Where Does Artprof.org Belong?
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A strategy that I’m employed in the past is looking up established artists who have similar artwork as me, and analyzing their resumes to see where they exhibited their work, what publications have written about them. In terms of my studio practice, that proved to be an effective approach; I had no problems finding artists who were doing work that was in a similar vein and artist resumes are not difficult to track down online.
Artprof.org is a completely different story. I’m not sure whether this is a sign that we are truly onto something unique, or that we are just plain misfits. Or maybe we’re a little bit of both. I’ve had a really hard time trying to figuring out where we fit. We’re not a gigantic platform like Skillshare and Lynda.com. Most of these sites boast of having over 3,000 courses in over 500 subjects! When I first envisioned Artprof.org, I can’t tell you how many people kept saying to me: “Why don’t you just teach on Skillshare?” To me those huge numbers make for a very cold experience, as if you took a one time workshop where you simply cannot build a relationship with the people there.
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We’re also not a single artist producing tutorials that feature only them. We’re somewhere between: a small group of artists that interact with each other in our video tutorials. Our aim has always been to foster a close relationship to our audience, to create a situation that’s as close as we can possibly get to bringing people into my classroom.
In terms of press, it’s been even more confusing. The art reporters largely focus on gallery exhibitions, museums, and public art. I thought we would be a shoo-in for education reporters, but that definitely has not been the case. Most of the education reporters seem more interested in the politics of education, and the learning process isn’t covered much by comparison. With the release of our Taiwan travel video, and our upcoming Guangzhou video, an area I’ve been targeting recently is travel reporters. But travel reporters seem to be mostly people who travel to the country themselves, and then report on the experience. I haven’t found any travel reporters who report on other people traveling somewhere.
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I always imagined Artprof.org as a website that would fill a gaping void in accessible art education. I do believe that we are still fulfilling that mission. However, it also seems like we are creating our own place in the world, our own genre that seems to defy the categories that currently exist. I like to think this is a strong aspect of Artprof.org, but trying to find the right people to spearhead our project has me banging my head against the wall.
