Representing yourself as a visual artist
Creating your brand from scratch :
I started representing myself out of necessity. With the gallery scene temporarily closed, Artists are going to have to get creative with how we share, explore and sell our work. Lucky for you, I've been practicing this model for the last 5 years successfully. I have been painting since I was a small child and by the time I jumped ship from my day job to do art full time I was already sitting on a pretty large collection of oil paintings, drawings, and poetry. As I began to explore the gallery network I kept running into the same thing…
“We are not accepting new artists at this time.”. “We book exhibitions a year or more in advance and we are already booked though 20…blah blah blah.” “We only represent artists with a large instagram following.” After years of pursuing my dream independently when I went back through the galleries… I was “We have trouble representing artists who represent themselves and have their own collectors” aka… we like to hide all your collectors from you so you can never make money without needing the gallery.
Let me start by saying, some galleries do take wonderful care of their artists, they build careers, handle the work and the collectors with care and respect, get artists intt shows internationally and represent you passionately. This relationship is worth having and I would say in my experience is a rarity until you're already in the art door. This step through the door takes an incredible amount of time and ambition, an incredible amount of money or an incredible amount of luck.
Other galleries I am convinced are only middle men and should not even be a part of the system. They take 50% of the sale. Let me say that again, because often I have to repeat it to people outside of the art world. A standard gallery commission is 50% and sometimes 60% in favor of the gallery, Now let me ask you, how would the world function if every time someone put their life towards something, right at the moment of being paid for their efforts the person who hired you took half your check… for giving you the job in the first place. Our world would collapse. Galleries take this fee because it is indeed a lot of work to sell art. It's a lot of work to create original events, remain fresh in the marketing scene, remain current with the ebbs and flow of the scene and run a fulfilling art business.
Pros of signing with a gallery
Pros
Collector Filter: Sometimes a filter between you and the client can be good. It can be tough to wear all the hats. The salesperson and the artist, as the artist is often an enigmatic individual and the business person has to be on point, educated, and appeal to a variety of people of different wealth backgrounds, ethnicities, ages and even corporations.
Time for more art : A good gallery should take care of the business piece for you so you can dedicate more time to creating great art for the people.
Transparency of payment: An honest gallery will have no problem providing copies of collector receipts for the price they sold the work for.
Art handling and crating and delivery insurance : This should be handled by the gallery.
Marketing: A good gallery will get you published in reputable magazines and online publications, have art critics attend your event, throw beautiful openings, and have proper documentation of your work.
Connections that lead to more work: Galleries that work with corporations, businesses and brands who can help promote your work through a variety of products, marketing, videos and publications. This builds your portfolio and brand potential as an artist.
All of these hurdles you can achieve through your own independent practice as your art business grows. You can hire people to sell your work for you, you can reach out to brands, you can control assets and profits, and you make sure everything is packaged, delivered, lit and installed properly. In doing so you will establish direct relationships with those collecting your work, you will create creative jobs for like minded individuals around you and from there you will grow, grow, grow!
Cons : (speaking broadly)
Paycheck cut in half : Artist only keeps 50% of their profit and at times only 40%
The Hidden Collector: They hide collector information from you, so you can not keep up with the individuals or follow where your collection actually is.
Damage : Art work could potentially be damaged in their hands, i’ve seen it more times than not.
Risky business : Dishonest galleries will charge more than they are telling the artist and keep the profit for themselves. Payments should always be made on time to the artist, at the time of sale of the work
Non compete clause: A gallery will have non compete clauses dedicated to the area, sometimes the city, state, nation or even country depending on the status of that gallery. This means the artist has to travel to expand or stay with the same gallery for x amount of time. If the gallery is not selling their work enough to create a livable lifestyle, the artist and creation of more work suffers.
The Social Media Revolution
Instagram changed everything for artists. Now at the click of a button artists' lives, studio, words, exhibitions, vacations and destinations are plastered on our tiny screens. Artists have now been connected to the public eye directly, no longer allowing for brick and mortar galleries to create walls. With Instagram, artists are able to explore environments beyond the exhibition space taking public art to an entire other level. Artists are tapping into social causes, creating expansive festival environments, shifting the perspective of our cities with their clever innovations on how to get society to pay attention.
Furthermore, the art of Instagram has become something in and of itself. Photography has skyrocketed as a personal hobby, anyone doing anything is trying to share their life in a new way. The ever growing list of instagramable activities continues to inspire the world with a rapidly evolving platform… moment to moment. Instagram is a window into the world RIGHT NOW. It's an impressive window to the complexity of humanity and our sheer attraction to the strange, absurd, hilarious, innovative, tactile, inspirational, cute, intelligent, spiritual and motivational views of the world all sitting quietly in our pockets. Well quietly until we hear a “Ping!”. Deep down, we are addicted to Instagram because we are addicted to each other. We are addicted to the knowledge of sharing, the comparison, the global expansion, the polarizing content that allows us to enrich our very values.
Instagram gave artists a real platform, a way to make profit, to represent themselves, to grow an individual brand, to connect with the entire world from anywhere in the world. Instagram is a total game changer for the art world, it is the beginning of the death of the artist being troubled, poor, unattainable and mysterious. It is with this portal that we are allowed to truly expose and exploit our individual experience to the masses to whatever degree we so please.
Representing yourself
It started out as a necessity and grew to a full time job, a flourishing business and even more than that a poetic way of life. Representing myself as an artist gave me total freedom of my life. I worked hard, I stayed focused on the bigger picture, while filling in the shapes on the smaller ones. I allowed my own paintings to slowly dictate the crowd I was going to be speaking to. My days began to run tougher on a self made schedule where I could enjoy the components of my community in a more direct way which later on allowed me create a following of people. I tapped into things that helped me throughout my painting process and my daily life as a breathing human being. I learned more deeply about yoga, mediation, cooking, musical instruments, literature, philosophy and from there I continued my self propelled education. All of these things brought me to more like minded people, some of which became collectors. When you do the work yourself, you keep 100%. The first time I held the profit of a five figure sale in my hand, I never turned back.
The business grew from there, the profits grew along with my vacations, my followers and my ideas. My entire lifestyle became so interwoven with who I am and what I want to say that I knew there was something to this way of living and being. It is different from what the western world will teach you. It is a 24/7 dedication to the self that can be monetized into something that will continue to give back to you and your community.
Kels Artist Book Recommendations:
Chris Voss: Never Split the Difference
Miki Agrawal : Disrupt-Her
Marina Abromovic : Walk Through Walls
Anna Deavere Smith : Letters to a Young artist
Mark Manson: The subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
Robert Greene : The Art of Seduction
Gary Vaynerchuk - Crush It, cash in on your passion
Michael Shnayerson : Boom; Mad Money, Mega dealers, and Contemporary Art
Eric Fromm : The Sane Society
Jerry Saltz : How to be an artist