I was recently interviewed for an article profiling successful artists.  The interviewer asked, “What are the biggest mistakes that you see artists making in planning their careers?”

That was easy to answer.  The biggest mistake that I see an artist making early, and sometimes too late, in their career is that they do not recognize, and or respect the fact they are “in business”.  They’re not sure how to be savvy entrepreneurs.  They are trying, often without much success, to follow a prescribed model of working solely with galleries and keeping their fingers crossed that one day that this tired formula will work.  The problem is that 99.9% of the time, it doesn’t.  And if it does, too many art galleries fold.

Part of this mindset is ingrained by a cultural stereotype that artists should not, or could not, be concerned with money and business.  I can’t tell you how much I hear this disrespectful crap. So I purposely have my full title on my business cards and the footer of my emails, “Ann Rea, Artist, CEO, Ann Rea, Inc.”

The good news is that there’s a lot of money changing hands in the art industry, and artists can get their piece of the pie.

I’ll remind artists that I consult with that no one is going to “discover” them, no one is coming to save them.   But once an artist recognizes, respects, and embraces their business, we’re ready to work together.

And those artists who I work with have surprised and delighted me with the leaps of progress that they make.  And they even inspire me to up my game, to dream bigger, make a plan, and move into action.

Tags: art industry, artist consulting, Working with Art Galleries

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 7:08 am and is filed under Marketing Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.