Week 21 of SLART’s weekly art practice.
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Author’s Note: Every Saturday, I share my art practice over the past 7 days. I’m fascinated by artistic practice – it’s not just about creating art but the entire process. From influences and ideas to materials and skills, each artist’s unique approach shapes their work, making it more than just a finished piece. Just imagine having a weekly update from your favourite living artist. How cool would that be? (I’m not saying I’m your favourite living artist, but if Jean Dubuffet had a weekly blog, I’d read it! Or if Lydia Pettit had a Substack, I’d pay to read it.)
Also, soz for no video / audio post this week, time has slipped through my fingers. In a good way as I’ve been holidaying.
If this piece is too long for email, you can read it here in Substack. Or download the app.
The Stats
Substack (Thanks a million to my 1 paid Subscriber, you’ve stuck with me when others left, you know who you are!).
2 weeks ago:
This week:
Followers seem to be going up, paid subs the same, and open rates and views are down. I don’t feel much about the stats now, I used to get upset if figures went down. But I remind myself that I’d have no stats if I didn’t publish my writing, so I keep on writing. If you write, I advise that you do the same.
There’s more reach and more engagement since the previous week, but no increase in followers. I’m still enjoying the process, it’s only been 4 weeks, so I’ll keep posting reels. If you’d like to check out my reels and follow me there, please do!
I ran some ads on Instagram, well, boosted posts linking to my Substack, to see if it would increase subscribers, but sadly it did not.
To be fair, 17 cents per click isn’t too much. I think I’d need to be a bit more targeted in future perhaps? For example, target certain people who’d read a specific post and link to that. This time round I targeted art lovers in London, Bristol, and Swindon and linked the ad to my Substack home page. Also, I think testing something with a higher budget and for longer might be better, but the trouble is, it’s a risk. Ideally, with ad spend, we’d want X about of people to sign up, then X amount to become paid subscribers. So starting with smaller sample sizes is perhaps better, then you can ramp it up when it’s working. The trouble with me is, that I don’t have an ad budget, I just spent 33 dollars out of my pocket.
No studio time this week, sadly
I was off work this week but we had a couple of mini breaks in Devon and Kent. Back to the studio next week. It was a lovely break, I’ll share some pics in my May Retro, coming soon…
MAMS Gallery Exhibition is now live
It’s all set up, come and have a look if you’re in town!
Brussels art fair
I am all set for the Art3f Art Fair in December, I just need to put the wall plans together by October. It’ll get that done sooner than later!
Rejection for Bath Art Show
Technically rejected but I felt no pain. I feel satisfied that I gave it a go, which is a great feeling!
I get the sense that an exhibition about sickness and death was a bit too ‘edgy for them’ LOL. Despite my intention for it to be uplifting.
Next week I need to carve out the time to work on my website and I’ll be setting up my art exhibition at work this coming Monday.
Thank you for joining me in my art practice for this week.
Best wishes,
SLART