2 3 Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Grant All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Allworth Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Allworth Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Allworth Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com. 15 14 13 12 11 54321 Published by Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Allworth Press® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation. www.allworth.com Cover design by Mary Belibasakis Interior design by Tamara Gildengers Connolly Page composition/typography by Integra Software Services, Pvt., Ltd., Pondicherry, India. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. Print ISBN: 978-1-62153-460-0 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62153-469-3 Printed in the United States of America 4 Table of Contents Introduction CHAPTER 1. EXHIBITING AND SELLING ART So, Where Can I Show My Work? Rounding Up Visitors Marketing Pricing artwork Sales Accepting Payment Cash Personal Checks Debit Cards and E-Checks. Credit Cards Online Payments A Word about Taxes Demonstrations Open Studio Events Juried Art Competitions Nonprofit Art Spaces Pop-Up Galleries College Art Galleries Regional Art Museums Other Exhibition Sites Governors’ Art Exhibitions Art in Embassies Museum Sales and Rental Galleries Regional Museum Biennials CHAPTER 2. TALKING TO COLLECTORS Perhaps, An Overlooked Form of Communication 5 Press Releases Pop Quiz Artist Statements Websites Blogs Is That an Insult? Can you Bend Without Breaking? Marketing and Sales in a Weak Economy CHAPTER 3. EXPANDING THE AREA OF SALES AND INCOME Licensing Prints Self-publish Print Publishers Certificates of authenticity Bartering, Leasing, and Renting Art Bartering Leasing Rental Agreements Selling Art in Other Countries Art Partnerships CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS WITH ART DEALERS Finding Representation Art Consultants Art Galleries Coming to Terms A (Potential) Problem Honesty is the Best Policy Foundry Fees and Commissions To Consign or Sell? Artist-Dealer Disputes Bad Debts and Other Recoveries Spreading Oneself Out Thin Severing the Artist-Dealer Relationship CHAPTER 5. ARTISTS AND THE LAW The Importance of Obtaining Legal Advice 6 Artists Lose Lawsuits A Legal Question: Who Owns Sketches, Models for a Commissioned Artwork? Another Legal Question: The Right to Privacy Yet Another Legal Issue: Sidewalk Art Yet Another Legal Question: Defamation CHAPTER 6. COPYRIGHT Making a Copyright Search Trademark Protection for Artists Copyrighted and Trademarked Subjects Artists’ Moral Rights Waiving One’s Rights Confusion Over the Term “Site-Specific” CHAPTER 7. FROM SCHOOL TO THE WORKING WORLD First Steps Working as an Artist’s Assistant Some Benefits Some Drawbacks Finding a Job as an Art Teacher Weighing the Pros and Cons of Teaching Making Peace with the Academic Life Artist-in-Residence Programs Museum Artist-in-Residence Programs CHAPTER 8. THE MATERIALS THAT ARTISTS USE Safe Art Practices in the Studio Becoming More Environmentally Friendly Proper Disposal Practices A Primer on Paint Labels Transporting Sculpture Traveling with Art Supplies CHAPTER 9. GETTING READY TO HANDLE THE PRESSURES Post-Exhibition Blues Changing One’s Style Handling Criticism The Benefits and Pitfalls of Censorship and Controversy 7 In and Out of the Spotlight Getting Suggestions for What to Create Next Love and Marriage Divorce CHAPTER 10. THE SEARCH FOR MONEY Loans Crowd-Sourced Funding Emergency Assistance Artists’ Foundations Applying for Grants and Fellowships Fiscal Management So Who Will Provide the Funding? Foundations Corporations Corporate foundations Government Local Arts Agencies State Arts Agencies Regional Arts Agencies National Endowment for the Arts Asking for Money Individuals Miscellaneous Funders Reporting Requirements for Grant Recipients Keeping Perspective INDEX BOOKS FROM ALLWORTH PRESS 8 Introduction like everyone else, enter their careers with certain expectations, Artists, realistic or otherwise: Perhaps it’s a van Gogh-influenced idea that they will produce great work but go unappreciated during their lifetimes; possibly, they see themselves to be the next Damien Hirst, earning millions and living the high life, or the Banksy of a new generation, sparking controversy with every new creation. Underlying all these assumptions is the belief that someone (actually, lots of people) will eventually see their work, recognizing what makes it good and unique. Of course, it is better if people see the artwork sooner rather than posthumously, and earning money—dare one say a living?—from the art would be nice, too. The fact is, most artists today are college graduates and, increasingly, have master’s degrees in their fields, and they expect that their training should lead to something tangible. At times, it may lead them to a related field, such as art conservation or arts administration or art therapy or art teaching, which becomes their identity and life work more than producing art. Career shifts are not unknown in modern life. What would seem to be disappointing, however, is to end the pursuit of an art career—for which there has been extensive training and hopes over a period of years—simply because one doesn’t know how a career in art is pursued. Business and artist may seem like unrelated concepts; developing a marketing plan, learning to write press releases, knowing how to talk about one’s artwork, networking, establishing prices and discount policies, setting up contractual agreements, applying for loans and funding, licensing, leasing, tax preparation, and copyright protection (the list goes on) appear to defy the reasons that most people choose to become artists in the first place. Artists: Think of yourselves as businesspeople, and make an appointment with the Muse as your schedules permit. 9 Small wonder, then, that so many artists find themselves needing help understanding how the art world works and how to find their place in it. Some pick up information in the few “survival” courses offered at various art schools; others hire publicists and advisers to help promote or give direction to, their work; most others glean what they can from the growing number of business and legal guides for artists available these days, or just improvise. A strong case can be made for just improvising, as there is little rhyme or reason in the way that certain artists become successful while most others do not. All of the hard work of researching galleries, making telephone calls, sending out slides, developing a portfolio and a long résumé of exhibitions may amount to nothing, while someone right out of art school who happens to know the right person or to be at the right place at the right time is lionized. Luck really cannot be talked about, and talent is not a subject for advice. Still, throwing up one’s hands or waiting for lightning to strike is no answer either. The business side of being an artist means knowing what the options are and making informed choices. Too many artists are unaware that they have choices, or that there is more than one way for them to achieve success—defined here as the ability to make a living as an artist. Every known method of attaining career goals has worked for certain artists, failed for others. Therefore, to prescribe a path for success—advising artists to write this sort of letter to a print publisher, sign this type of contract with an art dealer, dress in this manner for a potential corporate buyer—is doomed to fail most artists. It makes the most sense for artists to know what the possibilities are for helping themselves, allowing them to improvise but with informed choices. Each artist has his or her own measure of achievement. To some, that might mean being written up in a textbook or getting work into a major museum collection; perhaps, it is being represented by a prominent art gallery or any gallery, or just having one’s works displayed somewhere for the public to see. Artists who are starting out are likely to have career objectives different from those of artists who have been working for a number of years. “Poverty,” Anaïs Nin wrote, “is the great reality. That is why the artist seeks it.” Perhaps poor and undiscovered is another way to define the artist, and artists with a romantic view of the opposition of art and commerce will find little sustenance in this book. Artists need to understand how the art world operates and develop strategies for carving out a market for themselves—a type of knowledge that is never in fashion. Artists whose aim is to sell their work are still accused of “selling 10 out” or, to use a more current term, “careerism” (only in the art world would the idea of establishing a career be viewed with embarrassment and guilt). From art school into the larger society, the myth of the artist as alienated, poor, marginalized, and secretly superior to everyone else, is maintained steadfastly. Sadly, other artists are the most fervent in protecting and enforcing this myth. Perhaps, the worst insult aimed at an artist is “Sunday painter,” meaning amateur or hobbyist or dabbler—other words that also are derogatory. An “amateur psychologist,” for instance, is a busybody, and a Sunday painter competes for refrigerator door space with the children. To be taken seriously as an artist, one must be a professional, but how is that defined? If that means earning one’s living through the sale of artwork, the number of people who could call themselves professional artists drops significantly. Most studio art instructors, at the college level on down, probably couldn’t support themselves for one month on what they might sell in the course of a year, yet they would insist on seeing themselves as professionals. If the definition were dependent on how much time during the day or week someone is actively creating artwork, a lot of retirees would come out on top. Defining professionalism through membership in an artists’ association or society would produce a mixed bag of people who earn all, some, or none of their income through art and who have extensive, limited, or no professional training in studio art. The Internal Revenue Service has its own definition, based on earnings and expenditures, because professional artists are permitted to deduct certain costs, such as materials and studio rent, while amateurs and hobbyists may not. The U.S. Bureau of the Census has its own, different definition based on what an individual worked at on April first of the decennial year. Among themselves, artists have other ways of making classifications. Defining what makes an artist is an unanswerable parlor game, but the question of what makes an artist a professional is a highly contentious issue, and people may shout at each other. Perhaps, it is wise to move away from hard and fast definitions to an understanding that there is considerable fluidity in the field of art, in which some people trained in design may simultaneously or periodically produce fine art to show and sell, while others trained in studio art may work in an art-related (or non-art-related) field but produce art on the side, where art instructors may have little involvement with exhibitions and sales and where those with little or no training sometimes turn a pastime into a full-time, income-producing career. Artists have enough obstacles already without having to also prove that they are 11 serious about their work. In a world in which former President Jimmy Carter turns out to be a poet and singer Tony Bennett has more sales for his paintings than most artists lauded in the major art magazines, should there be any wonder when people from other employment categories decide they want to be viewed as fine artists? There is a great deal of cultural baggage associated with the word “artist,” and overcoming psychological barriers to success necessarily becomes a major component to becoming a professional artist, successful or otherwise. Many artists experience a variety of stresses as a result of the expectations they have for themselves and the assumptions that others in the larger society have about them. Chapter 9 is devoted specifically to the emotional side of developing a career as a professional artist. This book aims to describe the art market and the possible approaches that artists may take for success. This is not a how-to book. It is unrealistic to claim that a certain set of steps— or any one method, for that matter—will work for everyone. A good marketing plan will not compel people to purchase art objects they don’t like or that they cannot afford or that strikes them as inferior to the work of other artists. And, of course, a marketing plan that proves successful for one artist may be inappropriate for another, based on differences in personality, temperament, medium, and the specific type of work. Instead, this book examines different ways that different artists have used to bring their work before potential buyers. There is no right or wrong answers to many of the challenges of developing a career; rather, some approaches may work for certain artists but not others. The experiences and approaches of a wide variety of artists are described by artists themselves and individual readers may pick the methods that make sense for them. The question for artists is not, “What is the trick?” but, “How have successful artists achieved their success?” I am often struck by the failure of biographies of artists to include just this kind of information: How did they get their first exhibitions? When did they start selling their work? When were they able to support themselves from the sale of their work and what did they do before that? When and why did art dealers start taking an interest in their work? The narratives about well-known artists treat these subjects, if they do at all, as amusing anecdotes, preferring to focus on artistic influences, successes, and personal troubles, what other famous people they knew. In no other field than the arts are the nuts and bolts of a career path viewed as too embarrassing to mention. Fortunately, the art world is not monolithic. There are niches for every type of 12 artist and specific markets for all varieties of art. Picasso may be better known and more widely acclaimed than other artists in the past century, but only a small fraction of art collectors ever show interest in owning something the Spanish artist created let alone are able to afford it. Other fractions of the market exist for miniatures, performance art, cowboy art, abstraction, portraits, illustration art, installations, landscape painting, mixed media and collages, still lifes, videos, art copies, and the list goes on. Buyers of one type may or may not collect in any other category. Some buyers focus exclusively on a particular medium, such as sculpture or works on paper, while other concentrate their collecting on a certain style or movement (minimalism or Pop Art, for example). An artist must first find his or her artistic voice and then locate his or her market. Both surely exist. A final point: The art world isn’t fair, in the sense that strengths that generally pay off in other professions, such as hard work and good skills, may go unrewarded for artists. The student who is number one in his or her class at some prestigious law school can rightfully expect lucrative job offers from top law firms around the country. Major—or minor, for that matter— art dealers, curators, and collectors on the other hand, are unlikely to know or care about an artist’s grades, and they generally don’t recruit students. What would it even mean to be the best student one year at, say, the Rhode Island School of Design? Artists may also discover that recognition is unequal, as certain dealers and collectors are more prized than others, regardless of who sells more (isn’t everyone’s dollar the same?). A doctor isn’t esteemed professionally on the basis of who his or her patients are, but the opposite is true with artists. After leaving school, one may endeavor to work one’s way up the ladder— exhibiting first on the local level, winning acceptance to a regional or national juried art show, moving on to a larger urban gallery—and still find that sales and name recognition never materialize. Breaking into the part of the commercial gallery world where real money is involved, many artists learn, has a lot to do with whom they know and who is interested in them. For many young artists, the question seems to be, “How do I get a show of my work?” Presumably, a show leads to sales and more shows. Finding somewhere to exhibit one’s work, however, is not all that difficult. Every bank lobby, restaurant and cafe, community center, and school seems to have art for exhibition and sale. I once saw an artist’s résumé that listed, under the heading “one-person shows,” an exhibition at Cheesecake Charlie’s in Lenox, Massachusetts. The issue isn’t whether or not an artist can get work on display somewhere but how to make 13 sales. For young artists, the question must be, “How do I work my way into the art world of collectors and dealers?” Artists cannot wait, hoping to be discovered. They cannot assume that artwork as good as someone else’s will be rewarded equally. Rather, artists must aggressively pursue the marketing of their work, and part of that process is meeting the people who may be of assistance to their careers as well as associating with other artists. In most biographies, major artists are described as loner geniuses, coming to their ideas through reflection and personal experimentation, later discovered by dealers and collectors who only vaguely sense their importance. Art history is the last refuge of Romanticism. In real life, however, artists develop their ideas in association with like-minded artists and these artists make referrals (to collectors, critics, curators, and dealers) for each other. One sees too many capable artists who will not take a personal involvement in the marketing of their work. They want that romantic myth to work for them, allowing them to just pursue their art and be discovered by someone who makes their career. The current example of this tendency is the burgeoning number of artists’ websites, created hastily and un-promoted, which simply permits artists to be undiscovered now in the realm of cyberspace. This book presumes the willingness of artists to take a hands-on approach to their careers. Following a list of recommendations will not assure anyone of success. However, understanding the options for starting and promoting a career will enable artists to make clear-eyed choices and increase their chances for success. Here is some good news: A number of recent surveys, conducted by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce and the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, have found that fine artists are not people trained for a life of unemployment and frustration but in general “have good careers, earning a middle-class income,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. “And, just as important and maybe more, artists tend to be happy with their choices and lives.” The Center’s 2011 report “What’s It Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors” found that the unemployment rate in the first two years for those graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is 7.8 percent, dropping to 4.5 percent for those out of school longer. The median income for those who are working is $42,000. “Artists’ income is comparable to other liberal arts majors,” he noted. “They do 14 a little better than psychology majors, since counseling and social work is a very low-wage occupation.” For artists who go on to graduate degrees, the most common of which is the Masters of Fine Arts, the unemployment rate for recent graduates drops to “just under five percent” and their median yearly income increases to roughly $50,000. The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University conducted a survey of 13,000 graduates of visual and performing arts college programs between 1990 and 2009 (2,817 were in the fine arts), finding that almost 83 percent of them worked the majority of their time in some arts occupation, such as art teaching or in a nonprofit arts organization. “Arts graduates are resilient and resourceful,” said Curb Center associate director Steven J. Tepper, leaving school “with a range of skills that help them navigate the contingent/enterprise economy.” Sixty percent of these fine artists work more than one job, “but they are happy with what they put together.” In addition, more than one third of those surveyed reported working full-time as professional artists. Of all arts professions, fine artists, writers, and composers were found to be the happiest, because “the profession they have chosen gives them autonomy, and that makes them happy,” said Bruno S. Frey, research director of the Center for Research in Economics, Management, and the Arts at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and a coauthor of “Happiness in the Arts—International Evidence on Artists’ Job Satisfaction” (published in the October 2013 Economics Letters). “Actors and musicians, on the other hand, are less happy because they are disciplined by various rules and have less autonomy.” Frey stated that he has “done happiness research for some time,” finding that “artists generally are happier than the rest of the population.” 15 1 Exhibiting and Selling Art aren’t people who simply create art and then drift off into oblivion; Artists they want their work to be seen and to receive some sort of reaction from those who see it. Putting art in front of the public establishes an artist as a professional and, for many, the quest for a show is the primary goal. Fortunately, there are many venues for exhibitions available. For the past 120 or so years, art dealers and galleries have been the principal route to success in the art world—before that, salons or group shows of establishment-picked artists predominated for a couple of centuries. Some artists have been very closely identified with their dealers, such as Renoir and Picasso with Ambroise Vollard or Jasper Johns with Leo Castelli or Richard Serra with Larry Gagosian. Dealers frequently have a select clientele of one or more principal backers who do the bulk of the buying, and it is the ability to steer these important collectors to certain artists’ work that establishes a dealer’s prestige. Few long-term successful dealers survive without this clientele, and gallery owners who rely on walk-in traffic for their sales tend to go in and out of business in a hurry. The main exception to that are galleries in resort and tourist towns where buyers may want something by which to remember their vacation. However, relatively few galleries anywhere generate the volume of sales that would support any of the artists whose work is displayed, requiring those artists to place their artwork with a large number of galleries; some artists do just that, but they better keep good records on where their work is and monitor the gallery owners about sales and what they may be owed. Finding the right dealer who will lead the artist’s work to major collections is a challenge and few generalizations can be made. Dealers become interested in potentially representing artists largely in two ways: The first is when dealers 16 personally know the artist (meeting him or her at an art opening or on a studio visit) or hear about the artist from people they trust such as other artists they represent, curators, critics, and collectors. The second way is through the strength of an artist’s work and market. Artists usually send dealers images of their work and some indication that there is a market for it. To that end, artists who are starting out need to build a track record of group and one-person exhibitions and, along with that, develop a group of consistent buyers. Dealers don’t like to try to build a market for an artist but, instead, look for artists who already have a market that can be expanded. Art galleries and dealers are but one means, albeit a highly publicized one, for artists to exhibit and sell their work. Success in the art world may lead to critical acclaim and financial rewards, but many artists find the process of currying favor with dealers and even spending so much of their time in the large cities where the major art dealers are located to be grating on their nerves, contrary to why they sought to be artists in the first place. There are alternatives, opportunities for artists to sell their work outside of the gallery structure, and many artists have been able to gain exposure or make a living this way. The French Impressionist exhibitions in Paris of the 1870s and ’80s were all organized by the artists involved (one of Mary Cassatt’s main values to this group was in convincing wealthy American collectors to come take a look). The German Expressionists of the 1910s staged exhibits and published the Blue Rider Almanac to promote their work; a sprawling group of American artists put together the 1913 Armory Show, which is credited with establishing Modernism in the United States; Dadaist artists in the 1920s created “Manifestations,” and Pop Artists of the early 1960s put on “Happenings.” The group of art students at Goldsmiths College in London, interested in conceptual and installation art, who became known as the Young British Artists, gained notoriety through a 1988 exhibition titled “Freeze,” which was put together by the group’s leader, Damien Hirst, at the Saatchi Gallery. Eventually, those artists found their way into mainstream galleries but they made their start outside of them, and they did it by uniting themselves for a common effort. These days, such exhibitions are called artist-curated shows and they often take place in nonprofit art spaces, but the intent of today’s artists is the same as it was for the Impressionists, Expressionists, Dadaists, and Pops: Artists with similar interests and artistic ideas band together to promote themselves as a group and individually. Hey, art world, something new has arrived! Being an artist is a business, requiring artists to act 17 entrepreneurially, being as creative in efforts to generate attention to themselves and their work as they are in their own art. The first step on this path starts with putting work before the public. SO, WHERE CAN I SHOW MY WORK? There is a wide variety of exhibition spaces available for the starting-out artist. Banks, libraries, corporate headquarters, community centers, hospitals, real estate offices, cafés, and restaurants, for example, are frequently willing to allow artists to hang up their works on the walls where the public may see them. The likelihood of sales is often low and the possibility of damage to the work (fingerprints, coffee splashes, cigarette smoke) is considerable, but this type of show is a chance for feedback and for the artist to circulate press releases, announcements and exhibition cards, and be remembered the next time his or her work is on display. Many towns and smaller cities have arts centers where exhibits can be seen in an actual gallery setting. A notch above the art show in the bank or library, the arts center is likely to have its own means of promoting activities, increasing the number of people who may come to view the artwork. This may be a first opportunity for a write-up in a local newspaper, again increasing the number of people who know about the exhibit and the artist. One might also look outside the usual sites where art is displayed to places where people with money and thoughts of making a purchase are going such as furniture, wine stores, and jewelry shops. The clientele is a bit more select and the connection between artwork and furniture, for instance, is reasonably close; buyers are apt to think about one in relation to the other. Real estate companies cater to people shopping for a home (they will want to decorate it), while social clubs and country clubs have dues-paying members who have demonstrated that they have discretionary income. ROUNDING UP VISITORS Who will come to an artist’s early shows? The answer is, any number of people, but first artists must start out with their own network of friends, families, and associates, all of whom are predisposed to think well of the work. Artists have friends who might come; those friends have friends and business associates, some of whom may be persuaded to come. An artist who works in an office has coworkers, supervisors, a boss, clients, and suppliers who may be willing to come to a show. Family members, such as parents, may also have friends, business colleagues, clients, and suppliers. Out of all these people, there may be some who 18 buy a piece because they like it or just as a show of support. A more informal style of exhibiting work that frequently results in sales is for friends or relatives to host a private showing in their homes, inviting ten people they know to meet the artist and examine the work close-up. Everyone is a potential client but it is important to let people know that you are an artist —you never know who might become a collector. For that reason, artists need to develop a client list, one that changes and (it is hoped) grows over the years, which will be used to contact people about art exhibitions or an open studio event. That list can grow with the help of some of those friends and family members who suggest other people to be contacted (their friends and business acquaintances, for instance), and those friends and family members may be persuaded to write or call on the artist’s behalf. Using people the artist knows to locate new prospects is a pyramid approach that ensures that more than the same group of potential collectors shows up at each exhibit. MARKETING The business term for making the public aware of what one has to offer is marketing, which simply means finding an audience. Who are the people most likely to understand and appreciate the type of artwork I create? Not everyone will get it or like it, and it shouldn’t be assumed that everyone should; more people have seen and not purchased a work by renowned painter Chuck Close, for instance, than have bought pieces, and it isn’t just because of the high prices. His paintings are too large for some would-be buyers; other collectors may appreciate his techniques but aren’t interested in his self-portraits or portraits of his artistfriends. Yet other collectors of postwar contemporary art prefer abstraction or sculpture. And then there is the price. The universe of prospective art collectors gets whittled down more and more until we come to a very small number of people who actually buy the work of this famous artist. All artists who have achieved success—defined as the ability to sell their work, particularly being able to live off the sales—have needed to find that audience. In some cases, geography offers some help: Artists of the western landscape are more likely to find buyers in the western half of the country than in the east, while marine artists are apt to interest collectors along the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines. Practitioners of performance art, installation art, and conceptual art have narrower avenues to pursue within a few cities and some college campuses. Exhibiting artwork and eliciting reactions is how artists begin and, over time, refine, the process of marketing. First and foremost, artists want to know if people 19 understand and like what they are doing. A negative reaction may indicate that the wrong people are looking at one’s work, or it may mean that the art still needs improvement and isn’t ready for general exhibitions and sales. It is wise to solicit the responses of professional artists in the area, perhaps faculty from art schools, who can evaluate the artwork and offer suggestions for the art or, perhaps, where else it might be shown. The next question is, which people are most likely to appreciate the art. Artwork that contains references to contemporary Pop culture is more likely to be enjoyed by younger people, for example. Avid golfers are frequently interested in paintings of the thirteenth hole at Augusta. Exhibitions often have guest comment books in which visitors are invited to record their reactions, and it is a good idea for artists to have someone else at an art show—friend, relative, spouse—who directs people to these books, asking them also to leave contact information in order that they may be notified of future exhibits, lectures, demonstrations, and open studio events. As valuable as the comments may be, artists will want to know something about these people: Are they homeowners or renters, city dwellers or suburbanites? Do they regularly go to art exhibits and, if so, do they collect? Do they belong to any clubs or associations? The income level (take a guess), age, gender, nationality, and race of the visitors who offer the most positive responses to the artwork will enable artists to better determine where future exhibitions might be planned and who should be invited. If there are any sales, it is advisable for the artist to personally deliver the piece to the collectors’ homes in order to learn more about them: What is their color scheme? What rooms in their home might be suitable for art? Artists always should be on the lookout for potential buyers, attending the kinds of social and civic activities where these people would be found, such as art exhibition and performing arts openings, charity events, and parties. Jot down names and contact information for one’s client list, following up with a letter, email, or telephone call inviting that person to an upcoming exhibition or to visit one’s studio. If that seems a bit pushy, a get-together could be at a museum or art gallery, or just a café. PRICING ARTWORK What a work of art should cost and whether or not an artist ever should offer, or accept, a discount are among the most difficult decisions an artist may face. The problem of pricing has long puzzled artists. There have been some efforts to devise a system in the manner of a building contractor, totting up the cost of materials plus a margin of profit and then adding in the number of hours the artist worked 20 on a piece multiplied by some hourly wage, but the final amount may have no relationship to the market for that artist’s work. This is particularly true for lesserknown or emerging artists who are less concerned with getting the right price for their work than with getting someone to look at and purchase their art. (Artists who have had a history of sales, on the other hand, will have a better idea of prices that are more suitable for particular buyers.) How much to charge? Artists at the outset of their careers need a point of reference for determining price, and they need to think in terms of comparable work, art that is not wholly dissimilar to theirs by other artists also at an early stage of their careers. Finding comparables may mean going to art fairs, art galleries, and other places where artworks of comparable size, imagery, and quality by artists of similar standing in the art world are sold. Those prices should offer some guidelines to what an artist may charge for his or her works. It is frequently the case that the work created by quite celebrated artists went for very little early in their careers, and some of them look at high secondary market sales of those pieces and think that they were cheated. Perhaps they were cheated, but at the time most of those artists were happy that someone would buy their work. However, back to the subject of lesser-known artists trying to determine what to charge for their work: one should never ask prospective buyers what they would pay for art; that is the artist’s decision. As sales take place and the number of buyers increase, raising prices may become justified. Consider the case of Scott Fraser, for example, a painter in Longmont, Colorado. His paintings were first shown in an art gallery in Denver and sold for $300 in the early 1980s. Some sales took place and, the following year, his prices went up to $900. The value of his work continued to rise, to $1,500, then $7,000, more recently priced at $20,000 and up. “Each time you make a jump in pricing, you have to get a new set of buyers,” he said. For other artists, raising prices may require finding another gallery or dealer where opportunities for having works purchased by collectors who will pay more or lend enhanced prestige to the work are greater. Some dealers may only be able to work with emerging artists and not have the contacts to help an artist who is selling work steadily. Changing galleries may be a difficult decision for an artist who got his or her first big break with a particular dealer, and it can be doubly hard in the art world because the relationships between artists and dealers are often on a personal, friendship level. Discounts are the other side of pricing, customary to the point of expected in 21 the gallery world (“Every work is discounted,” said Manhattan art dealer Debra Force. “I can’t think of an instance in a long time where someone paid the asking price.”) but often jarring to artists who sell their work independently. Artists come up against bargain hunters in their studios and at art fairs where prospective buyers offer to pay as little as $0.50 on the dollar for one or more pieces. At art fairs, many artists claim that these buyers come in an hour before the event is over, just as the artist is preparing to pack up, offering to take work off the artist’s hands but at some substantial discount. It is easy to feel insulted, but the issue isn’t so clear-cut.” On the side of accepting the payment is getting ready cash, which may be welcome if the fair was not as profitable as might have been hoped, and reducing the expenses and risks of crating and transporting artworks back to one’s own studio. Also, if the artist’s work had been consigned to a gallery, any sales would have meant paying a sales commission to the gallery owner, which is often half. The artist still may feel insulted, but some reasons can point to taking the money. On the downside, allowing a discount once is apt to mean that an artist will be asked again and again for markdowns. Buyers cannot be trusted to be discreet and may well boast to other prospective collectors that they talked you down 10, 20, 25 percent or more and those people will now have reason to think themselves insulted if they aren’t allowed the same (or better) discount as so-and-so. It is not at all clear that lowering prices increases demand. Economists refer to this in terms of the “elasticity of demand”—demand shrinks or expands with higher or lower prices—but “demand for art is probably not elastic,” according to John Silvia, chief economist for Wells Fargo. He noted that lowering the price for less expensive consumer items “brings people into the store, but if you have a product that is fairly unique or distinct, like art or jewelry, the answer is, no, you don’t lower the price.” In a prestigious realm such as art, cutting prices— “a painting that last week was selling for $40,000 is now for sale for $30,000,” he speculated—could have an adverse effect. Artists who do slash prices risk “alienating two customers: You alienate anyone who bought from you in the past and now thinks he was cheated, and you create a doubt in the minds of future buyers about any work of art you sell. They wonder, am I being cheated now?” Discounts blur the question of the actual price, and value, of the work involved and potentially make those who pay full price feel like chumps. The process of selling artworks does not want to be likened to car buying, in which dickering and mistrust have taken on greater importance than the actual thing being sold. Being 22 a car dealer is synonymous with shadiness, and artists want to be viewed in a different way. More and more, collectors on all levels of buying are taking the view that the stated price is not the real price and begin a process of haggling. Barbara Krakow, a dealer in Boston, noted that many galleries “raise prices for works in order to accommodate requests for discounts,” adding that “it all becomes a game. Some people seem more interested in the discount than in the artwork. Some people ask for discounts because their friend got one. The discount seems to have a meaning in itself.” The cleanest arrangement, and the one that does not require artists to remember who got what discount, is simply to declare to prospective collectors that the stated price is the actual price. Some buyers may be lost for this stance, but it may also generate a sense of respect for the artists that they truly believe in their work and have priced it fairly. Some modest discounts may be easier to swallow, such as 5 or 10 percent off when a collector purchases more than one, or the artist will throw in framing and shipping. As fraught with perils as discounting may be, I don’t mean to condemn artists for allowing them. Again, gallery owners and private dealers allow discounts all the time. What is most essential for artists is that they develop a price list for their work and a policy on discounts before they put artwork up for sale. You don’t want to come up with a policy on the spot. SALES Marketing and sales are often spoken of in the same breath, but the two are distinct, if related, concepts. While marketing involves identifying one’s audience of potential buyers, sales concern the steps leading up to an actual transaction. Selling art without intermediaries takes some getting used to. The subject of money makes many people a bit squeamish. The artist needs to take the initiative in closing the deal, although it may be easier to proceed by focusing attention on which piece(s) the collector seemed to prefer as well as how, when, and where the art should be delivered. The payment question can be brought up in the form of “Do you want to pay me now or upon delivery?” Other possibilities include being paid half now, half later or some form of barter. When artists sell their work directly, rather than through a third party, they need to utilize many of the same sales techniques as gallery owners. For example, artists should have brochures, postcard images, and other written materials (such as a bio and a price list) readily at hand. Fumbling in a desk or file cabinet for an exhibition history takes away from the impression of the artist as a professional prepared to sell work, and prices that are not committed to paper may suggest to 23 potential buyers that they are being made up on the spot with the amounts dependent upon the artist sizing up the collector’s financial resources and whether the artist likes the buyer or not. If would-be collectors are expected to purchase works from the artist’s studio, there should be some area within the studio set up for displaying art. Artists should follow a collector’s interests, determining an individual’s preferences in media, size, colors, and subject matter and showing additional works that correspond with those tastes, rather than attempt to direct a potential buyer to particular works they would like to sell. Artists may offer to bring a selection of works to the collector’s home or office in order that the buyer could choose the piece(s) that work best in the environment. In most cases, the delivery of the sold work of art should be at no additional charge to the collector. Delicately, artists should try to discern the buyer’s budget, leading that person to pieces that are priced in that category, rather than attempt to urge the collector to spend more than he or she feels comfortable. Artists may also offer a returns policy, allow a buyer to change his or her mind about the piece within a week or two, or permit collectors to take the object home on a trial basis (again, a week or two) before paying. Collectors may want to pay over time or pay through trade (other artwork or goods and services), which is taxable income but not the hard cash with which to pay the sales tax. A measure of flexibility in price and the manner of payment entails increased risk for the artist, but it may also inspire greater confidence on the part of the collector. Some written document should accompany the transaction, either a straight bill of sale or a sales agreement. The bill of sale will indicate all relevant facts about the transaction, such as the artist’s name, the name of the artwork, the work’s medium and size, the year the work was created and if it is signed (and where), the price of the piece, and the date of sale. A sales agreement will include all those facts as well as add some points that are advantageous to the artist, such as reminding the buyer of the artist’s rights under the copyright law as well as allowing the artist to borrow the work (at his or her own expense) for up to sixty days once every five years in the event of a gallery or museum exhibition and permitting the artist access to the work in order to photograph it for his or her portfolio. Artists who sell directly to customers should obtain a sales tax number through the state department of taxation (the number usually is one’s social security number, and there is rarely any charge for receiving this number) and add a sales tax to the price of the artwork they are selling. Every state has its own percentage 24 tax for sales. An added benefit of having a sales tax number is being able to either deduct the sales tax that one pays for art materials or not pay sales tax at all if the materials are incorporated into a work for resale. The artist should contact the sales tax bureau in his or her own state concerning the sales tax. ACCEPTING PAYMENT At Sam’s Club, members have a range of options to pay for their purchases, from cash and checks to (selected) credit and debit cards, even food stamps. Walmart adds PayPal to the mix, and the California Department of Motor Vehicles notes its willingness to accept money orders and e-checks. A buyer comes into your studio or booth ready to make a purchase: What are you willing to accept? Perhaps, the best answer is most of the above, because you want to make it as easy as possible for people to pay you. CASH Cash has obvious advantages, since it doesn’t need any time to “clear,” as do checks and credit card payments, and there is no service fee of between 2 and 4 percent for the vendor to pay to a middleman, as exists with credit cards and PayPal. In fact, vendors might have reason to encourage prospective buyers to pay in cash by offering a small discount. Still, as a practical matter, most people do not carry large amounts of cash on them for the same reason that vendors might be reluctant to be paid with large amounts of cash—they make themselves a potential target of thieves. Money orders and certified checks are as close to actual cash as one may get, and some people use them to pay for purchases through the mail. A benefit of these types of payment for the buyer is that they do not contain any personal information (home address or telephone number). For the vendor, the benefit is a type of check that cannot bounce. Both money orders and certified checks are available through post offices and banks, and the principal difference between them is that money orders are written for specific amounts—say, $200 or $1,000— while certified checks may be for any amount (for instance, $126.27). There have been rare instances of counterfeit postal money orders, and they may not be accepted if damaged in the mail, for instance if the routing number on the bottom of the money order cannot be read by a processing machine. (The process of getting the bank or post office to issue a replacement is neither quick nor assured.) It is very unlikely that someone entering your booth or studio, however, will pay for anything in this way. 25 PERSONAL CHECKS Personal checks continue to be an option, although a declining number of people these days pay for their purchases this way due to the ubiquity of credit cards. The benefit of a personal check is that, just like cash, they do not require the vendor to concede some percent of the payment to a middleman. Handing over a check, however, is the potential that the buyer’s bank account has insufficient funds, which would be discovered only after the purchased object has been taken and the check has been returned (five to ten business days later). There are other recourses for artists and craftspeople, including requiring those wishing to pay with a check to provide a telephone number (if it isn’t preprinted on the check) and present a driver’s license (write down the license number on the back of the check) in order to confirm his or her address and identity. If the check is returned, you will have a means of contacting the buyer to explain the problem and getting it resolved amicably. (If a telephone call doesn’t work, artists might send a certified letter that restates what was requested over the phone, contacting the customer’s bank to see if his or her account now has sufficient funds to cover the check—the bank may agree to collect the amount from that person’s account following the next deposit, transferring the money to you—and, finally, taking the individual to court or hiring a collection agency.) Another pair of options is to delay delivering the purchased item until the check has cleared or not taking checks at all. DEBIT CARDS AND E-CHECKS. Debit cards tend to be accepted at most of the same places that take credit cards, and the main difference between them and credit cards is where the money comes from. Using a credit card is a form of borrowing money, while debit cards draw directly from one’s bank account. Vendors who receive authorization to accept debit cards can find out immediately if the buyer has the money to pay for the purchase and the bank would put a hold on that amount of money in the account. Presumably, that should protect buyers and sellers, since no one would be able to spend money he or she doesn’t have in the bank. The only problem in the system is that the process of transferring money from one bank account to the other may take a few days, during which time the “hold” has elapsed and the buyer no longer has sufficient funds to cover the purchase. That doesn’t happen often, but it has occurred. E-checks, which is a paperless form of payment made online or over the telephone, are becoming more popular among people who don’t have credit cards or are reluctant to use them. Similar to a debit card, the e-check taps one’s 26 checking account directly—buyers would need to supply the name of their bank, the name on their account, the account number and routing number, as well as the amount of the purchase—and the advantage for vendors is that payment is assured (otherwise, the check bounces immediately). The only drawback for vendors is that, similar to accepting credit cards, they must apply to and be accepted by an e-check processing service, paying an initial set-up fee ($100 is standard), monthly user fees ($20) and transaction fees, and there may be other optional or required fees, such as fraud detection and a chargeback fund. Vendors also may be required to purchase special payment processors. CREDIT CARDS There are many different types of credit cards—among which are MasterCard and Visa, which are bank-issued and underwritten by these companies, Discover and Capital One, as well as Diner’s Club and American Express, which refer to theirs as charge cards—and to accept them as payment vendors must obtain a merchant services account, which involves a range of set-up fees, the acquisition of a credit card terminal or a card processing app for a mobile device, transaction fees (the percentage of the purchase price that the company takes plus a flat per-purchase cost), authorization fees (a charge for each time the company authorizes a transaction), statement fees, annual or monthly fees (the cost of having an account), monthly minimum fees (an additional cost if the amount of charges does not reach a certain amount), and chargeback fees (for reimbursing the buyer if there is a return). American Express and Discover tend to be accepted by fewer businesses than MasterCard and Visa because the transaction fees are higher, sometimes as much as four percent as compared to the 1 to 2.5 percent that the bank-issued cards generally charge, which cuts down on a vendor’s profits. Those merchants simply have to hope that the buyer has more than one type of card or some other way of paying. ONLINE PAYMENTS PayPal (and there are other, similar companies) is fast becoming a preferred way for consumers to make purchases online although, just as with every other option, there are benefits and drawbacks. The largest benefit is that it is easy for buyers to use, paying for items with their credit cards or e-checks, and setting up a PayPal payment option on a vendor’s website (with buttons for single purchases or a shopping cart) is quick and uncomplicated. What’s more, customers may be 27 familiar with PayPal already through purchases from eBay or Amazon, which adds to their comfort level. There are no set-up fees for vendors setting up merchant accounts with PayPal, but it takes four business days for funds to be deposited into one’s account, which is a bit slow. Vendors still may find the costs of being a PayPal merchant to be high, with monthly fees of up to $30 and transaction fees of 2.9 percent in addition to 30 cents for debit and credit card purchases. Even more costly are chargeback fees of $20, and PayPal will still retain its 2.9 percent transaction fee. As with many other online services, contacting an actual person at PayPal’s customer service department about problems you may be experiencing is not easy. With both e-checks and PayPal, the monthly costs of being able to use these payment systems may begin to bite if buyers don’t want to make purchases in this way, or they do so rarely. Spending hundreds of dollars per year to enable just a few small sales may make the convenience unprofitable. A WORD ABOUT TAXES Artists and craftspeople may receive money in a variety of ways, including awards and prizes at shows, project grants, scholarships, and fellowships. The prize money or the monetary value of an award (the cash value of a gift certificate, for instance) that a craftsperson receives at a show is taxable at normal state and federal rates. The same taxability is true for money received through project grants from a private or governmental agency. On the other hand, there is no tax on fellowships and scholarships if the craftsperson is studying for a degree at an educational institution (including tuition, lodging, equipment, and travel expenses), nor is an award taxable if it comes from a governmental agency or school. If the award is contingent on the recipient teaching or offering demonstrations or some other part-time service, however, a portion of the fellowship or scholarship will be taxed. The sale of one’s work, of course, also occasions the payment of taxes to state and federal agencies on either a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Those artists and craftspeople who sell their work at retail or wholesale shows in the state where they live or out-of-state are required to apply for a resale tax number both in their home state and where the shows will be held. Usually, one applies with a state’s department of revenue, and the cost of registering to sell work is in the area of $10, although some states have no charge. In some cases, registration is for one year, although some states permit applicants to receive a two-day or weekend resale tax number. Most show promoters require a state resale tax number as a 28 condition of taking part in the event. The artist or craftsperson will receive from the state information about how much sales tax to collect (generally, between three and eight percent) and how to pay it—often, a coupon book is enclosed (the coupons are to be mailed back with sales tax receipts). Usually, applicants receive their number and paperwork from the state in a couple of days. DEMONSTRATIONS Every artist has heard it. Masonville, Colorado, sculptor Daniel B. Glanz certainly has heard it. Someone looks at one of his small bronze pieces of animals or human figures, sees the price, and asks, “Why does this little sculpture cost so much?” He has an answer to this but sometimes it is easier to show people, and for that reason he offers demonstrations of the process of making a sculpture several times a year at the galleries that represent his work (there are three in Colorado and one in Texas) and, occasionally, at a museum. The demonstrations last a couple of hours each. Some visitors stay for the entire time, while others go in and out. Talking through each stage of the process, Glanz brings a lump of clay, a wax figure, an armature, a mold, the bronze piece, and the bronze after it has been smoothed and patinated in its final version. He will do something with each of the stages to reveal what is involved. “People have no idea how labor-intensive the process of producing a bronze is,” he said, and his demonstrations usually elicit lots of questions: “Why do you do it this way? Why did you make that decision?” By the end of the demonstration, he noted, the whydoes-it-cost-so-much question “often becomes, ‘There is so much work involved. How can you afford to do it?’” Chalk the modest expense of setting up a demonstration, and his time doing it, to the cost of marketing. “I do it for promotional reasons, to educate people about what goes into making a sculpture,” Glanz said, “and get them to thinking about buying one.” These demonstrations have resulted in purchases right at the site of the demonstration—he brings a number of fully made artworks to sell—as well as commissions to create other works down the road, in addition to visits to his website where other pieces are on constant view. (He also makes sure to bring flyers, postcards, and other promotional material that list his website and studio address in Loveland, Colorado, for visitors to take with them.) Hunting up prospective buyers is not the only benefit for artists to demonstrate how they work. Karen Nastuk, a watercolorist in Danvers, Massachusetts, has been asked by a number of art associations to present demonstrations of between two and five hours for their members (she has been paid between $75 and $250 29 per demonstration), and it is from these gatherings that she has found private students. “In a lot of these associations, you may have one or two people with advanced skills,” she said, “but most of them are more like Sunday painters, and they really appreciate someone showing them how to do certain things and explaining how to do it at the same time.” Opportunities to hold a demonstration are abundant, at art galleries, arts and community centers, and at many art museums. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles are just two institutions around the country that offer regular series of artists’ lectures and demonstrations for the public. OPEN STUDIO EVENTS An artist’s studio may also do double-duty as a showroom, affording an opportunity for visitors to see unsold work, preliminary sketches and designs, works in progress, and generally how an artist goes about the process of creating new pieces. To many artists, visitors may seem to be an intrusion but many of those visitors find the experience thrilling because this work room looks so different than what they are used to and since it brings them closer to the act of creation. Unless an artist’s studio is always open to the public, for instance if the artist runs a gallery out of his or her home and studio or if the artist works in an open-to-the-public venue such as the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia, or the Columbia Pike Artist Studios in Arlington, Virginia, these events tend to be limited to one or two days per year at most, if the artist even wants them. Open studio events tend to come in two types, a community activity in which a number of artists agree to open their studios to the public on a certain day (such as the St. Paul Art Crawl in Minnesota or Somerville Open Studios in Massachusetts) or by-invitation showings for a more select group (usually, past collectors and others who have shown interest in the artist’s work). Community events tend to be less for the purpose of generating sales and more to create opportunities for artists to display their work and for area restaurants and shops to do some extra business. “For a lot of the artists, the only place that people can see their work is at the Crawl,” said Craig Thiesen, coordinator of and participant in the St. Paul Art Crawl, which has taken place over two days (Friday evening, 6-10 p.m., and Saturday afternoon, 1-6 p.m.) in the spring and fall since 1991. The Crawl encompasses over 180 artists in thirteen downtown buildings, and the 7,000 estimated visitors may get to one-third or less of the studios. There is no jurying of artists who wish to participate and their principal obligation to the 30 event is the payment of a $40 fee. Few of the artists earn a living solely from their artwork; Thiesen, himself a web designer who also paints landscapes, said that “I generally don’t sell anything at the Crawl. I do make some good contacts and occasionally that results in a sale sometime later.” Nancy Fulton’s own experience in Somerville has been similar. She is a photographer and architectural consultant who has participated in a number of the open studio events, rarely selling anything. “I’ve sold a few small pieces,” she said. “Nothing much.” Tallying up how many sales artists chalked up, and how much money they earned, during these open studio events is never easy. Thiesen noted he sent out a questionnaire one year and only a handful of artists sent them back. Both the St. Paul Art Crawl and the Somerville Open Studios receive grants from the state arts agencies and their city governments to pay for advertisements, maps, brochures, and other promotional materials because these events are seen principally as increasing tourism—shopping and eating in restaurants—in less utilized areas of town. The Art Crawl takes place in the Lower Town section of St. Paul, an abandoned railroad district that artists began to use as loft space for studios and living quarters beginning in the 1970s. However, it still is “a pretty sleepy area that twice a year is transformed when thousands of people come for the Art Crawl,” said Jeff Nelson, director for cultural development for the City of St. Paul. “That’s very good for shops and restaurants in the area.” By-invitation events are more focused on sales, but both types of open studio activities require similar set-up procedures by the artists. Artists should notify their friends, family members, collectors, and acquaintances about the open studio, rather than relying on an organization to spread the word effectively. The studio should be visitor-friendly, with easily obtainable information (biographical material about the artist, postcard images, perhaps a portfolio, artist’s statement, and price list) at the entrance and the artist should be accessible to talk with visitors about the work or him- or herself. The event should have a range of media and price points. The studio should not pose any safety hazards, such as open containers of turpentine or jagged pieces of scrap metal, and prescription medications should be removed from the bathroom and anywhere else. (The same goes for alcohol.) Close doors of rooms where visitors are not to enter, such as bedrooms, and hide jewelry and other valuables. Visitors should sign in, so that artists know who has shown interest in their artwork. By-invitation events might include refreshments (finger foods, wine, soda, or other nonalcoholic beverages) 31 and sending a thank-you note or email afterwards to visitors is a way to keep one’s name and the entire experience memorable a bit longer. JURIED ART COMPETITIONS The closest events we have nowadays to the old style salon is juried art competitions, which are often organized by membership organizations of artists, such as American Watercolor Society or the National Watercolor Society or the numerous state watercolor societies, pastel societies, sculpture societies, western art societies, miniature art societies, and many others as well. Juried art competitions are large-scale group exhibitions that offer the public the chance to see artwork in a particular medium, style, or with a specific content (landscapes, maritime or equine images, Christian themes, figurative, or something else), while others are more general, in the manner of the Art in the Village show. Of greatest interest to participating artists is that these shows attract potential and actual buyers who may only purchase art at these exhibitions and never go into commercial art galleries. Within the realm of juried art competitions and art fairs—shows in which selected artists will set up a booth to display their work—there is a hierarchical range of prestige. The more renowned shows have strong visitor attendance and generally more sales, usually at higher price points. Most juried art competitions take place indoors, while a large percentage of the art fairs are held outside, but the setting tends not to be determinant of status. Some of the larger outdoor events are coordinated with agencies of the particular cities and local businesses in order to turn an art show into a community-wide festival, drawing in more visitors than ordinarily might come just to see the art. Many of the art fairs are sponsored by private companies that run a number of events throughout the year in different cities. Participating in these shows is dependent on being selected by a judge or jury, and it is also not free. Most shows require a jurying or application or administration fee that may range from $5 to $50, and that’s just where the costs begin. For juried competitions, artists are responsible for crating and shipping their work to and from the exhibition site, and the only insurance that the sponsoring organization is apt to offer is for the artworks while they are on view. Art fair sponsors often require artists to send in payment for the booth fee, which may go as high as several thousand dollars, along with their applications. Artists who are accepted to participate in the fair have made a significant commitment because if they choose or need to withdraw, they may not get all or even part of their money back, depending on the reason for 32 not taking part or when the sponsor is notified. Additional costs for art fair participants are travel, lodging, food, and insurance. Because the investment is often significant, artists should have as much information about the shows in which they might enter as possible. The most complete evaluation of juried shows is Sunshine Artist’s (www.sunshineartist.com) $60 The Audit Book, which is published every September and contains information about the number of participants, the number of visitors, and the volume of sales for 5,000 shows. In a more subjective vein, comments from participating artists about the shows’ sponsors (Did they do everything they promised? How did they treat the artists?) are also included. Another similar source of information is The Harris List (www.harrislist.com), which costs $75. The primary source of information about a show, at least the sponsor’s intentions, is found in the prospectus and artists should never submit an application or any money for an event without first carefully reading this document. The prospectus may be online and downloadable or will be sent to artists who are considering whether or not to apply, but they all must answer basic questions: • Who is the show sponsor? There should be a physical address (rather than a post office box or only a website and landline telephone number because prospective applicants might want to check with a local Better Business Bureau. It also is advisable to know the names of the people who run the sponsoring organization. • Where and when the show is taking place? Does the sponsor have permission or did they sign an agreement to hold the event in a particular site on a specific date? If the event is to take place outdoors, are there contingencies for rain? What if it is an indoor show and there is a power black- or brownout? Under what circumstances might artist-participants receive their money back? • Is there is an application fee and how much is it? • Has this event taken place in the past and by the same sponsors? Artists will want to know that the sponsors have a track record (ask for visitor totals and any sales information—perhaps there were articles in a local newspaper); if this is a first-time event, it is important to feel confident that the sponsors have the wherewithal to stage a successful show. • For artists setting up booths, how much electrical power is provided? Is there 33 • • • • • • • • • • cell phone reception? Who is assigned responsibility in the event of damage, fire, loss, or theft? How art is to be shipped and insured (and who pays for shipping and insurance)? Will artists be charged a “recrating” fee when their work is sent back from a juried competition? The show organizers should assume curatorial and financial responsibility for the artworks in their care. As an example of what should be done everywhere, the loan agreement between participating artists and the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the annual “Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood” exhibition in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, stipulates that “Works selected for exhibition will be insured for 80 percent of their established retail value while installed on the Chesterwood grounds. Additional restrictions will also apply. A condition report will be completed upon installation.” Will prizes be offered to the artists (and in which categories)? Will the show sponsor take commissions on sale of artwork (such as, will the artist report sales to the sponsor or route sales through the sponsor)? Must every item be for sale (or within a certain price range)? Are artists obliged to provide “door prizes” or other donations for visitors to the sponsor? How many artists are to be selected, as well as the names and affiliations of the judges who will be making the determination? In general, it is the prestige of the juror(s) that gives importance and validity to the event. Also, artists may better gauge their chances for being selected if they know something about the person making the decisions. A juror who is an artist known for sculptural installations may seem like a longshot for a potential applicant painter of traditional realism, but maybe not. The people picked as judges might have a wide range of knowledge, interests, and discernment, but more information helps would-be applicants make their decision. What is the type of art (subject matter and media) that will be featured? If only original art, does that allow for reproductions of an exhibitor’s original art, such as an offset lithograph or digital print? Will the show have a catalogue available (free or for sale) to visitors? Catalogues with images and contact information of the participating artists permit visitors to refresh their memories and perhaps make purchases after the event has concluded. Does the show sponsor charge admission, and what is the amount? Are there 34 corporate sponsors of the event, and will they have booths, too? What types of concessions will be run at the event? Will there be music (live musicians or piped in by loudspeakers)? Some artists may balk at having a cell phone company or hot dog stand or loudspeaker placed right next to their booths. • What type of marketing (to potential visitors and collectors) and promotion (to the media) is planned to ensure strong attendance and media coverage? Is there a budget for advertising? The prospectus may not answer every question and artists ought to make inquiries, which is one of the reasons that reliable contact information should be available. NONPROFIT ART SPACES To many artists, art gallery owners and dealers are the gatekeepers of the art world, leading to exposure, sales, a seat at the table. Will anyone come to see my artwork, will any critic write about it or any collector buy it—will it have any stature as art—if it isn’t exhibited in a commercial gallery? Getting into, and being represented by, a gallery becomes their highest career objective. Galleries, of course, are businesses that don’t exhibit artwork just because it is good but, rather, because there is an audience and buyers for it. So, what of the artists who don’t have a long and active client list? “Our aim is to show work by underrepresented artists,” said Ed Shalala, assistant director of New York City’s The Painting Center, defining “underrepresented” as “not represented by a gallery.” That, and being painters, are the only specific criteria for having artwork exhibited, and there are two ways in which that may happen: Painters may submit images of their work to the center, and twice a year a committee will select artists for an invitational show that takes place in the main gallery; the second possibility is being part of a group of artists that an outside curator proposes to exhibit, usually based on a particular theme involving content or style. There are eleven of those four-week-long exhibitions that take place throughout the year. Shalala stated that the organizers of these shows are often art historians, critics, and independent curators, but it is not at all uncommon that artists themselves take on the role of curator, assembling the work of artists who are united by some type of shared interest (“as long as it pertains to painting”). Being a nonprofit organization, The Painting Center is dependent on funding from one source or another to maintain its operation. Those who curate an 35 exhibition agree to raise money by applying for grants from a foundation, corporation, or state agency, and if that doesn’t materialize the individual artists in the show will “split the cost to pay the rent,” Shalala said. Sales of artists’ work sometimes take place at these shows, and the center receives a commission of 25 percent for those, but the aim is not sales as much as presenting art that is largely unknown to the public. “We have gotten some reviews over the years in The New York Times and Art in America,” he said, which may be the larger goal. The Painting Center is not the customary nonprofit arts organization; it is actually a cooperative gallery, with sixteen dues-paying members who exhibit their work in one- and two-person shows throughout the year in a project room gallery, but they formed as a nonprofit group to serve a larger realm of artists. However, there is no prototypical nonprofit arts organization. The hundreds of these organizations that exist around the country—the best source of information on where they are can be found in Art in America’s summertime issue, The Art in America Guide to Museums, Galleries, Artists—range widely in their goals and target audiences, some acting as educational centers where art classes and workshops are taught to young and old, or as venues for performing arts events. Many nonprofit arts organizations are focused on the local or regional community (the degree to which an artist could be classified as a “professional” may or may not matter), while others look to exhibit the work of artists from elsewhere in the country or even from other nations. Some offer artist residencies and have grant programs. Uniting them all is the aim to show work by up-and-coming artists who haven’t received wide exposure. The public is probably the largest beneficiary as it receives a first look at emerging artists, and that public includes many people who don’t regularly visit commercial art galleries or museums and feel less intimidated in an arts center. The artists, however, gain experience in showing their work, sometimes making sales and otherwise developing their credentials as exhibiting artists. “My show was hugely helpful to my career,” said Jennifer Mattingly of Baltimore, Maryland, who exhibited her miniature dioramas at the Arlington Arts Center in Virginia in 2007. Seven works were sold to visitors to that show but, more importantly, her artwork was seen by curators at two Washington, D.C., nonprofit arts organizations—Washington Project for the Arts and the Civilian Arts Project gallery—who both invited her to participate in group exhibitions. Something that leads to something else is the goal of artists who show work at nonprofit arts organizations. Jesse Bransford, an artist of large-scale drawings and 36 paintings and the director of undergraduate studies at New York University, had been invited to exhibit at Locust Projects in Miami, Florida, in 2003 by Locust’s director, who had seen his work online and at shows at other nonprofit arts centers. Unlike many other nonprofit arts groups, Locust brings in artists specifically to create site-specific installations. Perhaps not unexpectedly, none of Bransford’s works sold at the Locust Projects exhibit, but “I met a lot of people with whom I’m still in contact,” including Miami gallery owner Kevin Bruk, who began to show Bransford’s work and currently represents him. POP-UP GALLERIES The term “pop-up” gallery has come into use to describe impromptu exhibition sites, such as vacant storefronts or empty buildings, where the owners may be willing to allow a temporary art display if certain conditions are met. Those conditions involve keeping the premises clean, protected from theft and damage, and leaving the owner free from any liability claims if someone is hurt. Many insurance companies carry event coverage—short-term protection, which has a wide price range based on the size of the space, the expected number of visitors, the nature and location of the event, and whether or not alcohol and security staff will be provided. Individual artists may contact building owners about their willingness to allow the space to be used for an art exhibit, arranging the security requirements on their own, or work through a nonprofit arts organization that would negotiate and sign an agreement with the owners for the event. One organization that does this on a regular basis is the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York City, which works with area real estate developers to develop short-term exhibition venues for artists in its residency program, but other nonprofits around the country have done the same for artists who have come to them with a request and a plan. An even more informal exhibition set-up is apartment galleries, in which artists turn their own living rooms into display areas to which the general public or just specific guests are invited. COLLEGE ART GALLERIES Yet another type of nonprofit exhibition site is art galleries at colleges and universities, many of which welcome inquiries from artists looking to show their work. Often, schools express greatest interest in local and regional artists as well as alumni, but they will set up exhibits of artists who live and work farther away and have no association with the institution, simply because the artwork appeals to the 37 gallery director. “You’ll find a fairly positive attitude toward exhibiting regional artists in the art galleries of colleges and universities, because these galleries are these schools’ main portal, main form of outreach, to the larger community,” said Brent Tharp, former museum director at Georgia Southern University and vicepresident of the Association of College and University Galleries and Museums. “The galleries’ role and purpose is to connect with both the campus and the community.” Not all college and university galleries hold that view—Stephanie Snyder, curator and director of the Cooley Memorial Art Gallery of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, noted that “it’s not in our mission to show regional artists’ work. Our mission is to bring in exceptional work and significant artists from around the world”—and some schools use their galleries only to display student or faculty work. However, of the more than 3,000 schools offering baccalaureate degrees and the 1,100-plus community colleges around the country, the majority has exhibition spaces and a high percentage of them will show work by contemporary artists. Actually, many schools have more than one exhibition gallery, such as one exhibition space for student shows, another for a permanent collection, and a third for mixed programming that may include traveling exhibitions, faculty shows, and shows of contemporary artists within the region. Interested artists should look at the type of exhibitions that the gallery has staged in order to obtain a sense of the desired aesthetic and media, which is likely to be found online, as well as whether or not there is a prescribed method of submitting a proposal. For example, the art gallery at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan solicits on its website submissions of a completed entry form, résumé, and CD-ROM of images from “local and regional artists.” An exhibition committee of the gallery meets regularly to review artists’ proposals, deciding whose work will be shown in one-person or group shows. On occasion, visitors to the gallery express an interest in buying works on display and gallery staff acts as intermediaries, putting the visitors in touch with the artists. However, sales are not the gallery’s main function, which also does not take a commission from any sales. REGIONAL ART MUSEUMS A growing number of museums not affiliated with colleges and universities also specialize in contemporary art, which is less expensive to collect than works by more established artists, and some focus exclusively on regional artists. The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, for instance, 38 largely shows contemporary New England art, while the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, N.C., is specifically dedicated to North Carolina art and the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney displays contemporary and deceased Nebraska artists, while the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming, shows contemporary and traditional western art. There are many others, including the Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, New Jersey, which features fine and folk artists from the Garden State and the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend that shows and collects art produced within Wisconsin. A valuable source of information about museums is The Official Museum Directory (www.officialmuseumdirectory.com, $287), which is an annually published directory of museums in the United States, with more than 14,000 entries, listed by state and alphabetically. Many municipal and college libraries have a copy in their reference sections. OTHER EXHIBITION SITES GOVERNORS’ ART EXHIBITIONS A number of state governors also sponsor art shows as a means of spotlighting instate talent. In Michigan, Nebraska, and Oregon, for instance, artwork by artists living in those states is featured in exhibitions at the governor’s residence or office. The annual juried exhibition of two-dimensional artwork, titled “Scenes of Rhode Island,” is hung throughout the month of January in an atrium gallery in the state’s Department of Administration Building. The Governor’s Invitational Art Show in Loveland, Colorado, and the Kansas Masters’ Invitational Art Exhibit in Manhattan, Kansas, both annual events, are fundraising efforts for non-art causes —the Kansas Park Trust, an 11,000-acre nature preserve, and the Rotary Club of Loveland—that involve the display and sale of in-state artists’ work. Both events produce a catalogue, with a brief introduction by the respective state’s governor, and participating artists receive half of all proceeds from the sale of their work with most or the entire remaining portion applied to the charitable cause. Often, a governor creates partnerships with non- or for-profit organizations, using those groups’ wherewithal and the governor’s office’s imprimatur to produce a noteworthy event. For instance, the governor of South Dakota teams up with the State Historical Society, the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, the South Dakota Art Museum, the University of South Dakota, and the South Dakota Arts Council to create the Governor’s Biennial Art Exhibition to highlight artists of two- and three-dimensional work living and working within the state. The resulting exhibit travels to five museums and arts centers around South Dakota. 39 Similarly, the Governor’s Capitol Arts Exhibit in Wyoming, a juried show for in-state artists taking place each summer at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne, is sponsored by the state museum, the Wyoming Arts Council, and a number of area businesses. The pooled money is used to purchase works from the exhibit for the state’s art collection, and a 25 percent commission on any other sales from that show goes to buy yet more pieces from the exhibition and for the collection. ART IN EMBASSIES At a more global level, the Art in Embassies initiative (begun in 1964) of the U.S. State Department seeks to bridge the cultural divide between the United States and other countries through displays of American art in American embassies abroad. It is a relatively low-cost program for the American public, since the artists who are brought overseas are not paid for their time and efforts (their travel and lodging—usually in the ambassador’s own residence—costs are picked up by the State Department) and almost all of the artworks displayed in the embassies are three-year loans (the State Department handles the crating and shipping). “We look to spread the best of American culture with the rest of the world,” said Anne Johnson, former director of the Art in Embassies program. “We want to share it and give a positive image of the United States.” Exhibiting American art in the embassies or bringing in American artists for short-term teaching stints outside of the embassies helps people around the world better understand the United States and gain a better opinion of our country. Interested artists should register at the State Department’s website (http://aieregistry.org). The benefits of participating in the Art in Embassies or the American Artists Abroad programs are limited. A party and exhibition will be arranged when the artworks are first installed, often coinciding with the advent of a new ambassador, and local cultural bigwigs (artists, collectors, dealers, museum directors) are invited. However, most visitors to U.S. embassies are students, professors, and businesspeople seeking visas, rather than buyers of art. The poverty in many or most of the countries in which the United States has embassies would severely limit the number of people who could pay American-type prices for art. On occasion, lightning strikes. Paraguayan Ambassador John F. Keane bought a painting by Virginia artist Margaret Huddy. On the downside, the Art in Embassies program takes an artwork out of circulation for a few years, which may limit other opportunities during that period of time. The obvious benefit of any exhibition is exposure. A small catalogue for each 40 embassy exhibition is prepared by the Art in Embassies curators, which is sent to the participating artists—although specific benefits may be difficult to predict. “It gives me credibility to collectors,” said Evergreen, Colorado, painter Don Stinson, whose Texas landscape painting “Cisco No Services” was displayed in the American embassy in Saudi Arabia from 2001-04. “When I’m introduced at a talk or when I’m having an exhibition, the fact that I was in the Art in Embassies program is always mentioned. I don’t pick what is said about me; someone just looks down the list of things on my résumé and picks it out, and that one is picked out every time.” MUSEUM SALES AND RENTAL GALLERIES Yet another option are museum sales and rental galleries, which provide an opportunity for local and regional artists to exhibit their work. “There is a different pool of buyers—especially, corporate collectors—at the Seattle Art Museum than you find [at commercial art venues],” said Kim Osgood, a painter in Portland, Oregon, who also exhibits her work at galleries in Portland and Seattle, Washington. “I get another chance to make a sale.” The Seattle Art Museum’s sales and rental gallery was established in 1970 for the twin purposes of helping to create opportunities for artists and create additional revenue for the institution. It has accomplished the second by achieving the first, since the gallery takes a 40 percent commission on sales (more than 300 artworks are sold annually) and rentals, generating over $100,000 in income for the museum. The sales and rental gallery serves as a perquisite for museum membership, because only members may rent artworks or purchase them on a year-long installment plan (one needn’t join the museum to purchase a work outright). The price range for works in museum sales and rental galleries is generally on the lower side, $600–$3,000 at Seattle, $500–$5,000 at the Delaware Art Museum, and $200–$600 at the Charles MacNider Museum of Art in Mason City, Iowa, and the majority of sales tend to be in the lower to middle area. A higher price point may work against an artist whose market is strong, making sales and rental galleries a more appropriate jumping-off place for emerging artists. There are a number of benefits and a few drawbacks for artists in showing their work at a museum sales and rental gallery. Certainly, there is the opportunity for considerable exposure, since far more people visit art museums than art galleries and a certain percentage may stop by the museum’s gallery to see what’s on view. Museums tend to be less intimidating to the general public than commercial art 41 galleries, which attract a more select group of visitors. Additionally, although there is rarely any curatorial involvement in the selection of artists or the operation of sales and rental galleries (they are usually started and run by a museum volunteer committee with, perhaps, one paid employee), artists recognize the value of being associated with an art museum. On the downside, museum sales and rental galleries suffer from neglect from the media and their shows—some galleries create thematic exhibitions and not just place artwork on the walls or in bins—are rarely reviewed, perhaps also reflecting their lower status. The quality of the operation of the sales and rental gallery is often uneven, reflecting the fact that some groups of volunteers may be very committed to the endeavor while others lose interest or do not follow through. Sales and rental galleries at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana and the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts in Massachusetts never generated any revenues and were closed down; in both instances, it was difficult to find volunteers just to sit in the gallery during the hours it was open. Among the sales and rental galleries at museums are: CALIFORNIA Laguna Art Museum 307 Cliff Drive Laguna Beach, CA 92651-1530 (949) 494-8971, ext. 213 This museum no longer has a sales and rental gallery but continues to arrange rentals and sales of artists. Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90028 (323) 857-6000 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 151 Third Street San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 614-3206 DELAWARE 42 Delaware Art Museum 2301 Kentmere Parkway Wilmington, DE 19806 (302) 571-9590, ext. 550 IOWA Charles H. MacNider Museum 303 Second Street, S.E. Mason City, IA 50401-3925 (641) 421-3666 MICHIGAN Flint Institute of Arts 1120 East Kearsley Street Flint, MI 48503-1915 (810) 234-1695 NEW YORK Albany Institute of History and Art Rice Gallery 135 Washington Avenue Albany, NY 12210-2296 (518) 463-4478 Albright-Knox Art Gallery 1285 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo, NY 14222 (716) 882-8700 OREGON Coos Art Museum 235 Anderson Avenue Coos Bay, OR 97420 (541) 267-3901 Seattle Art Museum 43 Rental/Sales Gallery 1334 First Avenue, Suite Seattle, WA 98101 (206) 748-9282 Portland Art Museum 1219 S.W. Park Portland, OR 97205 (503) 226-2811 PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia Museum of Art Benjamin Franklin Parkway and 26th Street Philadelphia, PA 19130 (215) 684-7965/7966 WASHINGTON Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture 2316 West First Avenue Spokane, Washington 99201 (509) 363-5317 REGIONAL MUSEUM BIENNIALS Museums would seem to be an end-stage for a successful art career, not a jumping off point for the artist looking to get some attention. The fact is, however, that a great many museums view exhibiting the work of emerging, often regional artists, as part of their mission. These museums support contemporary artists in a number of ways. One way is sales and rental galleries. Other museums—the Hammer Museum, Laguna Art Museum, Phake Museum of Contemporary Art (Del Lago, Texas), the University of California at Berkeley Art Museum, University of Iowa Museum of Art, and the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, Connecticut)—hold exhibitions (“matrix” or “projects” or some other term) that highlight the work of emerging, contemporary artists and often are the first opportunities for these artists to have their work in a museum setting. Yet a third way in which a number of regional museums around the United 44 States bring attention to the work of artists in their area is through holding biennial exhibitions, which display contemporary work by primarily younger artists. The model for biennials undoubtedly is the Whitney Biennial, which began in 1930 actually as an annual show that featured painting one year, sculpture the next, later becoming a biennial but always having a national focus in terms of the artists represented. The Whitney Museum of American Art sees its biennial as documenting the present as “a key moment in which we take the temperature of the art world,” said Jay Sanders, one of the museum’s full-time curators and a guest curator of the 2012 biennial. “The biennials are a way for people to see what’s going on now. It’s a summation of new tendencies, revealing what artists are thinking about, the dialogues and arguments they are having, and it is a judgment by the curators of the most important work being done at that moment.” Regional museums similarly look to provide “a snapshot of what’s happening now,” exhibiting “artists who are doing interesting work,” said Dina Deitsch, curator at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which created its first biennial in 2010. Similar to the Whitney Biennial, the deCordova strives to “be at the forefront of contemporary art. At times, we try to push the conversation,” she said. “Interesting work” means Manhattan interesting. Unlike the Whitney Biennial, however, most of the artists in the deCordova exhibition are apt to be characterized as “emerging” in terms of selling their work. “Maybe two or three of them earn all their income from their art alone. A lot of the artists teach.” Because of this, Deitsch claimed, “we try to make the biennial a show people strive to be in as a career marker.” Alexi Antoniadis, who creates sculptural installations with fellow artist Nico Stone, noted that the deCordova’s 2010 biennial “helped us certainly in the Boston area, maybe more than just Boston. A lot of people have come up to me and said, ‘I know your work from the biennial.’” Shortly before that biennial opened, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts purchased a work by the two artists from a show at their Boston gallery, Samson Projects, and the combination of that success and their inclusion in the deCordova “helped us line up a couple of shows. It also has given us more confidence in our portfolio.” Also trying to operate in the frontiers of contemporary art are the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama, and the Appleton Museum of Art in Ocala, Florida. “We try to show regional [Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi] artists working in a contemporary way”—with contemporary defined 45 as the use of new media and other “experimentation”—which is “not what our audience is most familiar with,” said Wiregrass curator Dana-Marie Lemmer. She noted that the Wiregrass is the only art museum in a 100-mile radius. The museum makes purchases of works in its biennial for the permanent collection, which helps to give cutting-edge artwork more exposure for visitors. The biennial of the Appleton Museum, which is part of the College of Central Florida, exclusively displays works of installation art. “Installation art is not commercial and gets slighted in many small regional art museums,” said the Appleton’s chief curator Ruth Grim. “A nice painting will always win out” if the general public were given its druthers. She noted that the Appleton is the only art museum for quite a distance in central Florida and her aim is to “expose the public to art they don’t normally see. My view has been that the community would get used to it, and it has become open to it.” The museum could not “make a steady diet” of installation art, but an every other year biennial presentation of this type of art has been received well. There are an estimated 300 art biennials taking place around the world, and perhaps a third of them are in the United States. The Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale are among the top events, drawing many of the most notable collectors, critics, curators, and dealers in the world, but a number of the regional biennials also draw their share of attention from people interested in spotting the next trends and st...
Purchase answer to see full attachment