Today I went to this thing they call first Monday in Texas which is really an antique, art, and flea market about 50 miles west of Dallas in Canton.
And there I saw every thing there is in arts and crafts. This huge event takes place every month so I am going to assume that the people showing there art must be selling or they would not be there.
If I had extra money I would have bought serveral things covering many different styles of artistic impression. As I talked with the various artists it seems none of them expect to get rich or expect fame. They are just looking to earn some money for the passion.
If an artist can sell enough to pay for new supplies, I would imagine they are satisfied. I feel they also benefit from getting a fair price for their work instead of someone ending up with the work just because it was a bargain. It certainly does rely on an experience dealer who will price the work based on quality and assertively promote sales of the artist's product.
I wouldn't be satisfied by just enough for supplies. Enough for supplies, food, shelter, and bills, yes. Enough for supplies, shelter, bills, a car, and supporting children/their education: much better. I dislike the romantic view that painting is fun and easy and painters shouldn't charge too much.
At least my clients throughout my involvement with selling art do not think art is just fun and certainly not easy. They have difficulty discerning between amatuer and professional work and so much of is presented as professional that is actually mediocre that it just adds to the confusion. There's no reason why a good artist can't price their work in substantiation of the quality of the work and make a living from painting. Going into commercial print is one course and usually means the artist makes money without having to sell the original work.
LW....I can see that representation by a gallery
would halve the artist's work. The business side
iis very time consuming when you consider framing,
marketing, transporting your work to various venues. But, the trick is to find a gallery that is
the right mix of promotion and not direction.....
Vivien...I dont frame my canvases either and
try to buy old frames when I can.....I want to
run screaming from the room when I see those
metal and glass combinations from the 70's and
80's.....Framing can really DATE a piece of art!
Actually from my experience (and I've noted this before in different words perhaps), a good gallery can get twice as much for the artists work than the artist can command. It is in the marketing, the presentation and the sales acumen -- all factors that artists have problems with. Many galleries will spring for the framing and deduct half the cost of the payment to the artist.
Lightwizard wrote:Actually from my experience (and I've noted this before in different words perhaps), a good gallery can get twice as much for the artists work than the artist can command. It is in the marketing, the presentation and the sales acumen -- all factors that artists have problems with. Many galleries will spring for the framing and deduct half the cost of the payment to the artist.
A good gallery is worth half of the money (if not more), and can be a positive force in an artist's career. A good gallery can even make or break an artist's career. However, most galleries (especially in small towns) just provide wall space (or worse - sift through on a stand space), and take that same 50%. It looks and sounds like you run a good gallery, farmerman, and work on the behalf of your clients. I want artists to be very cautious of who they show with and what they sign - there are a lot of people out there not looking out for the best interest of the artist.
The other alternative is an artists cooperative gallery where the artists share the overhead. This would still mean a percentage has to be paid into the gallery till from each sale, usually about 20%.
And I still don't understand characterizing the gallery as "taking" 50%. They purchase the work at what agreed price you are willing to sell it for and then double it. An artist cooperative also has to markup the art beyond what the artist is willing to accept. Also a gallery relationship depends upon the artist not selling any art directly to clients -- I know artists who have cut off their nose to spite their face by selling direct. This is after the gallery has established a salable market price by a good sales record of that artist's work. Pricing art is not an easy trick -- it has to do with many different factors.
In most co-operatives you have to spend a certain amount of time running the gallery, and they are not as successful. The galleries don't always purchace the work, sometimes they put it up and then if it sells, you get 50% and they get 50%, and if it doesn't sell after a certain time they return it. It also depends whether you have a long term contract with them or are in a show. I'm sure you have much more experience with gallery running than I do, but my few experiences and what Iv'e heard about galleries has been more negative than positive. Also, that once you find a really good honest gallery, you should stick with them. Iv'e been told to never sign a contract to be exclusive with a gallery unless in a major city like LA, Chicago, or New York, and it clearly benefits me. Iv'e never had a teacher who has reported only freindly experiences with galleries, and some of their stories are terrible. One of my teachers was so excited to get into a gallery she signed an exclusive contract with this guy in New York, she got paid on a sale basis. He never put up or showed her work, and she had to give it all to him. She said she had to physically threaten him/ threaten to hire a hit man to get her work back.
You do have to interview the gallery director and ask questions about the operation including some credit information. The second the gallery is not willing to give some references would be a time to walk. The best way is to get a referral from another artist who has worked with the gallery. Yes, there are bad contracts and bad galleries -- never sign a contract without an attorney looking at it. It's a couple of hundred dollars well spent. Your last statement about threatening is curious -- all it would take would be to call the police to keep the peace as one takes back their work. If it is simply a breach of contract in not showing the work and that is, in fact, in the contract then there are civil legal proceedures.
The 50% is based on what the gallery determines is the resale price. That is seldom the price the artist can command on their own. All consignment agreements should be for no more than six months and are likely to be ninety days. That is also to the gallery's advantage as it rotates the work on their wall. Never give a gallery more than they can hang -- your agreement with them should be a certain amount of wall space allocated to your work.
I certainly know how difficult it is to work with dealers -- just getting accepted in a reputable gallery is extremely difficult. The fear of rejection is a factor as well as a fear of committment in what is a business deal.
art
LW, I hope you know how much this sound advice is appreciated.
I'm happy to hear that from you especially, JL -- it may ease some of the pain of trying to break into the professional world of the arts but I'm just breaking the surface. It is very complex and doesn't always result in success stories. It certainly depends on the level of talent of each artist. Being discovered has some providence involved but it's really going out an getting some exposure. Keith Haring went down to the subways of NYC and began posting his drawings on the blank poster ad areas. He even suffered the embarassment of being ejected by the police until he actually began to get well known -- the police stopped bothering him. There are other obsticles besides the police! There's the art police -- the museum curators, art critics, et al. Commercial art galleries and publishers is really like looking for employment. Many do pay a salary (regardless of what they call it) and then purchase the works as well. Castelli has paid out millions in helping new artists get a start because he knew what he was looking at and knew it had a market.
(Beware the gallery whose principals and even the sales people have only a limited knowledge of art).
Yes thank you LW, for the 'insider information' which is very much appreciated.....
The best rejection I ever had from a gallery was
...."Dear SP, Sorry...your work doesn't fall into our (sales) niche, but you might want to try galleries x, y and z with whom your work seems more
aligned...." (some artistic license taken with the actual wording....)
I thought that was incredibly generous of the gallery owners and told them so......Some galleries didnt even return the page of slides that I
had laboriously submitted, taken at my own expense, labelled and sent with an s.a.e. ...........................aargghhh!!!
I am surprised the gallery would not return your slides -- cross them off your list. Did you try and call them to ask for the slides back? It is actually not a good idea to send unsolicited slides. A visit to the gallery and some kind of one-on-one over the phone where you get some kind of initial response that is encouraging is the way to go. Website can be useful as far as referring a contact to them (and some are actually free). This forum, if you subscribe, offers enough space although you can't sell through the forum. Actually, it's nearly impossible to sell through the Internet unless the artist's name is popular, then the visual is used more for reference that the image is the one the customer is looking from. As far as anyone browsing and coming up with an image they want to buy, forget it!
LW....yes, I sent unsolicited slides....Thanks for the sound advice not to do this! I did follow up with multiple phonecalls requesting their return.....The result....many excuses, no return of slides.....Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.......
My website has reaped many unexpected rewards.......
They likely round filed the slides and wouldn't admit it. It's like what happens to resumes when sent to human resources instead of the head of the department one want's a job with. Human resources files it away -- they don't want to take the time to get it to the proper department head.
A postcard may work better with three repros on it and a link to a Website. There's several cheap resources for printing postcards on the Web.
