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.
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.
In theory, art is priceless. In reality, it’s not. It’s hard to attach numbers to your work. In order to have success in your art, start by reviewing the sales of previous work. This can begin to establish your prices.
When you sit down to write or revise your artist statement, it’s firstly important to understand the objective of the exercise. People who read it may include gallery directors, potential clients and journalists. Your goal is to give them some frameworks around your work with which they can better view and understand it.
Your website can, and should be your best ally. As an artist help, what constitutes good copy is not only text that reads well and does a great job relaying the key messages of your work, but text that drives visitors to your site in the first place.
If you find yourself staring vacantly into the whiteness of your page, or if you’ve already written your statement and your bio but they leave you cold, as an artist tip, limber yourself up by borrowing – momentarily – someone else’s insight.
It is best to craft a statement and bio that are fairly unique to one another to start with, however, your bio statement should be written in third person and a statement written in first person.
I personally have a number of artists statements. These range from different times in my career, from different stylistic periods in my career and are of various lengths. An example of this is with my current artist statement. I have three different versions of this statement, depending upon where I am showing it or presenting it.
Art help with responsible financial management
Artists need to organize their money and protect and save their wealth. I have met many artists who were simply overwhelmed by financial planning. Most often they are responsible for the problem by not taking sufficient interest in their finances, and it is often necessary to twist an arm in order to persuade an artist to audit their income and take control.
Artist tips to help with managing emotions and having persistence.
Never place a call or send out an email when you are emotional. Email is a volatile communication form.
Art tips for artists planning and goal setting
I recommend planning your year at a high level, setting dates for various goals. On a micro level, I have been very successful by telling myself that am about to spend the next three hours making art, for example, and that I will feel rewarded for it.
Selling art effectively means managing your time and also means placing a value on it.
Managing your time also means placing a value on it. I set aside time for silence and space. Do not assume that packing as many shows into a year is the right use of time.
A successful artist is accountable.
You ALONE are responsible for your success. How you respond to the challenges you face is entirely your responsibility.
Having success as an artist is when they how to manage their time.
You need to become very aware of how you organize your workday. Make full use of the time that you have on this planet. When the hours of the day have passed, they are gone.
A great effective art tip is: Your willingness to go the extra mile will determine your success. Your willingness to go the extra mile will determine your success. Not only do you deliver when you say you will, but you deliver with enthusiasm. You do not stop at “good enough.” The law of reciprocity exists in the art business.
Successful artists focus on creation, not on romantic notions of having created, then sitting back with a few glasses – or a few bottles – of wine to revel in it. Though this sort of behavior may work for awhile, a truly successful artist lives for the work. And the work, in the end, is most intoxicating thing of all.
Too few artists think of themselves as businesspersons. But art and good business go hand-in-hand: by practicing the art of good business, we sustain a lifetime as a practicing – and prospering – artist.
My personal story reads like a book of artist tips. One of my favourite artist tips is that although you really do need to wait for inspiration to wash up, to grab hold of it you must first make your way to the shore. If you’re willing to meet inspiration halfway, you could catch a wave so big that you need help carrying it all back to the studio.
The best fine art tip for any artist, is to look within, find the small shining truth at your centre, and never, ever let it go. My core truth – my ultimate fine art tip – is that there is no separation between artist and environment. And that insight has led to some of the finest art I’ve ever created.
