Standing in front of the class, I concentrated on breathing deeply through my belly like I had been taught. I thought about things like releasing my jaw and keeping my knees relaxed. I had been standing in front of the class for about three minutes. I was wearing my regular street clothes, and they were just…watching me.
A litany of thoughts flew through my head. “Am I doing this right? My neck hurts. Why is Sally looking at me like I have something hanging from my nose? Oh, I hope I don’t have something hanging from my nose.” And on this went for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, about two minutes later, the teacher called out, “time.” I took my place with the rest of the class and sat down.
When I was in acting school, we did an exercise where we had to simply stand in front of the class for five minutes. No talking. No acting – with gestures, facial expressions, or anything. Just stand in neutral position for five minutes. The idea was to teach us how interesting human beings are by themselves without any added effort.
I found that exercise one of the most profound things that I learned. Humans are inherently interesting. Watching classmate after classmate go through this, you could see the litany of thoughts happening on their faces and in their bodies, even when they were trying to remain calm.
I often think about this exercise when artists tell me they don’t have anything to blog about, talk about in their email marketing, or share on social media. Artists often tell me that they don’t think they are that interesting. If a person just standing there can be interesting, I think an artist can certainly be interesting.
In the Content Marketing for Artists blog post, I mentioned that I would talk about how to use stories to sell your art. This is that blog post.
Joseph Campbell, the guy that came up with “follow your bliss,” came up with a concept that I find very compelling – the Monomyth. Campbell said that most myths contain some common elements – heroes start out as lowly mortals, they receive some sort of call to adventure and divine assistance to get started, encounter obstacles along the way, go through a transformation, and return to where they started as a hero, changed for the better.
We all recognize this basic structure in many popular stories. Stories as old as Beowulf follow this structure, while new myths like Star Wars follow it as well. Luke Skywalker, a nobody on a remote planet, meets his call to adventure when a messenger from heaven (R2D2 & Princess Leia) summon him to help in the battle. Luke meets with adversity, must learn to use the Force, suffers defeat and nearly death at the hands of Darth Vader, but comes out the other side stronger, wiser, and eventually victorious.
Many books and essays have been devoted to examining the Monomyth. We’re only going to brush the surface here, but if you want more resources for reading, I can recommend Dramatica: A New Theory of Story and Tracy Hickman’s wonderful essay The Mythic Journey.
In the context of telling the story of your art, it’s easiest to think of the Monomyth as a way to structure the story of you as an artist, and your art, to your collectors. If you can do this well, you will get and keep their attention.
Nc