An Artivist’s Guide to Uncover Your Artistic Style and Voice: Part 5. Your Unique Edge
Welcome to this mini-series about how to uncover your artistic style and voice as an artivist. In this part, we are going to explore your edge and what makes your creative work and artivism explicitly and uniquely yours.
But before we dive into the exercises, let’s define what I mean by your edge.
Your Unique Edge
Your edge is often found at the intersection of different aspects that make you who you are. It can include, for example:
Your story
Your skills
Your motivations
Your purpose
Your passions
Your perspectives
Etc.
The reason I call it your “unique edge” is that your combination of these aspects is different from anyone else’s combination.
In other words, your edge is the thing or the combination of things that makes you different. It’s what sets you apart as an artist and what makes your creative work and artivism uniquely yours.
So, how can we explore and identify our unique edge? As usual, I will go through a couple of exercises that will help you dive deeper. And, as usual, only do the exercises that resonate with you and that you feel called to do, then leave the rest.
Identify Your Unique Edge
Journaling Prompts
I first recommend that you do some simple journaling on some prompts that I’ve included below. You can journal however you want. If you prefer to do it in a mind-map kind of style, that’s great too.
Here are the prompts:
Story and personal experiences: What are the stories, emotions, and experiences that are uniquely yours?
What makes you different from others?
How are you weird?
Where have you always stood out?
And how can you depict that in your work (if you want to)?
Skills: In what ways do you use materials, techniques, or technologies to express your ideas?
How is the way you use them different from other artists and creatives in your discipline(s)?
How can you use them differently from others in your discipline(s)?
Interests: What are the themes, messages, movements, mediums, processes, social issues, etc., that you feel deeply connected to and curious about?
Why do you feel deeply connected to them?
Why are you curious about them?
How can you depict your interests in your work? And, additionally, how can you communicate your deep connection and curiosity about your interests in your work?
Perspectives: What’s your unique viewpoint based on your background, heritage, experiences, values, etc.?
What were you known for in school or in your friendship group(s)?
What kind of knowledge, advice, support, insights, etc., do others always come to you for?
How can you use your unique perspectives in your work?
Now, let’s reflect on all of that and look for patterns and commonalities in your answers. Also, look at ideas that could be combined and turned into an even more unique edge that could benefit your work.
It’s about identifying what makes you different from others and how you can communicate that. Because that’s the thing, your edge isn’t just about style or skill, it’s about communicating something that’s distinctly you.
If there is one exercise I recommend you do in this post, it’s this one. Reflecting on and writing down your unique edge can benefit you a lot.
Your Personal Story
The next, and final, exercise in this post will help you explore your own story a little more. If you’ve already done some of that in the previous exercise, then you can use this one to select parts from the previous exercise and go deeper with them in this one.
Here’s the exercise:
Make a list of all the stories and experiences from your life that are worth telling and expressing through your art. They can be anything from funny stories you want to tell to painful events you want to transform.
What are the stories from your childhood, your teens, your early adulthood, your forties, etc.?
Why do you feel like these particular stories are worth telling?
Look at your list and see if you can find a common thread.
Reflect on how you can translate that into your work by asking yourself:
How can you depict these stories and experiences in your work?
What media/mediums can you use to depict your stories and experiences?
What imagery can you use?
How can you create the right mood or vibe to communicate your message?
Final Words
Since both of these exercises can take you down very deep and vast rabbit holes, I’ve chosen to limit them to two exercises in this post. However, they can both offer you a lot of insight into your unique edge.
Happy exploring!
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