The Strategy of a Well-Fed Artist

How can an artist make a living? By thinking like an entrepreneur.

By Sarah Hartwick, Staff Writer

When Ann Rea was beginning her career as a painter, she had a conversation with her mentor that would inspire the rest of her career. “He encouraged me and he said, I think you should pursue painting full time. I mean, my heart leapt. I felt so encouraged. And my question […] was, ‘now, how am I going to make a living?’”

Rea’s mentor was American art icon Wayne Thiebaud. At the time, his work was selling for a million dollars on the secondary market. A retrospective of his life’s work was touring the United States.

His response? “I don’t know. I’m not a businessman.”

“This disconnect, this brain freeze that artists have—including someone as successful as Wayne Thiebaud—became so clear to me,” she says of that conversation. “I’d had some experience developing effective marketing strategies when I was an industrial designer. And I thought, no, there’s got to be a way to maintain your creative integrity and serve people so that you can get paid.”

Today, Rea has built an enterprise around her art, not only successfully selling her work, but consulting and coaching other artists on strategy and marketing as well. She writes about the need for business sense in the art community on her website, Artists Who THRIVE, and has created an eight-week business course for artists. Her first book, Selling Art without Selling Out, is soon to be published.

Making a profit through a small business can be difficult, especially while creating a product and self-marketing. The notion of the starving artist is an oft-romanticized version of this struggle, and one Rea says must change.

For artist Ravi Shukla, receiving funding for an art project has been a major stepping-stone in his art career. Shukla has spent the past summer with a group of fellow artists on the shore of the Hudson Bay, in the town of Churchill, Manitoba, working on a multi-disciplinary project called ‘Becoming Beluga.’

The project is funded by grants and donations, allowing the group of artists to stay up in Churchill and focus on the project for the duration of the summer. But living by his art hasn’t always been feasible for Shukla.

“It’s cool when you have a project come together where there’s money involved,” he says. “The art didn’t always pay the bills. It wasn’t consistent.”

One of the things new artists find to be the most difficult, says Rea, is dropping the idea of being a “starving artist” and embracing that of making a living through their art.

“The general orientation of art professors and art students is around this scarcity-based model, which is completely broken,” she says. “The traditional models are crumbling. And no alternative has presented itself.”

According to Rea, part of the problem is that most art schools don’t stress the business side of living as an artist, causing many artists to perpetuate the “starving artist” stereotype.

“In my experience, art schools do not have the inclination, nor do they have the skillset to teach business skills,” she says. “They don’t come from an entrepreneurial perspective.”

Shukla says that although he wasn’t taught marketing in art school, many young artists are entering the market with an idea that they have to go beyond the production of art to make a living. “They are very much aware that it’s not just talent that gets you somewhere now,” he says.

Art consultant and advisor Alan Bamberger writes on his website, artbusiness.com, that it’s important for an artist to be able to pinpoint what is unique and valuable in their art, and to communicate those qualities to potential dealers or buyers.

“Can you explain why your art is worth owning, or what about you or your art is worthy of their attention?” he writes, emphasizing the importance of successfully communicating the worth of your art.

Rea goes farther with this point. New artists, she says, need to be able to come up with a business strategy based on their own values and the values of their target audience. They need to connect with the buyer beyond just the sale—the experience of art should be part of what is offered.

“A lot of artists are under the illusion that if they just hone their craft that one day they’ll be discovered. One day they’ll be noticed. And it couldn’t be further from the truth,” she says.” You have to, very simply, provide value to a target market, and it has to be unique value. It really has to be unique because the world is flooded with amazing talent. You have to add value above and beyond the art that you make.”

[pullquote]You have to, very simply, provide value to a target market, and it has to be unique value. It really has to be unique because the world is flooded with amazing talent.[/pullquote]

Susan Doyle, an artist based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, has been painting for herself and for private commissions since 2004 and began marketing and selling her work publicly this past January. She says that the business side of being an artist is something she compartmentalizes.

“I’ve treated one day as painting day, and one day as business day,” she says. “ So I can keep my thoughts straight and not be overwhelmed with the business side of things to interrupt the creative. It’s definitely a hard balance.”

But, although she doesn’t view herself as a businesswoman, Doyle has been able to hone in on her own style and on her own artistic values and market them. “Now that I’m actually really comfortable with where I am artistically, I’m actually able to market myself and be a little bit more confident with it,” she says of her progress as an artist.

“You have to have something to back up what you’re marketing. There’s a million and one artists out there, you know, everyone’s an artist. But I guess tapping into something and being able to produce something that you’re really comfortable with is key.”

The Tools: Community and Self-Marketing

Straight out of art school, Shukla traveled and had some success with galleries that were interested in his photography and included his work in shows. After moving home to Winnipeg and spending two years drawing every day in order to explore his creativity and begin creating a body of work, he was ready to start selling his art. “I really wanted to get a show together with my drawings, because I felt like I did it on my own,” he says. The gallery he partnered with helped to advertise, but didn’t contribute financially to the show.

“I was really outgoing, I was kind of out of my character to be charming and to invite people. Try and stir it up a bit, stir up the hype,” Shukla says, “I sort of built my confidence again.”

The show was a success, but he says that he came away with an awareness of how important assistance could be. Friends in the artistic community had helped him with things like graphic design and handing out invitations, but after the show was finished, tired of the cycle of famine and feast, he decided it was time to connect with an art dealer.

“I didn’t want to ruin five years of my life again to make lots of money to then just sort of live without work.I just didn’t feel I could do it again,” he says. “I think it helps. [Art representatives] are great because they believe in what you do. It helps you move on and be creative.”

[pullquote]Art representatives can serve as a critical line of support, helping artists to manage the business aspect of their career while focusing on the creative.[/pullquote]

Shukla notes that art representatives can serve as a critical line of support, helping artists to manage the business aspect of their career while focusing on the creative.

“I can’t do everything. I tried to do everything, and I can’t,” he says. “And if I come close to doing it, then not one of those things are really any good.” Bamberger writes that for an artist who is struggling to get noticed, support is necessary. He notes that although expensive upfront, a consultant’s fee is small compared to years of art school, and can be very useful.

“An experienced art consultant or business professional can show you how to present your art effectively, maximize your chances for results, minimize problems, and enter into mutually beneficial business relationships,” Bamberger explains. Doyle says that once she decided to start marketing her work, the internet was a great help in connecting with potential buyers and galleries. “The marketing capability [online] is huge. I don’t know what people did without the internet. I have no idea,” she says. “You would have been really restricted to your local clientele.”

Using social media and marketing techniques such as giveaways and contests can also be a great way to get your artwork noticed.

“You reach so many people without having to get out there too much,” Doyle says. “ I put out a few contests, a few giveaways to start attracting more and more people. And then a few art galleries noticed my Facebook page, and I had galleries contacting me for shows. It really happened overnight.”

Doyle also says that art-centric websites like Great Big Canvas and art.com can be helpful in getting artwork in front of a larger audience, although they take a cut of sales.

Rea likewise notes that social media can allow an artist to reach out and connect while retaining their independence. “Social media […] allows artists to own their platform, to expand their platform and connect with fans.”

But, she cautions, “You have to get fans first. You have to know what you’re going to say to them, to engage them in conversation. Social media is just one marketing strategy; it does not make for a marketing plan and a business plan.” In the end, Rea says, the art community needs to start treating individual artists as business people and entrepreneurs. Artists should be educating themselves on how to run a small business and creating business plans, she says. “We need to change the conversation. Artists do not have a career. They have a business.”

“The bottom line is very simple,” she says. “If you have creative talent, if you have something to say to the world, you have to make art. You have to. But if you want to be heard, you have to sell art. And that part of the equation is completely missing. “

Sarah Hartwick is a freelance writer and an avid traveler. In her spare time, she works with Schools Building Schools, a growing NGO that’s striving to spread access to education throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Check out her blog to follow her adventures around the globe.

Image Courtesy of Adam Jones, via Flickr.