Format for your artist resume

Today's post expands upon this week's Art Marketing Action Newsletter, Create a Master Résumé.

Below is a suggested order for your artist resume.

Note that the most important thing will go at the top. If you are in academia, seeking a teaching job, you would put Teaching and Education at the top, followed by the rest.

  1. Solo Exhibitions
  2. Group Exhibitions
  3. Public Collections
  4. Corporate Collections
  5. Recent Publications
  6. Grants & Honors
  7. Lectures / Public Speaking
  8. Teaching
  9. Related Activities
  10. Education
  11. Born

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11 thoughts on “Format for your artist resume”

  1. This is a classic case of how much easier life is when one keeps on top of things. I have never gotten around putting mine together, so it is a big job instead of a maintenance job. I guess I should at least start keeping track of what I am doing now so I don’t have to recreate that too. Thank you for this idea and reminder, ~ Diane Clancy http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog

  2. I’ve been keeping all of my show information in a database with fields for show name, type of show, start date, end date, venue, etc. And if it’s a juried show: jurors names, awards won, etc. It makes it easy to sort and filter differently depending on what I need at the moment. A spreadsheet should also work for people who don’t want to go the database route. But with a database, my online cv is also dynamically created from that same data. (It only shows a subset of the data I keep about each show.) I guess this is where the computer geek in me shows through.

  3. Joe – may I ssk what software you use? I have my clients and products in Filemaker Pro – but I want to start a newsletter and people talk about a database for names, emails and more. (as suggested by Alyson). I would like to start putting together my exhibits and all. Would I just use Filemaker for all that? Or should I be researching other options? Thank you! ~ Diane Clancy http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog

  4. Alyson B. Stanfield

    Diane, you can use Filemaker for all of that. You just need to know how to export names and addresses. Some people keep their email addresses online at places like http://www.constantcontact.com, but I would think you’d want a copy yourself and to export them when they’re needed. Filemaker is amazing. I wouldn’t use anything else, but it does require you to self-format (rather than it coming as a package where you just plug in info).

  5. Diane, for my website, I use MySQL for the database, and php to dynamically pull that information out of the database to build the web pages. It’s a custom designed database and website – probably not what you’re looking for, but maybe I’ll market it someday. 😉 I’m not too familiar with Filemaker Pro, but it sounds like a good option, especially if you’re already familiar with it. In looking at their website, it’s possible to have webpages dynamically get information from your Filemaker database, so you could do something like what I did. But even if you don’t need the dynamic webpages, you should still find it useful to store your information in a database.

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  10. Alyson-
    Thanks for posting this! I like the flow of your blog, I was going to email you and ask how would one layout their blog if they have a limited exhibitions or none at all. Then I saw on your contact that said to check on your blog if we have questions and here I am! Awesome! Re-reading the layout of the artist resume here on your blog (as I have read in your book) I have learned that I will just go down the list of categories and if I have something to contribute to that category great! If not, well I will keep going down the list! LOL

    1. Alyson Stanfield

      Stephanie: Thanks for being here. As you can see, this is a 5-year old post, but I’m not sure I’d change anything.

      I think resumes are pretty boring if you’re trying to reach the general public. I’d put more emphasis on your About page and telling your story in an interesting way.

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Your Artist Mailing List: Rethinking + Assessing

Get a transcript of episode 182 of The Art Biz (Rethinking Mailing Lists for Artists) followed by a 3-page worksheet to evaluate the overall health and usage of the 3 types of artist lists.

Where can we send it? 

To ensure delivery, please triple check your email address.

You’ll also receive my regular news for your art business.

Privacy + Terms