06/20/2010: "Artbusiness.com"

My goal is to read one article from this site everyday until I've read all the articles. I've probably read most of them before already but they are helpful and sometimes I need reminding.

For example, there's an article about how to add value to your work by including more info about each piece. That is one of my goals moving forward as an artist. To keep better records of each piece in progress, and to keep notes about what went into each piece etc. I did this for 5 or 6 of the paintings in my current show where I used photos and narrative to show the progression of a piece from start to finish. Of all the things people commented on from the show, I got the most positive feedback about that. People seem to really enjoy seeing the behind-the-scenes process.

I bought a cheap mini camcorder that should come in on Tuesday. I plan to take a short video showing my new pieces in the gallery and I'll include this section that breaks down each step that went into some of the pieces...and hopefully I can set up the projected part of the show as well. We'll see if this new camera's any good.

Stay tuned...

Replies: 2 Comments

on Monday, June 21st, marja-leena said

Way to go, Elise! I'm so behind the 'business' end of my art that I still haven't put up my last year's work on my blog! My studio is an awful mess because I have no more room to store my prints so they are piled on my work table! I keep putting off a difficult job...

on Monday, June 21st, Elise said

wow marja-leena, I just re-read my post and it sounds really confusing...what I was talking about is that for 6 paintings in my current show, I included photos of the paintings at various stages of completion along with narrative describing my process and what changes were made to each piece and why. People really seemed to like that! Only one piece sold that I didn't write about and photograph (out of show of 20) so this is proof to me that people like the "value added" bit, which is what Alan Bamburger wrote about on artbusiness.com called How to Make Your Artwork Worth More Money http://www.artbusiness.com/orvxt.html

But yes, attending to the business part of things can be *very* hard for us artists. I laughed about where your prints are spread out, because mine are spread out on the floor of my studio!!!

One step at a time!