All About Art & Artists by D. L. Keur of zentao.com

Artists and writers tend to think with the seasons and the holidays.  It’s natural.  We certainly don’t feel like Christmas in May. Well, that’s great if you are planning a year ahead.  It isn’t so good if you are trying to produce something for this year.   Lists and catalogs go out six months to a year ahead to the buyers who are going to look at your product.  Only on the Internet do we have “instantaneous.”  Artists, work one year ahead on your projects unless they are not seasonal, not going to be distributed nationally and/or internationally.  Panicked?  Don’t be.  Simply jump ahead to stay ahead.

I just started “yet another art group,” this one for IK artists who want to collaborate in order to promote themselves and their art in a cost effective way until they get the basis they need to go it alone.  But, even as we design calendars, I realize that we really can’t effectively market them through the distributors. Not for 2008.  We can for 2009.  Of course, we can do this calendar for local distribution and Internet sales, including Amazon, this year, but, to hit Ingrams and Barnes and Nobles, we’ll have to make it a 2009 calendar.  That’s all well and good.  The project doesn’t have to stall just because of that.  Images for a calendar are images for a calendar, regardless of year.   The work is good, as is the collaboration. 

But I just had an artist come in my door in a dither because she needs to have her real world art scanned to make Christmas cards to sell, hoping to get into, of all places, Hallmark. Um…no.  And you have to follow a process to get art noticed by Hallmark.  But she isn’t listening. I send her away, giving her the names of several of the pro shops who are cheaper, shops who will scan her pictures in and give her a reasonable product.  I won’t do it for her, not at the prices I charge.  I won’t take her money — can’t in good conscience — knowing she doesn’t have much to begin with.

Periodically there comes a stirring and a swell around the Internet where artists on art forums, blogs, and web networks begin to fuss, nudge, and niggle about promotional activities.  This stirring and swell reminds me of the BUY NOW, BUY HERE ad blasts that happen when sales are down or a company is losing margin.  On the forums, blogs, and websites, though, this happens when the economy starts taking a dive.  It happens amongst those who are desperate to make it on their own because they are fed up with the BS they have to put up with at their day jobs.  Likewise, though, it comes when they, worried that they aren’t making sales, start to foment inside because they equate sales with approval, never mind success.  

Good artists don’t need to run right out and sign up for every promotional venture out around the Internet.  To do so only steals their time and money.  Oh, I know, most are free, and those which aren’et, well, $10 bucks here, $20 there, isn’t a lot…but time is money, folks.  And there is little enough time to spare.  So I have this to say:

Have you, the artist who is really interested in promoting your career, built a portfolio, then sent or walked it around to art reps, art agents, art dealers, and galleries, large and small?  Have you answered a “call for artwork,” entered contests, donated your works to worthwhile charity auctions…which details, of course, go in your portfolio.  If you really want to “self-promote,” have you bought advertising promoting your name and your artwork, carefully planning your ad campaign?  Or, if you really want to drive your career, have you thought of hiring a publicist, a promoter — good ones, not the “entrepreneurs” who are only doing what you are trying to do– trying to make it on their own?

Spend your time wisely.  Do your art.  Judiciously work on your real world presence and on your own websites using only a good escrow service and one, maybe two, of the best print and drop ship services on the Internet.  Don’t go running around the Web trying to pump up sales, especially penny sales, by signing up for every marketing strategy and networking “opportunity” out there.  What you think you are signing up for isn’t what you’re getting.  You are simply signing up for yet another dot-com that wants lots of people to use and promote their website into the top 1000. 

Work on your art and on your art careers instead of making yourselves into small time Internet self-advertising agents.

You can paint, draw, sculpt…create whatever you want to…within the boundaries of “legal” (as in not violating copyright, patent, and trademark laws); you can blatantly applaud, revere, criticize or condemn some socio-political, cultural, religious, or ideological status quo, icon, or idea.  Or you can just paint, draw, or sculpt something aesthetically pleasing.  It doesn’t matter the content except that your art pleases you.  However, when it comes to the point of interacting with people, good manners, grace, and gentility are required. 

You can be all the brat, all the revolutionary, all the snobbish, and/or all the haughty you want in private and in your art.  But, for the sake of respecting yourself and your fellow human, please remember that treating others gently and with consideration will win you more accolades than anything else.  It will also gain you favor, and, perhaps, sales along with it, from your audience.

If someone voices an opinion of your work, good or bad, thank them.  If someone derides you rudely, you have the option of ignoring them rather than striking back.  If someone favors you with a sale, remember them, and always thank them, treating them with the same honor and respect they did you in admiring and valuing your work enough to wish it a part of their lives.

I am so very tired of self-styled art gurus, market gurus, and profiteers.  They are a constant measure of success, but, man, oh, man, oh, man, I wish they’d all take a flying leap at a doughnut ready to fall off a cliff’s edge.

 Artists, be aware that, when you start getting hoards and loads of email, snail mail, phone calls, and knocks at your door from these barracudas, pat yourself on the back for a job well done as you slam the virtual, proverbial, or literal door on their noses.  Don’t give them the time of day. Don’t respond.  Don’t do anything except block their email addresses, phone calls, and, when they show up at your door, report them to the local sheriff as harassment or as door-to-door solicitors if your town and/or county has an ordinance prohibiting them.  Valid art agents will send you a nice letter on fine stationary with an agency name you can check for validity.  Or they will introduce themselves with credentials without a sales spiel on the phone.  Okay?  Got it?  Good.  And, for heaven’s sake, if you are achieving success on your own and are happy with your sales, your work load, and your schedule, do you really want to get bigger?  Remember, bigger means more hoops to hop and less freedom to do what you want, when you want.  Got that, too?  Okay.  Get back to painting, now.

Oh, do be aware that the pests will be like fruit flies and biting gnats, so…forewarned is forearmed.  Pass the human fly-swatter, would you?

Depending on somebody else to provide you exposure…unless they have some formalized interest in your work is rather like wishing on stars.

All over the Web, we have artists whining and moaning about their placement on a website’s members list, their exposure, how they come up in search results, and whether or not they are being treated fairly or given their just due.  And all this whining and moaning is for what?  For pennies?  That’s a lot of time wasted whining for very little reward, isn’t it?

I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again.  Do your own marketing.  Everything else you get will be icing on the cake, reinforcing the work you do for yourself.

Want some ideas on promoting yourself as an artist and a specific piece of artwork?  A few places to start:

1. Do have your own website devoted to your artwork.
2. Do keep a blog.
3. Do become an active member of online communities and real world organizations whose members are the kind of potential customers and clients who would be interested in your artwork. (NOTICE I DID NOT SAY ARTIST COMMUNITIES. YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE NOT OTHER ARTISTS.)
4. Submit your artwork to magazines, book publishers, and organizations when you see “a call for art,” but only submit artwork to them which you really think suits their needs.  Do your research, in other words.
5. If you want to try for national and international recognition, but don’t have a “name” to promote your interests yet, enter recognized contests and art shows. (See my post on that on this blog or on the main website under Commentary.)
6. Get an agent…which means build a portfolio, add to it all the time, and get some contest wins and awards as well as some substantial sales as proof of your art’s value as a commercial commodity.

Remember on point #5: If you have already undersold your work, an agent is going to be skeptical of signing you.  Do NOT sell your artwork on places like EBay if you want to be taken seriously.

I listen to a lot of artists real time.  I watch a lot of forums and blogs. 

I watch a lot of attitudes. 

I see little that makes me think of most wannabe and beginning artists are more than barracudas out patrolling for a tasty meal for their own gain and at another’s expense.  And I don’t like it.  I won’t acknowledged them, and I certainly won’t develop a relationship with them.  I doubt any art dealer, art agent, or gallery owner would either.  Here’s why.

If you carry an attitude around that shouts: “I don’t trust you; I think you are out to rip me off, and I’m going to say so everywhere I can, challenging you to prove otherwise,” what that tells me is that:

1. You’re unprofessional;
2. You’ve got no experience on any side of any aisle;
3. You’re totally self-conceited;
4. You’re completely out-of-touch with reality;
5. You want everything for nothing.

Sound harsh?

I suppose. 

But here’s the facts, gentlemen and ladies. 

No one is going to do something for you if you carry a chip on your shoulder, are suspicious of everyone’s motives, and use demand as your technique instead of polite query.

PROFESSIONALISM

Doesn’t mean “mean.”

Doesn’t mean “can chew nails.”

Doesn’t mean “snide and snippy.”

Doesn’t mean “willing to take it where the sun don’t shine.”

Doesn’t mean “willing to give it where the sun don’t shine.”

Instead, try investigating a service, gallery, or art rep with open eyes, but without a suspicious attitude.  Because anyone who approaches a situation with suspicion automatically gets labelled by those receiving that suspicion and by those observing that suspicion as being themselves unworthy of trust.

I am an artist.  I paint, I sculpt, I draw.  And I do it spontaneously, without planning it, without worrying about how it will turn out.

That’s the secret, you know.  If you just stop fretting whether what you’re doing, whether what you’re going to do, will make the grade, that’s when your artistic side is freed to really dig in and express.

Try it yourself.  Get worried about whether a line is going to be curved just right or straight enough, fret whether your perspective is off, and every line, every curve, every arc and trajectory, will skew itself, turning out just the way you were afraid it would.

See that?  You pre-programmed yourself to fail — to do it “wrong”…which in and of itself is a whole other conversation we won’t get into right now.  But, when you fear, you set what you didn’t want to happen in your mind, and then it happens through your worried hand.

Instead, draw, paint, sculpt with confidence, freely letting go and letting your creativity ride on the thrill and high that is its own best spirit.  Then what turns out, though maybe not quite what you envisioned, will be glorious. 

Really.

Just try it if you don’t believe me.

Oh, and, remember, always let art steep after its initial birth.  You can’t see well when the innate self-adulator or self-critic is on the loose.  Wait and see it on a “neutral day.”

Invited to view his work, the words of an artist gave me pause.  He was already defensive and apologetic.  “My art isn’t for everyone,” he said hesitantly. 

What I saw was marvelous.  But he didn’t know how I would take it.  Worried about a negative reaction, he was already making excuses and trying to steel himself for rejection…prepping himself to soften the blow.

Well, sure, not every picture made my mind thrill to the experience, but some of them not only brought up that warm feeling in my chest, and a zing within my brain, but actually had me itching to have more wall space. 

When I want to hang a picture, that’s the best compliment I can offer.  If I’m reaching for my checkbook, you can figure that you’ve done something I really like, even love.

I see “art by artist” everyday…except when on vacation or hiking in the wilderness (where I see art by Nature, and revel in it).  I render verdicts on a weekly, if not daily, basis on whether someone’s art is promotable.  And I have an open mind and open vision…mostly.  What I cannot abide is apology. 

Apology won’t get you through the tough times when all around you dismiss and castigate your vision mostly because they have none themselves.  (Listen to that because it’s truth.)

Shyness won’t land you that gallery owner’s confidence, or that agent’s second look and consideration.

Believe in your work, your art, yourself.  It’s important. 

If you like it, that’s what counts.  If you feel proud of the work, revel in the fact that it’s your brilliance there.  Remember, not everyone likes everything, and most things catch on, not because everyone who saw it instantly loved what they saw.  SOMEONE saw it and instantly loved what they saw, and they told others who looked and saw with fresh eyes…and then told more people who also looked with more open minds. 

Your vision — your art — is YOU.  And if you can stand there in the privacy of your room, stare at that painting, and find it worthy of your name, so will someone else…and then more somebodies.  But not if you shirk and shrink, fading away into the wall as if ashamed.

Don’t apologise.  Not ever.  Do your art.  And show it with pride.  All of it that you feel is worthy of your signature.  Now there’s a measure you can count on.

Perspective is necessary.  It allows one the luxury of effectively flattening out the landscape in art while retaining depth of experience, or of creating such a vividly real, deeply tangible image that viewers cannot believe its actually painted on canvas.  Perspective can level the playing field in life while retaining a clear vision of reality; it can allow you to reach heights in your career which once seemed unattainable.

Without knowing how to achieve perspective in art, the artist is missing tools critical to attaining mastery of medium.  The same is true in living and working.  For an artist, the use and application of perspective in both areas are needed for success.

Lack of knowledge, practice, and skill contribute to the failure in rendering a work on one’s canvas.  In life, the same is true.  But in life, more destructive to perspective is a thing called FRENZY.  You simply can’t maintain objectivity and, therefore, perspective if you are racing around and failing to perceive your surroundings and interactive environment. 

Sit back, slow down, and pay attention only to those things which are truly important to your goals in art and in life.

DLKeur

Vacations are wonderful if you’re an artist who takes advantage of getting away from clients and their needs.  Late, late summer is a great time to do it, too, since schedules slow just a tad for those of us who don’t have to worry about getting Johnny or Suzie back to school or over to college.  (For those who DO have to worry that, do that last fling the first two weeks of August instead of the last, though.  It still works, even though coming home becomes a double scramble.)

Artist SHOULD take vacations — getting completely away from marketing work, from doing promotional gigs, from answering the phone (LEAVE THE CELL PHONE OFF!).  They should take their favorite media with them and simply do art on inspiration…or do none at all.  But before the jaunt, it is always wisest to have all pending projects completed.  (Do be organized.  Makes life a bit easier.  It really does.)

Beware, though, when you, the artist, gets home.  Backed up emails, a loaded answering machine, and tons of snail mail await you.  Be prepared to spend one entire week catching up and calming the frayed nerves of your clients, your collectors, your fans, and your colleagues.  Email?  Well, figure at LEAST two days to wade through it and answer the imperatives.  

And don’t be like me and come home only to have one’s other half wind up with a broken foot.  Makes for an extended scramble.

Back to work with pointers for artists tomorrow…after breakfast with friends, of course.