The Power of Community

Exposing your work is one of the biggest challenges and most important indicators of success as an artist. How many artists labour away for years but never expose their work beyond a few friends and family? One of the beauties of being a part of SolidColour and ColourShift is that all of our communities are expanded – increasing the number of people exposed to the work and the number who attend the openings.  Another way to build community is to leverage social media.

A few weeks ago, I was travelling to meet some of my ColourShift colleagues to brainstorm and I got a call from Rosemary Wright. She had seen my work at the Riverdale Art Walk and had recently received my invite to attend our Bright Lights, Big City show at the Gladstone Art Bar. She wanted to write a post on her blog about the show and profile us as artists. Although she is a real estate agent, she found that her followers were really more interested in her community of Riverdale than specific real estate tips. Armed with this knowledge, she now actively looks to profile people and events in this area. So she blogged about us, I Tweeted about her blog post and Sann Sann reTweeted. By forwarding Rosemary’s post, we expanded her community and she expanded ours.

My goal this year is to increase my online presence (good start would be to post more regularly) and actively look for like-minded souls like Rosemary to share, promote and reciprocate with as we all build our communities.  Follow me @KateTaylorArt.

Check out Rosemary’s blog: http://www.realestatebits.ca/