Art Show Successes and Lessons
I recently had a solo art show at Woven We Are in Carlsbad, CA. I would call it a well rounded experience. There was some great stuff, some good stuff, and some challenges. Art shows take a ton of work, they are an extremely vulnerable experience, they’re just part of the job of being an artist, when the stars align they can be really rewarding, and if you don’t put yourself out there one way or another there’s no chance of success. Here are my thoughts after a few weeks of letting the dust settle on this one...
Let me start by saying that I generally choose the Glass is Half Full approach with life. To do anything other than that, to me, feels like a waste of everyone’s time and energy. But, when that approach is covering up feelings, causing one to “gut” emotions, that’s not good either. That doesn’t feel good, and probably doesn’t have good long term effects on our physical, emotional or spiritual bodies. I know for me (and maybe for others too), I don’t want to bring down someone’s day with anything other than positivity. But these days I’m trying to be more neutral and honest rather than sugar coating. I don’t want this to come off as complaining or as a way to get sympathy, I’m just being real. This feels super uncomfortable, so bear with me.
I’ll start with the challenges..
1. The Art for the Show... Getting a series (or 3) of artwork together is a mountain climb in itself. The idea is to pick art pieces that go together conceptually, visually and physically so that they make some sort of sense for the viewer. My work is pretty wide ranging, so that was a fun exercise that worked out pretty well in the end. My goal for this show was to have everything framed, finished, titled, labeled with artist statements for the 3 series. This is all really just a matter of putting in the time and energy. It all came together nicely though and now all the work is framed, ready for market and looks great.
2. Marketing... I’d say this is the most difficult part. This is one major advantage to working with a brick and mortar gallery. They have a tried and true email list of clients that are interested in buying artwork who regularly attend showings and receptions. For this show I marketed as well as I knew how. I created a FB event, promoted it on FB, promoted on my Instagram feed, and on Instagram Mystory. We promoted it through the yoga studio. I sent personal messages to everyone I know that might have been able to come. I handed out flyers to the local community. I also created a FB ad targeting the local art interested community. Even with all that the event had a relatively low attendance.
I think it’s a combo of a lot of things. Number one is that there’s a lot of stuff going on all the time. People are busy. People are spread out geographically. People have prior engagements. And it’s especially hard to get people that don’t know me or know my art to go out of their way to come to a show. Wrangling humans for something like this just isn’t that easy.
3. Sales… Without a big crowd, sales are tough. I’ve had two art shows in my career where I sold a lot of artwork. There was a nice combo of a big crowd, the art looked great in the environment, and people were enjoying themselves. Then when a painting sold, it created a buzz. Then another sold, then another, and then another. There was a sort of frenzy feeling. But in order to do that, you have to have lots of people there.
Now for the Good Stuff...
1. It felt a lot smoother going through the whole show process than previous shows. I’m gaining experience and everything flowed nicely. The framing, the prep, the overall organization. It all went well and that’s definitely a positive thing.
2. It was really fun working with Alexandra and Woven the yoga studio. It was beautiful seeing the artwork in a space like that. The vibes of the art and the peaceful interior of the studio flowed beautifully.
3. Now the artwork is all framed up, looking great, ready for the next level of showing. Really, I want every art piece of mine to be framed and wall ready once it’s completed and out of the studio. I’ve got a lot of art, so that’s a tall order, but this show was a nice step for that.
And now for the Great Stuff...
1. It was great seeing my friends and art supporters. The conversations that happened are what it’s really all about. I love hearing what ideas come through people when looking at my art.... what questions, comments, inspirations and even the triggers. : ) Art is so fun in that way, that we all can have a different experience with an image. Art is a sort of still theater of the mind where the play happens within ourselves prompted by what we're seeing on the outside.
2. We had a spoken word performance by a long time collaborator and friend Mickey Kenney, a food truck, a live musician, friends displaying their work, and the beautiful setting of the yoga studio. It was a really cool experience for those of us who were there. And for that I’m grateful and happy about. Everything that I could directly control was a really cool experience..
Basically, I guess I’m writing this blog post as a statement to myself and other artists about the difficulty of art shows and managing one’s expectations. Putting together solo shows have their challenges, but so do group shows and art fairs. There’s no silver bullet. Getting people to look at your art is difficult and selling it is even harder. The great thing about a gallery show is that everything’s not on the artist. But in exchange for the help, galleries take 40 to 60 percent of a sale price, no free lunch. So either you double the price your artwork to cover that or you get gashed for a lot. Pricing your artwork high covers the gallery costs cut but makes it more difficult for average art buyers to purchase your work. Pricing your work lower and not going with a gallery and you run into all the problems I mentioned earlier. It’s a bit of a catch 22.
My approach for the future is a couple deep. One is to not have any expectations for any show in terms of sales or attendance. With that comes not overexerting myself for any one show. When I put my all into something it’s hard not to hope for some level of return. So I’m going to be a little more cautious going in like that again. Two is that it’s time to get into a gallery. I’m feeling L.A. or San Diego. I need to get some professional level representation where the marketing and sales aren’t all on me. And three, I’m going to explore the online market. Saatchi and Etsy seem promising so I’m going to start there. It’s a much smaller investment in time energy and money. It’s a big world out there. I really like the idea of interested clientele finding me. It’s ridiculous that I’ve waited this long to try it out.
As artists, we pour ourselves into our creative lives, our artwork, ourselves as an artist, and then we try to commodify these things that are outside of the dimension of money. Art fits strangely into the capitalist model. This is why it’s said to be so hard to make a living as an artist. I get it. I see the struggle in the eyes of lots of artists at these art fairs I go to, large and small. Going into shows with sales as a measure of success is a recipe for letdown. Sure, it’s possible, and it can happen. But you need the right formula for it all to work and very few have it and can do it regularly.
Again, I don’t want to complain, I’m not looking for sympathy, and I’m certainly not giving up on me as an artist, or my pursuits in the art world. I’m just reporting the artistic weather from my artistic ship as the storms, stars and sunshine pass overhead. I definitely recommend having a side hustle or some commercially viable way of making your art pay while going after the true, authentic, avant garde art that comes from within. For me that’s murals. And really the goal is to marry the two… for your creative artwork to be what’s commercially viable. That isn’t always easy though. But welcome to the game. If it was easy, everyone would do it.