The Mission Statement
I have spent the last couple of weeks busily planning, mostly in my head. I have been asking myself many questions to come up with a mission statement. I was feeling pretty daunted by this task. The Mission Statement is really important for a business, it defines what the business or artist is trying to achieve. What’s the point of the business? That’s what I have been trying to figure out. Why am I wanting to get back to my art, what am I hoping to achieve? Of course, the easy answer is to make money. But there are lots of ways to make money. The easiest thing to do is to get a job with little responsibility and a pay cheque, why on earth would I want to start up an art business just to make money??!!
So I asked deeper questions. Why do I want to do my art, what is the point, what do I want other people to take away from it? I have been mulling that over. I finally sat down and wrote out a list of questions…. and answered them, in full sentences. It was a really valuable exercise. I then removed all of the questions from the page and was left with just my answers. There is was in front of me. What I hoped to accomplish, for whom, what do I offer that is different, how I would do it and what values did I want to see throughout my business. I started eliminating information that was useful to me, but not anyone else and removed repetitive answers and was left with two concepts to work with.
I put together a few options, refined, asked for opinions from those close to me and landed on a mission statement that I am excited about! So here it is:
[quote style=”boxed”]As a fibre artist, I present compelling images of nature that focus on biodiversity. I use materials from sustainable sources and explore innovative techniques in the fibre art medium. I endeavour to inspire individuals to explore their own vision of the natural world through fibre art.[/quote]
UPDATE Jan 2018: I have since added so much more to the core values I have with my business. You can read more about them on my About page