How to highlight your exhibition (artist bloggers only)

This post is for artists who blog AND who have solo exhibitions of their work, win prizes and/or participate in small group exhibitions.

This blog is now so popular that I'm finding I get approached all the time to highlight exhibitions by various artists and their galleries.  However my blog does not act as secondary marketing for galleries and artists who I do not know.

For the most part, my approach to date has tended to lean towards highlighting them if I like the art and know the artist and ignore them if I don't like the art and don't know the artist!

For the record, the approach I take is to

• highlight only those artists whose work I've already seen in an exhibition associated with 
• an art society, art group or art competition or 
• artists whose art blogs I've found and/or have been drawn to my attention.  
• work which I like or has merit.

During this ongoing recession I would like to be a bit more constructive and systematic and do more to highlight the exhibitions of artists who have a blog. So if that includes you - read on.........

Highlighting the exhibitions of artists who blog

exhibition by Tracey Hegelson

I'm going to start having a regular section in "who's made a mark this week?" each Sunday about the exhibitions of artists who blog.

I often don't hear from artists who have a blog when they have an exhibition. They may be advertising it on their blog and hoping I'll spot it or they may be concerned that if they send me an email I'll regard it as spam! Neither is the case - I can't get round all the art blogs every week so it's always the case that I might miss an announcement. Plus I don't mind being contacted so long as you do so in way which is helpful to me AND you understand I can't list everybody who contacts me.

What you need to do if you have an Exhibition AND an Art Blog


Highlight your exhibition on your own blog in a dedicated post

This is essential.

Please be business-like and stop being bashful and slipping it in at the end of posts about something else entirely! Make sure the blog post has an appropriate title.

Mangetout
(runner up in their Artist of the Year competition,
for the still-life category)
oil on cannvas, 25cm x 44cm
copyright Ilaria Rosselli del Turco

• Write and tell me about your exhibition - and provide a hyperlink to the blog post about the exhibition plus your blog's main page. Check that your link works before sending the email. You are more likely to get listed if you also provide a link to a site which provides me with your statement about you and your work (see How to write an Artist's Statement - Resources for Artists). This might be on your static website or could be a blog post - make sure to provide a link.
  
• Below is the dedicated email you should use - which helps me keep these emails filed! Sorry it's an image rather than a clickable link to avoid me being inundated with spam!
  

• Provide a helpful title for your email. Ideally the title of your email should start EXHIBITION: then your name and dates of the exhibition
  
• Provide an accessible image of the right size. If you have an image that you're happy to have featured you should include it in your blog post or upload it to Flickr (and provide the link). (Do NOT send it to me). In general I include images which are jpegs which are no bigger than 500 pixels (longest side) @72dpi and c.100kb in size
• Any questions? Send them to the above email address.
  

Priority for listing each week will go to artists I know and artist bloggers who (in priority order):

• have won a prize in a national art society annual exhibition or art competition (currently exhibiting)
  
• are having a solo exhibition
• have been selected for a national art society exhibition or competition (currently exhibiting)
• are exhibiting with another artist or a small group of artists

Nicole Caulfield's recent exhibition postcard

I'm also happy to post links to the exhibitions of all art societies which have a blog! (Is that an incentive to get blogging!)

Getting to know you and your work

I'm always going to be more likely to list you if I know you and your work and your blog beforehand. A good place to start with getting to know you is by starting a dialogue via the comments box.

You may highlight the content of this post in a post on your blog IF you also include the title of the post and link to it. You can shorthand the content but I want to make sure people get the opportunity to understand all about how this process works! :)

Note: The artwork is by artist bloggers whose exhibitions have previously been featured in 'who's made a mark this week'.