Why Would You Give Your Work Away?

What is an established career artist to do? Some of us have held full-time jobs to support our careers. Others have accepted a poverty level existence in the name of art. Still, others have managed to carve out a niche for their work with the art buying public and institutions. Some established artists have built off of a lifetime of good brick and mortar connections to create an online presence for exhibiting, marketing and selling work.

Let’s be honest. A life filled with angst and anxiety over where your next meal is coming from or if you will have a roof over your head is not a healthy environment for creating in the 21^st Century.

Anyone who chooses to have both an artistic career and another non-creative career to support their lifestyle and their creative practice is okay with me. I took what I intended to be a five-year money making break from art to work in the financial industry. Five years stretched into what seemed to be a lifetime, but it ended and I returned to my fiber art practice fulltime. The practice had changed some, but what was really different were marketing and networking.

I’ve said a lot, but have yet to say what I really want to. If you are interested in creating art to sell, you have to do that. Giving your art away, no matter the cause, the prestige of the institution or the dearness of your friendship will not pay the bills. To succeed in selling your art, you have to have a plan, a marketing strategy. You have to sell your art.

One thing that happens to some of us as we age is that we think we have learned everything or even worse that we are not capable of learning. I’ve watched the careers of emerging artists (and not all of them producing great art, yet) blossom and flourish in a few years or less than a few years. What I see is a dedication to marketing, a continuing practice, a reaching out for knowledge and information, a willingness to make connections, to take advice and follow it. How do you go from working on your back porch to publishing books, teaching workshops in foreign countries, being included in collections and getting great free publicity in just two years? Networking. The same thing you did as an emerging artist whether it was meeting curators and gallery owners in college or word of mouth exchanged with other young up and comings.

I recently visited the site Mid West Craft Con, that one of the youngish artists I follow mentioned. Okay. Her entire success story was written here. I could tell that she attended every seminar and workshop that she could. She came prepared to network, to ask questions, to pass out business cards and samples, to engage presenters and participants. It paid off.

We old folks, the established artists who are not getting paid for our experience, long careers, expertise and quality product need to learn some new lessons. Our work is rich with history, technique and color. We are masters of our craft. Yet the world has changed and we need to be open to changing with it. It is not the second career or the institutions or the non-existent customers and patrons holding us back. It is our inability to recognize how marketing works in the 21^st Century, to learn how to do it, and to implement it in selling our work. Do not give your work away for free. Enough said.