Friday 15th November 2013
No matter what type of artist you are or where you choose to exhibit your work, the single most important choice you have to make is which pieces to include in your portfolio. Selecting the work to include on your Gallereo page is almost important (if not more), because the body of work you choose to show potential customers will have a direct impact on their opinion of you and your body of work as whole, and so whether or not they want to buy one of your pieces.
Naturally, you're going to struggle with it. That's ok - it's a testament to your emotional connection to your work that you have a hard time sorting out what to include. Fortunately, Gallereo is almost infinitely flexible in the way you choose to organise your personal page. This allows you to categorise your work into various distinct bodies, which can be very useful if you've experimented with different types of media or with different styles within media. If you tend to find yourself working in series', then you've almost got a built-in categorisation system. The same applies if your style has evolved over time but you still want to sell some of your older work.
When it comes to selecting the pieces you want to show, remember that you obviously want to include the best of the best on the first page people see. While you have the option of including every single piece of work you've ever done, they're not likely to all show off your talents equally. It can be agonizing to make decisions about which pieces make the cut and which don't, but it's always worth it as it helps you to prioritise which pieces you feel are your best work. But beyond that, do you really have to choose which is "best"?
If you've already got a portfolio pre-Gallereo, think about the choices you made when you were selecting. Do the pieces still represent your style? Do they still represent your talent level? Do they still accurately represent that most-elusive thing, your artistic self-expression? You'll probably want to go back and include some additional pieces, and leave of the current ones out, but that's ok.
The important thing to remember is not to fall for the temptation to include everything you've ever done. You may think, 'Oh, well, it's all digital, I don't have to worry about space constraints!' - and you're right, but you do have to worry about the attention span of your audience. When another artist website is only a few clicks away, you have to make sure that you're captivating your audience or they're just going to wind up somewhere else - and showing 500 of your pieces on the front page is more likely to push them away than pull them in.
So plan carefully, and put your best foot forwards. Give viewers the chance to dig in deeper to your work if they want to, but pick the best of the best to put on your front page as a showcase of your range of abilities.
Posted on November 15th 2013 on 09:03pm
