For the first time, I am participating in an art market/fair. Not sure how many prints I should have or what other elements I should bring, but I am going to wing it. Participating in an art market/fair was a goal of mine for next year, not this year. But I think activity doing it this year, will help me prepare for the 2010.
So, if you are in the Charlotte, NC area on Dec. 16 & 17, stop by Booth #108.
How to Talk About What You Do - is a creative prepared conversation that will spark curiosity and interest about you and your artwork. This prepared conversation is intended to replace the static, boring and usual responses to the question, "What do you do?". Our typical response is 'I'm an artist" and the typical response for the other is "oooo" or other reactions.
Yesterday you created your who and do what statement. That's was a great first step and an fantastic tool for starting a conversation about what you do. We are going to break this down into its smallest parts and gather all the information we've worked hard to compile in the past few days. If you've read and completed the exercises this week, then you will be in good shape to complete the last step to Building a Foundation for Your Artist Career.
Lets get started. Each of the following 4 parts you have already been answered. All you need to do is plug the pieces into the formula below. The examples are in a script format that you can use as a template. Here we go....
Part 1: Summarize your target market into one sentence.
Part 2: Identify and summarize the motivating and purchasing habits of your target market.
Part 3: Explain how you help your clients.
Part 4: Explain the reason why you do what you do.
Conversation: All you need to do is insert parts 1-4
Here is how the conversation may go: Setting: Retail Store
Angel:Nice to see you again, Alease. I have not seen since I left ABC Corp. What are you doing now?
Me: Well all is good. You know now I work with family oriented women who are seeking quality and a stylish to display family photos (Parts 1 & 2).
Angel: That sounds really interesting. Why this field of work?
Me:Well what I do is I help these women tell their family stories and at the same time I am able to share with them my way of telling these stories visually and how important it is to preserve the memories (Parts 3 & 4).
Angel: How do I learn more? Do you have a card?
Now we are talking! See how easy it is to talk about your work. Angel knows more about my new profession then she imagine. And I was able to give her a card and maybe a potential sale.
If you are in a short conversation with someone - you could just answer the what do you do statement with... " I help (part 1) ...(insert part 4).
Real Easy, Right? You should never be caught off guard again. I suggest you continue to hone and refine your message and then practice it over and over again. Telling and committing to a creative profession to others might be a little hard, but when you can answer someone's question about what you do, you know to say it with confidence and assurance.
Well this ends our five day series of Building a Foundation for Your Artist Career. I hope is was helpful. Peace and More Love, Alease Michelle
Hello, and welcome to a wonderful week of posts. This week I plan to post a series of 5 posts on Building a Foundation for Your Artist Career. The advice and suggestions I 'll present in the following posts can be adopted and used in any creative careers.
I've used them alot in my emerging artist career. And many times I come back to my foundation to check for leaks and cracks. Building a foundation for a house is very important, and building a foundation for your artist career is the same. Making sure the foundation is strong is the key to living in your creative house for a long time.
The Building a Foundation for Your Artist Career will begin with:
Over the course of the week, I will take you through the process of building your foundation so that you'll have a platform on which to stand. This platform will become the support you'll need for your business development, marketing and personal growth.
To prepare yourself for this week's post, I ask that you come ready to work and to really think about what you exactly want and need to do to become a successful artist. To ensure that you don't miss any post, make sure to subscribe by email to my blog. And if you think any of your friends or family might be interested, then please send them a link to my blog.
Artwork by Brad Holland
Taking risk can be hard sometimes. But not taking enough risk can make you become static, stale and boring. Today I want to share with you 5 ways to promote change in your artist life.
1. Do artwork that comes out of your own imagination or last nights dream. Restrain for creating work that comes from someone else cookie cutter idea. Try to reinterpret an image in a way that would not be the norm.
2. Use your power of persuasion to create work that is less literal and more interpretative in nature.
3. Act as if you have the freedom to do what you want and continue until people begin to notice. I think sometimes we get stuck trying to please others , with the hopes of someone praising us for our work. You have to take the I do not care attitude and just do what you want.
4. Create a new market for your artwork. Makeup a person who would buy your new CHANGED artwork. GIve the person a name, determine their occupation, living arrangements, personality, and hobbies. The point is to establish a target market who's going to embrace the changed you.
5. Once you have CHANGED - then go out and approach new art galleries or send your new CHANGED artwork to different publications. Small and new publications are always looking for new art styles or new talent.
" Asserting yourself doesn't mean you have to risk your livelihood- it just means you have to open a client's mind to other possibilities." Brad Holland Quoted from Art Revolution
Hello Guys wanted to share with you: 10 Ways to Use Blogging To Promote Your Business.
"You build it, they come." Well I am not sure if that statement is true when it comes to creating art. But what I do know is that we as artist have to plant seeds into the minds of art collectors. Today I want to give you 5 examples on how to make sure your artwork is seen. But let me say, while this post contains 5 ways to promote your artwork- I rarely use all of them at once. I only use these promotion tools to plant seeds, not grow a forest! I want to share with my clients what new from my studio with the hopes that they might visit one of my art shows, participate in a workshop I'm conducting and/or purchase artwork.
1. Tweet It - A good way to get others to see your artwork is to tweet it. Tweeting a link is quick and easy to do- and it you do well it can be quite effective at getting others to see your work. The effectiveness of this does depend on the size of your follower group. So if you do not have an tweeter account - Quickly sign up for one.
2. Facebook Status Updates(and other social media sites)- Updating my facebook status with links to images of artwork and my events has worked out very well for me. I have received comments on new work, commissioned projects and some have signed up to attend a workshop.
3. Show Artwork to other Artist - When I'm working on a new piece of art, I sometime think of what another artist would say about. So instead of thinking about it, I just send an email to a few artist friends and ask them to give me some pointers or just to share their thoughts. This has worked out for me also, I have received really good advice and contact information from gallery owners looking for work similar to mine.
4. Attach an Image with Your Email Signature - Many artist have links to their websites posted along with their email signatures, but what about directing or attaching a image of your artwork to the email. People seem to always be intrigued with attached files, especially if there is no risk of a virus.
5. Ask Your Audience to Share Your Artwork with Others- This can be a hard sell. But if you are confident in your work, ask your clients to share your work with others who might be interested. It's no harm in asking - Remember, "Ask And You Shall Receive."
Before I end this post, I want to say that you must have persistence and maintain relationships for any of the above promotions to work. Much of what I've described are things I have been doing for a while, and only through persistence have I been successful with them. But even with persistence, you have to keep good relationships with others. Alot of the above promotions are based on current relationships you have already developed. So maintaining and growing new relationships is important.
Good luck and please share your experiences with the above promotions with me.
Peace and More Love, Alease
There are a few things I do not like about this piece- the black is too heavy and my floras are stiff- no movement. Although I am not proud of the first attempt drawing the floras, I am proud of my use of color. I've checked out a few flower reference books from the library with hopes of improving my drawing and color study. I am going to continue on this path. I need to look for new directions in my work and have been thinking about it a lot this month.
Please share your suggestions and thoughts about this piece with me.
Today I had two clients stop by to see some of my artwork. I have never actually had anyone come to home studio to view artwork. But they did and I was not really prepared. Of course I have artwork hanging in my home and studio, but I was not ready for a full viewing. Although I never had an actually client come to my home studio, I think it went. They seemed excited about starting a few projects.
So my advice about- Studio visit is to sorta prepare for them. Have a few pieces out for display and be ready to discuss your creative process with them. Have a few prices ready also.
A list of prices was one area I was not ready for, because they were not sure of the size they were looking for. So we are scheduling a day to meet at her home. At our next meeting I plan to have samples with me and my camera to take pictures of her personal style. (I believe this will help me understand the client better).
