The Business of Art

BY MARIA SONNENBERG
FOR FLORIDA TODAY

Partly through a desire for self-preservation, gallery owner Angela St. Amant decided it was time to teach artists about running the business of creating.

St. Amant, who has a full-time job with Oracle and also operates LoPressionism Gallery of Fine Art in downtown Melbourne, was tired of coping with the cluelessness of artists trying to sell through her gallery.

As part of her gallery programs, St. Amant conducts artists' workshops on successful marketing.

For many creative individuals, the image of the starving artist is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ignorant of proper business practices, they set themselves up for failure.

"Artists can be their own worst enemies," said Frits Van Eeden, a prolific and highly respected painter and sculptor who readily admits to his own business failings.

"I'm the worst businessman," Van Eeden said. "I could have done much better if I had had better instincts."

The crux of the problem might lie in the fact that artists tend to be right-side-of-the-brain people who depend on their creative skills but underutilize their powers of analysis.

"Because they tend to think along a different track, it's easier for them to focus on the things that are fun, rather than analytical," said Nancy Dillen, a successful working artist and former art professor at Brevard Community College. "I try to tell them they have to use both sides of the brain -- that they have to be a whole person."

Dillen taught a "business of art" class at BCC before she retired last spring.

The classes were a result of Dillen's realization that many of her students, though very talented, would never make it in the art world without some practical advice.

"I had a strong feeling that art students needed some practical instruction on what it was needed to be a professional artist," she said. "They love to do the artwork, but have an awful time doing the marketing and planning."

In her classes, she stressed the need to present a professional package from the get-go and to follow through with the commitment.

One of the course requirements was to develop a detailed business plan.

"I asked them to follow their passion and to develop a one-year and a five-year plan, and to keep good records of what they spent and the hours they worked," she said.

"I always encouraged them to take a small-business class."

Proper approach

St. Amant tackles the same issues in her class at LoPressionism.

She's found there are plenty of artists out there who could use the help.

"I see so many artists trying to circumvent the process," St. Amant said.

Through her experience as galley owner, she's found that 90 percent of artists have unrealistic expectations from galleries and the art business in general.

"I have artists coming in to show me their work without any kind of appointment, or they tell that their art doesn't photograph well, and expect me to go look at their work somewhere," St. Amant said.

Like all gallery owners, she has little patience for that kind of attitude.

"All venues have some form of submission process, as do we," she said.

"With two full-time jobs, on the rare occasion I do get a day off, the last thing I feel like doing is tracking down some artist who refuses to respect the process," St. Amant said. "I feel like telling them that, unless their art is serving me margaritas on the beach, it's probably not going to get seen by me."

"Only about 10 percent of artists are doing a very good job of marketing themselves and successfully making a living off their art," St. Amant said.

Of the remaining 90 percent, St. Amant feels about 30 percent are unreachable.

"These are artists who don't think they need formal education or won't follow instructions, and expect that they will discovered and become famous when someone walks into a place where they have their art displayed," St. Amant said. "They may have some great art, but if they're not marketable, they don't have a chance of being successful. The odds are stacked against them."

According to St. Amant, the others realize they need to sharper their business acumen if they hope to succeed.

"About 60 percent of the artists I've been exposed to are truly yearning to know how to do the right thing to market themselves," St. Amant said.

Artist's representatives

Although some artists can devote the considerable time required to use a business model, many, try as they might, cannot generate enough output and manage their business, too.

For them, an artist's representative can be a career-saver.

St. Amant knows that creating art is a full-time job, so she encourages her students to consider hiring a rep to handle the "dirty" work of marketing and record-keeping.

She even offers two-for-one pricing for her classes.

"I tell the students that, for the same price, they can bring one person who might be interested in representing them," she said.

A willing spouse or friend often can take over the business tasks, allowing the artist the freedom to create.

"Most of the successful national artists have someone representing them," St. Amant said.

The job of the rep is to handle the day-to-day contacts with the public and the galleries -- for a cut of the sales.

A rep also can help the artist establish realistic pricing structures.

Setting the price

Pricing is a serious issue in the field.

"The artist has to decide what his time is worth," St. Amant said. "Most of the time, they have no track of time spent on a work, and value their time much higher than is realistic."

She urges participants in her course to abide by a pricing formula that takes into consideration a reasonable hourly rate, plus cost for materials and overhead.

A painting that costs about $150 to produce, for example, then would wholesale for $300, and retail in galleries for around $600.

"That way, the prices are always consistent," St. Amant said.

If the artist chooses to sell a similar work out of his or her home or at an outdoor show, St. Amant advises that the artist maintains the same price structure.

"Undercutting the gallery is one way to tick off the gallery owners," she said.

Reproducing work

For many emerging artists, one way to earn a decent living is to price the works reasonably, and thus garner a larger audience.

"That means making something that can be reproduced and is more affordable to the general public," St. Amant said.

Digital artist Maria Eames, who comes from a corporate background, has found that her limited-edition, hand-embellished giclees are a way to make her art more marketable.

"My corporate sales experience helped me tremendously," she said.

"Your art is your product," Eames said. "You have to get used to a realistic view of its worth."

By producing the high-quality digital prints known as giclées, Eames can attract more customers than by simply selling one original at a time.

"With limited editions, you put the art out there to so many more people," she said.

Dillen advised her students to first check out the competition.

"Go to the shows and the galleries, and talk with other artists," she said. "Start out with prices that are reasonable. You can always go up."

For stained-glass artist Angelika Traylor, making a living at her art means striking a balance between exciting large-scale commissions -- such as the work she completed for the chapel at Holmes Regional Medical Center -- with the production of small, reasonably priced works that sell easily at retail outlets.

"The large works sort of fall into my lap, but I fill with in with a lot of work for galleries and gift shops," she said.

Whatever the medium they choose, artists must acknowledge the need to market themselves, either by their own efforts or those of a rep, on a consistent, daily basis.

"They must be ready before they even face the public," Dillen said.

It's not a one-time effort, either, she added.

"You're not an artist unless you're doing it every day," Dillen said.