Artist’s Statement Guidelines

Explaining the rationale behind our actions and decisions is an important kind of reflective writing because it makes visible what is otherwise invisible. You can choose to write an e-mail in Comic Sans font, but unless you explain why, the choice may seem mysterious and odd to readers. Composers of all sorts often write artists’ statements for their audience that explains their inspirations, intentions, and choices in their creative and critical processes. It helps the reader understand what led to the final product by providing insight into what the author set out to do, how they did it, and what they might do to further improve the piece. 

In an artist’s statement, you step back and consider what you did and what you might have done differently and might do differently in the future. That’s what you’ll do in this reflection about the genre project you’ve just completed: the choices you made, why you made them, what happened, how you feel about it now. 

For this 750-1000 word document, you’re going to create your own reflection about your project, and do it in a way that tells us what happened and when — the chronology of thought and actions that took you from your first ideas about it all the way to the completed project.

Artist’s Statement Sections

• Before I began: Think back through everything you did—every choice you made and why—before you actually started work on the genre project. Here are the things you need to talk about:
  • Context: Give us the background for this project. Remind us how you became interested in the topic.
  • Rhetorical Situation and Related Choices: Tell us the “why” of your project. What was your purpose for making this project? What audience did you want to direct this information to? Why that audience specifically? Where did you see your piece being shown or distributed to your audience? What appeals did you decide to use (which, of course, may have changed later): facts (logos), emotion (pathos), the credibility of you or someone you talk about (ethos)?
  • Genre Considerations: Why did you chose the genre you did? What made you think that genre would be the best one for your audience? For example, if you did a brochure, what made a brochure the best way to get the information to your chosen audience — that is, you knew you had a place to distribute it so that seemed logical?
• Completing the project: Walk us chronologically through your process: this then this then this… What went well? What didn’t go so well? What did you have to change and when? Did you throw out your original idea altogether, and if so, why? Who/where did you turn to for help? When did you panic (if you did) and what did you do about it?
• Now that it’s done: How do you think it turned out? Did you change the kinds of appeals or see them evolve as you went along? Why?  What, given all the time and money and expertise in the world, would you have done differently? What works great, what are you happiest about? How easy or hard was it? How do you feel about having done something like this as a college project—can you see using any of this in the future (tools, analysis, etc.)?

A quick note: this should be a fluid, cohesive document that reflects on and justifies the choices in your new genre project. Don’t just answer each question in list form.