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Want to Rock Your Art Business This Year? Start with Your Collection
Jan 2nd
By Carolyn Edlund
Artists need a cohesive, signature body of work. Create a great collection for your targeted audience.
Artists often look for ways to increase business, such as better marketing techniques, creating more income streams, or licensing their work. Another major factor that can affect your bottom line is your product line – and thoughtful development of it.
As you consider how to grow your body of work, take a look at the big picture. Are you selling one-of-a-kind pieces only? Is your price spread limited, restricting your market? Do you want to break out this year, or even explode your business by tapping into ways of selling you haven’t tried before?
Courtesy Shawn Messenger
Many readers have their illustrations and artwork on products such as greeting cards, prints, handpainted clothing, and other retail items which can be produced in volume. If you can produce in multiples, such as pottery, jewelry, clothing or other handcrafted line, prints of your work, or using your art on self-produced products, you open yourself to the world of wholesaling. If this is your choice, make sure to crunch the numbers and price your work for profit at wholesale.
Selling wholesale not only creates a huge boost in volume, but helps stabilize your business as well. There is nothing like having orders from a repeat customer base of retailers to keep regular income flowing through the door of your studio year round.
In my own experience running a production ceramic studio for twenty years, I had about 150 retail stores at any given time as active wholesale customers. Although each account was different in the frequency and volume of their orders (and there was an expected turnover of about 20% each year), it brought enormous stability, which allowed me to hire assistants and make projections each year based on a known quantity.
An added bonus is that as you develop your own book of business, you will be able to show receivables and gain the credibility to successfully apply for a business loan to expand your operation if you wish. Bankers love hard numbers, and most businesses have this kind of data. You will too.
Back to focusing on developing your product line. Plan carefully so that as you ramp up to create a new, cohesive and exciting line for your business, you will be able to:
- Open new and broader markets for your work
- Spread your price points to appeal to more customers’ budgets
- Enhance your brand
- Increase repeat sales
- Put yourself in a position to cross-sell more of your line
- Rejuvenate your business by adding lots of exciting new items
As you consider new directions for your line, make sure you are designing what you enjoy doing and would be happy to stay with. After you come up with a core look for a collection, start branching off into more related products. Necklaces need earrings and bracelets to match – and pins, hair ornaments, even ankle bracelets. Tabletop items look great in groupings. Pottery is a natural for a collection. Working in themes offers endless opportunities for collections.
If you design more than one collection, you may want to make one higher-end and one with lower prices, to catch a wider audience. Name your collections. Give them life, make them memorable. Go into your design process knowing who your target customer is, what they buy and why your work will appeal to them.
Courtesy Shawn Messenger
Now, let’s increase the ticket. Think pairs or sets. If you can sell several of a product rather than one because they are in a set, each sale jumps immensely. Artwork in themes should be created in series to be displayed together for a bigger ticket price. Why would you sell one kitchen-related print when you can create a set of four to be hung together? You can stress this point by not offering them as singles. And if you license your images, all the better. Art publishers love artwork in a tightly cohesive series. They know and value the power of collections.
Collections make a statement. They look good when displayed. They create a buzz. Rockstar designers know this. Start looking at the websites of artists and craftspeople you know who are successful. They all started with good ideas and expanded on their signature styles.
What designers do you know with a well-made, popular collection? What inspires you to create your own?
See more of Shawn Messenger's glass art by visiting her website at www.shawnmessenger.com
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Artists Look to the New Year
Dec 29th
By Carolyn Edlund
Artists talk about the year just passed, and their resolutions for 2012.
Some took risks, or had tough learning experiences. They all grew in their businesses and their art. Here are their stories:
2011 has been a year of reviewing my true vision as an artist and making necessary adjustments. It has also been a year of growth for my art business as I have gained representation with new galleries due to my diligence in marketing myself via LinkedIn and other online venues.
Being added to several art consultants rosters will bring new commissions and sales for 2012. I already have several acceptances for juried fine art exhibitions across the US so 2012 will be a continuation of the progress made in 2011 getting my artwork out for collectors to see and purchase.
This past year has been pretty good, and I’ve had a slight increase in sales over the previous year. Every year I add a few more goals to my list, in addition to ones that carry over from previous years. For instance, one of my annual goals is to add another gallery, and I try to find at least one new one every year. I usually lose one every year, too, due to closing or performance issues; so it’s actually very hard to gain ground on this one. Other goals that get repeated every year are things like booking workshops, writing magazine articles, entering juried shows, earning Signature Memberships, teaching classes, etc.
This year, the extra goals on my list include joining more artist societies near my new home, more plein air painting, expanding my online sales, and producing a new DVD. This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s on top of everything else I already have on my list that gets repeated each year, so it’s enough!
I definitely want to spend more time making art in 2012 than worrying about art business. In 2011 I had the busiest exhibition schedule of my career with five solo shows spread over four states. I met several benchmarks such as showing at a large public university in a large city via the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. It was also a big step to show my work for the first time in the leading art markets of Miami and New York. Meeting many of my online contacts in person was a great experience as well which has led to other opportunities in the pipeline. But promoting shows back to back while dealing with the logistics of organizing so many large solo exhibitions was a real wake up call.
Managing life beyond art plus all of that has left me just plain worn out. I haven’t produced much work at all this year, which has been frustrating. I’ve learned my lesson though. From now on, the core of my energy will go towards time in the studio. As artists if we lose sight of that, we run the risk of leaving out the joy of discovering the full potential of our creative path. I’ve already started some new work. I’m really excited to ring in 2012 with momentum!
This past year has helped me figure out the direction I want to head with both my art and my business. It has included gaining the courage to turn down areas of work I no longer wish to provide, rekindling a passion for areas I thought I would no longer pursue and struggling with time management.
This January 2012 I hang my solo show at The Delaplaine in Frederick, MD. I’m excited to share my new body of work, Beautiful Silence, which features winter landscapes in and around Carroll County, Maryland. The reception is February 4th, 2012. I hope to build print sales through my online store. And just like in this previous year, I would like to hang my work in at least a handful of shows, not limited local venues.
This new year should also include some site updates for myself and to feature other artists on my site, an idea I pushed last year but that lost momentum. Over the past three years, I’ve improved my skills in business, marketing and relationship building – not to mention I’m more and more excited by my designs and I can manage my own website! And the drive to do more and get better just keeps on coming!
In 2012 I will continue making art about medicine and health, but with a stronger focus on internal and emotional issues in addition to my interest in the body. This past year I continued with my “Scarred for Life” project, in which I make body prints from people’s scars and collect their stories of trauma and healing. I shot a television pilot about this process, and how the experience serves as a cathartic expression for many of my subjects, a cap to their “story.”
I also started a new series of paintings in which I embed photos and documents from my parents and grandparents into the compositions. I recently visited my brother, who has a serious longterm illness, and got some of his creative notebooks from his youth as a folk singer. I’m starting to collage these fragments into new paintings about him, exploring the effects and his suffering of dementia and Parkinsons. It’s possible I’ll also mix human ashes (my mom’s) into these paintings. Finally, I started a business called ArtandMed.com last year, and in 2012 I’ll continue to present lectures to health providers and patient groups about art and medicine.
My hopes for 2011 were big. At the end of 2010, my boyfriend and I began subleasing a retail space that we turned into an art gallery/portrait studio. I was really excited that it would allow me to reduce the number of art fairs that I was doing, help my boyfriend build his new photography business, bring in new customers and start moving in a new direction.
Long story short, after a long winter that came with huge snow plowing bills, light rail construction in the area that kept people away, crime on the rise in the neighborhood, and not being able to keep regular hours because of my schedule, I came to the conclusion that getting into a retail space was a huge burden that came with a big lesson. I realized that I was continuing to fall back on the safe decisions of more of the same (though it took on a different form) to avoid the big scary decisions I needed to make to make significant changes to my business. I spent the year spinning my wheels instead of making much progress.
In January, I’m taking a four day mini-retreat to a family cabin to get away and focus on what I really want for my 10th year in business. For 2012 my biggest hope is that I can find a wayto travel more so I can create new artwork which will in turn expand my licensing opportunities. I’d also like to take a bigger step towards doing more corporate art. My resolutions are to ditch the toxic part-time job, stop resisting the really big changes that will take me out of my comfort zone, as well as stop putting off the little things that could make a big difference down the line.
December 25th marks my second year of selling pet portraits on Facebook. I have continued to work with watercolor and acrylic on a daily basis. When not busy with pet portraits I would paint different subjects such as flowers and carousels which are located in three small local galleries. Painting every day is not a chore for me and my love for my art and for animals brings me much support from a vast network of people. It is important to me to share my natural talent with others and to give back as often as I can. My fan page grew to over 7,000 and my sales are steady.
For 2012 my goal is to learn how to create portraits with graphite and color pencil in addition to my paintings. Many people seem to be drawn to the simple elegance of graphite. So, my first free portrait for 2012 is going to be a 8×10 graphite drawing. Fans are eager to see my work progress and they encourage me to continue.
What’s Your Story and Your Vision for the New Year?
Top 10 Articles on Artsy Shark for 2011
Dec 21st
By Carolyn Edlund
This year’s countdown of the ten most read and shared articles on Artsy Shark.
10. Making Art and Making a Living - Do you have to support yourself through your art to be an “artist?” Or does the financial pressure hurt your creative growth and your sanity?
9. “You’ll Never Make a Living as an Artist” - Are you surrounding yourself with supporters, or naysayers? Who is holding you back? Your family, your friends? Or is it you?
8. Matching Artists with Corporate Buyers - Joyce Creighton’s fascinating story of how she is connecting artists whose work is appropriate for corporate settings with clients looking for their work.
7. How to Make Your Customers Fall in Love with You - Want more business and repeat customers? That’s right – spread the love.
6. Do You Want to be a Childrens Book Illustrator? - Cherish Flieder discusses the steps in childrens book illustration, and how to get started in the business.
5. Creative Marketing for Artists - Think outside the box when it comes to promoting your work. Here’s some examples of how other artists did it.
4. 6 Ways to Improve Your Greeting Card Sales - Is your line balanced? Is it big enough? How often should you update? The basics on what you must do to have a successful greeting card business.
3. What’s Wrong with Your Art Website? – Artsy Shark asked the experts for their pet peeves when visiting art websites. Are you guilty of any of these sins?
2. A Guide to Pricing Your Artwork – Professor, TED speaker and entrepreneur Karen Atkinson gives great advice for artists on this perplexing but essential topic.
1. Are Your Prices Unrealistic? – Are your prices too high? Too low? How your competition affects your perspective. Lots of comments and opinions about pricing.
Scott Price: Writer, Digital Artist, Self-Publisher
Dec 17th
By Carolyn Edlund
As internet resources allow artists and writers to self-publish, they increase their independence and opportunities. Here’s how one author did it.
For the past five years, Scott Price has been working on Power to Awaken: Totality, a book which “explores spiritual human potential and the essence of life through providing personal retreat space for experiences in silence and self-reflection.” His photography is an integral part of this project, which has been published as a pdf, and is being formatted in editions for Kindle and other e-readers.
Born into a family of academics, Scott started writing in his teenage years. His current project has been distilled from an amazing amount of written material – about enough to fill seven volumes. Scott doesn’t describe himself as a writer, or as an artist, but as a “creator,” seeing no separation between the two, as his words paint intentions or feelings, and images express them. They work together seamlessly to share the experience of being present. Although his message is spiritual, it is not written from the point of view of any particular religion. Rather, its neutrality is meant to be inspirational and connective with people of all backgrounds.
The fascinating current technology for digital self-publishing gives artists more ability than ever to move beyond their medium and to interact with their audience. A digital book may contain writing and images, but could also include audio and video, all available at the turn of a virtual page. This gives the artist more options and the opportunity to work on collaborations with writers, poets, filmmakers and others in one easily published format. Or, consider using a pdf on your art website, which allows you to literally speak about each image of your work as the reader views your portfolio.
Scott has done the research himself to learn how to create ebooks. He suggests that others interested in producing them visit websites such as Smashwords or Lightning Source and Create Space, which offer Print on Demand and distribution services. Although self-publishing has allowed all types of books to enter the marketplace (some badly edited or of inferior quality), it opens up huge opportunities for authors who take advantage of this DIY approach, while maintaining a high quality product.
What’s next for Scott Price? His background includes being a professional competitive cyclist, and he feels that his spiritual message has impact on how people approach sport and competition. He is planning a book for the “awakened athlete.” We look forward to it!
Storytelling for Artists
Dec 13th
By Carolyn Edlund
As a tiny kitten, Lorenzo was tossed in a garbage can at birth and left for dead. Joann Biondi rescued him and brought him to her Florida home.
By the time Lorenzo was three months old, he was sitting up on command and jumping through hoops. When he heard her shout, “Hooray Lorenzo,” he preened like a proud lion. Although eager to please, he was also a self-contained spirit with plenty of spunk—he loved to sink his teeth into a bare ankle as it passed him by.
He had another bad habit as well, and that was stealing panties from the dirty laundry basket. One day Biondi got mad at him for this and decided to get even. She put a spandex tank top over his head and onto his body. Lorenzo was unfazed. He adjusted his shoulders, threw out his chest, and looked at her with an expression that said, “You think this bothers me? Well it doesn’t. In fact, I like it.” He walked around wearing that tank top for days.
These days, Lorenzo is an international online sensation, dressed in clothes for every occasion with a rockstar feline attitude. Biondi’s photos of him have become so popular that he has his own Facebook page, Twitter account and website.
That is Joann Biondi’s story. She clearly understands the power of storytelling as part of her photography and how it creates the appeal that Lorenzo has for his many fans. In fact, each photo of Lorenzo has a quirky caption expressing his personality as a proud metrosexual male with a clothes fetish and a very hip character.
Storytelling is crucial to an artist’s work as either an integral part of the piece itself, or as a way to understand the artist’s history, methods or inspiration. The creative process itself imbues each piece with a part of the artist’s creative soul. By sharing stories, artists add greater value to the purchase and ownership of their work. Collectors in turn share these stories with others; they become permanently linked in the mind of the owner along with the physical work, and add to the pleasure of ownership.
Right Brain/Left Brain
The written or oral story appeals to our left brains as explanation or clarification of the artist’s intent, and to define the art. Viewers search for meaning in art – witness how many people at a gallery will look for the title of an abstract painting. What is the artist portraying? The title alone can have a profound effect on the perception of the gallery visitor.
A recent article on the Real Clear Arts blog analyzes a study done by London’s Daily Mail at the Tate Britain, seeking to find out whether classical or contemporary art held the interest of visitors longer. The classics won, hands down. Author Judith H. Dobrzynski explains, “To me it says something about aesthetics and narrative. People are more engaged when they see something that is ‘beautiful’ and something that contains a discernable story. If an art work has both, all the better.”
Does your work tell a story? Or do you have a story to tell about yourself and your art? Think carefully about how you will tell your personal story of becoming an artist and developing your own style. Perhaps you have a fascinating story to tell about the process or materials you use. Does your subject matter have a deep meaning, or is it controversial? Sharing this with your potential collectors enhances the experience and the opportunity to sell your work.
Featured Artist Leah Jay
