Art Exhibition - It's official!

So now the exhibition is being advertised http://www.williamsonpark.com/pages/gallery.html I am starting to feel some pressure. I suddenly feel the need to produce some more work, something different. It is probably a natural feeling that what ever I have will not be enough. Now that the weather is improving I am looking forward to working on my installation piece outside. I have never quite understood how artists make money from installations but I am hoping that my piece will attract media interest (positive hopefully) and therefore bring people to the exhibition.

I am also working on another project that I now think I can apply for some funding. I have joined a-n magazine http://www.a-n.co.uk/ and found funding opportunities and exhibition possibilities on their website very useful. Working on two different projects (and they are very different!) means that i can paint in the appropriate style to suit my mood of the day:)

How to be a successful artist

coloured inks, PVA resist & cotton between acetate

Today's art offering is some work from my sketchbook of ideas for an installation piece in my summer exhibitions.


In my quest for knowledge and the magic formula for becoming a successful artist I have been trawling the social media Art forums (which, I believe is one of the criteria for being successful) and I chanced upon a compilation of ideas put together by Richard Eaves Woods on Linkedin. I aim to use this as a model business plan for myself and reproduce it here for others to benefit from:

Make distinctive work - develop your brand

Determine your audience, your target market

The work you like might not be what sells. Satisfy your customers. Get a sense of who likes what and why

Listen to customers, both buyers and browsers
learn how to present and market your work
practice presenting and marketing your work


Create big and small items, something that appeals to everyone

Galleries and agents only show art they think they can sell.

Consider all opportunities, even if inconvenient

Use social media, coupled with a website
blog
Facebook
LinkedIn

Watch your website statistics and see what spikes visitation.

Copyright work before posting online

Send out a newsletter

Find an art writer to work with you on PR and promotion

30% - 50% time spent on marketing

Or go with an agent and pay extra fees

Persistance
rejection is part of the game

Patience

Find the right market for your work, what sells in one venue, may gather dust somewhere else.

Think outside the box - look for new applications for your art. Possibly Corporate sales?

Start and maintain a permissive marketing list. Always get a name, contact information, and notes on what they liked from those who take an interest in your work.

Work in groups, collaborate with other artists, writers, poets, musicians. film directors, photographers, philosophers

Cut down on costs

Make a plan. To make your art into a business, think like a business
with short and long-term goals,

Create a portfolio, prints, not slides, send it out to galleries and art dealers (artdealers.org)

Provide good-quality images of your work, and a short bio.

Set reasonable prices, and be ready to answer how you do it.

Enter art and craft fairs, but choose wisely. Make sure your work fits, and that there isn't so much competition you are lost in the sea of work

Design promotional materials such as business cards, postcards and catalogs for handouts or to be mailed.

If you must work, get a job with a flexible schedule

At art fairs, be personable, and be yourself. Getting to know the artist sometimes means as much to the buyer as the art.

At art fairs, learn to show your work in ways to make it appealing to potential buyers.

Talk and write about your art in ways people understand, regardless of how little or how much they know about art. This includes how to convince people to appreciate your art and feel like it's worth owning.

Document your work in ways to increase its appeal to potential buyers

Decide how you will respond to criticism of your art, role-play it.

Decide when you will have enough art and enough of a selection to start showing and selling your art.

Barter or trade your art for goods and services

Discover where to send those press releases by raiding the resume's of all your favorite artists. Chances are that if a journalist writes about one artist, they might write about another.

Resume's are also an excellent resource for potential venues and grant opportunities.

Openings and receptions are a great way to reconnect with past clients and to meet new people, and to learn how well your work is communicating. It's disappointing for your audience to attend an opening and not have a chance to speak with the artist. Get out there and shake hands.

The Art of Lancaster

Here is my piece from my Lancaster visit. I am pleased with the result because it marks a new way of working for me - using a wetter brush and completeing the picture in one go.

I have to prepare an artist statement for my exhibition promotional material and I find this very difficult. What is it that people want to hear about an artist and who is my audience? I can't deny that I want to sell my paintings and so I feel I should write something that potential buyers want to hear. Maybe about how I have suffered for my work, starving in an attic and having mad fits of emotional turmoil. How my paintings are so important to me that anyone who purchases them would imediately become a member of a select group of 'those-who-know-what-a-good-painting-looks-like-and-have-great-taste' and they must vow to only show their purchases to other potential buyers art lovers. Or I could write something that would attract the Gallery owners and curators that are obviously going to be queing to get in. Something about how I will be consistently turning out new and dynamic works in series and how I have collectors from all over the world begging for me to paint for them and that they will no doubtly be offering me money to exhibit in their galleries rather than stealing 30-40% commission!!

Art as a business

So, at the ripe old age of 50, I am going to make my art my business. What will this look like? What I mean is that I intend to market my art and myself as an artist. I have a number of works, a website and I have set up a couple of exhibition venues for this summer so what could possibly go wrong? Surely I am on my way to stardom!

I was in Lancaster the other day and after visiting Arteria Gallery 23 where I have some work on display, I had half an hour to kill before meeting my sister in the excellent Whale Tail Cafe so wandered into the Lancaster Museum and their current exhibition of Hilary Carr works. I am endeavouring to work on some watercolour studies of my local area and I will be happy if my efforts can turn out like Hilary Carr's clean and characteristic studies. The museum holds a fine collection of historical landscapes and they are exhibited as you climb the stairway so you can get a really good close up look. I was particuarly interested in paintings of the Ashton memorial in Williamson Park as this is where I am holding my exhibition in June. A subject probably painted a million times but I managed to take some photos of the memorial building whilst the winter sun was bright and I intend to work in a new way for me with wet oils and fauvist palette.