Creating a Video About Your Artwork by Barbara Schneider

 I was asked as an artist in Quilt National 2023 to create a 5-7 minute long video about myself as an artist and the creation of the art work. The QN staff were great about giving direction as to how to set it up and what information to include. I was not thrilled at the prospect but decided it would be a good thing to do. In the end it was not hard to do and I encourage everyone to try to make one about your work and share it with the ACN  group!

Here was what I did and how I went about it.

I decided on a background that would not be distracting and that had good light. This turned out ot be in my dining area with my Chinese chest behind me and good light coming in the patio door. I moved the dining table back so I could stand in front of the chest.

I set up my I-phone (AKA camera)  on a stack of books until it was the right height to record me talking and showing things.  This meant moving the table back some more and adding lots more books to the stack. :-) I got various props (Fosshape samples, original inspiration wood fragment, etc, organized in front of me on the table so they were at hand. I chose something plain to wear.

I reviewed the questions they wanted answered and wrote my self a short list to have nearby to refer to if needed.

I chose a time of day when there was no lawn mowing or outside noise coming in. I made sure the nearby refrigerator (ice-maker) was off so it wouldn't suddenly start making loud noises. I made sure my husband was out of the house so I wouldn't be nervous :-)

I was ready!  I got the camera turned the right way, checked that I was recording loud enough, checked that I was speaking to the camera. I looked at that, got over the freakiness of watching myself, took a deep breath and went for it.

I went straight through. I watched it and tried to be not too hard on myself.  It was within the timeframe, I covered most things, I didn't stumble too much and I decided I was done! Quilt National gave me a Dropbox site to send it too and that was easy.  

So a lesson learned and now I have that  in reserve if I need it for anything in the future. 

Here were some of the questions I had as prompts.

 Quilt National Suggested Talking points:

Share anything you think is important, unique, or compelling about your artwork! 

 

Introduce yourself. What's your name? Where are you from? 

What compelled you to make this artwork? What led up to its creation? 

Was this quilt part of a series?

What is your background in art? What is your background in quilting?

Where do you find inspiration?

What references did you use in creating this artwork?

What techniques did you use?

Did you problem-solve along the way? How so?

What makes this artwork unique?

And this is a link to the Quilt National video.  Russ Little and many other artists you might want to learn more about are there as well.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDqheAjsgg0