BIO SWAPPING!

Hey guys!

It just occurred to me after reading Gabe's comment on my post on "carter's profile/bio" that perhaps the person the profile is about is the least qualified to actually write it. There is so much invested in this kind of personal statement that you end up writing it to please yourself, and the audience is frequently left either bored or bewildered. We may know the kinds of things we want to say about ourselves, but actually doing it is too personal to get any perspective or objectivity. As you may have noticed in my attempt in the previous post, I was desperate to make a case for doing things the way that I do them. No one else really cares, and they shouldn't have to read this expansive self justification. If anyone has read artist statements by students (and many professionals) you would cringe at the barrage of bullshit and academic tripe. You don't want your etsy statement to read like one of those. It should be friendly and helpful, not overbearing.


SO HERE IS WHAT I AM PROPOSING:

Lets go ahead and make a stab at writing our own profiles, but let each of the others edit or rewrite them based on the ideas we had. With this outside perspective on what works we won't be as tempted to blindly cling to some personally important phrase that no one else gives a hoot about. Of course it is up to us in the end to choose what statement we want to be represented by, but if my own experience is any indication, most of us probably have an enormous blindspot where what we say about ourselves is concerned. I was actually all set to commit to what I had written, since it certainly summed up everything I wanted to say. In the end it is a little like a person who has bad breath: It smells alright to that person, but everyone else flinches when he opens his mouth. Philosophers call this the kimche self.