I got into creating art considering I love it. I live for it. Because zippo else has always made me happier. And so I rode the wave and followed the dream, conveniently forgetting all the things I'd heard about surviving equally an creative person. I took courses, consumed videos, and read everything I could nearly the art I yearned to create -- all from people who conveyed how like shooting fish in a barrel it is to brand a living from their craft, when in reality they brand their living from teaching their craft. Nobody ever said how hard information technology is or how expensive, disheartening and lonely it can exist. Nobody said that despite all this, one time information technology's in your bones it'south incommunicable to terminate creating.
So I've put together a list of twelve things you should know before turning your art hobby into a career.
Twelve things no one tells you about existence an artist:
- We alive in frugal times and for most people an art purchase is an backlog, not a necessity. These days people prefer to beautify their walls with cheap, wholesale art produced by Ikea or Kmart rather than art that means something to them. For yous this means that until you lot find a market for your work y'all can add "starving artist" to your resume. It's certainly not incommunicable to make a living out of art but, for almost artists, finding an audience to invest in their work is astonishingly tough.
To find a market for your art you demand as many eyes on your work as possible only to go exposure yous need to spend money. Information technology costs money to enter competitions. Information technology costs money to have a website. Information technology costs money to run an online store. It costs coin to have an exhibition. You lot might be lucky enough to become into a free community gallery but otherwise y'all're paying venue rental fees, printing and framing costs, promotion costs, catering costs, packing and courier costs, possible airfares so you can be there in person to marketplace your work, and y'all may non make a single sale. But y'all need these experiences on your resume because without existence a published and exhibited artist no one will accept you seriously.
You volition need to spend AT To the lowest degree 50% of your fourth dimension on marketing. Learning and mastering your craft is not plenty if yous then desire people to see it. You'll be spending your time setting upwards your shop, writing blog posts, crafting newsletters, building your social media post-obit, networking, creating YouTube videos, writing grant applications, pitching to magazines, inbound competitions and organizing exhibitions. So, in ane of life'southward great ironies, you'll find that some of your favorite artists barely do whatever marketing at all and notwithstanding take dandy success.
When printing your work it will NEVER wait how information technology did on your screen or on your painting. Firstly, colour is such an incommunicable beast to tame for reasons that are far too technical to explain and secondly if you work on a computer screen it has a luminance that paper doesn't. The first time I printed my work information technology came out VERY night and I now take to work differently to compensate. This is why you want to work with a trained fine fine art printer who can help you prepare it and not a inexpensive photo lab. It's as well why yous need to enquire or pay for a test print before ordering a total run of prints.
Being an creative person means being vulnerable and exposed. It is really hard to put your creative expression and months of piece of work on display in the vain hope that information technology might get a few likes as people scroll past it on social media. Yet to make sales y'all need to continually spruik your piece of work which is a struggle if you're self-conscious well-nigh information technology and worried that posting too often will lose fans.
People will buy your art only once they've formed a connectedness with it. Sometimes it'due south enough simply to like a piece, but oft they will want to know more about the artwork and the creative person. They want to know who you are, why you create, why you lot employ the techniques you practise, what story the piece is telling. This is difficult if you create on instinct. You will as well exist expected to be confident, positive, passionate, like-able and grateful. It's tough when yous're putting on your bravest face and producing your best work and it's still not plenty to convert fans into buyers.
Pricing. Ugh. People volition tell you your work is also expensive. People will tell you your work is too inexpensive. Your pricing structure will never delight everyone. You just have to have that not everyone is your target marketplace and dauntless their complaints. The prices the bulk of people are prepared to pay wouldn't even cover my bills, permit alone my time.
Y'all need to choose a fine fine art career or a wholesale career because yous cannot, apparently, take both. If you want to be respected as an creative person information technology is very much frowned upon to be printing your products on mugs and cushions because it devalues the collectability of your art. Just if you desire to brand money past selling smaller, cheaper, products at a college volume, wholesale is the way to go. And so practice you prefer markets or galleries?
Exist enlightened that galleries charge a commission to sell your piece of work which can be anywhere up to 70%. It is so disheartening to know that they will probably brand more from your work than you practise, but it's a catch 22 considering without their space, contacts and marketing you lot may not have sold the work at all. Just make sure the gallery you are working with is actually earning their committee. On the other hand, if you lot adopt to sell prints yourself online you will find that oft people pay more to frame your work than they paid to purchase it, and that's when you realize that everyone else makes more money out of your art than y'all practise.
You are a small fish in a gigantic swimming and you'll constantly compare your piece of work to others. There will e'er be someone ameliorate than you. At that place will always exist someone whose art is less accomplished only who wins all the competitions or makes all the sales. This is unsafe territory and y'all have to remember that y'all are all following your own path and creating in the only way you know how. You don't know what demons anyone else is battling and what may look successful to you may be a failure to them. Comparison is but salubrious if information technology makes you work harder to be ameliorate. Information technology'due south only healthy when you're comparison your piece of work now to how it was a twelvemonth ago.
Near artists don't make money from selling art lone. They will have second jobs. They will teach their craft to others. They will write books. They volition ain galleries. They will benefit from other artists past producing magazines, or competitions, or running artist support websites. They will run courses on marketing for artists or sell creative person supplies. They will live off creative person grants or crowdfunding campaigns. They will accept sponsors who pay them to use and promote their products. Diversifying your offer is fundamental.
With all of this in heed it is SO EASY to start doubting yourself based on how many competitions you lot don't win, how many sales yous don't make, how successful every other artists seems. Only yous have to remember e'er, ever, that you got into this because creating is your lifeblood and not because yous wanted to be a successful artist. The almost successful artists are the ones that persevere even when no one'due south buying their piece of work, who know their value is not defined past how many likes they receive or how many trolls leave hurtful comments. Considering they dear creating art and cannot live without it and know that everything else is just a bonus. Are there whatsoever other points you'd add to this listing?
Enregistrer un commentaire for "Percentage of Artists Who Can Live on Their Art Alone"