“I graduated from the San Francisco Art Academy with a degree in illustration and now I have mounds of student loan debt and I’m not sure how I will repay it. I have no steady job prospects. What am I going to do?”

This is what my former art intern was forced to ask herself.

“I know that you learned how to make art at the San Francisco Art Academy, did you learn anything about how to make money from it?”

I knew the answer but I wondered if anything had changed since I graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Her $3000 semester course “LA291 Designing Careers” did not even come close to giving her the answer.

Why? Emphasis on the word career. Fine artists and illustrators do not have careers, they have businesses.

Yes, businesses. You heard me right. This understanding is fundamental to an artist’s success.

The problem. Art school does not orient artists to be entrepreneurial. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

How do I know artists don’t have careers? Because we don’t receive a regular paycheck.

Now if you are a commercial illustrator, and you are an employee, that’s a rare horse of a different color.

“What was the focus of the course, career or business?” I asked my former intern. “Both.” “Both? You’ve got to be kidding! No damn wonder you’re confused.”

So I read through her course reader “LA291 Designing Careers.” The spiral bound, hand numbered, ¾” tall, I measured it, mish mash of assorted documents, that looks like the shabby product of a hasty trip to Kinko’s.

In fact, there was no design involved in this course. And it includes a confusing array of jumbled information about careers and business.

The good thing, it helped inspire my course, Making Art/Making Money.

If students want to enroll in art school and incur student loan debt and graduate, or not graduate, without a skill set allowing them to earn a decent living, no one has a gun to their head.

But the current and past return on investment in an art degree would not earn a five star rating from Morning Star.

In the interest of full disclosure, we must have an honest and open discussion about the business of art.

It’s only fair that young and hopeful artists, who are poised to fund their education with student loan debt, make these life-altering, and inescapable, decisions with their eyes wide open.

 

So my last post, Asking is Free, immediately drew some biting reactions which included a few personal passive aggressive attacks, you know who you are.

“Never surprised, always appalled.”

However, most of the feedback was very positive and seen as an affirming reminder for professional artists to value their business and their time.

Now if you are approaching your art making and your art selling as a hobby. That’s cool. But that is not what Artists Who THRIVE is all about.

The definition of Artists Who THRIVE is “creative freedom + business savvy,” emphasis on the word business.

If you are selling your art, according to the IRS, and your local taxing authority, you are by their definition, operating a business.

So. Why not operate your business to your most profitable and productive advantage?

We run into trouble when our boundaries are blurred in business. That’s why businesses have written terms, set prices, and posted hours of operation.

If you don’t, well then. That’s not smart business and you need to get on it if you want to be an artist who THRIVES.

Not communicating and adhering to your business terms is not only confusing to your market; it is very costly to you.

I have often heard my patrons complain that they want to buy art but too often artists make it too difficult for them to do business.

These unprofessional artists don’t know what to charge. They don’t do things on time. They go over budget in time and materials and expect their customer to just eat it.

Back to my point from my last post, no matter what business you are in, if prospects want your limited time then they need to make an appointment with a start and end time.

That means that you should not allow patrons or other folks just to hang out in your studio.

Do you think the Gap would allow someone to try on a pair of jeans and then just hang out to chat with the sales staff and other customers? I don’t think so.

Time is money. You can make more money. You cannot make more time.

Protect your time as you would your bank account.

And when you enforce your boundaries, remember this. You don’t owe anyone anything, including an explanation or an apology for running your business.

If they don’t get it, that’s their problem and they either will or they won’t figure it out.

 

I always tell the artists that I coach to reach out and ask for help but don’t be obnoxious.

I was reminded of this advice recently when a few artists, you know who you are, said that they would be visiting San Francisco so they would just like to drop by my private studio and hang out.

“Really? That’s nice.” I thought. But would you ask an attorney if you could drop by his or her office, just to say “hi”, and by the way chat about a law suit that you’re involved in.

Yeah. I think not. Not without booking and paying for an appointment.

Now before anyone gets their knickers bunched. Know this. I LOVE to help and to answer questions when and where I can.

In fact, anyone can go to “Ask Ann,” at any time, and post, a specific question for free. I actually answer all of them.

My desire to help is what motivates me to address the concerns of Artists Who THRIVE, as I have every single week, for years, for FREE.

But like most consultants, if you want my precious and limited time, and my undivided attention, you’re going to have to pay for it and get it on my terms, by booking a Monday phone appointment. I’m not running a non-profit.

Why do I bring this up? Because it offers a teaching point.

There is nothing wrong with asking. Asking is free.

Ask for help. Be clear and direct and consider what you might be able to offer in return.

If someone declines, just be gracious and respectful of their boundaries. Just thank them for their consideration and move on.

It doesn’t reflect well on you if you tell your story of having no money or how disappointed you are.

Gripping is not going to change anything except make you look whiney and rude.

I’m a huge believer in the principle of Givers Gain and I am thankful to know that most people really do like to help, when and where they can.

And I appreciate all of the help that I have been offered over the years.

But we all have limits and we must respect that other people have their privacy, obligations, and priorities other than us. And no one owes us a damn thing.

 

 

As I enroll artists in my new 8-week course, “Making Art/Making Money,” they must complete an application and then complete a phone interview. 

Why do I do this? Because there are certain characteristics that I’m listening for that indicate they could become successful and then there are red flags.

And there are some artists that I just can’t help and I don’t even care to try. Who? Artists who:

·      think that if they just continue to hone their craft someday they will be discovered

·      will not take complete responsibility for their success

·      who are unprofessional and are cavalier about keeping commitments, budgets, schedules, or their word

·      think they have to develop their career when they actually have to grow their small business

·      have a scarcity mentality

·      think that selling art is selling out but they can’t actually define what selling out means

·      blame others for their failures and who are unwilling to examine them and to learn from them

·      who can’t focus or who tell themselves they can’t focus even though every talented artist is capable of extraordinary focus

I just met a young filmmaker who proudly announced the release of his new film. I asked him who his target market was. “Everyone.”  

Everyone? I replied. That’s not a target market.

A target is the red bull’s-eye in the middle of a target. If you try to reach everyone then that’s like trying to hit the entire target all at once. You’ll hit nothing. 

He turned that remark to, I don’t really care about making money.

Really? I didn’t believe that for a second. Nothing inspires every artist that I know than making money from art that they are proud of.

Then he followed with his opinion that, George Lucas is just a businessman and he has forgotten how to make films. 

Interesting, I thought. Do you really think that he has forgotten how to make films?

It’s this senseless and unproductive debate that I refuse to engage in. 

If you don’t care about making money with your art, cool. Make art for yourself. It’s still a worthy pursuit.

But if you really do care about making money with your art, just admit it. 

Then admit what you know and what you still need to learn about the business of selling art that you are proud of making.

 

 

I just interviewed a student applying for my new 8-week, 8-part, business course for artists, “Making Art/Making Money.”

This applicant has been selling her paintings for many years using the traditional scarcity and permission based approach, art fairs and art galleries.

So it was no surprise to me that it wasn’t working. In fact, it was working less and less and she was getting more and more exhausted by her unrewarded efforts.

So she was very keen to learn about an effective alternative methodology that would give her an entrepreneurial foundation, focus, and an intimate community of supportive like-minded entrepreneurial artists.

But. And of course there’s a “but.” She wanted a guarantee that she would generate a certain amount in increased sales. What did I do? I immediately withdrew her application.

No one but no one can guarantee your success but you. Even if I was her boss I couldn’t guarantee her performance, now could I?

Come on, not even Stanford or Harvard’s MBA programs extend a guarantee to their students. You’re fortunate just to be accepted.

If you decide to learn something new, become a professional artist, or just ask someone out on a date, there are no guarantees.

If you are a professional artist you are already engaging in very risky behavior. It’s no secret that most professional artists struggle financially and that negatively impacts other areas of their life, like their health, self-confidence, relationships, and long term financial security.

You should absolutely do your due diligence, assess your risks, and make decisions accordingly. But know this. If you always require a 100% guarantee, you will avoid all risks and therefore you will avoid success.

Do something or do nothing, each contains risk. 

Does “Making Art/Making Money” offer a guarantee? Yes! But it deliberately requires the student’s participation. Because success in life, in business, and in art also demands our full participation and risk.  

I just returned from a conference where for the very first time I felt that I was surrounded by my tribe at the World Domination Summit in Portland. 

What is the #World Domination Summit you ask?  I think my friend Jonathan Fields summed it up best when he described it as “Woodstock for thought leaders.”

I received enough inspiration for a year’s worth of blog posts but I’ll start with a few questions Jonathan Fields posed about going after something you really want and the fear and uncertainty that may surround it.

By asking these questions you can reframe your fear and uncertainty.  When fear and uncertainty is put in it’s proper place, in check, we can move into action. 

So what’s your big desire? Would you like to sell your art full time?  Part time? Move to a new city? Ask someone out on a date?  Whatever it is that you want you can shift your perspective. Start by quieting your mind and reflecting.

Get a journal or a piece of paper and ponder your big desire. Now ask yourself?  If I do this thing, make this move, ask this person, take this perceived risk.

1. How will I recover?

2. What if I do nothing?

3. What if I succeed?

1. When I decided to move to San Francisco to paint for a living I knew that one way I could recover was to return to corporate America, start a house cleaning business, or bar tend. These where the recovery options I actually laid out for myself.

2. Doing nothing was simply no longer an option. I had witnessed the certainty of death and the possibility of it happening to me at any time. Doing nothing was only increasing my fear, anxiety, and potential regret.

3. What if I succeed?  What a thought! This was much easier to ponder once I’d answered the first two questions. Energy flows where attention goes.

Harness your attention and energy. Decide what you really want and answer these three questions in order.  Ask a friend to do the exercise with you.

I’ve just finished up the first draft of a new book I’ve written called “101 Rules of Selling Art,” prerequisite reading for my upcoming 8-week guided online business course, “Making Art/Making Money.”

As I sat in front of this monitor enumerating 101 rules of selling art, I thought, wait a minute; why not ask 10 artists who I have coached to send me the top 10 things they have learned about selling art?

Each artist’s response was very affirming and really helped focus and edit the book.

So many lessons stand out but the inspiration for this post is a music-selling lesson from musician Daniel Barrett in Austin, Texas, “The weekly check-ins were a rigorous form of accountability. Keep agreements!!” 

As an artist I relish my freedom.  But complete freedom is a double edge sword. The goods news is that I’m not accountable to anyone but myself.  The bad news is that I’m not accountable to anyone but myself. 

The only solution that solves this double edge dilemma is to commit to a SMARTER goal and to have a Master Mind, a coach, or colleagues to hold you accountable and offer encouragement.

But we artists exist mostly in isolation.  And too often when artists do congregate rather than focus on a specific goal, they complain.

Years ago I attended an artist “support group” in Sacramento. I went and I never returned. It was a complete bitch fest. Everyone complained about not making enough money. Complaining without exploring solutions is the opposite of support.

To be fair, these artists had no clue how to make money from their fine art and they where assuming that the traditional scarcity and permission based art establishment was there only viable option. 

Even though this meeting was a drag the experience made me realize that I never wanted to behave like they did.

Here’s your assignment, should you choose to accept it.

Your success can be defined by the average of 5 people you spend the most time with. 

1. Ask yourself. Are these people the kind of successful you admire? 
2. Are they honest and do they care enough about you that they are willing to risk your friendship to hold you accountable?
3. Do you all keep your agreements to one another?
4. What is your contract with yourself? 
5. Do you have one SMARTER goal that you are working towards each day?
6. Who are you accountable to? No one? Anyone?
7. Do you hold yourself accountable?

 If you need help with this, you’re invited to apply for the one-on-one coaching program.

Please note, time is limited.  One-on-one coaching will be unavailable after the launch of “Making Money Making Art” online course.

 

 

 

If I have made my success as a nationally recognized artist look easy, I invite you to look again.

I have had big fat failures just as I have had successes. 

And guess what?  They each kicked my butt.  

Allow me to spill the beans. I’ve jotted down my five fattest failures and disappointments and what I eventually learned from each.

1. Having two major wineries welsh on a written agreement within one year, leaving me with 112 original oil paintings and no productive venue to sell them.

What did I learn?  If you are a small business and you become dependent on one major client, the lack of diversification can bring you down, and quickly.

Even with a written agreement and trust in place, if the other party does not keep up their end of the bargain, you must be in a position to sustain it or it may not be worth the risk.

2. Ignoring my intuition and just “thinking” that I could help two artist clients in my coaching program who then failed.

What did I learn?  Never ever ignore my intuition, even if it doesn’t make sense. Intuition often doesn’t make sense but it is very strong and reliable.

3. Relying on very expensive services from bookkeepers and CPAs to keep accurate and timely financial records only for them to make a mess of my books.

What did I learn? I am the best minder of my money.  Giving away this responsibility and not having a clear understanding of my bookkeeping is very dangerous and expensive.  No one will ever care about my money like I care.

4. Avoiding sales by focusing on marketing and painting.

What did I learn? We all prefer to do what we are good at and feel comfortable with but this is not necessarily to our advantage nor the highest priority.  After I received sales training, I got better and I liked it much more.

5. Ignoring my personal values by continuing to focus on a value proposition around a wine country lifestyle that does not resonate with me as it once did.

What did I learn? Creating inspiration is my primary purpose as an artist. I can only inspire others when I am inspired. So now I am embarking on a new body of work this year and I’m excited again about my art.

Where did you, or where are you, failing?

Take action.  Take a moment to journal and list your failures.  Spill it. Cry. Scream.  Beat your pillow. 

Then take a break.  Return and ask.  “What did I learn?” 

Our failures inform our successes.

If you are reluctant to do this exercise, invite a trusted friend to do it with you.

If you are stuck and you do not know what you have learned and or how to move forward, book a phone consult.

 

When I use the word art, within Artists Who THRIVE. I am using it in the broadest sense of the word. Why? Because when I conducted my first art business seminar it was standing room only. To my surprise it was packed with a mix of creatives that included:

·       astrologers

·       ceramists

·       culinary artists

·       disk jockeys

·       film makers

·       healing practitioners

·       jewelers

·       massage therapists

·       mixed media artists

·       musicians

·       painters

·       photographers

·       quilters

·       sculptures

·       writers

·       etc.

Like the artists who attended my first seminar, I am guessing that you are an artist who has come to a sobering fork in the road.

You either want to sell your art and you don’t know where to begin or you have been selling your art but not enough. So let’s examine your options.

1.     Like most artists, you have been led to believe that the conventional path of seeking representation to sell your art is the path that you must take. You’ve been hoping for that big break. This way you can let someone else, more capable, deal with all that business mumbo jumbo.  Is that what you learned in art school?

But you know, as does everyone else, that if you take the conventional path the odds are stacked steeply against you. And ironically the first question that you will be asked by a potential representative is, “How much work have you sold and for how much?”

Even assuming you have distinguishable talent, the entrenched art market is a scarcity and permission based model. It is strongly guarded by gatekeepers who will only let a select few past their gate. Why?  Because it is their gate, it is their game, so they get to make the rules.

No need to exhaust yourself by being bitter about the realities of, and the rejection by, the traditional art market. Just ask if you are prepared to wait for the gatekeepers to open their gates and then ask yourself, “Is this the game I want to spend my life playing?”  If so, read no further.

2.     Your other option is to take the reins and actively pursue success by taking an unconventional entrepreneurial approach. The odds are not great but I found them to be quicker, freer, and much more profitable.

What does the entrepreneurial approach mean? You ignore the gatekeepers and you build your own artistic enterprise. This is not a smooth road either. But the gatekeepers cannot blunt your success and you can maintain your creative freedom through business savvy. 

Bottom line. You can direct your limited time and life force to:

1.     submitting and showing your work, or

2.     marketing and selling your work

There is no right or wrong approach. Do what is best for you. But you must decide which path you want to take, the conventional or entrepreneurial path.

You can straddle both paths for a while. But in order to succeed, to arrive at a successful destination, you will need to commit to one direction.  Artists Who THRIVE is committed to creative freedom that can only come by way of business savvy.

 

4.  Artists who are successful are hungry for it. They really want it. 

No one can care more than you about your enterprise.

If you do not care, no one else will.

If you are detached, others will detach.
 

5. “Giving up is the ultimate tragedy.”  – Robert Donovan

This is a statement that I know to be true.  Why? Because for over seven years I did not paint or draw one thing.  I completely gave up on pursuing my art. What followed was indeed tragedy. 

After I abandoned my creative self I became increasingly depressed, anxious, and sleepless.

Without an outlet my creative energy balled up inside me and stagnated. The real tragedy was that this suffering was my choice.

I believed that I should surrender my hopes of pursuing art full time because the economic odds where so very dismal.

I believed that I needed to develop conventional marketable skills and dwell within a corporate cubicle. I often felt like a caged animal resenting the corporate structure and culture. 

My art school did not prepare me for the grim economic reality of being an artist.  Although the time I spent in the cubicle did not prepare me to be an entrepreneur, I did learn transferable skills.

Alas, I was able to create a viable art business in my first year.  My success and business approach was such an anomaly that it earned me significant media attention, including a feature in Fortune magazine.

Because of this success and insight I feel a passionate responsibility to share what I have learned.  I just cannot abide the notion that artists must struggle.  I think that the starving artist myth is fundamentally destructive and disrespectful.

So don’t give up.  Where there is a will there is a way.

6. If you add up all of these success indicators you have confidence. 

There is nothing sexier and more effective in sales.

100% confidence?  No, that is not possible. But the ability to muster confidence is required to deal with inevitable and continuous rejections and failures. Expect them, learn from them, and keep it moving. As they say, “Fake it until you make it” or “act as if.”

 Bonus:

Artists must have SMART goals.  The SMART goals that I see failing are when the “A” for attainable or actionable is off. 

In other words, the artist’s SMART goal is too ambitious. 

These artists want to make $100K in their first year in business but they have no idea who their target market is, they have not defined their value proposition, or even outlined their pricing to prove the $100K sales projection. 

Their cart is before their horse.

Start with where you are today and then define your SMART goal.  Don’t copy another person’s goal.  Do you!