Friends, Artists, and Country[wo]men, lend me your ears (no, Vincent,
I didn’t mean you):
As you already know, one of the difficult things about
being a successful artist is that it requires you to function well
as two people—the “arty” and
the “smarty.”
The first and foremost of these selves, of course, is the “arty.” 
You
know who that is. It’s the inner child, the maker of messes,
the baker of mud pies, the builder of castles in the air. The mad
inventor. The absent-minded professor. The rebel with or without
a cause. The poet, the scribbler, the seer, the recluse, the clown.
The doubter and the dreamer, the deity and the little devil. The
holy innocent, or even the holy fool.
For this arty self to have even a modicum of real-world
recognition, however, you must also be able to call on the “smarty.” This
is the being who gets your creative self and your creative work powerfully,
authentically and effectively into the world. Expresses your visions,
value,process, projects and personality in the right words at the
right moment. Makes a consistent, confident claim for your talent
and your worth. Compares, contrasts, and contextualizes. Gets applications
and submissions in on time and with perfect professional polish,
and then follows up with a well-done web site, 
blog,
and press kit to boot. At his or her best, the smarty in
you knows how to do all of this and more without wasting your time,
turning your stomach or selling your soul.
If you’re like many artists, the smarty role may never feel
as natural to you as the arty one. But there are ways to make it
feel more comfortable and to help it serve you more powerfully. Collaboration
is a good way to do this. Collaboration with someone who
understands both arty and smarty, creation and sales, word and image
is even better. In that regard, let me introduce…me.
I playfully named myself as head of both the Arty and
the Smarty divisions of artybutsmarty.com.
for two reasons. The first is that no one else wanted either job.
The second is that as even a brief biography shows (see About
Suzy), I’ve 
lived
both roles throughout my diverse career.
The downside of this diversity is that if it actually had to list
every single job I’ve ever done, my resume would sound as though
I was either smoking crack or suffering from severe multiple personality
disorder. The upside is that I’ve worn both hats, worked out
of both heads, lived on both sides of the street. I’ve applied
(with mixed results) for grants, residencies and awards, and I’ve
sat on the admissions and selection committees that decide such awards
for others. I’ve studied the visual arts—my first career
dream and one of my greatest loves—and the literary arts as
well. I’ve written marketing materials and press packages for
incredibly technical and even more incredibly tedious investment
products; I’ve written materials for my own most heartfelt,
vulnerable creations and for the work of dear and brilliant creative
friends. In other words, I “get” both the 
arty
part and the smarty part, and can work happily with the first while
also satisfying the polish and professionalism needed for the second.
I can’t guarantee that the artist’s documents
I help you create will skyrocket you to an entirely new level of
success. Your
art itself will speak far louder than any artist’s statement
or press kit, and all of us know that material rewards are
iffy for even the finest “arty but smarties”. Nor can
I guarantee that I can create the perfect documents for you, even
assuming that such a thing exists.
But I can promise you three things. First, that
I can help you create strong artist’s statements, biographical
statements, web texts or whatever in far less time than you would
otherwise need to spend, allowing you to get back to your true work
as an arty as quickly as possible. Second, that I can help you see and 
articulate
your work in new ways. Third, that with a really accurate, authentic,
and expressive set of written materials in hand, you will feel more
confident about your work as an arty and as a smarty—and
that’s far more valuable than any piece of writing. And fourth,
that we’ll have fun in the process.
Oops, that’s four promises, not three. Sadly,
neither my arty self nor my smarty self was ever good at math.
Yours in the fellowship of creativity,
Suzanne
