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Marketing your Art
What are the best ways to market your work? Online Galleries? Traditional Galleries? How do you price your work? These are just some of the questions that have been discussed recently among the members of my art community.
Since art and the value of art is a relatively subjective thing it makes it difficult for some artists to price their work. From my personal experience, a lot of artists tend to undersell themselves. The value of art work is derived in several ways:
- How "established" the artist is.
- The artist's skill level.
- How prolific the artist is.
- How much demand there is for artist's work.
- The geographic location of the artist.
- The current prices for art in that location.
Some basic suggestions on how to price art work have been recently posted in my online Forum. Basically, the artist should estimate their cost of materials and supplies. Add to that the time he/she will spend (or has spent) on the project and figure time/wages based on a set amount per hour. This amount may vary depending on artist's skill level, demand for work, and/or going rate for art in that particular location.
Some talented artists have a difficult time selling through Traditional Galleries because of lack of previous exposure, or not having the type of work that the Gallery is looking for. Sometimes these obstacles can be overcome by the artist first cultivating a relationship with Gallery owner/curator. If the Gallery sees that the artist is sincere and is not a fly by night artist who is here today and gone tomorrow, the artist may have a better chance at being displayed there. When an artist approaches a Gallery his/her appearance, attitude, and demeanor may be part of the Gallerie's assessment of him/her.
On the other hand, the online Gallery experience is vastly different in that the artist has less to worry about in terms of having to establish a personal relationship with the Gallery. It is more of a case of the artist's work selling itself. There must be artists selling their work through personal art sites and online Galleries or there wouldn't be so many of them! The Net is such a big place now and is expanding so rapidly that personal "Home Pages" and even personal art sites are having a much harder time gaining any exposure on the Net. That is why it may be to the artist's advantage to join an established art site, association, or online Gallery if they want their work to be seen by a large audience. The smaller, less commercial Websites are fast being swallowed up and lost in the vastness of the Net.
The idea of using an art agent has also been in recent discussions. Some artists have used agents for years. Some didn't know agents even existed. Others knew they were out there but couldn't find one. I found out in my research that agents do exist but that they are relatively hard to find. I wondered if they do not advertise their services, or do they not want to be found? The answer came in the form of an email I received from an agent. Below is an excerpt from that email:
"In regard to your article and quest for artist's agents; one of the reasons that you may find difficulties in finding artist's agents on the web is that there is not really any need to advertise. Many artist's reps that I have known have either chosen the artists that they wish to represent or they were close friends of the artist to begin with. As mentioned in your article when searching for artist's agents you ran across many artists searching for representation, agents are able to and should only work with artists whom they feel they can have some success with, so the ball is in the agent's court."
"Even though there is a market for artist's agents, one can only take on so many artists and still be effective. Just as galleries are particular about the artwork they show so to are artists' agents, and you would never see a gallery running an ad to say they are looking for new artists, although they always are looking for a "right" new artist. I personally only even mention that I am an artists' rep to artists that I might be interested in working with, as I have to feel that their artwork is marketable to my clientele first. I should add here that the artwork that I market is multiple original prints and that I do only outright sales, no consignments, no exhibits, so in your true form of an artist's agent I do not completely fit the mold."
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