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CPD For Artists & The Importance of Self Learning for the Solo Creative.
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Message
Posted
Hello everyone.
I hope you are all well. I've a new blog post which I hope you find it of use.
CPD for Artists - that is Continuing Professional Development is there such a thing? There is. And there are some organisations that can help, but not many are accessible or free. This blogpost & short video is about the importance of artists continuing to learn independently: to encourage creatives take in new skills & develop themselves as well as their practice.
http://www.samanthabarnes.com/new-blog/2017/5/31/cpd-for-artists-the-importance-of-self-learning-for-the-solo-creative
Many thanks, Samantha Barnes
Edited
by SamanthaBarnes
Posted
I had to complete a set number of hours of formal CPD and a further number of hours of informal CPD each year as a requirement of the professional institutes to which I belonged. Happily that is now coming to and end and being replaced by constant 'CPD' as I continue to try and improve my painting skills and knowledge. A constant lifelong activity for most of us I guess!
Posted
Ah, CPD - I'm in the middle of an NVQ Management course at work so I'm knee-deep in CPD at the moment. I do think it's vital in the fast-moving world we live in as, unless you're pressing buttons on a machine making widgets, things are changing daily in most businesses. Same applies to art and the promotion of your work - social media awareness is a godsend now, and it's something I'm terrible at (promotion that is, I'm a shy retiring character). Thanks for the blog posts, I'm finding them very interesting :)
Posted
So ..... it's not the same thing as Congestive Pulmonary Disease, then.....?
Clearly, one has much to learn - actually, so far as self-promotion is concerned, I DO have a lot to learn, as I hate it; partly because for much of my life I was promoting other people - the idea of doing the same for myself has been very hard for me to grasp. But I can tell anyone interested that waiting to be 'discovered' doesn't work.
Posted
Hello Anth, Hello Robert. Thank you for your comments, it's great to have them. Interesting that you both shy away from self-promotion, it's hard I know but I have a couple of tips - in fact I might write a post on it - see your feedback is rich thinking stuff for me. So, I would suggest number one, that you try your best to separate yourself from your work when promoting it. Try to imagine that you are the person simply doing the job of bringing awareness to the work, rather than the artist yourself. Imagine yourself, quite literally wearing a different hat. Secondly, you are right Anth, social media is a gift for us visual artists - however that doesn't mean to say that you necessarily have to work under your own name - lots to think about here but you could set up another facebook page/pinterest/instagram profile under another more generic name - some of my friends have pages called 'ShePaints' or 'SmallGatherings' and this might free you from seeing your name all the time? Just a suggestion but I would also like to point out that people want to see your work, encourage you and will take joy from seeing you doing something that you love. Start with friends & family because they are your best ambassadors...
Thanks so much again and hope you are enjoying your weekend.
Best, Samantha
Posted
Self-promotion can be awkward for some people because they don't find it easy to big themselves up, but it doesn't always mean over-inflated egotism. You'll find that rather than talk about "Look at me, I'm wonderful", it works
better to talk about "Here's a new recording, I used this guitar, this microphone, this sound system, these strings and recorded it wherever it was". People react well to knowing "How".
In self-promo you become your own most important client; treat yourself as you would any other important client; just don't talk about yourself in the third person.