As I transitioned into studies of PR and Project Management as an artist I had a beautiful and passionate vision to become a communicator for artists. I set the compass to navigate the lands of marketing for those who`s voices often are not heard because they do not express themselves verbally. Their main media are paints and brushes, multitools and metals, chisels and wood, render and spinning wheel. This land is vast and deep. This is the FIRST blog post that sets the foot into the world of artists public identity in the Northern Rivers Community. And we get to know beautiful Melissa Larkin that I happened to meet at Ninbella Gallery Opening on 14th of December 2023.
That night Ninbella Gallery had creative pulse pumping and became a centre for local community to admire well put exhibition. I asked Melissa a few questions that I wanted to audio record on my phone. It was very loud inside and she got very shy and asked if I could email her question rather than answering them there.
I new that the effect would not be the same and that is what I got:
Sof:Â Â Â Â Do you present your work via social media (SM)? Do you manage it? What challenges do you have using different platforms?
Melissa: Yes, I use Instagram only as a platform as I cannot afford a website.
Some of the challenges are that I am an older user of SM and I don’t quite understand it all. I have to get my adult children to assist me.
Sof:Â Â Â How does your persona changes when appearing in front of the life audience? And how do you prepare yourself?
Melissa: I meditate as I do not enjoy live openings. I am a shy quiet person, more artists that work alone in a studio setting are and are comfortable with being alone a lot.
Sof:Â Â Â Â Â Are you familiar with a concept of performative nature of Self? Do you feel that we have been colonised by the performative idea of online identity? (meaning act accordingly to some pattern)
Melissa: I am familiar with this term and personally always try to stay true & authentic to myself and practice. I do not perform live in SM or feel I have an online identity as I only really share my art and let it speak for itself.
Melissa`s art spoke to me, leading me to choose her to interview over five other artist. She is an example of those creatives who find it hard to present their artist-selves in an online environment.
If you refer to my post about the online Identity you can find an infographic that shows how many points we need to consider to be present online. Often it is overwhelming process that makes artists to question them-selves about self-worth, self-esteem, confidence, individuality, and place where we create from.
To be able to structure an online identity one needs to define it, yet often many artists just want to be submerged in a creative process without being interrupted by mundane demands.
Here I ask you and myself: "How can we create a safe space for creatives to learn how to harness the power of their voice to reach the audience they are meant to be heard by? "
If you have any thoughts, please, feel free to leave a comment below!