Okee dokee folks, you know I like to do the difficult stuff together, so today let’s get professional by writing our CV’s. Yaay!
Have you ever heard of an Artist CV? CV stands for Curriculum Vitae, which is Latin for ‘life course’. A CV is basically a curated list of the artistic pursuits over one’s course of life. All artists need one as a way to succinctly list their accomplishments within the art world. Pretty much any gallery, grant, fellowship, or residency program is going to ask for a CV and, as a living document, it should be periodically updated with recent endeavors.
But trust me, even if you’re a newbie without a lot of ‘pro’ experience, it’s not hard to make yours look great!
Here’s the general order I recommend, but feel free to switch up a few sections to put the brightest stars on your resume front ‘n center. And leave off any sections that don’t apply, as well as any super duper old or mediocre pursuits.
And remember, the shorter CV’s get read more thoroughly than the longer ones. Short and sweet is the ticket here!
Header: Name + Contact Info
1-2 Sentence Artist Statement (in 1st person)
Education
Awards
Exhibitions (list as ‘Solo’, ‘Group’, or ‘Selected’ as needed)
Collections
Bibliography / Press
Affiliations
Related Professional Experience (can include short skills list)
Make sure your formatting is clear, consistent, and utilizes a basic font. As always, triple check spelling and grammar and if you have a friend or family member take a look it’s usually a good idea too.
And if you need a lil inspo on how to write a great short artist statement check out this vid + blog.
Would you like to see mine? This is the one I created for this video that is current at the time of this blog being written and will not be updated. Here is my ‘living document’ that I will update periodically, so it may be different than the video depending on when you are visiting this post.
And don’t forget, if you ever need professional eyes on any aspect of your art portfolio or small art biz I’m available via webcam for mentoring:)
6.28.2019