artist's PR

If I look up an artist and their website feels too focused on marketing, I tend to move on quickly. Many artist's websites are designed as nouveau business cards, fine in itself, but in a world where we're pelted with adverts, not something I want to spend much time looking at.

Kelly Morgan, who teaches Artist's Way workshops, talks about website designing as self-discovery -- deciding who you are and (therefore) what you want to put out there, then designing and revising until it feels like a good representation of yourself (and your work).

I recently ran a campaign seeking grassroots funding to buy equipment for my project studio. I planned a recording project to go along with the campaign, intending to send music to the donors. I also shot and edited video explaining the project.

I'm actually quite happy that I worked on it, even though the campaign was unsuccessful. I learned the basics of some video editing software, and something about funding for the arts.

I encountered considerable apathy, even from friends and family. I'm not writing this to gripe - I learned from the experience. people delete most of their email since we're all pelted with so many adverts. I had some people tell me they don't have $10 to spare these days. Also, many people also have huge music libraries and are less interested in acquiring new music.

I see that often artists' PR makes no impression on its receivers. I also realized that I have conflicted feelings about self-promotion - I'm in favor of it, I do it, and yet it can be embarrassing to me. More of my energy has been directed towards being a good musician, or writing and playing music I enjoy.

So I'm going to redesign my website. I suppose I need the 'business card' aspect - but I'm going to bury it in there somewhere. I'm going to somehow include more things that are fun or exciting to me. Maybe that'll mean blogging about my friends, video of great performers, I don't know yet.