March 1, 2002
Dear Artist;
Stephen Kishel of Muncie, Indiana wrote: "I started welding when I was 7. With the help of a mentor I became serious about art when I was 16. At 17 I had a one-man show and traveled to Europe. When I returned I took 3 years of college and then worked in the family plastic business. I decided to get back to my sculpture. My wife has been very supportive. In the last 2 years I've been selling about $1500 per month. Currently I'm displaying my metal sculptures in 2 galleries and 4 restaurants. I usually create 2 new works per week, and I have created as many as 8 in one week working part time. Currently I have about 45 sculptures on display. Do you think if I expand to 20 outlets, I can support my family with my art?"
No reason why not, Stephen. You have the work habits, and you already have galleries that will show and sell your work. It's just a matter of going for the "hook-hours." That's a commercial fisherman's term for the number of hooks you have in the water and the number of hours you trawl. High hook-hours practically always lead to a decent catch.
Many artists thrive with a lot fewer outlets than you have in mind. I'd go more for galleries than restaurants. A good stable of galleries is the key to stability. Think of your galleries as places to park your work. It's like a Retirement Savings Plan. Galleries are investments that diversify the exposure, even out the fluctuating seasons and raise your fortune. Treat them all as special people. Keep them interested, informed and supplied.
The only possible problem with all this could be the quality of your work. As volume goes up quality must not go down. If you're cut out for it you may notice the secret miracle that's hard for some people to believe: When you push volume your imagination is stimulated, your facility increases, and your quality goes up. This also means you will have the hook-hours in the studio too.
Best regards,
Robert
PS: "Art and business may be strange bedfellows, but an artist must make room in her bed for both." (Eric Maisel)
Esoterica: The "Acceptance Ratio" is the yearly percentage of consigned works of art that are sold out of galleries from your supplied inventory. This can vary from 100% to about 20%. The quality of your work, the state of the economy and pricing are all factors. Incremental price-raising can retard or speed up acceptance. I think my high-end acceptance record was a painting that was in 11 galleries over 13 years before it finally found a discriminating connoisseur.
Stephen Kishel can be found at skishel@arrowheadinc.com
The following are selected responses to the above and other letters. Thank you for writing rgenn@saraphina.com
+Dead galleries
Do you really think galleries are the #1 selling place for art? Unless one is in a "artsy town", where people actually flock to see and buy art, I notice that most galleries are "dead". After 20 years, I find that ANYPLACE with walls and wealthy people are more probable venues to sell art. For example; corporation foyers, churches, libraries and cafes. However, I do like some of the galleries, which actually serve as a co-op, and the artist pays a monthly rent. There is either low or no consignment.
I am in four galleries, and feel more comfortable putting on a show in my living-room!
Nina Callingnina@aol.com
(RG note) 10% of the galleries do 90% of the business. So yes,
many are essentially dead. The idea is to pick the live ones. "Arty towns," in
my experience, often harbor more arty folks than arty buyers. And co-ops are great for as
long as artists cooperate.
+Two galleries
One thing you forgot to mention in the hook-hours equation is the fact that some galleries
are pretty near useless. As a case in point I have two galleries that are next door to
each other. One is excellent. They make friends with everyone that comes in. They
don’t show work that competes with mine and they pay regularly and always fairly. The
other one makes a mistake once in a while and happens to sell something, but they are
often surly and condescending to customers. They have a fraction of the traffic of the
other one. They are always complaining about "the economy". To top it off they
try to educate people on what they ought to buy. I only have them because they are
supposedly old friends. They tie up my paintings, drag down my acceptance ratio, and it is
all I can do to get my work out of there and into galleries that know what they’re
doing.
(Name withheld by request)
+How to make money?
I have trouble giving my work to galleries because the standard 50% commission seems so
high. I feel I put much more care and effort into each painting than any gallery will give
back. I have to start making $$ with my art soon and am leaning more towards print work,
publishing, etc., but in truth, I know little about these matters too. What is your
opinion on the best way to make $$ with painting? Of course, it will differ from person to
person and is highly dependent on style, but generally speaking, what can you advise?
Sharla Mica Laurin, thewhimmed@yahoo.com
(RG note) The short answer is that you need good art and you need
someone who thinks it’s good art--other than your mom. It’s also good to have
more than one person who thinks it’s good art. If they happen to be in a position to
sell it for you, you’re laughing. That’s the short answer. The long answer is
the same only it’s longer. I’ll give you my long answer in an upcoming letter.
Thanks for the suggestion.
+Niche or noose?
I'm a playwright, with some measure of professional success. It's
interesting that today's letter focuses on hook hours (which is a great term, by the way)
and, by implication, explores the issue of creation as commodity. I'm in a situation right
now in which I've been taken to task, in a way, by the artistic director of a theatre
company for having "too many irons in the fire", for putting too many hooks into
the water, in other words, he's afraid I'm coming across as writing for the money as
opposed to responding to some kind of genuine creative impulse. In the first place, I'm
just trying to make a living doing what I've been called to do, what fuels my life and
makes me happy. To do that, I too have to make the sale. But there's a real difference, I
believe, between the work of a sculptor or painter and the work of other creative artists
- dramatic writers, composers, poets, short story writers, people whose works can't be
sold through a gallery. A visual artist can do as you suggest, essentially park a project
in a gallery, and wait for the "discriminating connoisseur" to come along. With
a play or short story or screenplay you can't do that. So how do you avoid coming across
as a Fuller Brush Salesman - desperate to make a sale / get your work in front of the
public / move your career forward, offering brush after brush (play after play after story
after story). As a writer, it seems to me to be a good idea to first of all keep the
process going, create as much as you can while challenging yourself to explore new ways of
working, themes, characters, styles, etc. As such, you could easily develop a filing
cabinet full of commodity, of all kinds of different pieces so when the lightning strike
actually occurs, you're ready to take advantage of it. So where's the balance? How do
non-visual creative artists cast their hooks without coming across as dilettantes, or
hucksters, or both? Does the answer lie in focusing on your own hook hours, on working on
projects that are creatively satisfying AND marketable? But which comes first? In my
experience the projects I've had the most success with are the ones I'm driven to do, that
I NEED to do. But I'm INTERESTED in a lot of projects, some of which I have more interest
in from outside producers than I have DRIVE to write them. Is there something about
finding a niche in there as well? Neil Simon found his niche and has had a deeply
profitable career for however many years. As did Agatha Christie; Margaret Atwood;
Robertson Davies; JK Rowling. They started from something they loved, felt driven to do,
but when does "niche" become trap? Or rut? Or dead horse? Is the bottom line
just being, for lack of a better phrase, true to your muse, and just accepting that there
is no clear way to ending the struggle?
Gordon Portman gjportman@hotmail.com
+Free promo
Stephen Kishel might be interested in something a metal sculptor in Toronto did recently.
He designed and sculpted a new sign for City TV--for FREE. He delivered it and left it on
the sidewalk. He didn't charge for the piece but he got a lot of news coverage, and a
special by the TV station on him on his work.
Elsha Leventis, Toronto, Ontario eleventis@yahoo.com
+Movement forward
Regarding "The Assertive Eye" letter: http://www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/assertive.htm
I had come to that exact revelation in my own process in the past two weeks. I had been
working this way for a number of years to greater of lesser degrees, but these past weeks
have made clear to me how real this process is and that I must not doubt it even slightly.
I realized the depth of trust I am coming to now and it is the only way. It keeps the
process open and spontaneous. It also encourages the inclination to just keep moving, like
your description in today's letter about riding a bike. It is so true, movement forward is
a necessity, and once you let hesitation in or self-consciousness/doubt in then you lose
the positive activity of painting and the magic. In the state of trust and movement the
painting paints itself, the artist just stays clear and receptive. Every color, line or
aspect I add seems to lead naturally to the next.
Linda Saccoccio, NY, NY saccoccio@earthlink.net
+Spontaneity
The first response in the last "clickbacks" titled "Just Go and Shoot" by photographer Bruce Meisterman (in the Assertive Eye letter, see url in letter above) got me thinking about spontaneity. So students are asking if intent gets in the way of spontaneity. Interesting. In this generation that expects instant gratification, has spontaneity come to mean only random surprises? Some definitions of spontaneous are: proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external constraint: controlled or directed internally: SELF-ACTING: developing without apparent external influence, force, cause, or treatment: not apparently contrived or manipulated: NATURAL. What I found interesting in the definition was where the energy or action comes from and the implied importance of perception. Spontaneity is not apparently influenced or pre-conceived. Spontaneity is purely internal. "Without external influences" implies that spontaneity is unique for each individual. It seems the search for spontaneity is the search for self. Spontaneity = naturalness. This is why artists value seeing the world in a childlike manner. It is discovery without preconceptions. It is pure joy. And it is not random. To "shoot with intent" probably means to reach for what is uniquely and purely our own. Intent is a tool, not an obstacle, to seek spontaneity.
Kelly Borsheim, Cedar Creek, Texas kelly@borsheimarts.com
+Art bookkeeping
Can you recommend a good bookkeeping system that will work
well for a painter? I often get confused because our product is different than others. I
need a hands-on, plug-in-the-numbers formula so I can get organized and do more marketing
and actually comprehend what everything means.
Anne Barga, Los Osos, California, USA annebarga@msn.com
(RG note) You might take a look at Gallery Soft. They have software designed especially for art galleries and artists. Systems for bookkeeping, client contact, inventory control, commissions, etc
They have a website at www.gallerysoft.com
The cost is about $250.
+Contest entries
"East Idaho" Thomas Szewc tom@expressivecolor.com
"Red Umbrellas" Neil Loewen nloewen@paralynx.com
"Patterns in the pass" Lorna Dockstader docstadl@cadvision.com
"Edge of Day" Jack Bartlett jlb10@ra.msstate.edu
"Ol’ Leroy II" David Nunneley DNUNNELEY@fwmurphy.com
"West Coast Spirit II" Annette Waterbeek beek@intergate.ca
(RG note) The above are a few more of the 90 or so entries that have come in since the contest was announced last Tuesday. They are not necessarily finalists in the "Free Painting Workshop in Brittany with Robert Genn" contest. You can get more information on this contest and workshop at http://www.painterskeys.com/workshops.htm The contest is open until June 15, 2002. Cost of the workshop is US$2350. The Robert Genn information for Phil Levine Workshops Inc. is at http://www.paintingfrance.com/Robert_Genn.htm
Thanks to all who have so far entered the contest. Every one of your entries has been placed in a separate archive which is housed on my studio computer. This will be added to as more come in. When the contest finishes on June 15 this complete file will be electronically passed on to four jurors. You can send examples of your work at any time before that date. There is no cost for entering. The names of the jurors will be announced at www.painterskeys.com They are all professional artists or art educators and represent different disciplines. They will be independently asked to choose what they think are the fifteen most deserving artists. They will be given a couple of weeks to make up their minds. Each choice will constitute one vote. By averaging what we expect will be multiple votes for some artists we will be able to choose the ten artists who receive the most votes. These ten finalists will be put into an old top hat that I have around here and one will be pulled out by Robert McMurray, the current President of the Federation of Canadian Artists. The winner will be notified by email. A representative sample of the winner’s work--and the work of other finalists--will be displayed here and at other affiliated sites. All finalists will receive a free copy of The Painter’s Keys book.
In the event that the winner of the contest has already signed up for the Brittany
Workshop, (September 20 to 30th, 2002) his or her deposits will be refunded and
air transportation from anywhere in the world will be looked after as well. Artists who
wish to send regular photos of their work may send it to R Genn, 12711 Beckett Rd.,
Surrey, B C. Canada, V4A 2W9. These will be scanned and transferred to our contest
archive. Thanks.
þ
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