ART JOURNAL 9
04/13/2020
Please think about and answer the following questions
What events/moments/personal experiences change or refine my past perspective to look at art teaching and learning now?
What current learning or art education theories do I learn related to this change or revision?
How does my art piece (or the process of making this art piece) represent this change or revision?
How does my current understanding influence my path of becoming an artist and educator?
In regards to this week’s entry, I wanted to expand on some ideas I had explored in previous entries, and find new ways to apply what I have learned. The areas I am specifically expanding upon are utilizing Instagram as a platform to promote one’s artwork, and using its popularity and connectivity to other art industry leaders, to reach out and share artwork and ideas directly with them. I believe that one of the most important aspects of remaining a working artist, as a teacher and facilitator in the art room, is that you are able to provide students with industry connections and professional insight to aid in the pursuit of their goals. This will immensely help students establish a place for themselves in this expansive community of artists, designers, and creative thinkers.
Before my previous art journal entries, I had not explored all the features Instagram had to offer for artists. The app has taken great strides in the past year to become a platform for all kinds of businesses and passion projects. One of the features in particular that I had not explored until this week is the ability to make your profile a professional business account. This means that you can choose from a variety of labels, such as musician, artist, politician, public figure, athlete, fitness expert, and so on… The title you select will then appear underneath your name on your profile. By making your profile a business account, which is free to do, you then have the ability to track how many views, likes, and profile visits your posts/artwork is generating. It also shows you how many profile visits your content is generating weekly. This is valuable information to use if you are attempting to expand your audience and grow a following.
Another feature that I had not attempted was the “promote” option that now appears underneath your posts. By clicking this link, promoting lets you turn well-performing posts into ads right within the Instagram app. This helps you connect with even more customers, and you can even select a target audience or allow Instagram to use suggested targeting for you. After that, your post will be promoted as an ad for any length of time that you choose.
When I was in Middle School and High School, apps like Instagram and other Social Medias were not used in our coursework. At the time they were new, and there was a societal stigma against their academic capabilities. As time has gone on since their arrival, these applications have evolved with our culture to fit our needs and remain relevant. We are more connected to other artists, celebrities, and industry leaders than ever before, and this is in large part to social media.
The lesson I am taking from this reflection, is that new technologies and trends in general, are always emerging. Instead of discriminating against these new applications, platforms, and ideas, I will look to see if there are creative ways I could utilize them to aid to my future students’ success and get them ahead of the curve. It is through remaining a working artist and experimenting with this application that I have experienced, first hand, the incredible opportunities it holds.
Therefore, for my visual art component I expanded upon the idea of using Instagram for my students to promote their art, and connect them with their favorite celebrities, and online communities, with which to share their work. For this activity however, I am now reaching out to art industry leaders to not only share my work as well, but hope to establish connections, and possibly sell character designs and concept art.
For this lesson I specifically targeted Nintendo. This past week I created many new character designs that I would love to share, sell, or give Nintendo the rights to use. I posted these designs to my Instagram profile, and put hashtags that cater to my target audience. I then tagged the official Japanese and U.S. Nintendo Instagram accounts. I know that these official accounts are generally run by sectors that are not involved in HR, artistic design, or coding, so I took things a step further and did some “detective work”.
I simply Googled, the staff credits of specific/relevant videogames I felt my character designs could belong to. I then wrote down the names of the games’ staff that were involved in artistic direction, character designs, writing, and concept art portions of the development. Then, I searched their names on Instagram and was able to find many of their professional accounts relatively easily. I hit the “Follow” option on their pages and tagged them in my artwork respectively. Many of the artists who were vital to the games’ development have a small following on Instagram, so the odds of them seeing my artwork is very high. I am excited to see if anything will come from taking this initiative, but firmly believe that this kind student involvement on applications will be vital to their future success.
With further exploration of the opportunities Instagram has to offer artists, particularly in the ability to directly reach out to industry leaders in a personal manner, there is more of a chance for your work to be seen than by submitting through a job application. The atmosphere is much more relaxed and community driven. From this revelation I hope to provide my future Middle or High School aged students with the projects that identify their careers goals and use popular social media’s as a platform to present their artwork, and take proactive steps towards their ambitions. I can envision having an assignment where my students research who the key figures are in the specific line of work they would like to become involved in, and have them reach out via social media. This provides much needed practicality to their lessons, real-world application of their products, clear goals, extrinsic value, and a plethora of other skills that complement the creative process overall.