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Knowledge Mushohwe

Creating a website is relatively cheap and renting a ‘wall’ online is even cheaper — it is free. In the New Year, Zimbabwean artists may take their work to the Internet and a global audience to increase the chances of selling their products.

No society can survive without visual communication.

The trend set by cavemen centuries ago has continued to become an accepted form of communication.

Zimbabwean visual artists, both experienced and inexperienced are not looking to just pass messages from point A to point B, they invest all of their time into their work and expect to live off their profession.

Visual communicators, however, cannot expect to make money off their work if they do not carefully plan.

As we enter a new year, it is important that artists draw up a plan for all the projects they wish to undertake in 2015.

Working alone rarely brings success to visual artists.

Partnerships with other artists and sponsorship from embassies and non-governmental organisations have proven to be fruitful for visual communicators.

Organisations, the people with the financial muscle, are always looking to communicate with a targeted audience.

They know what they want to say and how to put the message across, but they crucially do not possess the expertise to mould the message.

Organisations will typically commission an artist or a group of artists to create the visual message on their behalf.

This is where visual artists come in.

As they plan for a productive year, they should identify verbal and written communication skills as important asserts.

Planning art exhibitions, explaining their art to an audience and building partnerships are some of the many instances where excellent communication skills come in handy.

Artists may in some instances be asked to make a presentation in front of potential partners and poor communication skills may get in the way of a good deal.

Visual communication complemented with impeccable verbal and written skills should make a good all-round artist.

Visual communicators are reputed for their eccentrics and are not exactly known for their sophisticated dressing.

Dirty and torn clothes may be appropriate for a sculptor when he or she is busy working the stone but when meeting potential sponsors, it would surely be a wise decision to turn up expecting to be taken seriously in more elegant and less smelly clothing.

Some visual communicators are also known to be moderate-to-heavy users of either alcohol or drugs, or both!

The majority in this category claim toxicants help them to create the necessary ‘spark’ to kick start the creative process.

Performing artistes such as Bob Marley, Jimmy Hendrix and Peter Tosh reportedly only took to the stage under the influence of marijuana.

Tosh, in one of his live recordings, can be seen puffing away a large blunt of the drug on stage.

Singer Marvin Gaye owes much of his later shows’ electric atmosphere to his heavy drug and alcohol intake.

Artists are all different and each has his or her own inspiration ‘route’.

However, alcohol and drugs in particular are known to be addictive.

If, for the artist, drugs or alcohol start to compromise the quality or quantity of his or her work, it may be time to consider quitting altogether.

Visual communicators can only be taken seriously by the community around them if they create, not for themselves and their immediate families, but for a wider audience too.

Exhibitions should be important events on any artist’s calendar.

The year 2015 may be the year for ‘old school’ visual communicators to get to grips with computer technology.

The ‘old school’ kind of artist typically develops two or three-dimensional artworks manually.

The computer is where visual artists may meet other artists and customers online.

The computer is also the home of graphic design, digital animation and motion graphics.

It is a useful tool even to visual communicators that produce artworks manually.

The Internet is fast becoming a global marketplace for Zimbabwean artists.

Creating a website is relatively cheap and renting a ‘wall’ online is even cheaper — it is free.

In the New Year, Zimbabwean artists may take their work to the Internet and a global audience to increase the chances of selling their products.

Visual artists can learn from the media industry’s example.

Newspapers are reporting depressed circulation and distribution figures, attributed to the ‘migration’ of readers from traditional print versions to the Internet.

The Internet’s popularity is on the ascendency and visual communicators would be unwise if they are not going to invest their futures to the digital world.

Artists have to make changes if they are to start to earn both respect and financial earnings.

However, all would be in vain if they lose their identity in the process.

Visual communicators should not compromise on their style for the sake of sponsorship, partnerships or endorsements.

The New Year brings little hope for struggling artists in our depressed market.

But with proper planning and preparation visual communicators can reach an audience as far away as Europe and the United States.

And with appropriate marketing strategies and good partnerships, Zimbabwean visual arts has the capacity to take the world by storm.

Happy and prosperous New Year.