Stage 03 of 9
Concept
What is this actually about?
Move from spark to stance. Content is not subject matter alone; it's the argument the work is making. Write it as a sentence you'd defend in a room.
Prompts to sit with
- 01What is the one-sentence claim of this work?
- 02What emotion, question, or unease do you want a viewer to leave with?
- 03Is there a symbol, metaphor, or narrative shape holding it together?
- 04Whose experience does this speak from — and is that yours to speak?
Small practices
- Draft a 150-word artist statement now, even if premature (Appendix K).
- Name the work with a placeholder title. It will change; give the idea a handle.
- Say it aloud to someone outside the arts and watch where they get lost.
Follow one project throughAn interactive daf — A contemplative reader that keeps the argument — traced through all nine stages, in progress.A running example, one entry per stage. Click to expand.
One sentence: a reader where the primary text breathes, and the grammar surrounds it like commentary — visible, weighted, walkable. Success looks like a stranger spending fifteen minutes on one passage without noticing the time, and leaving with the citation. Failure looks like a beautiful shell that hides the argument, or a citation apparatus that kills the reading. The both-and is the whole point.