The Art Biz ep. 92: Are You Playing It Too Safe in Your Art Business?
We are hard wired for self-protection.
The moment we smell risk, our physical bodies start preparing for the encounter. Our mental faculties begin telling us how we can avoid it or, short of that, deal with it.
This is a convenient human feature you were given. It keeps you safe. But it can also keep you small when you give it all the power for decision-making. It can hold you back from becoming the person you dream of becoming and the artist you were meant to be in the world.
Playing It Too Safe
I want to share some of the ways you might be allowing your built-in sensor to rule your life and impede your growth. See if any of these ring true.
You enter the same exhibitions year after year.
When you just started your art business, you began entering juried shows. You found one that was a good fit. You got in. Yay you! That wasn’t so bad. So you enter again the next year. And then the next.
Juried shows are a natural first step for artists, but what I’ve witnessed is that many artists use them like a crutch. They’re easy and comfortable.
You maintain membership in a group whose members are not growing.
This is similar to sticking to the same shows year after year. You’re comfortable with the people you already know, so it’s easy to stay involved. The problem, of course, is that you get frustrated because the group members aren’t thinking at the same level you are. You become angry and resentful about the time it’s taking up.
There’s no reason to get mad. You can’t expect
Is Being Too Cheap Hurting Your Art Business?
I am tired of watching artists and arts organizations live on leftover scraps.
Mind you, the organizations and agencies aren’t cheap with the patrons and board members with the big bank accounts. They are cheap with the artists, without whom their passionate interest would not exist.
Artists, in turn, grow to feel they are not worthy of more.
Don’t get me wrong. Frugality isn’t inherently bad. In fact, it can be good.
I don’t believe in spending for spending’s sake or in extravagance.
But frugality becomes detrimental when it feeds the notion that we are not worthy of more.
Many of my clients develop this sense of unworthiness that is perpetuated by the very organizations that were created to serve them.
I confess that I behaved similarly in the past.
For years I have been writing about how artists can show that their work has value. But I continued to allow the organizers who hired me for workshops to do things “on the cheap,” and I was doing the same with the workshops and events I organized myself.
How can I save money? was my modus operandi.
My first workshop, in 2003, was held at an office building that a friend managed. I recall my parents (!) picking up and delivering boxed lunches to the group.
At a much later workshop, I ran my team ragged making coffee all day long – trekking repeatedly to the kitchen on the other end of the building. Coffee! Because I didn’t pay for a venue that had food service.
No more.
I began attending
How to Feel More Abundant in Your Life and Art
In this blog post I encouraged you to consider how your frugality might be hurting your art business by sending the wrong message to potential collectors.
At the end of that article, I posed 3 questions for you to think about, which we will now look at in depth. The intention is to ensure that you are not only living with an abundant heart, but that you are projecting that way of being into the world.
1. How do others treat you?
Perhaps a better question is this: How do you allow others to treat you?
For example … If you’re a member of an artist organization, what is the room like at your artists’ meetings? Is it dark, gray, and lifeless?
Do something to combat the drudgery and nurture abundance throughout the organization. Ask members to bring snacks on beautiful trays – preferably handmade by an artist – instead of paper plates.
Assign alternating people to arrive early at each meeting to clean the room and serve as welcoming hosts.
You can be the catalyst for change within any organization to which you belong.
We teach people how to treat us by
Dwell In the Love Not On the Rejection
Plenty of people denounce Valentine’s Day as one that was invented by the greeting card industry, but put me in the column for wanting more love, more hearts, and more sappy cards.
Send away!
Recognize the romantic love between you and your partner.
Celebrate familial love with your parents, children, and extended family.
Commemorate the special love between you and your friends.
And don’t forget to honor the love you have for your buyers, collectors, patrons, and students.
Send cards, flowers, and chocolates. If it’s too late to pop something in the mail, start typing your email messages.
While you’re at it, stock up on the love for yourself because you’re gonna need it.
Ouch!
The artist’s life is full of rejection and criticism.
The gallery doesn’t want your work. That couple praised your recent piece, but didn’t buy it. The residency you want so badly won’t consider your application.
To add insult to injury, nobody commented on your recent blog or social media post. You’re beginning to wonder what the point of all this is.
It’s amazing that any artist thrives at all. It’s a testament to your resilience that you persevere despite the roadblocks you encounter.
You do it because you have an unwavering commitment in the work you do. You can’t imagine doing anything else.
Still, because you are human, the criticism and rejection hurt.
And those voices are louder than any chorus of praise you might receive. The default for so many of us is to dwell on the negative comments and rejections and ignore all of the nice things that people say about our work.
Do this instead:
96 Strategies for Improving Art Business Results
It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If true, why do we continue to manage our art businesses the same way we did last year or the year before?
In order to see better results, you have to do something different.
I don’t share this list lightly. It’s got some things on it that could really shake up the status quo. They could skyrocket your success when implemented with sound counsel or just as easily fail miserably if you don’t have the proper knowledge and support in place.
I share it because it’s something I wanted for my own business—a list I could have at the ready when I sensed a necessary change. I wanted something to remind me of everything that is possible. To remind me that anything is possible when I commit to it.
In a sense, this is a master list of possibilities. You are not meant to use it as a checklist of items to tackle one at a time.
I encourage you to use this in the following situations.
- You are stuck or bored—creatively, financially, or mentally—and want a new project.
- You are seeing a drop-off in any aspect of your business.
- You want to make the most of a big exhibition or event you have coming up.
Let’s dive in.
The Art Biz ep. 82: Spring Cleaning to Streamline Your Art Business
Spring is here in the Northern Hemisphere and it’s the perfect time to consider the aspects of your life that are weighing you down without contributing to your happiness and success.
April is the month for cleaning out in the Art Biz Success community. In this episode of the Art Biz Podcast, I’m highlighting some of my previous interviews with artists who have discussed cleaning out in one form or another, from removing physical items to cleaning out business ideas and strategies, modes of working, and even the venues where you show and sell your art.
If you are ready to deep clean your art business, to release what isn’t serving you and banish all that is getting in the way of your productivity and creativity, then you won’t want to miss the insights and inspiration from these successful artists.
