Don’t Be A Starving Artist
Do art students go to art college to learn the techniques and philosophy of art or to learn to survive the art marketing world when they qualify as artists? There has always been criticism that art colleges don’t teach the students how to market themselves when they leave college. I have never had much sympathy this argument. Are science students, maths graduates or any other students other than marketing students taught how to market?
Newly qualified art students in their naiveté think that their work will stand on its own and that by marketing their work they are selling out. By the time that they find out that this isn’t so many have left the art world altogether and others live day by day relying on grants and government handouts. Many top talents never paint or sculpt again.
There are sites on the internet that that are made to help up and coming struggling artists. One of the best in my opinion is Art Palaver. The web master of this site works hard and thinks hard about helping artists that want to develop their art marketing skills.
Unfortunately, in my opinion most of the other sites are coming from the wrong direction. Quite a lot of the art marketing sites are developed by people who are, or have been in the art gallery system. I have supported myself through my art for a lot of years and it didn’t take me long to decide that I wasn’t going to survive for very long if I relied on the whims of gallery owners. It’s a catch 22 situation – you can’t get exposure in galleries unless you are a recognised successful artist, but you can’t become successful without gallery coverage. I would rather use some of the 50% that the galleries take off my sales to advertise and promote myself.
I could go on till the cows come home criticising, but I want to be more constructive.Where is this going you may ask. Well now that I am of retiring age and spending less time on my own art I thought that it would be a good idea to pass on some of the ideas and techniques that have kept my head above the water in the art world. I have opened up a new site called “NOT THE STARVING ARTIST” in which I will give advice that I have picked up over 40 years of living the artists life without the humiliation of having to look for handouts.
My advertising philosophy is to take your artwork directly to the public. I have always tried to think of my artwork as not too precious but more as a craft. This thought process led me into researching how others promote their goods. I found that basically their was little difference between promoting art and photography as promoting any other niche.
I know that this can be a bitter pill for those artists that think that their art is diminished if their work is treated in the same way as a salesman sells toiletries, but quite frankly I think that it’s worse to toil and suffer for your art and then find that no one wants to buy it.
Any way, I am just building up the site, but please have a look at it. It may not be for you. That’s cool. If you do like what you read bookmark it and come back every so often to see how it goes. I promise that what I give you will be what I consider to be relevant information, and that I won’t wrap it up in “Art Speak” that makes it difficult to understand.
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