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Most artists, especially the introverted ones, hate marketing their work, including me. We'd rather just hang out in our quiet corner of the world and create our art. It is hard enough to actually bring those creations out of the studio and into the world by showing them to the public at galleries, art competitions, art fairs or any other venue. It can feel like standing naked on a stage under floodlights in front of thousands having to give a public speech with no notes (trying to conjure up the most uncomfortable scenario imaginable here) and then asking for feedback, critiques, opinions. But we also have to add the even more uncomfortable activity of actually seeking out these venues in the first place! That is if we would like to make a living being artists and most of us do so we can spend our hours on what we love doing, creating, not having to work a day job to pay the bills. I think it's just about every artist's dream to be paid for what we do, so that means we have to master the art of marketing as well. To me, this feels overwhelming at times. The good news is there are many ways artists can market themselves nowadays, but the bad news is it can take a lot of time away from the studio precisely because there are so many avenues to pursue! 

Yesterday, I attendend a panel discussion about art marketing in Pasadena hosted by the California Art Club, one of the oldest art organizations in the country. The speakers were William Bush, publisher of Artweek LA magazine, Beverly Chang, Director of Public Relations at the BRC Group and marketing consultant to several art organizations and Rebecca Kimmel, owner of the Korpus School of Art and Senior Lecturer of Otis School of Art and Design. 

I thought it would be helpful if I share some of their tips with you, in no particular order, with some of my own thrown in:

-First and foremost is FOCUS. Create the best work you can, always strive to learn and improve so your art can be of the highest quality possible, but also start thinking about what your art is all about. Focus on who you are as an artist and what you want to communicate through your work. It's ok to want to try a new media, style or subject matter, but don't necessarily include it on your website or gallery submission. Like it or not, you have to think of branding, even if that sounds too "commercial" to you. You want to become the "go to" artist when a certain subject or style comes up. Become the expert in your field.

If you're not sure what "your thing" is, take a look at your body of work (if you have a website or board on Pinterest it's easy to see all of your work in one place as thumbnails and you will quickly see a pattern!). What is it that sticks out to you, to others? What have others said about your work? Do the colors pop? Is there a romantic mood to your paintings? Do you make people smile with your images of children playing or do you make them wish they could travel to the place you just captured on canvas? Try to narrow it down as much as possible. In my own case, I realized that my paintings, especially my portraits resulted in very strong emotional responses from my viewers. Repeated comments I would hear were that they could see the emotions of the person depicted, could hear their laughter, feel their joy or pain. The people looking AT my paintings were connecting with the people IN my paintings, which is something I was trying to achieve but had not been able to put into words. I became clearer about what I saw as the purpose of my creating in the first place and am now able to more clearly focus on that. It has made decisions easier when it comes to chosing what to paint next.

If you do paint several different subject matter, at least be sure to have a commonality between them. This can be the same style, but different media, same subjects but different treatment, or even the same feelings your work evokes (moody, joyful, bright, melancholic).

- Elevator Speech: Once you have narrowed the focus of your work, you can write and talk about it more easily. Write about your work in private first, free-flow style, then edit, edit and edit some more, narrowing it down to the essentials. There are many resources available on writing an artist statement, or you can hire an art writer to help you, so there is no excuse. But you need to be able to write and talk about your work at a moment's notice. As I learned yesterday, an art club may ask you to give a little talk at the next show or a blogger may want to interview you. Be ready! Work hard and be prepared when opportunities present themselves, THAT is the definition of luck!

- Be consistent in all of your communication regarding your art. Relay the same message on your website, newsletter, speeches and presentations. Remember your focus and stick with it in all of your communication.

- Get coverage through bloggers: look for blogs on art and topics related to your subject matter (if you paint florals look for gardening blogs, wildlife=animal rights and rescue blogs, landscapes=conservation and hiking blogs, if your art deals with social issues find blogs about those issues. Think outside of the box. Be creative about where you might find your audience, aka your new collectors!) 

Don't only "like" those blog posts but comment on them, join the conversation, wait for appropriate times to introduce your art to the blog.

You want to create conversations about your art and have others relate to it.

Suggest an article to bloggers, share each other's posts on your blogs. 

Keep in mind if you submit a photo for online purpose they need to be about 600 pixels!

- Get to know the art writers in your area, find ones whose writing style and opinions you like and respect, follow their posts, start and nurture relationships with them (easy to do on facebook or twitter).

- Learn how to write and send press releases! You want to make it as easy as possible for the writer to share your information. They are bombarded with submissions from artists, so do as much of the work for them as you can. That means writing all pertinent info about an upcoming event (the what, who, where, when, why) in the body of the email. It makes it easy for them to copy and paste as needed. You can always attach an image of the postcard invitation or a link if you like, but do take the time to include those details in the email body.

- Join art groups on facebook and LinkedIn and add something of value to the conversations, don't just post about your achievements, latest works and shows. What can you offer that might be helpful to someone else? A tip about technique or process? A call for art you just heard about? An essay or review about your last museum visit?

- an IPad is one of the best investment for an artist (it will be on my Christmas wish list this year for sure, until then I will be sure to upload my images onto my IPhone). You are ready to show your "portfolio" anytime to anyone anywhere!

- Create more traffic to your website by offering free content. This could be a free online workshop, mentoring offer, link to a demo on youtube, free cards with your iamges to anyone signing up for your newsletter, a raffle of a print to new followers of your blog, etc.

Of course, you post all of this on facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and whatever other social media you use.

-Events: consider charging a small fee for an event (such as an Open Studio or Home Art Show) but waiving that fee for anyone who shares the event on their social media.

To sum it all up: Marketing and selling art is all about offering something of value to others. It's about starting and nurturing relationships with people. This takes time, but you never know where it might lead in the future. Make those connections, offer something of value to others, be interested IN others and you will become interesting TO others.

The keywords for marketing:

FOCUS
OFFER VALUE
NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS 

Well, after I wrote the last blog post all about setting up a new studio in a tiny den in my home, things took a turn in a different direction that I honestly did not see coming. The end result is that I will soon be setting up another studio, this time outside of my home for the first time!

This is how it happened: after moving to California I made a concerted effort to meet local artists to connect with. One of those was a painter named Mary-Gail King. I met up with her at her studio at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo, about 25 minutes from my house. It is an artist community with about 40 artists of all different types of media renting space in a former elementary school. The first time I walked through it, I loved the idea, the atmosphere, the air full of creative energy, artists working intently at their easels, looms, printing presses. But I did not see myself as part of it because I had not considered it a possibility to rent another studio. I have never paid rent on studio space, always made due with the space I had at home. Being a very pragmatic German, a single mother for many years who had to be financially responsible for several other people for so long, actually paying for studio space seemed like unattainable luxury to me. Over the next couple of weeks however, the SCIART Center kept popping up wherever I turned, even in my own neighborhood! Turns out the lady living three houses up the street from me is also an Artist-in-Residence at the studios (the sculptor Kathy Waggoner). I gathered more info about the place, and after finding out the Executive Director is also from Germany (Karin Geiger) I decided the Universe was indeed hitting me over the head with it! After talking it over with Rich and getting his whole hearted support in every way possible (THAT right there is a luxury which I have never known from any other man) I applied and after passing the jury selection I am thrilled to announce that I am now an official Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Channels Islands Art Center in Camarillo, CA!! I love the abbreviation of AIR, which we are called, which sums up nicely the metaphor of filling up my life with a breath of fresh air, the oxygen necessary to begin a brand new path, a much more authentic path after years of feeling suffocated in many ways (more on that in a later blog post as my life continues to change, all for the better!). I stil have to wait a bit for studio space to become available (hopefully won't be too much longer), but in the meantime I am a member and participating in upcoming events, like the Mystery Masterpiece fundraiser. The thought of moving all my stuff again and getting to a point of actually being ready to produce some work there is a little daunting but exciting at the same time. I will keep blogging about that process and the process of working surrounded by other like minded people, being inspired by them, learning how not to get too distracted, getting much more disciplined about a daily routine and finally, finally becoming a full-time professional artist at the tender age of (ALMOST!) 50:) I am amazed at all the changes that have taken place so far in 2012, the changes yet to come soon, and can't wait to look back at the end of the year to reflect on it all. To say that I am happy is an understatement!