At yesterday’s Art Marketing Action workshop in Evergreen, this question came up: “What do you call the people who buy art from you? Buyers? Customers?”
I suggest calling them patrons or collectors. The word “patron” has such a strong connection to art history. Patronage in the Early Renaissance and beyond led to incredible advances in art and the enhancement of public spaces.
I use the word “collectors” in my book, Cultivating Collectors, because that’s the intent of that publication: to encourage your buyers to collect your work again and again.
I am always way too caught up in a workshop to take pictures, so they usually happen after a lot of the group has already gone home. Here are a few people I was able to keep hostage for a bit longer at day's end. (With just enough time to spare to get home for the start of the Kentucky Derby and a mint julep.)
Longtime Art Marketing Action newsletter subscriber and client, Denise Bellon West, made it to the workshop.
Melissa Shipley, Center for the Arts Evergreen director Kimberly Moore, me, and Denise Bellon West ham it up for the blog.
1 thought on “You say customer, I say . . .”
In my field of fine art portraiture I call the people who buy, or more exactly, commission a portrait from me, “clients”. I guess it has to do with the collaborative nature of working out the commission details with them and meeting their expectations. Patrice Erickson Fine Art Portraits and Landscapes http://blog.patriceerickson.com http://www.patriceerickson.com