Tag: personal histories

I hate writing artist bios. But a lot of the shops that I have my work in require them. So, I write them, and I rewrite them, and every chance the shop gives me to modify if I want to, I do so. But I have yet to write one that I like very much. My problem is, I don’t have a lot to say. I know you might be laughing about that, as I usually have a lot to say here, but I don’t have a lot to say about myself. Unlike this quote above, I think that my art should speak for itself, regardless of the artist. But I have been learning, as I learn about good business practices, that people don’t just want to purchase a product, they want the story behind the product as well.

So today, I have spent over an hour sitting at my computer, creating another bio, that is a short paragraph long. As I sit here and ponder, I wonder how much of a difference knowing the artist, the creator, or the backstory of any business is? But then I am reminded of how many businesses I have looked up on the internet to read their backstory, their “About” page. I also look at my stats for my website fairly regularly, and I have noticed that my About page gets more views than any other page on my website. As I have pondered on this today, I have decided it is because we like connection. We are looking for similarities in thought, belief, or experience. When people find that connection, they are more likely not only to purchase a product from you, but to be a repeat customer, as well as pass on your information to others.

Making those connections is important, not just in business. I was reading the news headlines today, which I try to avoid for the most part. But as I was reading, and seeing the divide in our country, I thought about connection. I believe we all have more in common than we may realize, but when we disagree with someone, we cease to look for the connections, the similarities. We see only those things that bother us about someone else. We see this in marriages, in families, in communities, everywhere. Instead of setting aside differences and finding good, we tend to plant our feet and dig in. The other problem is, finding connections requires effort, judging people from a distance requires no effort at all. But finding those connections and finding the similarities, working on the differences in a productive way, those are the things that will heal our nation, will unify us again. It requires communication and actually learning about people.

I think it would be very interesting to be able to read a short bio about everyone we come in contact with, a personal bio, what they have experienced, what they have had to deal with in life that has brought them to the point they are at. Everyone has a story to tell. I would love to hear those stories. Which brings me back to the bios. I guess that it’s about time that I also revisit and rewrite my About page. So, if you’re interested in who I am, at least as a business, I would encourage you to go and check out my About page in a day or two, hopefully I will have it done, or redone by then!