ArTips©-The newsletter dedicated to the business of art.

Sometimes practical, sometimes techy, always helpful.

I recently attended a workshop to help artists write and refine their Artist's Statement. If you've read my column in Art Matters, you know I'm a big fan of artists talking to artists. This workshop confirmed my belief.

There were seven artists attending the workshop. Each artist arrived with a pre-written statement and was given the opportunity to read it out loud. Copies were passed out to everyone in attendance. We highlighted the things that impressed us the most about the statement (both good and bad), and what questions came to mind. Then we spent 15 minutes critiquing the statement.

I say critiquing, but it was more like a brainstorm session. Each attendee, in turn, tossed out ideas. The artist was questioned about the points they were trying to make, and asked about the background of particular stories. The end result was that each artist walked out with a much better statement than they arrived with. Actually, some of the final statements were nothing like what they first wrote.

You can easily do the same thing. Get together with a small group of fellow artists. Arrive with prepared statements, and be open to suggestion. If your group is small, say about four, you can easily dedicate more than 15 minutes to each statement.

On another note, I'd like to ask my readers in the United States to visit the Resource section of my web site. There are two bills sitting in Congress that will allow an artist to deduct the fair market value of any work they donate to a non-profit. You can learn more about these bills, as well as what action you can take to help them become signed as laws. I've even included sample letters that you can customize and send to your Congressmen/women.

If you're in the Philadelphia area, look for my ARTBiz column each month in Art Matters.