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| 2009/07/29 01:42:50瀏覽500｜回應0｜推薦1 | |
Income, expenditure and management are the three key elements that commonly determine the success or failure of any small business. In the life of a professional painter they are critical. One of the best decisions that my wife and I ever made when we moved from our careers in teaching to painting for a living was to manage our own affairs and not depend solely on the vagaries of galleries for sales and promotion. On the other hand, some of our best sales have come out of our business relationships with galleries, art suppliers, publishers and agents - the sorts of people who also work in the art business.
Artists comprise a much smaller portion of the art business than many people realise - and we are no more special or important than anyone else. Having decided to make a career of watercolour its then worth coming to the best understanding you can of how the overall business works so that you can build the sorts of relationships that will assist you in making a living and finally, a real success of your dream.
Here is not the place to try and cover all the business elements that can go into building an art career. (And what makes me the `expert' anyway?) There are however, already plenty of great websites, books and professional guides around that go into this in great detail. What I can say is that, understanding the business side of your career, may give you the edge that determines whether or not you can survive as a professional watercolourist. So what makes a career in watercolour so special? Is it any different from a career working in some other fine art medium? In many countries, and certainly here in Australia, the so called `real' art world of the major galleries doesn't hold watercolour in anything like the same regard as works on canvas. I'll go so far as to say that watercolour is largely thought to be a hobby medium. Works on canvas - and especially non figurative works on canvas - are much more likely to be taken seriously and the outcome is little market for watercolour paintings into the great public collections and most corporate collections. Fortunately the upside of this ignorance about watercolour and the snobbishness ofsome buyers is balanced by the fact that there is a great domestic market for fine watercolour paintings ó and especially for landscapes, still-life works, flower paintings, the nude and so on. Where a painter in oils may find it easier to arrive at major acceptance (leading to high priced works held by the great collections and access to Government grants and all the rest of it) watercolourists probably find it easier to acquire a suburban market (more paintings sold ó though at lesser prices - into more homes and on a more consistent basis). So what are the business elements of a watercolour career? Well, you'll need to paint great watercolours for a start, so in the last issue I wrote about acquiring the `professional' skill levels appropriate to whatever you want to paint. Beyond this you'll also have to work at a whole range of things to do with making income from your paintings - bearing in mind that the target is not to sell just one painting for lots of money, but to continuously sell paintings, so that you really do have a source of income and a career. The part you play You'll need a long-term plan (and more so than most outside the art world would imagine necessary for an artist). There arc business skill-sets and attitudes well worth acquiring, starting with the capacity to see your art as a professional endeavour just as, say, running a shop would be. As Michael Gerber explains in "The E -Myth Revisited", you'll have to be a successful technician, manager and entrepreneur in your own small business. You might think, "But hey, I won't need to manage my own business. That's what an agent, or galleries will do on my behalf.", but I disagree. Even if you are fortunate enough to be brilliantly handled, the reality is that you will still need to know how to play your part in the professionalism of the team that carries you out to the market. If you then fail to understand the basics of the business you're in you are less likely to achieve the sort of success that your art might otherwise make possible. No sensible gallery will carry your art if there's no money in it or you drive them crazy. They have to be practical (and you do want to work with galleries that are practical). Handling your work (and you with it) has to make commercial sense to them, so there is good reason to become business-savvy yourself. After all, no-one cares more than you do whether you succeed or fail. You don't HAVE to have a gallery. Looking back through western art history most of the greatest names also managed their own careers - Rembrandt, Rubens, David, Turner, Leonardo, Michelangelo for example - and I gather that commercial galleries as we know them simply did not exist prior to the end of the 19t century. Among the most important broad skills that you will need is the capacity to stand back from your work and to see it as a `product' for sale. This won't be easy because you probably paint in watercolour because you love it - and every painting you do represents a moment along the way in your artistic life. Nonetheless, it will be critical that you see your own works as `goods to be sold". They have to be priced, packaged (framed), presented, promoted and sold in a business-like way You'll now have to paint AND run a small business. They will require different skills. For example you'll now need to know something about marketing, management, finances and a whole range of other activities common to most businesses as well as all the business elements specific to art. These will have to be integrated into a cohesive business enterprise, a machine that works efficiently to create income AND profit. Income and profit are not necessarily the same thing at all. Creating systems Successful businesses have systems and these, in the case of an artist, are likely to include a whole range of activities alien to one who has previously only seen themselves as a painter. The technical systems you may have evolved for creating paintings are only the beginning and so now you will need to evolve or acquire management systems (that enable you to order, to make purchases, store and handle your equipment and finished works, framing materials, studio space, correspondence, banking, commissions and many other day to day matters). You'll also have to be pragmatic in your entrepreneurial activities (which galleries you decide to approach, growing your network of clients, the sorts of commission ideas you suggest to potential clients, how you choose to present to the media, which paintings you select from your portfolio for exhibitions and so on). In fact achieving your vision for the future may very well depend on your capacity to engage in what might best be called entrepreneurial thinking. All of this boils down to a simple, hard fact: that unless you know what your actual business is, how it works and how to adapt and develop it through good and bad times you will be utterly at the mercy of others. it is far too easy to fall back on the popular misconception that talent, passion and hard work will suffice. History shows us that the greatest artists were very often extremely professional business people in their own right. My accountant often points out that writing and teaching may have assisted my career, but most income has been generated by two critical activities: painting and selling. And he reminds me that merely painting more - even with passion isn't enough. I've got to devote time and effort to the business side of being a painter. And critical to this is putting my work in front of potential buyers in ways that maximize the chance of sales now AND in the future. That requires me to be business-like and so I've learned to accept the `distraction' of allowing time for all the peripheral tasks that support my time in the studio. If I were starting all over again, I would make a check-list of the sorts of skills I might need to acquire along the way. Your greatest business attribute is the capacity to THINK clearly - making use of the sorts of creative and practical thinking skills you've already developed as a painter to see your career as a `work in progress'. Its all about envisioning what you want to achieve in the future, then identifying what is actually possible (dreams are great but business is about reality too) and then acquiring and applying the skills necessary to make it happen. Why all this talk about reality? Isn't art about being beyond all that? Frankly, no, it isn't. Take a look at the real life of most successful career painters in watercolour and you'll probably find a fairly down-to-earth pragmatist who loves to paint but who has also found a way to harness or acquire the practical attributes of success. Making a successful career in watercolour will require you to have or acquire a number of the following. Some are essential, others would be nice-to-have: @ A high level of skill (you can acquire this). @ A unique talent (don't worry, you may well discover it as you go along). @ A business mind (you can train this). @ An entrepreneurial edge (you can learn this). @ A reasonable studio (you can improvise this). @ A good framer (they are out there). @ A successful, cooperative, trustworthy and active gallery or galleries to work with. @ A good accountant or financial advisor. @ A life partner or family who support (or at the very least do not oppose or resent) what you are doing. @ Good fortune (let's call it `luck' or the `breaks'). @ Capacity to recognise opportunit and seize it. @ Flexibility of approach. @ A solid work ethic. @ A level of self discipline. @ Capacity to stand back from your work and sec it as a product. @ Capacity to do the same thing with regards to yourself. @ Recognition that people may well comprise a large part of your business (so don't be afraid to devote time to building business relationships). @ Good business support/team/employees @ Sufficient funds to he able to initiate whatever you will require to build a business. @ Capacity to promote - or self promote - through publishing. @ An understanding of relationship marketing. @ A business `plan' of some sort. @ Appropriate systems for all your activities (documented if possible). @ Teaching can supplement sales, but if you can't teach well, either learn how to, (Jr don't do it. Enjoy it, learn from it, don't let it go to your head (big fish, little pond - guru complex issues). @ A little madness. Remember to look after your most important employee - yourself. A successful and well founded career in the arts will certainly find you balancing the needs of your art and business with those of family and friends. In all of that remember to save time for yourself - for things that you do just to please you. There will always be things that you have to do for your business and those you will want to do for your loved ones. Remembering to allow time for yourself is also important so that you continue to find balance and joy in your career.
www.smibert.comIt would be a terrible thing to start out in watercolour because you love it but end up seeing it as a chore. Career and something which you do for yourself, rather than to make money or please others. It's OK to sell paintings in order to he able to afford to paint...there is no compromise in having a commercial side to your art. After all, so did DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Rubins, Degas, Monet, Turner, Rembrandt, Nolan, the Boyds, Fred Williams, etc. etc. etc, About the artist Tony Smibert's art is influenced by a number of very distinctive aesthetic sources. The period known as The Golden Age of British Watercolour (1750 ñ 1850), his lifelong study of the martial art of Aikido (giving him insight into calligraphic brush work) and the bold gestures of Abstract Expressionism have all found a place in his art. Working primarily in watercolour, he exhibits world-wide and, in Japan remains one of the few westerners ever invited to create their own signature range of high-fashion kimonos. He now collaborates with the Tate Gallery in London as an Artist Researcher ñ recreating JMW Turner's 19th century painting methods - and is the author of a number of books including the award winning How to Paint Landscapes from your Imagination as well as the classic Watercolour Apprentice series on DVD. The Smibert Gallery in Northern Tasmania specializes in building collections for private, corporate and public clients. |
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