Attention: Overly Modest Artists

I have discussed the subject of over-informing people before. Artists seem to naturally divide into two groups, those who are really modest about their accomplishments and those who will gladly shout them to the mountaintops. Unfortunately, too many of us don't do enough to let people know what we are involved in.

I am among those in the overly modest group in that I don't often do enough to inform people of what I am doing. The more things I am involved with, the worse I am about letting people know. Typically I will hype up all of the larger events, like solo shows, exclusive group shows and sales, but I am not very good about telling people about many of the larger group shows and non-local events that I am involved in. I am especially bad about dispersing printed show announcement cards, in part because they are not eco-friendly. (I have explored this topic here.)

As a result, sometimes people approach me at such shows saying, "I didn't know you were involved in this." They are glad to see me and my work and sometimes voice that they wish they had been better informed. I need to try to be better about this but sometimes I get so busy that I don't even fully think about all of the things that I am involved in. For example, today I worked on art and paperwork for six different events including creating new art, preserving some finished pieces, packing and shipping work, editing a proposal for a group show I am curating and working on a schedule for an upcoming group show I am involved in.

However, I do like to know what all is going on in the art community. What is the point of publicly displaying our work if no one comes to see it? But people won't know to come if no one tells them there's something to see. No one can find out about anything if all of us are too modest to let one another know what we are up to. So, I will try to be better about informing others of my accomplishments. I hope that you other more modest artists out there will do the same - many people genuinely want to know what we are doing and what all is going on.