There's a fellow artist and friend whom I admire, and who — about 18 months ago — made the decision to be a full-time artist and attempt to "make a living" exclusively from her art.
That's a bold, brave and scary move... particularly in view of the fact that only maybe 1% of artists actually make a living from their art. For most of us, this is a part-time gig.
Whereas she is still having somewhat of a hard time of it, one of the things I have really come to admire about her is her relentlessness in always talking about her art, always posting to social media, and constantly putting herself "out there," regardless of whether it was a really good week, or nothing has sold in 10 days.
In other words, she doesn't let "how she's feeling about things" interfere with her relentless full-saturation marketing style.
Anyway, it also reminded me of an artist I knew many years ago — she made rather beautiful and mystical jewelry — and I signed up for her email list... and boy, did I get a lot of email! She had some new offer, or some new announcement or story, virtually every day.
Personally, I found it somewhat annoying and had to unsubscribe after a while... but her jewelry business did end up becoming quite successful. Again, she was quite relentless with her marketing of her work.
Which, then, brings me to the potential realization that using my own response to art marketing is perhaps not what I should be doing to help build business. Moreover, what if people like myself who'll unsubscribe if there's too much marketing are actually not representative of the art BUYING public, just of the art appreciating public?
I am definitely not an impulsive shopper, and I am also not someone who's likely to randomly shell out $25, $100 or more just because "That's cool, gotta have it!"
The potential danger here is that it can be a mistake to market our art "as we would market it to ourselves," because we are actually poor representatives of our potential buyer base.
Sometimes asking "What would I do in this situation?" is not actually the right question! Which might also explain why artists are often not very good at marketing and selling their work.
But if I decide that this relentlessness is a good working strategy, there's still the question of whether or not I have the discipline to follow through with it.
Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
Because I am trying to make some semblance of income — a part time living, even — I now add this footer to all my posts, in the hope that someone, somewhere, might decide to take a further look at my work, and perhaps consider supporting independent art.
Thank you, in advance, for your consideration and support!
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2025.07.01 AS-TXT-332/302