This week I read about an amazing photography project by Michelle Gardella on Artifact Uprising. “She lives with her husband and two children in a 25-foot airstream camper, traveling the US in search of stories that need to be told.” Wow, right?
Michelle is working on a photography project, River Story. Watch the video. It looks like it’s going to be an incredible book.
“I’m a photographer who captures women in rivers. And I’m creating a book called River Story to share it with the world.” – Michelle Gardella
I love how Michelle describes claiming and owning who she is in the Artifact Uprising post.
As some of you know, I’m launching my storytelling workshop on Monday. My last class was centered around writing WITHOUT thinking about tweeting or pinning your stories. This time you’ll learn about storytelling as it specifically relates to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Share Your Story, Sell Your Work is for creative people who make things to sell, so we’ll be talking about how to blend personal and professional in the stories that you share when you’re promoting yourself.
One of my Jump-Start Your Creative Spark students had this epiphany while he was working on a lesson. I want to share an excerpt of his message here because even though it’s from a different class, it contains a theme that will be woven throughout Share Your Story, Sell Your Work:
The power of YOU.
“I always felt they (my intended readers) were there to learn something and that the ‘I’ or ‘me’ was an extraneous detail to be filtered out. Filler. A distraction. I’m starting to view that very differently. People like to relate and to chuckle and you can’t get that in a simple ‘how-to’ post. SYNOPSIS: I went in to this exercise thinking I didn’t need it, because I knew what I wasn’t writing and why and felt no need to change it. Now I’m seeing the WHOLE thing with different eyes.” – E.
Owning who you are and what you create, and injecting bits and pieces of that into the stories you share around marketing yourself and your work, makes a huge difference in your business. And yes, even if you’re an artist, you still have to be (or hire) a business person.
I hope you have a great weekend!