6 Traits for Success in the Art Market.
For those of you considering turning your art hobby into a successful art business here are a few of the traits that will best equip you to do so.
1. Drive (also known as motivation, determination, perseverance and tenacity) I am tenacious. I keep going no matter what. You need to be able to let things like rejection, rude comments, or occasional slow sales, not deter you from your goal. I do what it takes to get the job done.
Drive is what keeps you at it even when you work full time, have kids, and have a busy life. There is always time. Now I am not saying spend time in the business over time with your family. But the truth is, all gathered round watching TV is not exactly quality time. Before we moved to Iowa I had worked a couple of jobs and had 2 Sundays off a month, I still created, (though at the time my art was barely a hobby) often late into the evening hours. Without drive, your success may well be limited.
2. Focus In my opinion the thing that has saved my art business, while I have watched gallery after gallery close in my area, was the fact that Wild Faces Gallery is diversified. I don’t rely on only one source for sales. What this means however, is I have to juggle dozens of jobs all the time. The only way I can keep from going crazy is to maintain focus. Not only focus on the future goals but also focus on my daily and weekly goals.
3. Personable Good people skills are essential. I consider myself anti-social by nature. I would be ever so happy if I could hide away in a mountain cottage somewhere with a few horses, a pack of dogs, a few miscellaneous critters and a shotgun. (yes, my husband is also welcome on this fantasy hill top, but I just thought, that went without saying. But then I thought, maybe it didn’t) But if you actually want to sell art, you actually need to talk to people.
I am not a big fan of the hard sell approach, you know the used car salesman kinda thing (though that is a successful technique for many) I tend to greet them and just make myself available. If they seem interested, I generally ask a few questions about them (everyones favorite subject is themselves.) The good thing for me is that most of the people that are attracted to my work are generally animal people, which makes having a conversation easy. Plus I am genuinely interested and not feigning my attention. I know that sounds rude, but after you speak with hundreds of people in an afternoon, it can get tempting to fake it.
4. Being Comfortable in Solitude This sounds kinda of the opposite of #3 but if you plan to make your hobby your business you are going to be spending quite a bit of alone time. Most artists are solitary by nature. The act of creation is often a private affair.
5. Honesty I don’t mean honesty with your customer, of course that is important. In this instance, I mean honesty with yourself, your capabilities both mentally and physically. Also honesty with your business. You need to have the ability to take a good hard look at the numbers.
For example: Lets say I do an artfair and I made X dollars. I need to factor in ALL my costs, like hotel, gas, food, booth fee, jury fee and cost of good sold. And if I’m feeling very brave (or on the fence about returning to an event) I may also look at time lost creating in the gallery.
6. Confidence or at least the ability to fake it. In order to effectively sell what you do, you do need to have a certain amount of confidence. Most people (including patrons, galleries, and publishers) want to feel they are making the right decision by trusting in you and your work. They can’t get that warm fuzzy feeling if you yourself, don’t feel confident in your work. The old saying “Fake it ’til you make it” is true in this instance. Success breeds confidence, so eventually it will come. Be aware that it is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.
Note: No where in this list is skill or talent mentioned as a necessary aspect of turning your art hobby into an art business. While skill is important, it is the ability to market successfully that will determine your business’s success or failure.
Tomorrow I will talk about the main trait that holds most artists back from success, (and hopefully post a finished snow leopard.)
And following that will be a post about the number 1 reason people buy art. Anyone want to hazard a guess?
Tags: business
Thanks for these tips, Mona. I look forward to your following posts also.
I just called your new project “mysterious” in a fun descriptive way, hope it moves along well for you.
I am working on a CP (yesterday and today) of a foal — since I was afraid to do a horse after the dog seemed to go well, I am making myself do a horse. Sure like the sanded board better than the bristol paper, which I am using, but need to see if I can make those so that I can economize.
I have read several articles, so remember one that gave some reasons people buy art — I am not sure what it said was number one reason — my gut response woudl be to say “enjoyment/pleasure” but I think the article might have said “to feel important”. I don’t know — will look forward to your article to see the answer.
Happy Painting, Angela
Thank you so much for posting this. My friend Anita is keen to sell art, but many artists in our area are quite negative about it because they haven’t had much success themselves. They always say things like “don’t expect to make money through art”, “you can’t make money through art”, “people don’t buy art” blah blah blah. But I KNOW that isn’t true! Many of them do endless paintings of each other in the buff - which isn’t very interesting to the outside world!
Anyway, so I will print this priceless piece of information out for Anita, and I look forward to your following articles (and seeing your finished leopard of course).
Oh, and my guess is that people buy art because… it fits in with their decor!
We’ll you’ll both have to wait until tomorrow on the big #1.
Undaunted, It is easier to feel like its hopeless to make a go of selling art. It allows one to not have to work at it. I think that is fine if it’s what they really want. However if they “really” want to sell, it is doable. Mind you, it is a difficult thing to make money at art. I need to double check my research but I believe that less than half of 1% of the people listing themselves as artists for the IRS in the US actually show a profit. On the other hand I know for a fact that anyone can make a living in the art business, if they really want it bad enough. Of that tiny number I personally know dozens of artists who make a good living (as in good house, kids going to college) through their art.
How’s yours and Anita’s show coming along?
Angela, I checked out your dog today. Very nice! You captured a wonderful personality there. I can tell through the artwork that it just isn’t a picture of a dog, but a “real” dog. It’s portrait makes me feel like I know the dog just a little bit more. Again, very nice!
There isn’t really any new news to report about the show Mona, but thank you for asking.
I think maybe the mistake that a lot of artists make is that they concentrate on producing art (nothing wrong with that) and expect it to sell itself. Obviously producing something beautiful to start with is important, but I can see that selling art can be a full time job in itself.
You hit it right on, Undaunted. Many people have the “If you build it, they will come. . .” mentality. Not true. Actually that will be an upcoming post. I spend faaarrrr more time handling the business end over creating, which is why no snow leopard yet. It makes a good case for getting a manager, but that in itself has loads of issues.