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crabfish.com |
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Art
Business Today Jan
2011
It is
blindingly obvious that many amateur, hobby, non-pro, artists do not have a
monkeys snowball interest in self employment, small business, or fine art
trade competition. These subjects are taboo in some studios. Business is an
anathema. Competition is a filthy concept. Trade is a swear word. ‘Surely’,
they say to themselves and each other, ‘I
want to paint pictures, and if I do good ones then the world will recognize
this glorious fact and hail me as the genius that I am’. I say
to my fellow professionals, and all aspiring professionals, that such
self-delusion is a good thing. Because the non-professional head-in-sand
attitude means that there are only a handful of other artists competing with
you in our shark infested industry, instead of 100,000. For
this article I would love to indulge myself and write about the enjoying,
striving, and hoping stuff. However, there are plenty of other places where
readers can read about the amateur artist and his/her issues. Instead
I think it is my duty to talk here about the loneliness of self-employment,
the difficulties of running oneself as a small-business, and the strength and
weakness of competition within our industry. Firstly,
I have some good news. Please let me share with you the thing that boggles my
mind and keeps me going most. Technology has changed everything! Computers. First came computers and Microsoft and
Adobe providing cut and paste word processing with spell checks, the power and
potential efficiency of spread sheets, and the wonderful Photoshop. Then along
came small business accounting, Money, Sage, or similar programmes, and
Powerpoint presentation. Business
administration and efficiency was transformed. Printing and Publishing. For most of my long and illustrious
professional art career [he says modestly] I have had to ‘paint
pictures and sell them’. In fact that was the phrase I used to use to
answer the inevitable question “So what do you do?” But nowadays my answer is, ‘I paint pictures, publish prints, and sell them’. Not much
different on the face of it, but very different in reality. And it is due to
computers, inkjet printing, and the internet. Only fifteen years ago, in the dim dark
days before the cyber dawn and the inkjet print head, an artist who wanted to
expand and leverage the efficiency and viability of his or her business by
making prints had to use silk screen, etching, lino-cut, or engraving methods
to create a time-consuming, hand-made, small-run of original prints. Which is not very effective in leverage
terms. In theory you could use four colour
lithography to make big runs of prints. The process involved monster
Heidleberg high speed presses that cost an arm and a leg to set up and run.
The print company probably wouldn’t wish to use heavyweight fine-art paper,
and the inks used probably meant that the prints would fade in sunlight. Costs
were very similar whether you had 10 or 1000, so you were tempted to choose
1000 so that the unit cost was affordable. The printer pressed the print
button and a thousand prints were deposited into the tray in a few minutes.
You had to publish the whole edition at once, without any variations, and even
though each individual print was reasonably priced, you had to have, and pay
for, all of them. Then you had to store them. You needed to win the pools, or
inherit a fortune, or sell your children, to afford to amass and warehouse a
portfolio collection of say just twenty images. That is 20,000 prints, to pay
for, store safely, and sell. So most artists didn’t self publish. We left it
to big business publishers. It took those publishers a year or more to
plan and execute a sales campaign for a new repro image, and it cost them a
fortune to do it. Catalogues had to be printed, samples were put into
portfolios and hawked around the galleries. They took big expensive space at
trade fairs, in different countries, on different continents. Artists
considered themselves very fortunate to be taken up by a publisher who would
do this for them. Names like Frost
and Reed and Soloman and Whitehead ruled the waves in the UK. Goodness knows
the names of the big players in foreign markets, so goodness knows how an
aspiring artist got in touch with the international market. But
times have changed. Inkjet printers. Nowadays an artist can self publish and
produce affordable high quality prints on demand. That fact alone deserves to
command great awe and respect because it has changed everything. An artist can now use the services of a
print bureau and produce the first Artists Proof of an image for under £100.
The minimum diy set up includes a camera or scanner, plus an A3 fine
art quality printer, and use of a computer with Photoshop or other image
manipulation software. Your self-published multiple image portfolio can be
produced for a few hundred pounds. Then you print only when you sell. No
storage, no waste, high quality, speedy production, respectable profit
margins. Magic. Internet The other thing that I mentioned was the
internet or worldwide web. If anyone told you twenty years ago that you would
be able to run an art gallery with the potential for 5 billion eyes to see
your exhibits, change the stock in an instant, communicate with the whole
world, find out about absolutely anything, send personal messages to thousands
of people at once, almost for free, then you would have them banged up for
lunacy or fraud. But it has actually happened. And it has happened in the last
few years. Now we are all used to these new features;
U-tube, Facebook, blogging, Twitter, Google, i-phones, i-pad, Blackberry’s,
Wacom tablets, digigraphs, cloud based computing, viral loops ....wowee!
Whatever next? Ye Gods, modern technology has handed us
the keys to heaven. Anyway, I think that you will agree that
technology has changed everything, forever! Oh! Maybe the value and purpose of art
hasn’t changed, and hopefully the role of the artist to see, and express,
and create, and inspire, and wonder, is the same. But now the aspiring
professional artist can use these wondrous new technological tools to do it
better. Secondly, the environment is new. The gallery system is
changing. Outside London the UK art retail market has
traditionally been a small-business cottage industry. Very few art galleries
were more than a one man band. Some were very well run, and became established
good local businesses. Many others were not, and so galleries came and went
with monotony. In recent years the high street has been
affected and strongly influenced by super-efficient art publishers who have
taken over many of the best galleries and established chains of in-house
galleries. They also operate some exclusive gallery franchises, and they open
new galleries where they see a good opportunity, usually in prime locations.
These galleries might have a couple of token local artists, but by and large
they look pretty much the same where-ever the gallery is throughout the UK.
Same small band of artists, same expensive frames, same high ticket prices,
same marketing process, same charming sales patter. These publishers will have
a contracted stable of artists getting the lion’s share of gallery sales.
For the artists involved this offers someone else to do the selling,
marketing, and administration, while you go away and paint, to order. You as
an artist might get an offer to sell your soul to one of these mega gallery
organizations in return for wealth and fame. Can you resist the temptation? Do
you want to? It suits some artists very well. Or you can be independent. Many
professional artists will have to be. How do they do it then? Selling direct to the art retail trade.
The traditional one-man-and-his-family galleries still exist even though their
influence is no longer the paramount factor that it once was. There are still some very well run,
efficient, high quality, middle-art galleries specializing and selling
original paintings and prints by professional artists. You can find quite a
few of them on the Affordable Art Fair circuit. Go and visit the fairs to find
these galleries. The art is good, un- controversial, and aimed mainly at the
middle-class domestic market. The art buyers are from all age groups. The art
quality and collector’s pleasure is genuine. The price ceiling for art at
the Affordable is £3000. Many of the exhibits will sell for hundreds rather
than thousands. However it is hard for an amateur artist to break into this
market. The paintings have got to be good, but that is not enough. The artist
has got to be proficient, reliable, and established. The galleries turn away
dozens, maybe hundreds of hopefuls before they will back a new artist in this
arena. Slightly further down the street you can
find retailers who sell reproduction prints as well as originals. They might
be in secondary less expensive locations. The gallery will show some paintings
and prints and can sell some for you as well. But this is probably not the
gallery’s main source of income. They continue to survive because they are
usually the best place for the public to go to for picture framing. They can
do pretty well as framers especially if they are Guild qualified bespoke
framers. Some small art galleries are also poster-art shops, gift shops, art
materials shops, or maybe offer a print making service to artists. If a
pro-artist can make contact with, and supply regular saleable product, and do
business in a businesslike way, and satisfy several galleries at once, then
the artist can still make a living. Thirdly, there is the booming high-art at auction market
dominated by Christies and Sothebys. This is where the nasty bankers have
stashed all their plundered millions. This is where the emerging Chinese and
Russian new-mega-rich, American super capitalists, and established oil sheiks,
compete to spend their billions. As an artist my advice is…Forget it!
Don’t even dream of getting into this market. If you are not there now, and
are reading this, you have missed the boat like me. Sigh! However, this super-booming fantastic
market has attracted a lot of media attention. That same media focuses on the
incredible prices and profits that some high-art dealers and collectors spend
and make. This has the effect of stoking up ‘art acquisition desire’ in
lesser mortals. All professional artists gain a little whenever Damien sells
another diamond encrusted skull for more millions. Fourthly. Selling to the consumer. ,
Artists can actually sell their art directly to collectors themselves in
exciting new emerging markets. This is how; Have you noticed the growth of regional Art
Fairs where artists or groups can exhibit, or fairs with an Artists Quarter,
and Open Studios, and Artist’s Open House Art-trails.
All these have become major factors in the life of a professional
artist. There is yet another major new outlet for
you, ‘the online gallery’. Or your own website with a shopping cart
facility. Fifthly, another income stream is ‘licensing’ where the
artist gets an income from other businesses when they use their images for
greetings cards, post cards, posters, table mats, tee-shirts etc. This is part
of the professional artist’s further business development programme where
they should be trying to leverage their work and expertise. More about that in
a moment. Finally,
these are exciting times, and exciting new ways and places where the
professional artist can be in the art business. You as an artist must realize that the art
business is just that, in two words. Art and Business. The aspiring
independent professional will have to become good at business. That involves
investing money and time in ones business, and ones brand which is oneself. It
also means finding out how to do things, seeking expert experienced help,
joining in the industry, researching proven methods, and avoiding the common
mistakes. Readers
may recall that I previously wrote, and gave a seminar last year at the 2010
Spring Fair, about the five skills that a pro-artist needs, and that he/she
would only be as successful as their weakest skill. Briefly, 20% each of a
pro-artists effort needs to be;
Now I
am preparing a further seminar for the up-coming Spring Fair on ‘Business
Development for Artists, especially Licensing’. Please come along
and discuss this with me in February. And
keep it secret, between professional artists only. We don’t want to tell the
other 100,000 artists that are out there. |