Getting To Know An Artist

At ASoM the members of the studio, myself included (yipee!) are gearing up for a gallery showing on April 6th. We're all working hard at putting together pieces that will display our varying styles of pottery.

I've been put in charge of collecting Bio's for each member. The Bio's will serve to let the public know a little about the artist and connect more with a piece they may decide to purchase. One of the members at ASoM, I'll call her Sandy, surprised me when she explained that the idea of a Bio made her terribly uncomfortable. Let me explain that Sandy is an amazing potter, with an incredible imagination. Sandy, above all the members seems to me, the epitome of an 'Artiste'... She's studied pottery from various teachers and is planning a trip to Thailand in the fall to study clay under an instructor there. Sandy was the one person out of the group who said, "I just don't want to give people the impression that I think too highly of myself, a bio seems so pretentious, I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not." That's when all the rest of us felt like we couldn't come up with a Bio if Sandy couldn't... Because she's THE potter. Eventually we talked her into the Bio idea and she's given me a couple of photos to choose from of her with her beloved horses.

My initial reaction to Sandy when I first met her was that she was a potter who took herself VERY seriously. She seemed every bit the confident artist. How surprising it was for me to find out that she's insecure about her abilities. It's automatically assumed that if someone is really good at something, they must also be extremely proud and confident of that ability.

I wonder... If you were to purchase a piece of art, would you prefer to have some sort of insight about the artist who created it. Maybe a way to get to know them on a personal level? Or do you think it's too pretentious?