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For someone who considers herself creative, when it comes to naming paintings, I have felt like I have the creative moxie of a house brick.
A significant amount of time has been spent gazing at them, willing the artwork to speak to me. Which I guess must have eventually worked, because there are no #untitled pieces in my portfolio. (But it used to take a loooong time).
The day came where I decided this belief I had that naming paintings is hard had to go. (The ripple effect of training to be a Wayfinder Life Coach is not to be underestimated!)
Because I know I'm not the only artist who ever struggled with titling artwork, I've pulled together a list of tricks I keep up my sleeve to make the process a little less hard and a lot more fun. And, I've joined a couple of artist friends in pooling our ideas. In cahoots with Susan Purney Mark, Nan Dawkins and Rachael McCampbell, between us, we've got twenty ideas to help you get from Untitled to Great Title! without any pain at all.
1 My first tip is to Designate a spot for a Possible Titles List. I keep mine on a board in Trello, and have a dedicated page in my studio journal to drop ideas into when they come to me. Gathering them in a place you can find fast means you'll never lose a great idea again. (I can't tell you how many times I would have a flash of inspiration, only to find myself wracking my brain the next day trying to remember it)
2. Listen up! Overheard snippets of conversation can yield the juiciest title names! I learned this trick from Pamela Bates who once had a painting titled "You Drive, I'll Sit In The Back With The Dog." Doesn't that title make you yearn to see that painting?!
3. Poetry and song lyrics. Some of my favourite painting titles are borrowed from song lyrics and poem phrases "Waiting For The Stranger To Go" (from the Midnight Oil Song King Of The Mountain") was the perfect title for a painting about a very peculiar late night visitation that left me wondering for years, and "The Walls Are Made Of Song And The Floor Dances" from a Rumi poem coveys the exact right energy for this monoprint from the Whispers Of Home series.
4. Try setting an intention to notice phrases that prick your imagination wherever you go, whatever you read. One day I was reading an article about quantum physics on Facebook (I know, did I even just write Quantum Physics and Facebook in the same sentence?!) and the phrase "Dust Wakes Up And Thinks About Itself" - which was a snippet from the authors thoughts about the explosion (big bang) of consciousness that created the universe as we know it - leapt off the page at me. A perfect title for a series I'd been working on about the ineffable; the things we sense but cannot see!
5. Sit with the art and feel for it. Write down what you feel - as you look at it, and as you painted it. What do you notice? What do you see, hear, smell or even taste as you look carefully into the piece. While you're writing, describe the piece, as if to someone who can't see it, then read back through looking for phrases or words that tug at your attention. "Take The Twisting Track Through The Teabag Trees" got its title this way.
Susan's five tips and evocative titles like "The Constitution of Silence", "Burquete" and "Sharing Some Good News" can be found at https://www.susanpm.com/2024/09/08/what-do-we-call-it/
Visit Nan at https://www.nandawkins.com/blog/how-my-paintings-are-titled to read her five suggestions, including how she connects what (or who) is on her mind as she is painting to the eventual title, producing titles like "Christine's Bluebird" and "Because it Really is Going to be OK"
Rachael's titling offers whimsy with titles like "Coop de Cadillac" all the way through to deeply emotive titles like "Saying Goodbye" and "From Bitter Searching of the Heart". Click across to https://rachaelmccampbell.com/how-to-title-your-art/ for her five tips.
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