As I seek collaborate with other artists in our collective quest to survive from our art I want to showcase and learn from other successful Artreprenuers!
If your making a living or have advice or tips on how to make a career from your art please reach out I would love to interview you for the site!
I came across this ad on craigslist for a woman who runs a gallery. She has the great offer of charging artists for wallspace, 25% of their sale and requiring them to work a during the month!!!
http://denver.craigslist.org/ats/4821644904.html
When I see that pimps like this are still in business it makes me sick to my stomach. We artists need to stop paying to show. A percent of the sale is fine and due, but paying??? Hell no!!! Do cooks pay the restaraunt to cook? What is a gallery without our work?
In 2015 it is my goal to organize artists in Denver and nationally to stop supporting these pimps with our work and ask for our due. Either pay upfront as you would do any other product that a business would sell or take a percentage if they sell it. No more no less. We are Artrepreneurs!!!!!
Here is one of the worst calls for art I’ve ever seen. This non profit not only charges you $25 to see if they want your art which I’m sure they will accept all pieces. Then they want a 50% comission for the charity. Beware of non profits. I routinely give away 3-4 pieces a year but it doesn’t cost me a dime to ship, show are what have you. As artists we have the ability to give back and change lives just don’t get f**ked doing it!
VISIONS OF THE FLINT HILLS BENEFIT AND SALE is a juried exhibit featuring art of the Flint Hills. The exhibit will run from October 4, 2013 through November 29, 2013, in the Buttonwood Art Space, 3013 Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Partial proceeds from the event benefit a non-profit organization which promotes the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the Flint Hills of Kansas. Open to artworks influenced by or depicting the Flint Hills geographic area in Kansas. Artists may submit up to four pieces for a $25.00 fee into any combination of four categories: Painting, Photography, 3-D and Other. Juror: Michael Albrechtson. All artwork will be juried on a piece by piece basis. All works will be 50% of sale to artist and 50% to Flint Hills Tourism Coalition, a 501(c)(3) charity.
When one decided to make a living from their art they are saying to themselves and the world that they plan to survive completely from selling their art work. This is a bold and ambitious step and must be planned out completely to yield success. When you make this choice you have to realize the importance of your work and more importantly the creation of your work.
What do I mean? Well your art is not just art anymore but your companies product. And similar to every product based business in existence the only way to make money is to CREATE and SELL your products. Meaning artreprenuers must continuously add to their body of work.
I have more than 400 pieces in my body of work that I would say at least 200 are worthy of being offered for sale. However I spend at least an hour a day creating new product so to speak. I don’t want artists to lose the creativity in this process to look at their art as products. We must realize that being an artreprenuer means creating on a consistent basis. No longer can we “wait” for creativity to find us we have to actively hunt it down tackle it and bite it in the ass!
So make sure that you have time in your schedule daily to work on and finish new pieces to add to your “product” line and you will be well on your way to being a successful artreprenuer.
To become an artreprenuer and make a living from the creation and sales of our art there are many tasks that we must implement into our routine. One such task that I started doing at the beginning of the year is very simple takes less than an hour a day and has yielded great results.
I call it my promotions plan. Simply put for about an hour a day Monday through Friday I look for opportunities on the web that will help build my name. I have a list of sites (eg Craigslist) that I surf looking for calls for entry, interviews, commissioned work, ie anything that will get my name and work scene.
By focusing on this for the past six months I’ve been able to generate five opportunities for interviews and my art included in publications. I also scored two festivals all from working my promotions plan. In turn these are all things I can add to my resume and ultimately charge more for my work.
The beauty of it is that I haven’t been consistent and still ended up with great results. I set the goal of spending an hour a day five days a week and have probably reached about a ¼ of that. Imagine the outcome once I reach my goal?
How can you implement this into your routine?
During my short time in the “professional” side of art I quickly realize that the artist is exploited by the industry created by the artist. From the expense to create art to the costs associated with showing and selling it artists are squeezed for every penny possible by the no talent hacks that claim to love art.
During my career I have made thousand more than I’ve spent creating and promoting my art. Here are 5 tips that can help you do the same.
1. Never pay to show your art! If people are paying to see art then why should the person that creates the entire reason for people showing up pay? Doesn’t make sense and 99% of the time doesn’t make dollars.
2. Dumpster Dive! A nice size portion of my art is created on recycled materials that would have cost a fortune at the store. Everywhere in America there is a time period called the first of the month. This is when people move and throw out valuable household items that can be re purposed for FREE and resold.
3. Goodwill/Garage sales are great ways to get materials for a low cost. Especially frames and canvass.
4. Don’t frame your work/keep your frames. For artists to show their work many times venues want the art framed. This can be a very expensive task that many times can keep a starving artist from showing their work. Especially when the buyer the majority of the time scrapes your frame for something that matches their home. I create work that doesn’t require frames (shelves or canvass with the frame in it) And if you have to frame it sell your work minus the frames.
5. Sell your work for what your worth! I recently exhibited at a jazz festival and met a guy that sold beautiful oil paintings for $50. First and foremost he could have easily made $250 for them. However after purchasing the oils, canvass and time he probably was very close to making less than $10 for his efforts.
Tip 4 Create a body of Work
Tip 4 Create a body of work: If your an artist your work is your product so consistent creation is key. As I’ve shared with you in the past I challenged myself to create a piece everyday for a year. This challenge boosted my body of work from 30 pieces to about 400 pieces in 371 days. This shows buyers that I have a strong work ethic, I take my art serious and that the pieces they see are created from attempts, trial and experiment.
In addition to creating work try to push yourself to expand your skill set. Don’t get caught up in one subject. My body of work started off primarily with shapes and transitioned to animals. Now I’m working on people and themes/storytelling within the work. But no matter what you do the key is to stay active and continue to create work on a consistent basis.
Increase the value of your work tip 3 Print/online/media
Tip 3: Easier said than done but getting press is a major way to increase your value. I personally started a press campaign last December and since that time have gotten my art placed in 10 areas from literary journals to online art blogs.
This gives my work and name more exposure to the world which in turn allows me to increase the cost of my work. The key is to have a plan in place. Daily I spend an hour or so searching several online sites that ask for artists work. If you do this for long enough you will start to build up momentum and your resume.
Another benefit of starting a press campaign is that you will quickly start to learn the industry and how things “work.” Knowledge is not a tip but definitely can also help to build your value.
How to get started:
Using this step on a daily basis will payoff big time with consistency and patience!
Confidence And Courage
Set a price and stick to it!!!! To this date I’ve never sold a piece for more than $200. This specific piece titled Elephrika is my favorite piece and I will sell it for $5,000 and not a penny less. Why? First and foremost what it means to me and what it took to create the piece. This piece was of two elephants face to face and I completely screwed it up. Instead of giving up I worked to salvage it and came up with a beautiful piece that is now my favorite.
The second reason is that this piece has gotten me coverage in several different journals, magazines, blogs and showcases So it means a lot to me and my career. With that said you have to be able to figure out what your works worth is and stick to a concrete price. Too many artists sell hungry and will tell the potential buyer to make an offer. NO! Pick a price and stick to it with confidence and courage. As hard as it is don’t sell art with your stomach sell it with your heart. Selling with your heart will ensure that you get what your worth.
To build up your courage and confidence is to price all of your work as you create it. That way you have it in your mind already what its worth. And if you have to look in the mirror holding your art and say the price. This will get you accustomed to spitting it out correctly versus the I don’t know or what will you give me, or any other answer that lacks confidence and conviction. There is a saying in the industry that states if you have to ask then you cannot afford it. If you approach your art with this attitude you will start to gain the confidence to ask for what your art is worth.
Title, date, cost, photo, catalog everything!
The most painful part of an artists life (besides the groan in their stomach) is that moment when a potential buyer asks how much do you want for a piece or even worse I’ll give you anything less than what you have posted.
When you go to the store you don’t have the opportunity to negotiate the price tag. But yet as artists we sell hungry and more times than not sell excuse me give away our talent and work for cheap.
Friday I went to First Friday’s Denver’s monthly major art district showing. I saw many artists who deserved hundreds more than they were selling their art for to some who were down right giving their work away. So this week is dedicated to adding value to your work/brand so that when you post a price its the final tag.
The first tip of Add value week is to get organized like a professional. What does this mean? Sign, title, date, photograph, price and catalog every work you create. Artrepreneur’s treat their work for what it is product. If you ran a store and had no system in place how would you know what you had, what it costs, where its at etc?
So step one is to go back through ALL of your work title, date (if possible), price it and get a good photograph of it. From their you want to create a catalog of your work in word/powerpoint or any program. Something that will show pictures, list all your work and the value of each piece.
In the beginning don’t worry about the quality of the look of the catalog just make sure you have one. Once you start to sell more work upgrade the look of your catalog. I created mine and its okay right now but as I replace all my scanned work with high quality photos it will be better. Tomorrow I will discuss more tips.
Artrepreneur 101 