Art as “Shared Experience”
I recently came across this article in The Atlantic which really interested me as it was sort of explaining some of the strategies my husband and I have been using in the last few years to promote ourselves as artists. I have often thought of my husband, Seamas, as a creative director so was very interested by the term they use in this article, Creative Entrepreneur.
To give the reader some background, I had a car crash which led to PTSD and left me at my wit’s end, worried about my future, whether I could return to my job as a teacher and then returning to painting in order to help me cope with the emotional and psychological effects of my PTSD and simply just get through the day. Seamas encouraged me to paint as he knew it was helping me therapeutically. He then noticed my style was changing post PTSD and made encouraging remarks about certain areas to explore. I started building up quite a number of paintings as I painted everyday, all day, and would sometimes have 3–5 paintings per week. Seamas suggested trying to sell some of them via these online galleries he had come across on the internet.
We tried in hope rather than expectation to be honest. We were not sure if anyone would like them or if we were wasting our time. Fortunately we started selling paintings and giclee prints right from the start which was a merciful relief. However, we were still a relatively…
