Level 2, Part 3

This part is in a preliminary draft form.

Table of Contents

The Business of Art

We have not dealt much with the business aspect of art in this program. In this section we will present some ideas on this topic. The discussion may have a generic business flavour, but if you want to make any significant income from your art, you must treat it in part as a business. This discussion is dogmatic and blunt. It's not designed to be nice because it's not a nice world we live in or have to try and survive in as artists.

This is also a market centric view of art which is in some ways, diametrically opposed to the the way we usually approach art as some lofty, aesthetically driven and spiritually motivated pursuit. If you have a sugar daddy or mommy or are independently wealthy, read no further. If you don't, read on.

The Importance of Marketing

In any business, creative content is 10%, production and administration is 20% of the effort and sales and marketing is 70%. The exact numbers don't matter, it's the relative proportions of the different business activities that do.

I get fliers in the mail every week from Rogers Communications, I get telemarketing calls, I see ads on the TV regularly. This costs lots of money. What creative content or improvement have they added in the last five years? Arguably none. Programming is created by others. The products they sell such as cell phones are created by others. Their Internet phone offering may actually be their own version, but that's about it. They recently surpassed Bell Canada Enterprises as the largest telecommunications company in Canada in terms of market capitalization. They got to be the big fish in the pond by creative marketing, not by creative innovation.

The point for you as an artist is if you want commercial success, you have to market both your product and yourself. If you can't or won't do the marketing, you must engage someone who can and will. If you think the world will discover you and reward you if you patiently wait and make good art, think again.

What Is Your Market?

The market for current art is huge, ranging from $10.00 prints in Walmart to $100,000 paintings in New York galleries. You need to give some thought as to what market you want to address, where your work fits in and what size of the pie you want to go after.

Who Are Your Customers?

Having decided

Who Are Your Competitors?

Your largest competitors are not even living in North America. In recent years, every store selling any form of home furnishings and accessories has begun to carry art prints

Venues

Promotion

The Business Aspects of Your Product - Your Art

Like it or not, the market views your art as a commodity rather than God's gift to the world. The players in the market, gallery owners and customers, usually have a kinder, more complementary view, but the market is impersonal and utterly ruthless.

In this section we suggest ways to approach the market that may increase penetration and return.

What Are Your Product lines?

Nowadays, companies know they cannot survive long on a single product or idea. They develop a line of related products to hit a broader spectrum of pocket books. They also sell products through a diverse set of product lines. A company will not sell one kitchen blender, but a line of several models with different features, plus related items such as hand mixers. They will also likely, at a minimum, sell other product lines of kitchen appliances.

For an artist, a product line is a series of paintings on a similar theme done in a similar style, showing consistency of look. If you can't paint in a series, you will not only be unsuccessful commercially, you will likely be unsuccessful in your art. Gallery owners, are a breed that by Darwinian selection, have learned to accept only artists that have consistency of style and are productive in that style.

That being said, if you have more than one style and can produce effectively switching back and forth, then develop a product line around each but market them separately through different venues.

You can produce separate product lines within a style such as landscapes and still lifes. The point is you must produce many landscapes and many still lifes. In this case, even when the style of expression is similar, you may have to market them separately.

Being able to paint in any style, even superbly, will at best prepare you for a job in the Hong Kong factories that turn out original copies of masterworks for $29.95.

Understand what your personal content and style are and develop one or two product lines around them. Keep a tight focus.

About Reproductions

Printmaking as a fine art extends back hundreds of years. Today, we treat it with the respect held for any original painting or drawing of a singular format. At the same time, we condemn as crass commercialism, the mass reproduction of images for the common market.

It is likely, however, that printmaking was created from commercial motives that are no different from those behind the various forms of commercial printing done today. Printmaking extended the artist's market on the low end and helped feed his family. Hunger is a wonderful stimulus to creativity and creative marketing.

Like it or not the slice of the dollar pie of all forms of "art" sold in the world is

Incidentally, Rauschenberg was producing digital Iris (a.k.a. giclee) prints in 1992.

What Are Your Costs?

Before you read any farther, make a list of what you think they are. Then read on.

Every product sold has a breakeven cost. Selling below this cost the business will go out of business. The cost of every product and service consumed by the business down to the toilet paper in the executive washroom must be recovered through product sales.

At a minimum, you should recover these costs:

  1. All materials used.
  2. All tools used.
  3. All costs associated with production and storage facilities. For a studio outside the house it becomes all rent, lease, insurance and utility costs. 
  4. For a studio in the home, if it is space used exclusively for the production of artwork, a claim can be made on your tax return for the proportionate cost of the items in point 3. This can include mortgage interest payments but not principal (for a good reason).
  5. The proportionate expenses of using an automobile where the use is exclusively related to the business aspect of what you are doing. You must keep a mileage log if your claiming expenses for income tax purposes. These include depreciation on the vehicle, insurance, maintenance costs, all licensing and interest or leasing costs.
  6. Promotional costs, including photography, advertising, business cards, website costs, trade show fees.
  7. Educational costs such as courses, books and magazine subscriptions.
  8. Yada, yada.

The real cost of driving downtown to you gallery may be $10.00 or more without any consideration of your time involvement. You may argue that it doesn't count because you just wanted to talk to owner. Well, if you weren't doing art, that $10.00 would be in your pocket. The point I want to make is I don't know any artist that really understands the real cost of their art as a business

You may argue that if you assess the real cost of what it takes to produce your work and assign what you would like to charge for your time you will price yourself out of the market. Well the are three variables here, actual cost, market price and return on labour and investment. Assuming you are managing input costs well, which of these variables do you have control over? Suck it up, baby.

Pricing

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