Speaking with Scissors
MOST SPEAKERS ILLUSTRATE THEIR TALKS with slides. I use scissors. Whatever I’m speaking about, I always begin the same way: by cutting a silhouette of a volunteer from the audience, freehand, in about two minutes, while continuing to speak about what I’m doing. It’s a demonstration that tends to stop people in their tracks.
Then, once I have their attention, I find I can take them almost anywhere.
DBA Speakers, who represent my speaking work, describe me as “the world’s leading silhouette cutter.” I’ll leave you to judge that for yourself. I’m also a member of the Professional Speakers Association.
Two Talks: both about Silhouettes
I have two fully developed talks, each suitable for different audiences and occasions.
1. The Eighteenth-Century Selfie
For arts-minded, general and cultural audiences (approximately 15 – 25 minutes)
Before photography, most people had never seen an image of themselves. Then, in the mid eighteenth century, silhouettes arrived. Suddenly, anybody could see and possess a portrait of themselves. Within a few years they were everywhere, and everybody wanted one.
This is the talk I gave at TEDx in Arendal, Norway in 2022, and will give you a good sense of what I do on stage.
It grew out of an earlier lecture delivered at Harvard University’s Houghton Library, where I was invited to speak about a number of silhouettes in their collection. This experience allowed me to explore some of the darker corners of the art’s history, including the uncomfortable racial politics that shadowed silhouettes throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the strange origin of the phrase “to be profiled.”
The TEDx version traces the rise and fall of silhouettes from Georgian parlour craze to near-forgotten art form. It takes in the strange pseudo-science of physiognomy, various dubious machines invented to take silhouettes “accurately,” and a curious 1820s automaton known as Prosopographus, which purported to be a fully-automatic portrait machine. Was it real, or just an example of nineteenth-century fake news?
The talk ends, perhaps unexpectedly, with Instagram.
2. Lessons from a Street Artist
For corporate, business and conference audiences (approximately 10 to 20 minutes)
Street artists don’t get a salary. Whatever their act, it needs to be lucrative as well as entertaining. To survive, they developed a mantra: a short, four-stage, rhyming checklist that tests every performance by describing the four essential stages of any successful street act.
Make ’em Stop. Make ’em Stay. Make ’em Watch. Make ’em Pay.
I learned this mantra working as a street portrait artist in London’s Covent Garden, where I spent twelve years after leaving art college. It shaped the way I worked there. Later, when I started cutting silhouettes at corporate conferences, I began to notice how directly it applied to the business world too.
This talk takes the street artist’s mantra and applies it to the modern conference stand, the sales pitch and the business presentation. It’s practical, it’s entertaining, and it begins (as all my talks do) with a live silhouette demonstration that tends to wake up even the most post-lunch audience.
Other Formats
As well as these two fully developed talks, I’m happy to discuss other formats for specific occasions:
- Curtain-raiser. A short introduction, delivered live at an event, usually before I begin cutting. I’ll combine an on-stage demonstration with a brief account of my journey from Covent Garden street artist to royal silhouettist. This works well at an event where I may be cutting silhouettes and you’d like the audience to recieve a little more background information (usually 2–5 minutes).
- An illustrated, in-depth lecture on the art and history of silhouettes, similar to that presented at Harvard and drawing on my own extensive collection of antique silhouettes. Suitable for arts societies, museums, universities and heritage organisations (45 minutes – 1 hour).
- A silhouette workshop in which I demonstrate how to cut a silhouette before distributing scissors and paper for guests to have a go themselves. The results are always entertaining and often surprising. Suitable for conferences and away days (20 minutes, can repeat for different groups throughout the day).
All formats are bespoke. Please get in touch to discuss your requirements.
About My Work as a Speaker
I’ve been speaking about silhouettes almost as long as I’ve been cutting them. If there’s one thing I love even more than making silhouettes, it’s talking about them. I love the history, their slightly-nostalgic strangeness, and their unexpected relevance to the way we live now.
I’m the author of Mastering Silhouettes (2012) and the presenter of Silhouette Secrets (2016), a documentary film about the art and history of silhouettes directed by Andi Reiss. Both grew out of the same fascination that drives my speaking work.
Booking and Enquiries
All my speaking engagements are handled by DBA Speakers. Please email Diana Boulter, call her directly on 01256 316515, or fill in the enquiry form below.
