My Disco Ball Dilemma
You can find a lot of information on the Internet about how to write an artist statement.
I have a Fine Arts degree and I’ve been crafting artist statements for over a decade, but plenty of times in the past I’ve found myself Googling the subject. The sheer volume of material online can be overwhelming if you’re looking for an easy template to turn your artistic vision into digestible sentences.
It’s no secret that most artists have difficulty writing about their work. First of all, writing is hard. Thoughts float in and out of our heads and recording the most logical ones can be maddening. Secondly, I find that artists often ask too much with their statements. A piece of art holds a lot of potential for thought, but the over-abundance of confusing and esoteric language by many comes off as pretentious and nonsensical. Is it too much to ask to have an artist statement be clear and concise?
Of course, I’ve fallen into that art world tendency myself in the past. When the words are hard to come by or you’re trying to add deeper meaning to a piece than is actually there, adding a few buzzwords is a tempting crutch. (Juxtaposition, anyone?) But if you want to write a statement that contextualizes your work without confusing your audience, I believe that establishing what it is about your work that sets you apart from others is critical.
I came to this conclusion as a result of my work getting copied online. Many of you know the story by now, but if you don’t, the following is a summary.
I started making disco ball paintings on round canvases in August of 2019, and instantly they were a hit. My first post displaying the glittery orb went viral and the demand for these paintings was much higher than any other work I had previously created. It was a really exciting time for me early in my career, and the success of the disco balls was a big reason I was able to transition from part-time artist to full-time.
In the spring of 2021, I had my first official disco ball “drop”, essentially a collection release of about 20 paintings. I sold almost all of them within the first few days. I don’t share that to brag, but to point out that, when shortly after this drop I started noticing many artists were suddenly painting disco balls of their own, I don’t think it was coincidental.
To be clear, most artists were tagging and crediting me for the inspiration when they painted their own. I know that inspiration is a vital component of art-making, so I felt it was important that artists be able to try their hand at these paintings.
Where this crossed the line for me, however, was when artists I considered “peers”, or at a similar level to me in their careers, started painting disco balls without giving credit for inspiration.That was really frustrating and disheartening.
As 2021 turned to 2022, it was apparent that the influx of disco balls by many artists online had lessened the demand significantly for my paintings. I still sold disco ball originals, but the fervor was nothing compared to what it was for my first drop. (I’m sure some of this can be attributed to the concept no longer being a novelty, but still.) I am very privileged to make a living as an artist and I am fortunate to have multiple bodies of work beyond just my disco balls, but I can’t pretend that it didn’t hurt when I saw other artists signing brand deals and booking shows with disco ball paintings.
Even if there was nothing illegal about what these artists were doing (I didn’t copyright my disco ball technique, after all), I couldn’t shake the feeling of injustice from seeing artists have success with work that was clearly inspired by mine. Them not acknowledging me as a source of inspiration was something I struggled with for quite awhile.
My frustration with the disco ball situation would ebb and flow for months, but I knew I would eventually have to put it to rest somehow in order to move on. Anytime I would start to get excited about a new body of work, the residual dread of someone latching onto my idea and diminishing my art would creep in and stunt my productivity in the studio. This whole disco ball drama was making me dislike painting, and after long conversations with my husband and my therapist, I realized that painting wasn’t something I was prepared to let go.
So, with their help, I came up with a solution that could use my frustration for something productive. Ever one to wrestle with an artist statement, I decided I could use that space to write about the inspiration behind my disco ball series and therefore establish what set my paintings apart.
The frustration with being copied had almost caused me to forget, but the genesis of the project was a disco dance party in my backyard with my toddler. I grew up listening to Disco Saturdays when I went thrift shopping with my mom, one of the few pleasant memories from my childhood, and I wanted to carry that tradition on with my son.
So one day we were grooving to some Donna Summer on the radio and the thought hit me that I could paint an abstract disco ball on one of the round canvases I had laying around my studio. That moment was the start of this disco ball painting journey that changed my career, and the significance of it coming as a result of sharing a special moment with my son was not lost on me. Our childhoods’ couldn’t have been more different (thankfully), but this body of work was a symbol of a shared experience between us that wasn’t associated with trauma.
I took that detail and seamlessly wove it into an artist statement that didn’t require me to crack open a thesaurus or do any Googling. Maybe these disco balls were popping up everywhere and had the feel of an Instagram trend, but I took comfort in writing about a thread between me and my child and how that could relate to a colorfully abstract painting of tiny, broken mirrors.
I can’t tell you how therapeutic it was to write down a story of inspiration I knew was my own even as the tether of my original idea was obscured by a swell of new disco paintings. (Of course, many people did tag me from the beginning and I’m always grateful for them.)
So if you’re staring at a half-finished statement overflowing with cliches and euphemisms, may I encourage you to write instead about what explicitly makes your work unique. If you can share something personal, even if it’s the most mundane detail, you can be sure that someone else won’t have that component as a feature in their art.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s a whole lot better than a paragraph of buzzwords and nonsensical artspeak.