In the beginning months and years of Art Biz Success, I thought of my services as a one-stop shop. Bad idea. It’s never a good idea to try to be everything because you then become known for nothing.
Over the years, I have learned to work to my strengths, which include helping artists with foundational marketing pieces like building mailing lists, nurturing relationships, and improving professional presentation.
Regarding other business services for artists, I am happy to have had long-standing relationships with the following people. I consider them to be my team of experts. We’re partners in helping you share your gifts with more people, and I confidently recommend each of them.
Maria Brophy
Contact Maria if you’d like a second set of eyes to review your contract or her input on a proposal. She prides herself as a dealmaker. You can also talk with her about relationships with licensing agents.
Kim Bruce of Artbiz
Kim owns Artbiz.ca (no relation to ArtBizCoach.com) and is a wiz at helping artists create beautiful WordPress websites and blogs. You can do it yourself with her tutorials or hire her to do it all for you.
Lisa Call
Lisa’s numerous online classes for the creative side of the art business have received raves from her students. I frequently recommend her “Working in Series” class to students who are struggling to build a portfolio. I put her under business services because you won’t have an art business until you’ve created a strong body of work.
Barney Davey
Barney knows the market for digital prints and reproductions. In fact, he wrote the book on it! Go to Barney for his expertise in that area.
Carolyn Edlund of ArtsyShark
With all of her experience in retail, Carolyn is my go-to person for artists who want to wholesale their work. She also knows sales speak and sales techniques.
Paul Klein of Klein Artist Works
When you want in on what goes on in the upper tiers of the art world, Paul’s your guy. Klein Artist Works offers a broad array of over 250 live, hour-long webinars with art world experts. <Update: Sadly, Paul has passed since this was first posted. We miss him dearly.>
Janice McDonald Design
Visual communication is a talent that is very different from fine art. Most artists make lousy graphic designers. You should stick to your genius and get help with your marketing material design.
Janice is a fabulous collage artist with training as a graphic designer. When my designer went AWOL on me last year, Janice helped me pick up the pieces. <Update: Janice is no longer taking on new clients.>
Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse
Every so often, one of my clients wants to write a book, and that’s when I send them to Cynthia, the coach who held my hand throughout the writing of I’d Rather Be in the Studio. Cynthia is an amazing writing coach and supportive friend.
Tara Reed of Art Licensing Info
When I first met Tara back in 2009 in Portland, she was starting to consult in art licensing. Now she has an entire empire! Her site has a wealth of info products for learning the licensing business. She can help you package your work for licensing. <Update: Tara sold Art Licensing Info, but it appears to continue to thrive.>
Who Are Your Partners?
It takes a village to build an art business, and you are lucky that there are so many people ready to help. This is a very different atmosphere than when I started Art Biz Success in 2002.
I know you’ll be in good hands should you need help with any of these services. (None of these are affiliate links.)
Who are your partners?
19 thoughts on “I Recommend These Services for Your Art Business”
I love Pat! She built my website. And thank you, Alyson, for the introduction.
Lucy: I think I forgot that Pat did your site. Happy that you’re happy with her – from across the globe.
Great Information! Thanks for sharing, Alyson!
Glad you can use it, Karen.
Mostly, I have not contracted outside help besides Alyson for the business side of being an artist (though I once did try to connect with someone to do a mobile version of my website and the person did not follow up). I did, however, have my dementia care consultant business cards cards done professionally by a graphic designer/promotional materials person whom I got to know when she was local to me here in CT. I would like, in the future, to be able to use more outside help when my finances can handle them.
It’s a good idea, when possible, to offload tasks that others can do better or that one does not enjoy doing.
Excellent advice, Patricia.
This will be one of your most popular posts!
Terri: I hope so. And I hope it helps a lot of artists.
Thank you! Thank you! I’ve been trying to remember Kim Bruce’s name to have her rework my WordPress site. Perfect timing!!!
Happy to help!
Am I really that much shorter than you and Janice? This photo must be some sort of optical illusion 🙂
Thank you so much for the mention Alyson!
—lisa
Well, we know that Janice is tall and Alyson wears heels. Lisa doesn’t wear heels.
Yep, you’re short, but I got a boost.
🙂
Thanks for your recommendation, Alyson! I can’t agree with you more about working with “partners” – I’ve found that in building my network of contacts, some of whom could possibly be considered “competitors” that it’s best to work together, refer whenever possible, and understand that there is an abundance of business out there for anyone who is open to it.
This not only serves all the partners, but artists in general. A win for everyone involved. Can’t get better than that!
I feel like I’ve gotten some great “secrets” from you in this post! Thanks so much! Each of these people does in deed have a different focus from you, Alyson – thanks for sharing!
Hi Alyson
I so enjoyed your post, and like Terri I agree that this will be one of your most popular posts. I have been hanging with you it seems forever. You are always so sharing and always interesting. Thank you for sharing these “partners”-
Laura.
So honored to be on this list and in your life, Alyson. You’ve always improved me and my work for the better.
And yes, Lisa, you’re a shortie. Just accept it.
Alyson you have compiled a list of really great people who provide unique and valuable services for artists. I am very proud and touched that you have included my Artbiz Web Design on your list of trusted services. Thank you so much!
I have recommended a number of these people to my clients too, you included. Like you say we can’t be all things to all people and expect to do an excellent job on all. Pick on thing and do it well. Except in my case I do two and certainly hope I do them both well.
Most of your listed associates also figure in my art blog tabs. After six years I consider them as virtual friends who I read on near-daily basis. I’m Probably never going to see them face-to-face or hear their voice etc. But they were instrumental in my success as an artist and helped steer my website to what it is today. Thanks to you Alyson!
Thanks for sharing this information, it’s very helpful. My go to person for website design and programming is actually my son who works out of Denver, Ryan Teliczan. His website is http://www.thecissilent.com he did my website and has been designing websites for artists for 10 years now.