To prepare for this networking activity, I ran through mental checklists in my head of what I wanted to accomplish. I’ve been to art galleries in the past but I’ve never approached them the same as how I planned to approach this one. The checklist I made in my head was fairly simple. My goals were to make conversation and connections with as many people as I could, carry these conversations on as long as they stayed constructive, relate on a subject, and network.
I learned what worked best was to be open minded, let the conversation flow, and listen. I learned a lot from the people I spoke with. It was interesting to hear different perspectives on the artwork and connect those different perspectives to other things such as music. The most interesting things I learned were from my conversation with one of the artists. I learned about the materials used and how they were morphed into the final product. My favorite thing though, was learning more about his inspirations and reasons for the artwork. He began telling me how he was inspired by the skate culture of the late 70’s and early 80’s as well as the music from that time (primarily the music popular in the skate culture of that time). We were able to relate on the subject of skateboarding and the music from that culture during that time period. This was a great Segway into talking about me, my musical journey, and what I do with music. This I think is what sparked the most interest about me from his perspective. I could tell he was happy and excited to talk and relate on the subject of skateboarding and the culture behind it. This I think made him more interested to hear about me and what I do with music.
The next time I do something like this, I will definitely change some of my strategies because there is always room for improvement. One major thing I need to do is to establish myself on the social media platforms. I have been out of social media for so long, and really am not a huge fan of it. In our day and age though, especially for musicians, I’ve realized it is essential to have social media outlets that are well put together and well organized in order to establish and maintain the connections that you make. I think you can network at almost any event. However, for what I do, I think a musical performance or festival would be ideal for networking.
