Marketing art

I realized today I need to do more to market my art.

I already have the Gallery on this website, and add to it periodically whenever I have a few new paintings to write about, but I need something more to draw attention to this Gallery and to my art in general.

So, I decided upon a Newsletter: Follow the Artist Newsletter April 2018. This was after consulting Google for advice. I found Agora Gallery to have some great information that has been very helpful.

But, before I found Agora, I found a video of Stefan Baumann speaking to a group of artists about valuing our art. There were two very salient take-aways from what he had to say: first, to be consistent with pricing, and second, to honour the prices of our work at galleries and not undercut.

Pricing is difficult. Some paintings take just a few hours, other paintings take weeks or more, some we enjoy painting, others we detest (actually, I have never disliked painting although some have become a tad tedious). Should we value these the same if they are a similar size and medium? Apparently so. Mr. Baumann suggests no less than $2 per square inch of painting. So, an 8″ x 10″ would be 80″ square and so have a value of not less than $160.

I thought of my own paintings and the prices I have attached, and I don’t think any are more than $1 per square inch. Yesterday, I looked at the average pricing of art in Artique Art Gallery, where I show my work beside that of 30+ other artists. Hardly any reached the $2 per square inch mark.

Mr. Baumann’s suggestion is that artists work together to increase the value of their original paintings, and that people will still be there to purchase such creative finds.

His other point, about not undercutting the galleries showing our work, is pretty logical. A gallery may increase the prices of our work to accommodate their margin of commission. If that’s the case, then our own prices for similarly sized work should be the same if sold from our own studios.

As for Agora Gallery‘s information, the website is well worth taking a look through. There are some good instructional blogs for up-and-coming artists, such as myself.

In the meantime, here’s the Newsletter: Follow the Artist Newsletter April 2018.