Artists struggle with self-confidence all the time. Do you? Seriously, as an artist, you are putting the most personal and vulnerable parts of yourself forward. Everybody has an opinion on your work and thinks they know better—and it’s easy to listen to them. It’s certainly much easier than keeping the faith. I know a photographer who recently showed his work…
Kris Gebhardt, a mixed-media impressionist painter, is adrenalized because he and his wife, Angela—who is an abstract artist in her own right, as well as Kris’s business partner—are front-row spectators as the stale, over-sanctioned industry of last century collides with the vibrating new way to buy and sell art. Like today’s authors who write and sell books without publishers, or…
“I used to have a band,” he told me. He had played lead guitar and sang. It was the 1980s, and he worked hard, touring the country and gaining a small following. But he never broke through. When he turned 30, he got a chance to play one of the biggest music festivals in Great Britain. His brother ran the…
Art is more than just pretty pictures. The best art explores ideas, and ideas need time to develop and to grow. In fact, they demand it. Respect the process and give yourself permission to take time for your work. Schedule it—or, better yet, make it a part of your daily routine. Each day I take an hour or so to…
Any artist worth his or her salt is part of a larger arts community. Other artists are not your competition; other artists are your colleagues—and, I think you’ll find, your best friends. I once lived in a town with lots of artists but no community. Everyone worked in their own frustrated little bubble. I tried to begin a monthly get-together,…
by Meagan J. Meehan Socrates Marquez is a Dominican born, self-taught and artist who was presented with a ArtExpo New York SOLO award. Socrates is known for his use of bold string-mop markings combined with images and his signature paint-splatter technique allow him to create pieces of art that are vibrant and stimulating, pulling the viewers in and inviting them…
Maximizing trade sales to broaden your distribution and give you more time to create art The traditional way of selling art through brick-and-mortar galleries works. But if you find yourself creating marketing materials, building websites, packing boxes, and accounting for your sales when you’d rather be painting, sculpting, or blowing glass, then it’s time to consider selling to the trade.…
Emerging artists with little sales and exhibition experience often struggle to find doors that will open. It’s difficult to break into the art business! In a recent interview with art superstar William Wegman, I asked him how he was able to get into an art gallery when he started out? He said, “Other artists recommended me to their galleries. I…
–By Peri Schwartz Back in 1999, when I was 25 years into my career, a good friend came to visit me at my studio. I complained bitterly to her about my lack of success in the art world. I’d experienced some success with commercial galleries, but I wasn’t getting the level of recognition I wanted, and I was disappointed and…
In business school, they talk about The 6 Stages of Entrepreneurship. But in art school, they don’t even use the word entrepreneur. They should. Artists are entrepreneurs. That’s the truth. And it’s the difference between the old economy and the new. But artists have always been entrepreneurs; they’ve had to be. Though instead of The 6 Stages of Entrepreneurship, I…
