to provide this service at one point??)

I believe my instagram feed would be a fair representation of what I find visually interesting, how I prefer to capture it and what types of images I select.

[DavidB]

A decade ago I was doing the occasional photo show at downtown businesses as well as a small art gallery. The gallery suggested that I write an Artist's Statement. I did and now have it posted on my photo web site:

https://www.davidblanchardphotography.com/photog/index.html

[Geoff Smith]

I am an Australian photographer who loves producing images of beautifully lit landscapes as wall art. I have a particular love of monochrome, with an emphasis on line, tone and texture, including the unique rendering provided by infrared capture.

[Steve Caddy]

Mike, I just re-read Bill Jay's piece on The Thing Itself again, and in light of the artists' statement discussion what really stood out was the final page where he emphasises that the work will reveal your self, but the way to develop your self and "your style" or "your voice" is not to focus on those things — it's to focus on the subject.

...the truth of the matter is that a unique style is a byproduct of visual exploration, not its goal. Personal vision only comes from not aiming for it. In dim light, objects emerge from the gloom when not looking at them. It is the same with style; paradoxically, it is a natural, inevitable result of emphasizing subject, not self

And this principle brings up an equally important correlation between subject and self. If it is perceived to be important that the self should be ultimately revealed, the question arises: What is the nature of this "self"?

Which is an interesting reminder of the old Buddhist idea that the self does not exist, except in relationship. The artist's statement is a primer to the relationship between artist and subject, which is what separates it from a bio or a description of process or favoured materials (unless, maybe, the subject is revealed through artist's relationship to the material — I'm thinking especially of how, in sculpture, using the hardness and permanence of marble to embody the softness and mortality of flesh produces something profound).

[Tom Burke]

@SteveRosenblum: as a non-American, I interpreted your question “which of the Supremes did you make a portrait of” as being between Diana, Florence, Cindy, etc....

Which Perhaps suggests that in these international times, the artist’s statement needs to be non-local.

[Steve Caddy]

Steven Ralser:

Why do people write their on artists statements in the 3rd person?

JOHN B GILLOOLY:

I've always felt a discomfort with the idea of writing one of these for myself but have always been very curious what would be written by someone who looked through my work and formed an opinion of what they see.

I thought these two comments answered one another nicely: writing in third person helps you to supply your own external perspective.

[Mark Crean]

Perhaps these statements are most useful not for a life but for a project where intent and clarity of concept are important particularly if the project is destined for a book or gallery show. Since projects evolve as they go along, perhaps several statements at intervals are called for. I guess these can be mined later for project pitches to editors and curators, since the statements should have gone a long way towards offering good answers to ‘Why these pictures?’ Trying to put one’s life into a box is next to impossible (at least here), but many or perhaps most photography projects do need a purpose and a plan if they are to come to fruition.

[Patrick Dodds]

I've worked on such a statement but I tend to forget it when I actually pick up my camera and unfortunately tend to take pictures I think other people will like, though I'm getting better slowly.
It's quite important to not to get carried away with artspeak (so I like what you have written Mike) or you could end up with something like this:

https://youtu.be/3v8DbLWAXvU

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Mike: Why not keep your ball rollin’ and make a book of your portraiture? You might find it to be a very healthy, invigorating project, even if you only had one copy printed for yourself!

[Because COVID? I've never had less contact with humans. But, a good idea. --Mike]

[James]

James has made photographs on every continent, which is remarkable for someone who doesn't always remember to carry his camera.
He has even been known to smile when someone (occasionally) says...
'Wow, that's a good shot, how did you get that?'
or even....
'You must have a good camera!'

(The above is all true.)

[Bill Bresler]

There are a couple of sites that generate artist's statements that are absolutely hilarious, or at least they were the last time I looked at them, 3-4 years back.

[Benjamin Marks]

Mike: how nice to be proven wrong in such a patient and generous way. I read your artist's statement with surprise because I haven't seen many portraits of yours posted on TOP -- mostly you have been illustrating other uses/disciplines. If I'd have had to guess, I would have said "landscape." So being wrong or surprised is always a small gift, particularly if one learns something in the process. The other piece of this is that your artist's statement is the antithesis of others I have read, which points to the broad outlines of your proposed exercise, I think. I remain defensive about attempting my own -- more, I think, a result of my insecurities than anything else.

For me, and particularly with portraiture, what I aim for is to be on the subject's walls somewhere. After all, most folks respond to portraits of themselves in a manner similar to the way they react to their own recorded voice: they hate seeing themselves (or hearing themselves) as others do. So when a subject of mine voluntarily chooses to live with a portrait I have made, I know that I have captured something of the way they see themselves (or something aspirational) in addition to anything that I may have noticed when I click the shutter.

Thanks for the glimpse, and for not being put off by the snark.

[JH]

JH considers himself neither a photographer nor an artist. For over 60 years he has been taking pictures of things that interest himself at the time, like racing cars in the 1960s, and to illustrate his writing on technical topics, both leading to many published photos. He always has carried a camera to document his travels, family and job, as well as the dumb-ass things he sees in the world. His current project - for the last couple of decades - has been to photograph commonplace things in ways that create abstractions to incorporate into his computer's screen saver, creating a diversion to keep him from getting too bored on all those long phone calls he seems to get involved with.

[SteveAitch]

I think (though, of course, I could be wrong) that my 'statement' is what a lot of photographers would say, if they didn't have to dress it all up with the art-school verbiage that's expected of them these days.

"I try to produce technically and compositionally acceptable photographs of things that interest or amuse me."

[Jim Arthur]

Mike, I think Ken is saying you could follow through on your Artist’s Statement by digitizing some of your favorite portraits for a one-off book that uses your Artist’s Statement as an introduction.

Depending on how you digitize the negatives and create the book, you might not need to interact with any humans. B&H has a nice article on digitizing negatives with a DSLR and the author works with medium format color and black and white negatives in the article. If you just use your top ten all-time favorite negatives and then use digital work to round out the book it might make things easier.

I like the sound of this. I think I’ll pick up one of the inexpensive light pads mentioned in the B&H article. At the very least it will come in handy for digitizing some of the old family slides I’ve unearthed recently.

The extra mile: I’d be curious if any of your readers have attempted book binding at home. I see all sorts of YouTube videos on the topic and I’m just wondering if acceptable results can be achieved by a beginner. If personal inkjets really can produce prints that last hundreds of years in an album, it might be worth a try.