ART TALK: Marketing Your Art

Highlights of ART TALK: "Marketing Your Art", hosted by Bruce Burtch, Board Member at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael.

Alleta de Wal, www.artistcareertraining.com, gave a slide presentation, featuring what she summarizes as "At the heart of your marketing is a series of conversations designed to build a bridge between you, your art and your audience." To be successful, Aletta said that you have to 1) create a solid body of work and be prolific, with at least 100 artworks/year; 2) polish your public persona by learning how to present yourself and your art; 3) manage a mailing list, in which you know something about the person, how you met, where you met, etc...; 4) photograph and document your art; 5) generate publicity for multiple events, by planning a year's events at once. She loves it when she gets a postcard listing 5 shows/year because it gives her time to plan ahead. Last minute shows are no good. Respect other people's time. Art does not sell through galleries or websites. "Art is purchased through relationships". Talk to everyone you meet, 6) Leverage the relationship with people you meet with a business card (including all of your information: phone number, blog site, website, postal address), and/or a post card and ask for one from them. Put it on your refrigerator where other people will see it; 7) Network with each other. Use your art, in person and all media including the internet social networks such as FACEBOOK, Linked In, Twitter and BLOGS; 8) Discover your audience by talking to everyone you know. Have a 7 to 10 word art statement ready. Play off of people's natural curiosity. Say something creative about your art, not "I'm an artist". 9) Use her SMART method.

S - be specific about what you want.
M - make sure your goals are measurable, so you can determine your success.
A - have attainable goals and don't try to do too much. Use your resources. Ask for help.
R - be realistic about your goals
T - have timed deadlines and stick to them.

Julia Flynn Siler shared her personal story as a reporter and now successful author of "The House of Mondavi". She emphasized hard work, staying connected with people in her field, building a platform including a good website, and the willingness to hire other people to help her reach her goals. She recommends spending one hour a day working on finding new tools to market yourself and how to build your network.

Peter Rowan shared his story of how he became a Grammy Award-winning musician, with his newest release Reggaebilly. He emphasized the down-home qualities he embodies such as love what you do, do it alot, and stay connected to the changing technologies. He said that it is best to have a website with one good page and links and a web discussion group.

The importance of social networking was elaborated by the panelists who listed TWITTER, FACEBOOK, Linked In, which is geared toward businesses and subgroups. For more information, go to www.netbizexperts.com by Ted Prodromo. Blogs can be a tool for creating a platform because they are simple and easy to manage. To build a community, stay up to date with your blog, posting 3-4 times per week, and keep your posting short, maximum 350 - 500 words. Run Spellcheck. Link to other blogs and websites. Use Wordpress to retain your copyrights of images. Use watermarks and low-resolution to prevent people from taking your images. For more information, checkout www.networkblog.net.

Elise