Article: Marketing Your Art #13
Is your art your passion or a job? by SKC
Doing what you love for a living is a great blessing, however, maintaining the spark and joy of doing what you love day in and day out can be tricky. So much of being an artist focuses around huge highs and lows. It can be a roller coaster from one show to the next, doldrums between sales, a rush of work and anticipation before an exhibition. Through it all, maintaining the excitement and discovery in your process will keep your work fresh and desirable. As artists no doubt we can all point to a finished piece that just “didn’t do it” for us. Something that we weren’t into at the time we worked on it.
One of the biggest reasons an artist may lose their spark is the desire or need to create works that will sell. Oddly enough, in my experience, when I focused less on pleasing the crowd and more on what I WANTED to work on, the works sold themselves. The interest and focus I poured into these pieces must have somehow been obvious on the surface of the finished pieces. Looking over years of work now, I can point out pieces that were less successful, pieces that were forced (to finish a quota for a show, or continue a theme that appeared at one time to sell well). I know them well, like dents in a shiny car door, they are dents in my career – inevitable. I cannot however, for the life of me describe to you in any manner what about these pieces is so vastly different from their sister works which sold quickly
In these times of financial uncertainty I know it is likely more tempting than ever before to paint what you feel will sell. Changing how you exhibit your work, how you offer it for sale or even the scale is certainly acceptable, but changing your process and passion may only hinder your career. Even if by some amazing luck you stumble upon the perfect formula for making work that sells, if you aren’t enjoying every piece you create, you risk becoming nothing more than a production artist. Your passion and love becomes a job, rather than your job being your passion and love.
Be careful and be true to yourself and your artwork.
Doing what you love for a living is a great blessing, however, maintaining the spark and joy of doing what you love day in and day out can be tricky. So much of being an artist focuses around huge highs and lows. It can be a roller coaster from one show to the next, doldrums between sales, a rush of work and anticipation before an exhibition. Through it all, maintaining the excitement and discovery in your process will keep your work fresh and desirable. As artists no doubt we can all point to a finished piece that just “didn’t do it” for us. Something that we weren’t into at the time we worked on it.
One of the biggest reasons an artist may lose their spark is the desire or need to create works that will sell. Oddly enough, in my experience, when I focused less on pleasing the crowd and more on what I WANTED to work on, the works sold themselves. The interest and focus I poured into these pieces must have somehow been obvious on the surface of the finished pieces. Looking over years of work now, I can point out pieces that were less successful, pieces that were forced (to finish a quota for a show, or continue a theme that appeared at one time to sell well). I know them well, like dents in a shiny car door, they are dents in my career – inevitable. I cannot however, for the life of me describe to you in any manner what about these pieces is so vastly different from their sister works which sold quickly
In these times of financial uncertainty I know it is likely more tempting than ever before to paint what you feel will sell. Changing how you exhibit your work, how you offer it for sale or even the scale is certainly acceptable, but changing your process and passion may only hinder your career. Even if by some amazing luck you stumble upon the perfect formula for making work that sells, if you aren’t enjoying every piece you create, you risk becoming nothing more than a production artist. Your passion and love becomes a job, rather than your job being your passion and love.
Be careful and be true to yourself and your artwork.
Labels: art
posted by Lou Belcher at
6:10 AM
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