It's been almost a full year since I joined Steemit, my cakeday will be in June, hurrah! Since joining I have been blessed to have been curated for my art posts by @curie, @ocd, @slothicorn and also some kind hearted "art whales". It is always a pleasure to see that my art and contributions to Steemit are appreciated and those generous curations have allowed me to pay it forward and continue doing my weekly art contest.
I now do a weekly art curation for @msp-curation and though I don't curate for Slothicorn I am an admin on the server and have a good understanding of what types of posts they look for. I often get asked how to get noticed, who to contact etc. and I always give a pretty standard response.
You don't find curators, they find you!
Now of course there are some things you can do to make it easier for them to find you, and also more likely to give you a vote. The advice I'll be dishing out here applies to all types of posts, not just art, but I'll keep my examples in the art realm as that's what I know best!
Human Verification
If you have already been a Steemit contributor active on the site and various chat communities like discord there's a good chance that people know who you are and you've become trusted! If you are relatively new though and you post some amazing art you might be under suspicion as a plagiarist.
I know it sounds terrible but don't take this personally, there have sadly been many cases of art fraud on Steemit so people have become cautious. Most curators will go to the trouble of reverse image searching and will use various sleuthing techniques to make sure you are the original artist.
What can you do?
Make it as easy as possible! If I am trying to curate someone and I have doubts or can't ascertain if they are presenting their own work I might just move on. Making an introduction post where you verify yourself with a photo holding a piece of paper signed and dated with your username is the easiest way to prove that you are a real person and not an imposter. Here's my intro post and proof:
OK, so now we know you are a real person, that's a nice start :)
Verifying your art
As an artist we may need to take the extra step though of showing that we are indeed the artist!
There are a few ways you can do this:
This is obvious but state clearly that this is your art! I have come across posts where people don't straight up mention anywhere that they are the artist. I know it sounds odd but it happens fairly often! In some of these cases after investigating I see that it is indeed their work, but in others I have found that they have stolen the art and are kind of lying by omission. If you use someone else's image and don't source it properly most will assume it's your work. Be direct or add a disclaimer at the bottom of your posts stating that all the images were created by you.
Process! Aside from making the post a richer experience and much more appealing for the reader showing your process images can give the curator more confidence that they are rewarding the correct person.
Make it interesting and personal
Now that we have the technical aspects out of the way we can dive into the more subjective side of curation.
Obviously we all have different tastes, in writing, music, art etc. but there is something in the beauty of the presentation that can make even an otherwise dull subject matter come to life.
We are content creators! We are communicating through mostly text and images so we should make the best of these tools, the more the reader is drawn in to the narrative of your post the better. One of the best ways to do this is to make it personal. When I am viewing even the most beautiful work of art I will usually skip curating if there is nothing more than an image and a few lines.
I want to know what you were thinking when you made the art, what does it mean to you? Yes it takes some extra time, I understand! Sometimes we want to just post that art we worked on all day or week and allow it to speak for itself. When you are showing your art you are showing a piece of yourself and it feels very personal. Some may struggle with articulating these abstract feelings, but I guarantee you, the reader will appreciate it immensely :)
In a sea of content this is what will make you stand out! This is something that only you can bring, your thoughts are unique, precious and illuminating, they add another dimension to your art, we want to hear them :)
If anyone wants to translate this information into another language I give full permission as long as you indicate that I was the original author of the post!
Truly a nice post. Though I'm more interested in your pic. Lol.
It is nice to actually see your face, a true beauty indeed. Not only a beauty, you've been helping lots of people here and there, especially artists by having the weekly contests and the curation. Much love.
:D Thanks I see so many posts when doing my weekly curation that I ned up skipping and I don't want to!
Nice to meet you! Great information :)
I find it really hard to write about my art when it's really personal.... Like I said in my latest post.
If it's not too personal I can :)
I know it's really tough and I definitely struggle sometimes with it too, I think it becomes easier if you start thinking about it during the creation process!
Beautifully written and I think it should be very easy to remember!
The following is my old post with more details on how to present your art :)
(Preapproved by @juliakponsford)
https://steemit.com/art/@kristyglas/improving-you-posts-and-getting-noticed-artists-edition
(Don't upvote, old post)
Resteemed this post for visibility!
Congrats and very useful article! Sharing with all the friends, thank you for inspiration :)
This is Sam Prock @samprock, commenting as came across the post from Silent Zen. Beginning to start support work for musicians, photographer, artists. Fresh beginning on Steemit and thrilled with platform potential. For years I am conducting support group for musicians on SoundCloud and dozen of modern music share platforms. For the most the time Facebok became a hub for artists communication. And indeed folks I am honored to know and have fun with, rarely fit into one genre of art, while it simply impossible to follow a multiplier of platforms for photo, video, art and writing and all.
Aggregating and letting a person to expose different forms of art living within seems the best steemit feature for me. Myself, I am having fun with dusting off some photo and showing them day of light in addition to music posts. And I am learning more of steemit including curation. Thank you!
☮ Silent Zen ~ Indie ~ Music ~ Photo ~ Art ~ Support ☮
Thanks for this! Great post. I've just joined Steemit as an artist and had a wonderful time here already. Looking forward to the days, weeks and years to come!
Excellent information, very instructive especially for those who have little time in steemit and want to continue growing. Thanks for sharing.
Great article! Following!!
it's not that simple to be noticed by human curators, however being an active and positive member helps a lot, mostly on "your own niche" channel...also, where are your other 4 eyes in that picture? I don't recognise you.
I hide my eyes extra well, very true what you say, steemit is big but it's much easier to be known if you meet people on discord!
thank you so much, i am myself an artist and new here at steemit so it is good to read and know how to move forward to get yourself out there.
nice art
@juliakponsford. There are very many fraudsters in this steemit. Even those who commit fraud are often trending. Unfortunately for us original content creators are always under.
This is a great post for beginners guides.
Yes it's unfortunate, all we can do is our best to support the real artist
yes right my friend
Nice and thoughtful of you to share this...
WOW!! Thank you very much for all the data you give and I will do it from now on and my fault is that I always want to publish my work and I do not say much about it once many thanks !!!
LOL I understand, we get excited to post but steemit is a blogging site so words are important too!
Excellent guide. I will show this to other artists when they’re asking for tips and guidance :).
-upvoted-
Great, I want all the artists to flourish as much as possible!
Thank you for taking the time to write this article. Indeed this is really helpful in many ways.
I choose to make the best of this in my future posts.
Thank you I hope it helps you improve your posts :)
Thanks for the tips! Really are useful because you help us enough with the weekly competitions, in addition to this information, it is understandable that people become more suspicious because of the number of people who work in Steemit and seek to plagiarize the work of others, any Way I congratulate you for your work
It's unfortunate that we have to be suspicious, if I find something amazing I always try to check now :(
Thank you I hope it helps you improve your posts :)
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Great advice for all artists in the Steemit community :) Keep it coming!
I congratulate you, thank you for sharing your experiences, they are important.
wow, this is an amazing post, very well written
Thanks you Stellabelle, I think we all need little reminders like this sometimes :)
So true! also, with the improving of the quality in steemit comes an improving of the quality of your art and yourself as a person. Honestly, I think it's impossible to stay stucked in the same formats, since we are continuously looking for new resources, art techniques and feeding our knoledge through the months.
We all want to be noticed, but you need to keep improving for that, and obviously, making things from the heart. 💖
🐎 Unicornia 💫
How it would be easier if I came year ago too and found something so well written as this @juliakponsford :)
Very good written with essential things.
I wish I had seen a guide like this too :)
Thank you Julia for the helpful information! I will do the disclaimer on my posts bottom from now on and expand my story behind my creativty too✌ X
This is what I have felt and have been trying to tell to some artists on here that are or might think that they are undervalued. It's also more or less what I told my filmmaking students in the past. Please try to share the process with me as much as possible. It is valuable in so many ways.
Valuable information for the less illiterate, more struggling and or wannabe secret / mysterious artists and creatives amongst us ;>)
Posts like this should be put somewhere, in a place, where they are easy to find, so they don't end up in the timeline void.
P.S. Perhaps, if my famous namesake (van Gogh) would have been a better blogger, sharing the process a little more, he wouldn't have died young and poor :<(
I really wish there was a way to pin posts on your blog or have a sidebar with recommendations maybe, not expecting steemit to do that anytime soon but we can dream! I wonder if van Gogh would have been curied? :D
I get you. I almost thought of reviving a domain/ website I never started to do so. It's called TheAtoZofCreativity, just like my blog on here. Too much of a hassle though. I too wish Steemit implemented something alike.
Van Gogh would definitely have been curated, haha!
Fantastic advice for new Steem creatives!
Thanks to @tcpolymath, this post was resteemed and highlighted in today's edition of The Daily Sneak.
Thank you for your efforts to create quality content.
Awesome, thanks, I hope some people find it useful :)
I think I accidentally replied somewhere else. In case it gets lost in the thread I meant to say, great article! I'm a new artist here and looking forward to the future of this site and what it might bring! Following and upvoted!
Excellent I hope it helps and brings many curators your way!
Love this post!! As a fellow manual curator I really appreciate why you wrote this and THANK YOU!! I will definitely be resteeming this.
but... what about the #juliafan tag?
Thanks for the feature, @juliakponsford.
Been a silent spectator of your work, art explosions and other work and it really is an honour to be on here!
Omg but sad im not good in art huhu
They say Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
So I'm not sure that people are interested in your inner feelings about your artwork...they look at it with their own background and interpretations...but...
Helpful post. I have been on steem for awhile, would you suggest I reintrodue myself with a you tube video of an exhibition of my painting and phorography?
Is it similar rules for singers as well, especially using @dsound? I'm new here and trying to understand how I can share my music with more people. I want to stay anonymous, but will try to work on personalizing my posts a bit more.
I would say showing a bit if personality will help on every part on steemit, it doesn't mean you need to show a pic though you can be creative ;)
True dat! :) #cryptolife
Even after 10 months it is still the best article describing how artists must present their artworks:):)
Hey George! Nice to know this old post is still useful!