Business and marketing for artists
  ...here's post one of a series of "things Laurel is spending her time worrying about"  Over the last few years, Art galleries (nationally, in the US) have been going out-of-business at a rapid rate. This is probably due to a combination of: the economy making art purchases a low priority for many people, the internet making it easier for artists/customers to connect independently, and the gallery system's own reluctance to change with the times. So...over the past 5 years, I have gone from being represented in 13 art galleries in Alaska and outside...down to...1. Yup. 1. All of the galleries I am no longer in either went out of business, or (in 2 cases) made me angry enough to pull out, by raising consignment rates (50% is standard now) and expecting me to do all my own marketing for the work they are selling  . Also, all of the shipping to customers, absorbing all the shipping costs to and from their gallery, and even calling me and asking me to talk to customers...in other words...do the selling too! You're luck if they do their own dusting  So...its now up to me (and most other artists) to do my own marketing. That's cool, as I actually love the business side of art, and hate the "creative people aren't able to do business" stereotype. What I am now trying to figure out is, how to best utilize my website, social media, etc to find more customers, and to encourage the ones I have to find me that way. Thoughts from media savvy sheepdog forum folks? Or from anybody with cool ideas?  |
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| i too am in your boat.. i when from designing model homes for the last 30 yrs to doing art shows on weekends it is too hot in fl so summer was real slow.. my shows start up this weekend i hope people will be spending money this year.. it sucks having your own business sometimes! |
suzptcruise wrote: i too am in your boat.. i when from designing model homes for the last 30 yrs to doing art shows on weekends it is too hot in fl so summer was real slow.. my shows start up this weekend i hope people will be spending money this year.. it sucks having your own business sometimes! My summer season just ended, and the "winter" show season starts back up again in about 3 weeks. I'm using my VERY limited "down time" to: get special orders out, make new stock for fall, prep my house for winter, and try to figure out better ways to market myself.  Its a lot of work!I know what you mean about the weather...hot is no good, people cant think straight. I used to hope for sun, but over the years Ive realized that the BEST fair weather (for vendors) is cloudy and a little cool. The INSIDE of booths are more appealing then!  We actually had a good summer, against all expectations. You need to come up here and sell your work, Suz! |
| I will add a bit of a rant on the art world, not just in the U.S. but in Canada as well. People are too scared to purchase original art! They somehow think that it is just for the wealthy. I have seen friends spend hundreds of dollars to buy a one of 25,000 print run of, say, Robert Bateman, but they won't spend the same on a lesser known artist. David and I have some fantastic pieces that did not cost much. It is a myth that you have to be wealthy to own original, fantastic artworks. We have this neat program in Ottawa www.timeraiser.ca where you can donate volunteer hours to buy a work of art. I think this is a fantastic program. Organizations get volunteers, people get art without having to spend their grocery money. Artists get some exposure during a fun evening. One of my brothers is an artist and participates in this program. Maybe you could start something similar? Or maybe this already exists in the U.S.? |
| Yes, it's a shame most people won't buy original art. I love to support artists. I was at a local art show years ago and while browsing thru the art I struck up a conversation with one of the artists. He asked what type of painting I was looking for and said he would paint whatever my interest was if I didn't see anything he had at the show. If I didn't like the result, I wouldn't have to buy it. I love the west and always dreamed of having a log home and a ranch out west. (I guess I should put this in the winning the lottery thread!) My home decor is a mix of cowboy/western/southwest and of course lots of OES stuff! Anyway, I was looking for a western painting for over my couch with my longhorns I got from a friend. He asked me what I would like in the painting so I said how about cowboys/stagecoach, indians, canyon or mountains. So he took my number and a few weeks later we met again to see the painting. I loved it and he brought some framing samples to see what I might like with it. After he got it framed we met again and I paid for everything then. It was great doing business with him and to have the trust between us for the transaction and knowing that I have an original painting that was designed and painted for me. This was in the early 90's. I don't remember exactly what the cost was, but I think it was less than $300 with the frame. Cindy |
| Not sure this is what you had in mind, but do you have an etsy shop? I've found so many new artists on there! |
HeatherRWM wrote: Not sure this is what you had in mind, but do you have an etsy shop? I've found so many new artists on there! Etsy is actually one of the sites I do want to get an account with. I have been hearing, though, that it is a better market for jewelry and clothing than for 2D artwork. I belong to several on line organizations that specialize in connecting artists with organizations and businesses that want to buy or commission artwork...this is the sort of thing "artist's reps" and galleries used to do. For some odd reason, I tend to get chosen for a lot of hospital/health clinic/psychiatric facility projects I hope people dont start associating my work with being ill!  This sort of thing is good, though, so Im open to more of the same. Im also looking into how I can use sites like facebook for my business (yes, I know...its the evil empire! ), mostly as way of letting my customers know where I will be, and whats new. I also started a blog on livejournal, that I hope might eventually be a good resource for keeping customers interested in my work.I do find that more people are interested in original art nowadays, actually. The "limited edition" craze (with "limited" being in the 10s of thousands ) seems to be mostly over with. My prints (in small limited editions!) sell well, but sales of original work is my main income. Again, I think this comes out of customers having direct contact with the artists now...rather than through a middleman. Artists can afford to sell originals for an approachable price, when not paying 40-50% to the gallery. |
ravenmoonart wrote: I hope people dont start associating my work with being ill! It is probably quite the opposite-they associate your work with inspiration and imagination, which folks need if they are working on getting well! |
| I've seen artwork in restaurants for sale. Specifically above a booth or a table with a little card attached with information and pricing. I would imagine the restaurant owner gets a percentage so it's a win win situation. I've seen decorating and DIY blogs and they have an etsy shop attached. I had read that Etsy has rules something has to be made by the person (original) or vintage. Some of these decorating blogs have thousands of followers and they offer advertising for a nominal charge. Some of them promote the products of their advertiser by giving something away as well and they also point them to the advertiser's blog or web site. Some of these blogs are quite amazing with incredible content and pictures and many times what the bloggers recommend spreads through that niche in the blog community. Many of the popular blogs are stay at home moms or non professionals decorating their homes on a budget. Seems like your beautiful artwork would fit well on a decoratoring blog. |
ravenmoonart wrote: Etsy is actually one of the sites I do want to get an account with. I have been hearing, though, that it is a better market for jewelry and clothing than for 2D artwork. I've bought quite a few 2D pieces of work from there. I also found a custom framer on there that I've given way too much money to! One of the ways I've been drawn to artists on etsy is after seeing them featured on blogs I read... typically it's associated with a giveaway, so that's something to think about. |
Thanks LVSL and Heather  I am really interested in the marketing potential of blogs! Ive started my own, and being mentioned on other peoples'...(decorators are a good idea!) would be cool. Its one reason I don't use a screen name anywhere on the internet that I go that isn't my business/website name. You never know where people may wander into my site from. Ive done the restaurant/coffeehouse thing...and it doesn't work for me. Most of these places actually don't take a percentage (which is nice!), but mostly the coffeshop gets free decoration, and the artist gets damaged work back  . People just dont think of the things on restaurant walls as being "for sale", and they just tend to fade into the background. There are exceptions, of course...one of my favorite old galleries was also a coffee house, but they kept the two things distinct...with the art displayed apart from the tables, and knowledgeable staff that were able to talk about the art and had time to actually sell it. That place is, sadly, gone now along with so many others. |
| I have a house full of original art, none of it purchased but rather passed along as my husband's grandmother and step grandfather were accomplished artists. A couple of pieces done by my daughter and one I did for my father that I got back after he passed away. I have a few pieces of art pottery that I am really fond of. I'd love to have some glass pieces. And quilts. And sculpture--probably will never get the pieces my mil has, but that's ok. I did want to say that I am more inclined to buy prints of paintings I know online than original art work online for the simple reason that I don't feel the same emotional connection to a piece of art I see on a computer screen as I do with a piece I see in person. To me, that would be a limitation of marketing on line. |
tgir wrote: I did want to say that I am more inclined to buy prints of paintings I know online than original art work online for the simple reason that I don't feel the same emotional connection to a piece of art I see on a computer screen as I do with a piece I see in person. To me, that would be a limitation of marketing on line. This is a major issue I have with selling online. For the most part, my website has been a "reminder" for people who have already seen it in person, as opposed to somewhere people would actually see it for the 1st time. I'm not sure how to get around that limitation, especially since my technique is very textural and mixed media...which really doesn't translate to digital as well as Id like. A sense of size and scale is hard to convey as well. I have a pic of Abby with one large original on my website, and have thought about having more "sheepdog pictured for scale" shots on the site Does the average person know how big a sheepie is, though?  |
| As some here know, I used to do a lot of automotive paint work, i.e. pinstriping, flames, lettering and the like. I tried advertising once and got no responses, (I was smart and traded the ad for some lettering so there was no loss out of pocket). I relied entirely on word of mouth and folks walking by my tent as I was working on cars at the car shows I attended. I had a website, but it was for contact info and some sample photos. One little thing that I did that seemed to help and this will sound silly was to print my business cards on different colors Astro-Brite card stock. The reason for this was that I did 90% of my work at outdoor shows and it was typically breezy. All most every day I was striping, my cards would get blow off my card table where I put them with my photo albums. So when the dozen of two cards went flying, they were EASILY sopped and because they were bright, everyone would stop to pick them up. It wasn't just a piece of white paper that was trash; it was different and people wanted to know what it was. I found that many folks who didn't keep the card, would bring it back and put it on the table with the rest. This really worked. I had many new customers tell me how the got my card. Pretty funny. I also did a lot of charity work. I would always donate something to the show organizer for a door prize or a raffle that they worked and they benefited from. You can't but advertising like that. One thing that I like to do was to give the organizer a gift certificate for like $50. The average striping job ran $100-125. So this way, the person with the gift cert got a deal and I still got money in my pocket, I also would always put an expiration date on the gift cert to force people to use it quick. I never had a problem with this. Most folks cashed it in that day which was the intent. I also worked deals with the DJs working the shows. If you make people with the microphones happy, they'll talk about you all day long and in a very subtle way. Again, advertising you can't price. I could go on. PM me for more as I got pretty good at t he art of self-promotion as I was the new guy in an area where there were five or six well-established artists already working. For a hobby turned side biz, I was making double what I was told to expect. I did this for three years and did it well. Some may ask why if I was doing so well why did I get out. I was finding that many customers were getting to the point where they expected everything to be computer drawn perfect. What they failed to realize was that I was using brushes, with bristles a a certain amount of inconsistency must be expected. I had one guy demand me do his car with no brush strokes visible in the dried paint. If you'd ever seen real hand-laid pinstriping, you'd understand my dilemma. I for one love your work. I like how you're versatile and work in different medias. You have to do this to survive. I had a friend who wanted to do what I was doing but he refused to do anything but striping,not lettering, not cartoons, just lines. He lasted about three shows. Vance |
| My cousin has a business running a pumpkin patch and Christmas tree farm on a fairly large scale. She has a large barn not only for food that she sells, and the cash registers, but there is a large area dedicated to artists that bring in there works for display and sales. It works out great since people get Christmas gifts, she gets a chance to keep people in the barn to buy food and but anything tree or pumpkin related. I am not sure but I don't think she charges the artists anything. They bring what they want to sell, make sure the set up is what they want and just come back to pick up what hasn't sold. She has already opened for pumpkin season and it stays open until the last weekend before Christmas. Maybe there is a local business like that that might see it as a win win situation. I am not too sure what is out that way in Alaska. We also have tons of artists come to our local steeplechase which is in early October and they seem to do really well. Again that Christmas shopping time. |
| That pumpkin/tree farm barn venue sounds like a lot of fun, Sheepigail! I do lots of misc. fairs and shows all year long, and Id love to see something that seasonal and creative pop up here. Most indoor winter fairs here are (by weather-necessity) in convention centers, hotels, etc...which is really boring, actually Ive tried for years to find an appropriate local business that would rent a portion of their space to me for just the holiday season...with no luck so far. Space is at such a premium at that time of year.I'm getting ready right now for one of my favorite shows, "The Bad Girls of the North Holiday Unique Boutique". The "Bad Girls" do two shows, one in Fairbanks in fall, and one in Anchorage later during the winter. The show was originally started as a "rebellion" from the typical, dull convention center shows...which tended to have 3-400 booths, many of them full of imports, knockoffs and junk. Bad Girls consists of only 25-30 booths, with all work handmade in Alaska by the artists. They set it up more like a gallery opening, with wine and food and live music . I really wish we had more venues of this sort throughout the winter! |
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