What do I need to know about contracts?
Legal issues will arise during your career. You might face disputes with curators who may have agreed to cover expenses for an installation but who later remembers that conversation differently.
Your creative work is immediately copyrighted the moment you make it. Any author of an original work owns the copyright to that work. Only you have the right to derive works, such as prints, from your own work. This right remains with you even after your work is sold. The new owner has bought your work but not its copyright, unless you have transferred it via contract.
1. Ask yourself what your goals are before you go to an event. This will help you pick groups that best suit you. Some meetings are based more on learning, making contacts and/or volunteering, rather than on strictly making business connections.
In order to show at notable gallery you and your art have to be a total match. The quality of your art is only one step in the process. There’s also your resume, your reputation, your profile and standing in the art community, how you are to work with, your previous sales history, the quality of critical reviews of your past shows and much more.
I just graduated from art school. How do I break into galleries?
As I any profession, you have to begin at the beginning, and in the art world that means showing your art pretty much anywhere anyone will have you.
Should I make limited edition inkjet prints of my art?
Generally no, unless you’ve got significant name recognition and your art is in such demand that you can’t make enough fast enough to satisfy buyers – or that your originals have gotten so expensive, hardly anybody can afford them.
When consumer confidence is down, so are art sales. Even people who aren’t that impacted by the soft economy are hesitant to spend because they aren’t sure what lurks in the future.
Whether at a private studio, in a gallery or in a museum, voyeurs and buyers alike want to hear and read about the artist they’re interested in. Information that buyers commonly seek may include:
Sometimes the challenge is not selling your work, but convincing people that they should buy anything at all!
A budget doesn’t come our of thin air, so before you start you must be clear about exactly what you’re going to do and how you intend to do it. That will help you create a list of project expenses.
With proper planning, your anxiety about the outcome of your goal will be replaced by directed activity. Practice developing an action plan for a single short-term goal.
When an editor or a journalist receives a release in their inbox or finds it on an online press release database, they understand they will not have exclusive rights to this news and that, in fact, this release has been sent to dozens or hundreds or even thousands of contacts. It is also understood that if a publication or blog wants to use the content of this press release, they can borrow it word for word. This is why it’s important to spend hours poring over your release, crafting quotes and fact checking your information.
Know the points you want to make before the interview.
1. Subscribe to your target publication and read it. You might be up to something that relates to a series they are doing. You need to be able to speak knowledgeably about the publication, their style and their readership.
Your website is your most important outreach tool to market your art. It should be a place where you can send clients, potential clients, and reporters to get exciting images of and information about you and your work.
Your website is your most important outreach tool to market your art. It should be a place where you can send clients, potential clients, and reporters to get exciting images of and information about you and your work.
The key to successful grant proposals is preparation. As an artist help it is good to know you are likely to find preliminary grant proposal writing steps to be the most time consuming as well as the most vital step of the process.
I hesitate to suggest lowering your prices, because that can do more damage than good. If collectors are buying your work as an investment, they certainly don’t want to see is your work being sold for cheaper than what they paid for it.
While charity events can be great marketing opportunities for you, the mix of people who attend include people with no interest in art as well as, potentially, the serious collector. Anything is possible, just be sure to manage your expectations.
As with self-promotion, fundraising can take you out of the safety of your studio and into competitive situations that won’t feel comfortable at first. It’s important to not let fear and insecurity show itself in your grant application.
