A Site for Emerging Artists
How to Fail as an Artist
By Carolyn Edlund
In the spirit of Ben Stein’s How to Ruin Your Life
- Believe in the myth of the starving artist
- Take all of your own portfolio shots (preferably out-of-focus with poor lighting)
- Write a rambling, vague artist statement that no one can understand so that you appear to be intelligent and unfathomable
- Wait until the last minute to send in applications
- Don’t return phone calls
- Ignore visitors at gallery shows – remain aloof and mysterious!
- Leave your last blog entry of November, 2008 as your most recent contribution
- Vastly underprice your work
- Vastly overprice your work
- Refuse to volunteer
- Avoid business or networking events like the plague
- Don’t take any continuing art or business education classes
- Neglect to update your website with current work
- Find excuses why your work won’t sell, and use them often
- Apologize for your art – say that you are “not really” an artist
- Who needs marketing? You’re not a salesperson!
- Blame others for misunderstanding your work
- Maintain a messy and disorganized studio
- Embrace rejection – convince yourself you are a failure
- Ignore deadlines
- Procrastinate
- Give up
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Tumblr| Print article | This entry was posted by admin on May 29, 2010 at 12:02 am, and is filed under Articles, Business of art, Inspiration, Marketing, Selling Your Work, Websites. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
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about 1 year ago
# Ignore deadlines
# Procrastinate
# Give up
These are the 3 most important things not to do!
Deadlines will always work in your favor, for your client, and yourself.
Return business for work sent in on time.
Procrastinating only leads to not meeting deadlines.
And no one ever gets anywhere if they give up- but then again
perhaps they don’t belong in the field if they don’t have the nerve.
Great article!
about 1 year ago
I agree. You can procrastinate yourself right out of business, and I know artists who have. Lots of self-motivation and persistence are really important!
about 1 year ago
Love this article. I am going to print it out BIG and put it up on my studio wall !
about 1 year ago
Thanks, Lisa, I guess it’s reverse psychology!
about 1 year ago
Nothing like a what not to do list! This list pin points the problem. Good work.
about 1 year ago
When I started reading this I thought “there won’t be anything here that I do”. Heh. I was wrong! I really need to break out of my comfort zone/shyness and get out there and talk to people!
about 1 year ago
Wow – Give Up…yep that’s a sure fire way to stifle your art career – if you’re giving up, you haven’t got any.
BTW how about spouses? My spouse was not happy with the time I spent marketing and calling this a business. It was OK to just paint i.e. hobby but to make it into a business that was upsetting. It was a roadblock for sure.
But never give up….I haven’t yet
about 1 year ago
I agree totally, Judy. Keep on painting and promoting your work. Your spouse may change their tune when they see the fruits of your labor. Success is the best revenge!
about 1 year ago
Artists can teach themselves to market their art/self-promote
I started a casual blog of info to share w/other artists and it has
grown–there is so much info out there…my blog pulls some of it together
you are all welcome to use it:
http://ArtistMarketingSalon.wordpress.com
about 1 year ago
Thanks, Marie for sharing this.
Marie was a featured artist on Artsy Shark a few months ago – you can see her portfolio page at http://bit.ly/kazalia. Congratulations on being in the Hotel des Arts show also!
about 1 year ago
I’d like to add_
“Wait for the work to come to you, take no iniative.”
This works well for failure and keeps you & work unknown for years.
Great article, thanks for posting!
about 1 year ago
Humorous list! I quite enjoyed it, got a chuckle or two out of me.
I am not an “artist” but I have a couple friends that are, and I can definitely tell that a few of those traits show up time and again.
(Though I do have to admit that I have the “procrastinate” bit down solid.)
about 1 year ago
One more quick comment-
Do not under any circumstances proof your work-wait until everyone has seen or read it and then discover your spelling errors!
about 1 year ago
You’re right – and I must plead guilty on this one myself!
about 1 year ago
Six months late, but this list is dead on! I know way too many artists that write obscenely convoluted artist statements… It does nothing but turn people off. Be as simple and accessible as possible without dumb-ing down your message