Talking About Your Work Requires Another Language

A friend who is a painter told me recently that she can’t write about her work because painting is a language without language.

YES, TALKING ABOUT YOUR WORK REQUIRES A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.

My response to her was fine, if you don’t need to exhibit your work or apply for grants, you don’t need to figure out how to talk about your work.

I love the idea of Gertrude and Leo Stein’s Paris salons of the early 1900s. Intellectuals sitting around talking about the art of the day, influencing gallerists and buying works for their collection from Cézanne, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec.

In those days, if you had friends in influential places you could find buyers of your work. You were not confined to execute commissions from wealthy patrons in the styles of the times. You could explore and grow.

Fast forward to 2020.

TODAY, WE CAN BE OUR OWN INFLUENCER.

But that means we need to find and use our own words.

And it can be like learning a foreign language to put our abstract ideas into words.

It doesn’t come without some discomfort, but it is possible. 

If you have a big enough reason for trying or you’ve built up a tolerance for uncertainty, you can dive in and try these prompts. 

EXERCISE TO FIND YOUR OWN WAY TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK

Take 10-15 minutes to answer one or both of these prompts.

PROMPT 1:

IF I COULD ONLY DESCRIBE MY WORK WITH ONE WORD, WHAT WOULD THAT ONE WORD BE AND WHY?

For me, I would say empathy. 

I work and having empathy for my clients, for my documentary characters, for my film audience, and when I’m struggling, for myself (one of the harder places for me to apply empathy). 

During this time of cultural shift, I feel getting to empathy is even more important than before because people are listening, speaking, speaking out, and speaking against.

PROMPT 2:

WHEN I DO RESEARCH ABOUT MY CRAFT, WHAT IS IT THAT I AM PULLED TO RESEARCH? 

These days I’m researching how to build empathy through storytelling. When working on my documentary, Beard Club, I researched about the human tendency of classifying people as us versus them. In researching for my urban biking series, I was researching the assumptions and biases against biking and looking for ways to counter them. In researching for my current project, Park Project Berlin, I’ve been spending time looking at the history of monuments in Berlin and how they impact the perception of history.

My research interests, while wider than this list, has a deep connection to ideas of empathy.

WHAT TO AVOID WHEN DOING THIS EXERCISE.

AVOID JUDGMENT

When you use one word to think about your work you might immediately think of other artists who could also use that word and then start to compare your work to their work or your success to their success.

Remember, this exercise is just the beginning of finding your language.

You are unique. Your approach to this idea will be unique.

If you find yourself in comparison mode, start to write how your work differs from others. Use that feeling as a place to jump into further self-exploration. 

AVOID JARGON

This includes industry jargon as well as jargon you have invented.

Jargon is a third language. We want to take you from your abstract ideas to language anyone can understand and appreciate.

To avoid jargon, write in words that can be understood by a third-grader.

Just because your words our simple doesn’t mean your ideas are simple.

One of my favorite non-fiction authors is Michael Pollen because he can make complex food systems transparent (looking at the impact of government policies on industrial research and design and the link between industrial power and government subsidies on farming practices and viability and the cumulative impact on human health).

I think it is the highest achievement in writing to make complex ideas simple.

HERE IS THE RUB.

ARTISTS AND ENTREPRENEURS ARE CELEBRATED BECAUSE OF THEIR UNIQUE APPROACH TO THEIR WORK.

Yet, getting to a point of embracing our uniqueness often involves facing a lot of doubt, from ourselves and others. 

I almost judge my ideas based on these detractors.

If an idea doesn’t have them, I wonder if I’ve gone far enough.

I design these prompts for self-inquiry. 

My hope is that is fun to reflect on your work in a different way, in a way that isn’t meant for external consumption but that often results in words and phrases that you can use to describe your work in a way that brings your audience closer to you through a shared sense of inspiration and imagination rather than explanation.

I feel we connect best on a plane of our beliefs, experiences, wishes, and questions.