by Lori Woodward
This guest post is by Lori Woodward. Lori is a freelance writer for various art publications. She has written more than 60 published articles for American Artist, Watercolor, Workshop, and International Artist Magazines since 1996. Her paintings, along with instructional articles, have been featured in Watercolor Magazine since 2007, and in American Artist's Highlights Issue, Step by Step 2011, with the article: "Moving into Acrylics". Woodward has co-authored the book, "Watercolor Step by Step" a Walter Foster Publication, and authored a chapter for Calvin Goodman's "Art Marketing Handbook for the 21st Century".
This guest post is by Lori Woodward. Lori is a freelance writer for various art publications. She has written more than 60 published articles for American Artist, Watercolor, Workshop, and International Artist Magazines since 1996. Her paintings, along with instructional articles, have been featured in Watercolor Magazine since 2007, and in American Artist's Highlights Issue, Step by Step 2011, with the article: "Moving into Acrylics". Woodward has co-authored the book, "Watercolor Step by Step" a Walter Foster Publication, and authored a chapter for Calvin Goodman's "Art Marketing Handbook for the 21st Century".
I see a lot of artists in their early careers spend money and time on business practices that are hardly needed. Before you spend time with a consultant, elaborate marketing plan, or approach galleries, make sure you have a cohesive body of work framed and ready to sell. The quality and attractiveness of your work is your main asset. If you haven't got 10 -20 similar works ready to sell, all the other marketing activities are like adding the finest icing to a plastic cake.
Yes, in the late 1990's, I did spend money on ads and had a 2000 square foot studio, and yes, having the studio in a community of professional artists was an asset, but I could have skipped all that and just spent more time on developing a great body of work and my career would have come out ahead. I was indeed putting the cart before the horse, marketing wise.
I discovered that developing an elaborate business plan, while it was fun, was also a waste of my time and energy. Why is that? As unexpected opportunities came along, I abandoned my plan again and again. My art career has been a flexible process. I never really know what's around the corner, and the better my work is, the more frequently opportunities pop up. I'm not saying that artists shouldn't have a plan at all; what I've experienced is thatI need to keep a path in mind, but be open to change.
Even if you are ready to approach galleries, shows and invitational events, you still may not need an elaborate business plan. There are many ways to promote your work on a shoe-string budget. Spending big bucks is hardly necessary to success and there is nothing terribly elaborate or magical about marketing your work. It's mostly just plain common sense.
So let's say you do have a style and a body of work to sell? How do you start to get your work out there? Many of my friends have placed several times in national art competitions -which lead to calls from galleries and magazine articles. That's the quickest way to get your work seen by a larger audience without spending thousands of dollars. Be picky about which competitions you enter and get ready for disappointment. If you place as a finalist, that's great, but competitions are a bit of a gamble because you never know what the juror will like and there is a ton of competition.
What happens if you enter more than a dozen shows in a year and you don't "place" at all? Go back to the proverbial drawing board and revamp, revise and improve your work. Get a critique from someone who is successful and wants the best for your career and be prepared to work hard. If art were easy to make and sell, then everyone would do it and it wouldn't be worth much. However, it is a good thing that it does take a long time to learn how to draw and paint - because it makes good artwork scarce and therefore - valuable.
There are dozens of ways to put your work in front of the eyes of collectors, working with galleries and placing in competitions is only two ways. Today there are artists out there making a living who do not work with galleries or enter competitions. Even if you do want to show in a gallery, avoid any offer that sounds like a Vanity Gallery. If they ask you for a fee to show your work, pass those up. A gallery that has you pay them to show your work has no incentive to sell it. Besides, real collectors don't shop at vanity galleries - most of these will say you'll have a show in New York City.
Try a number of different sales venues and see which ones work best for you. I did the art-in-the-park circuit in New England for a number of years. I did well and enjoyed selling my work. The hard part is the physical labor of setting up and taking down the tent and carrying all those paintings. Of course, the goal was to have far fewer paintings to carry home than I brought.
Don't discount local galleries and frame shops - I happily worked with some frame shop galleries just a few minutes from my home. But don't let the gallery frame your paintings unless they buy your work at a 50% discount outright. I've heard some horror stories about how some artists had to pay for all the frames before they could remove unsold paintings from the gallery - and it amounted into thousands of dollars owed. Again, you should not have to pay your gallery for anything. They work on consignment and when a painting is sold, you get the agreed percentage of the sale. If it doesn't sell, you are not out any money and can get the painting back.
If you do place in national competitions, you can then approach well known galleries, but it's no guarantee that they'll take you on. When they are having slow sales, they usually spend all their time trying to sell the artists who they already represent, and are reluctant to take on new artists. If they're not biting, then try something else.
It might surprise you to know that I've never showed in a major, well-known gallery. They are not always a straight ticket to sales. Let's look at an example: an artist finally gets into the gallery of his dreams, but this gallery also sells work by masters who've been in the biz for a long time - some have works priced over $100,000. This new artist has works priced between $1500 and $10,000. If you're the gallery owner, who are you going to invest more time promoting, the one who sells a painting under $5000, or the one who reaps you $50,000 on the sale? Did you know that well established artists don't usually give the gallery 50%? When prices are that high and a sale is almost guaranteed, the artist normally gets 70% of the retail price.
All of this is to say: don't spend too much time worrying about how to approach galleries or print up that great letterhead before you've got a dynamite body of work. Your work needs to have a recognizable style that collectors can recognize as "yours" from across the room. You can fight me on this concept all you want, but if your work is "all over the place" style wise, you'll have a hard time getting into any gallery and even selling from your tent in the park. Collectors want you to have a "look" and gallery dealers know that fact.
As soon as your have that body of work, then you need a flexible plan to promote your work. There are plenty of sales venues out there, and today, selling on your own is a viable one. Focus on a few ways to get your stuff out there and see how that goes. If something doesn't work out, try something else. As my tennis coach often said, "If you're winning, don't change a thing; if you're losing, keep trying something until the game turns to your favor". I do that with my art career.
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Yes, in the late 1990's, I did spend money on ads and had a 2000 square foot studio, and yes, having the studio in a community of professional artists was an asset, but I could have skipped all that and just spent more time on developing a great body of work and my career would have come out ahead. I was indeed putting the cart before the horse, marketing wise.
I discovered that developing an elaborate business plan, while it was fun, was also a waste of my time and energy. Why is that? As unexpected opportunities came along, I abandoned my plan again and again. My art career has been a flexible process. I never really know what's around the corner, and the better my work is, the more frequently opportunities pop up. I'm not saying that artists shouldn't have a plan at all; what I've experienced is thatI need to keep a path in mind, but be open to change.
Even if you are ready to approach galleries, shows and invitational events, you still may not need an elaborate business plan. There are many ways to promote your work on a shoe-string budget. Spending big bucks is hardly necessary to success and there is nothing terribly elaborate or magical about marketing your work. It's mostly just plain common sense.
So let's say you do have a style and a body of work to sell? How do you start to get your work out there? Many of my friends have placed several times in national art competitions -which lead to calls from galleries and magazine articles. That's the quickest way to get your work seen by a larger audience without spending thousands of dollars. Be picky about which competitions you enter and get ready for disappointment. If you place as a finalist, that's great, but competitions are a bit of a gamble because you never know what the juror will like and there is a ton of competition.
What happens if you enter more than a dozen shows in a year and you don't "place" at all? Go back to the proverbial drawing board and revamp, revise and improve your work. Get a critique from someone who is successful and wants the best for your career and be prepared to work hard. If art were easy to make and sell, then everyone would do it and it wouldn't be worth much. However, it is a good thing that it does take a long time to learn how to draw and paint - because it makes good artwork scarce and therefore - valuable.
There are dozens of ways to put your work in front of the eyes of collectors, working with galleries and placing in competitions is only two ways. Today there are artists out there making a living who do not work with galleries or enter competitions. Even if you do want to show in a gallery, avoid any offer that sounds like a Vanity Gallery. If they ask you for a fee to show your work, pass those up. A gallery that has you pay them to show your work has no incentive to sell it. Besides, real collectors don't shop at vanity galleries - most of these will say you'll have a show in New York City.
Try a number of different sales venues and see which ones work best for you. I did the art-in-the-park circuit in New England for a number of years. I did well and enjoyed selling my work. The hard part is the physical labor of setting up and taking down the tent and carrying all those paintings. Of course, the goal was to have far fewer paintings to carry home than I brought.
Don't discount local galleries and frame shops - I happily worked with some frame shop galleries just a few minutes from my home. But don't let the gallery frame your paintings unless they buy your work at a 50% discount outright. I've heard some horror stories about how some artists had to pay for all the frames before they could remove unsold paintings from the gallery - and it amounted into thousands of dollars owed. Again, you should not have to pay your gallery for anything. They work on consignment and when a painting is sold, you get the agreed percentage of the sale. If it doesn't sell, you are not out any money and can get the painting back.
If you do place in national competitions, you can then approach well known galleries, but it's no guarantee that they'll take you on. When they are having slow sales, they usually spend all their time trying to sell the artists who they already represent, and are reluctant to take on new artists. If they're not biting, then try something else.
It might surprise you to know that I've never showed in a major, well-known gallery. They are not always a straight ticket to sales. Let's look at an example: an artist finally gets into the gallery of his dreams, but this gallery also sells work by masters who've been in the biz for a long time - some have works priced over $100,000. This new artist has works priced between $1500 and $10,000. If you're the gallery owner, who are you going to invest more time promoting, the one who sells a painting under $5000, or the one who reaps you $50,000 on the sale? Did you know that well established artists don't usually give the gallery 50%? When prices are that high and a sale is almost guaranteed, the artist normally gets 70% of the retail price.
All of this is to say: don't spend too much time worrying about how to approach galleries or print up that great letterhead before you've got a dynamite body of work. Your work needs to have a recognizable style that collectors can recognize as "yours" from across the room. You can fight me on this concept all you want, but if your work is "all over the place" style wise, you'll have a hard time getting into any gallery and even selling from your tent in the park. Collectors want you to have a "look" and gallery dealers know that fact.
As soon as your have that body of work, then you need a flexible plan to promote your work. There are plenty of sales venues out there, and today, selling on your own is a viable one. Focus on a few ways to get your stuff out there and see how that goes. If something doesn't work out, try something else. As my tennis coach often said, "If you're winning, don't change a thing; if you're losing, keep trying something until the game turns to your favor". I do that with my art career.
Was the article useful? Comment away ...
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