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I’ve always been an artist, but for many years I was an artist/waitress. I think having a flexible job is KEY for creatives who are passionate about making great work, establishing their voice, exhibiting it to the world, and selling it.  All of these activities take time, energy, and creativity. I like to say that building a business as an artist takes the same amount of creativity it took to make your art in the first place. 

I’ve seen a lot of artists take a highly demanding job that sucks their creative energy, and when this happens the art is the first thing that suffers. So in the part of your art journey that requires you to have an external money source, chose a job that’s flexible, emotionally undemanding, and straightforward.  In this gig culture there are TONS of ways to make money that can support your art passion.

For me, being a waitress was THAT job and I can genuinely say I loved it.  In time, the point came when I was able to leave my waitress job because my art was making enough money to support my life. Today, I want to tell you the 6 things I did to make it possible. 

Make Art in a Series

The first thing I did to create a successful art business was to make art in a series. The only way to reliably sell art is to become known for a style and an identity.  The only way to become known for a style and an identity is to well, create art in a series.  That means the individual works of art will be connected in theme, color palette, medium, or subject.  Your work will naturally evolve and grow over time. This is similar to a musician that creates different albums that represents different phases of their development, but the songs in each album are cohesive. Just like the musician example, you’ll need to set up perimeters on your artistic practice.  Not incidentally, doing something over and over is the way you can get VERY good at what you’re doing.  Your art is the base of this pyramid, and if you make a bunch of work that’s all over the place, you’ll never develop technical excellence or a unique expression.

Learn to Photograph and Video Your Art

The second thing I did was to learn how to photograph my work and to incorporate video. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to use social media, or if you don’t need to develop a website because you only want to show in galleries, these days you’ll need to have a digital portfolio.  A gallery may chose to visit your studio, but usually they will ask for a website link or JPEGs to understand what your work is like. If your images are blurry, dark, or with goofy color castes, it will not show your work in the “best light”, and you won’t get far. Learning the art of fine art documentation is a required skill for artists and there’s no getting around it. I’ve been learning how to document my work since the days of film photographs and slides, and believe me, digital photography is a HUGE improvement. 

Pay Attention to Social Media

Which brings me to the third thing I did to build my art business, social media.  More than simply posting to social, I paid attention to new platforms, new features, and trends.  To do that, I had to have excellent digital images and photographs of my art and art practice, and I also needed to use video.  Social media platforms are in a tight, competitive market, and they are constantly evolving to keep up. If you can keep up with this evolution, it can really benefit you.  These platforms will put algorithmic clout behind their new features. I experienced this with Instagram stories, IGTV, carousel posts, and finally reels.  What’s next? I don’t know but I’ll do my best to ride that pony! 

Website, Mailing List, and Shop Updates

Which leads me to steps 4, 5, and 6.  The last three things I did are as follows…I built a commerce website with Squarespace, I created and grew an art email list, and I sold my art in a shop update rhythm.  Using these things together looks like this: I pulled my followers from social media to my website, where I asked for their email list, and then I emailed them every 4 to 6 weeks when I initiated a shop update. 

I do marketing on social media, where I let people know I have art for sale, but most of my sales are directly due to my emails letting my list know that art was for sale.  Having a shop update rhythm works great both for my studio practice because I can batch my time and focus on one thing at a time. This rhythm also works for my collectors, who are more compelled to purchase art because of scarcity and urgency. 

Now, if you haven’t already guessed, this whole journey had a lot of ups and downs.  There were lulls and there were dead ends. After witnessing many successful artists, I would say that each path is wildly unique and individual.   In my membership  Art Revenue Coaching (ARC), we dive into the specifics of this journey, and support artists on their way! If you want to check it out, go to https://www.josielewis.com/arc and throw your name on the waiting list.