An Artist's thoughts on Social Media - Exploring Reels & TikTok for the First Time

Part of being an artist these days is engaging with the world of technology. I have been on my own journey with this since October 2020 and have found it interesting looking back and assessing how my attitude has evolved and developed whilst talking with friends and family about their feelings on the subject.

Prior to 2020 I had been very erratic with social media, posting here and there with no real rhythm or logic. I understood its potential, but didn’t really understand how to connect with it in a way that felt organic and natural to me. The same could be said for my newsletters and blog posts. I would usually put something out when I had an exhibition coming up but never really wrote about my life as an artist, the works in progress, the challenges I faced.

I was an artist very much behind closed doors, that popped my head out every so often when I felt I had something worth sharing - and my estimation of what that was, always constituted a finished, resolved thing; never the process, the experiments, the trials and errors.

To an extent I think it is inevitable that we present, in greater and lesser ways, edited versions of ourselves, sometimes for brevity, sometimes for other purposes.

It takes time to feel comfortable talking more casually and openly to a wider audience. I am certainly on a journey as far as this is concerned, gradually finding my voice. The first few steps were extraordinarily uncomfortable but it was in the ‘doing of it’ that gradually a momentum has evolved, along with feeling more at ease with sharing my thoughts and how I work.

For me there is an aspect of journaling about it. By recording and talking about the process and development of my art business, a breadcrumb trail of understanding is immerging of myself which has helped me clarify my goals and the things that are important to me. It has also strengthened my resolve in what I do, how I can use my skills as a force for good and what I hope to achieve in the future.

There is a very worthy argument that social media is a platform that ‘takes’ as much as it ‘gives’ and I am not blind to the dangers of this and try to remain vigilant about the boundaries between utility and being controlled. However, at its best, it has been a platform for expression, for reaching out and connecting with wonderful people and helping myself, as well as many small businesses, be seen and heard in a much broader sense without the need for expensive agents and advertising.

It is with this in mind that this week I took another step down the rabbit hole of social media tech and posted a short 1 minute Reel for the first time, I also used this as my first ever TikTok post, kicking off a new line of exploration on a new platform.

I decided to use it as an opportunity to reintroduce myself and what I do. The challenge being to do so in a concise and visual way. It was a good little experiment and one I hope I can build on the future.

So without further ado, have a look at my video below - marking another little mile stone in my social media journey.

I am also very interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject and welcome you to leave a comment below.