The good news is that in spite of the economic woes that are obviously world wide, we find that “having” to sell to pay bills makes us more creative, taps into set aside skills and opens the door to continued creativity!  IF you want guarantees, a magic bullet, a secret to success…well there are plenty of people out there professing to know the answers-go see them!

But if you have figured out that maybe, just maybe, success in what you do is down to hard work and that there is no ONE answer or secret, then everything we have written so far has made an impression on you! And we have done our job:-)

So are you a problem solver? Or are you still blaming everyone but yourself for your lack of what you consider to be success? Do you meet every suggestion with a whiny voice “But I tried that and it didn’t work!”? Things are changing daily. Look at what was available 20 years ago, 10 years ago and look what is available electronically today! How are you sending mail? How are you communicating?  But marketing means you are marketing not just your art product but your skills as a communicator.  Can’t communicate well? Then FIND someone to help you!  Seriously folks…when I make a suggestion and get a bunch of whiners who say “But, but, but…..” then I am speaking to the wrong entrepreneur and you need to keep your day job! Plain and simple. An entrepreneurial artist FINDS solutions and answers and does not offer up excuses as to why something will not or did not work. I have heard EVERY problem imaginable from artists concerning their careers and when my every suggestion is met with a negative, I am wasting my time. You fall down, you get up. You get lost, find a map. You need sympathy? Go to your mom.  Honestly artists, if you want success in your area of expertise, forget everything you ever learned in art school about selling your art and start listening to artists who sell.

Having said that, guess what? We have tried to help you-Don’t try to stab us in the back! We have had artists post on our Facebook pages, show up  where we are, steal our articles to promote their own “how to sell your art” sites, try to monopolize our time at a show for free advice (surely worth a cup of coffee?) Seriously? Get your own life!  I solved many of the unethical problems by simply slowing down my postings, not giving our locations or specifics and in general, spending more time in the areas in which we do ourselves the most good!

Art is all about problem solving-from creating your art to how to sell it. There are NO shortcuts. If, after all these years you are still waiting for me to give you the key to success, well you’re too late. You could have been there by now. So today you have to make a decision-re-think your goals and get to work or  not.  Yes. It’s that simple.   BUT, if you decide that maybe the life of a full time artist is not for you, have the courtesy and maturity to accept that decision as one that YOU have made and not “blame” your spouse, your job, your kids or life in general for your decision!

Enjoy what you have and be happy!

I’ll try to keep up the newsletters but honestly, only those art gurus NOT creating art are the ones who go on and on about how YOU too can be an artist . I like to think that those of us who do live our lives as self employed artists, share the same highs and lows that artists from every previous century have faced. None of them had the time nor was it even an ideal, to wonder about “what is art?” They worked at the craft they were best suited to and that helped them make a living. Period.

So in keeping with evaluating the ROI on our time writing articles on making a living as an artist, it will be easier and more cost effective to share a few things here and there via Facebook. Because honestly, if you have not taken up the challenges to become an artist in the 5 years we have been sharing our knowledge, then you simply aren’t going to.  This lifestyle is not for the faint of heart.

SO pop over, add your comments, get inspired.

Theresa and Steve

This past year I have made more of a transition to  our Facebook page …and that’s to help me out. I pretty much work all the blogs, newsletters, etc.  single handed. So if there are far fewer posts that is the reason! Of course all of you are all welcome to add your comments, recommendations, etc here and on our FB page!

The other reason I have not posted as much is, yes, you guessed it, work!. As artists whose every bill is paid solely from the sales of our art, our priority is creating and selling our art.

So I have about 20 minutes this morning, here in front of the fire with hot coffee on a cold rainy (and not sure why it’s not snowing!) 37 degree morning here in NC. We plan to leave to see family in Pennsylvania tomorrow where I KNOW there is snow and return just after New Years.

We worked our tails off this month! Steve painted enough to need ice on his shoulder each night a week before Christmas and I kept just as busy with the portraits, the deliveries , the art classes and the displays. We both were zapped with some creeping crud around Thanksgiving and hacked our way through the studio for two weeks…but hey, we got through it!  There is an old saying “Make hay while the sun shines” and for every month where the sales are overwhelming, there are two months where they are so so and 1, sometimes  2 during the year where I wonder what a regular paycheck would feel like! Then I remember the days where I did not want to work and drove through the countryside at random, walked wooded trails or took out a kayak or spent the day working in my herb and flower garden or just messed about with random art for the fun of it….and I think “Nah-h-h!”

So we’ll be sending out Jan newsletter when we return and I will share just HOW we are able to “live the life of an artist”.  SO if that doesn’t keep you on pins and needles, nothing will
To see that Steve and I are real people, below is a list of our FB pages. Don’t like or use FB? You should…many of our collectors respond quicker to our messaging through FB than even the phone!

Happy NEW Year!

Theresa    www.facebook.com/MTheresaBrown
Steve         http://www.facebook.com/stephen.filarsky

www.facebook.com/artcareerexperts

I don’t think I ever knew if my dad was naturally neat or if his years in the military honed his skills, but the fact remains that his legacy is with me always when I am tempted to leave the yard tools out, not unload the dishwasher or more importantly for my art business, after using supplies in the art studio.

My dad’s workshops, wherever we lived, had vast expanses of pegboard with items not only hung up but outlined with marker. His rationale, when asked, was that if there was an empty hook,  he knew what was missing by the outline and could look for it or  find the culprit who borrowed it and did not put it back. Nails, screws, wire, electrical thingies, all were sitting in clear plastic (“they don’t break,” he said) instant coffee jars on shelves. Everything had a place, and everything was in it’s place.

It’s hard to argue with that logic.

I think I rebelled for awhile. I am not anal neat. But I am, I discovered, anti-clutter. Weird. When it gets to the point where I feel there is too much clutter in every room, everywhere….my brain rebels and the “clean slate” mentality takes over and my family hustles. Ask my 4 kids who knew that if mom says she was going into their rooms the next day with a big black trash bag, ( after repeated, useless efforts to get them to do it themselves)  she WOULD fill it and she WOULD take it to the dump.  The amazing result of this happening, get this, one time, was that it never happened again (go figure).  After the first event, I would only have to give fair warning and it was like I switched on  hidden kid motivation motors and the room cleaning activity by four kids went into 4th gear.  They were too bent to the tasks in their rooms for me to see the eye rolling or hear the muttered comments, but I didn’t care. Everything was going into….some place.

The kids are all on their own now and there are only two people to blame if the clutter gets bad. My artist husband does not have my father’s sense of cleaning up behind himself. He too has seen the results of my anti-clutter blitz. He may think that as a spouse he is exempt to my one woman war on “shit everywhere”, but he knows better. Just like my kids, too much stuff means you don’t really know what you have, even when it is gone.  And the Goodwill is all the better for it.

Now let me clarify that it takes a lot to get me to the blitz mode. It is bad. It is 2 days of dirty dishes in the sink, paths through the studio,  unloaded art supplies from the vehicles from shows, classes, exhibitions…..all set inside the door like the area around the top of some attic stairs. When it is too cluttered, there is an area in my brain that is cluttered. Most importantly, it affects my creativity. There is something to be said for reaching for whatever supply you need and having it right there.

Perhaps the one iconic moment that marked the end of my “oh it doesn’t matter” attitude was searching for my car keys one day. My dad used to refer to such moments as  “the great treasure hunt.”  When I found the keys where I had tossed them upon entering the house, it dawned on me as clearly as the sun outside that if today had taken twenty minutes to find this one item, I had probably wasted at least a year of my life, over time, trying to find something that had not been put back in it’s place. It was one of those “Ah Ha!” moments. I could say that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, or I was truly my father’s daughter but the truth was that I was tired of disorganization that affected my life. The car key problem was solved easily (and I might add for the whole family of driving teens) by putting a key ring hold by the front and side entrances to the house. Every time someone walked into the house with car keys, any keys, they were hung up in plain site. It worked.

I think it was like losing weight-once the first few pounds come off, the motivation to keep doing whatever you’re doing, intensifies.   So I set about organizing everything, all the paperwork files for the business, appliance warranties, insurance papers, kids’ papers…and the feeling of needing something and being  able to lay hands on it was…..miraculous.

Oh it creeps back and you have to stay vigilant. Yesterday I attacked the studio. It was actually unplanned. But I have a student art camp coming up soon and was not getting my act together to plan what I needed to do. My “list” was not growing. So one thing led to the other and I moved, tossed out, hung, secured, dragged and otherwise organized the art studio back to a positive, creative, “want to be there” space and I am happy. My brain is not cluttered in the art corner part of it and I am ready to attack my plans and organize the activities. It is a good place to be.

Funny thing is that the trend today is to hire someone to unclutter your life, organize your closets, design the perfect clutter free environment, or join on line groups that make your lists for you .

But in the long run, you have to have the self motivation to do it yourself.

And it really is as simple as finding a place for everything and then putting it all back in its place.

Thanks Dad. You would be proud (mostly)

Today was one of those days where we were able to check off yet one more thing on our perpetual “to do” list!

And what we checked off was the fence in front of the Art studio! As with any big project we’ve put a lot of time and effort into our art studio. We spend a lot of time in here and we try to make it not just a place to work, but a retreat.  Visitors love the look and feel of our studio.

We built it a little over ten years ago from recycled materials gathered from a 1910 house being demolished, a warehouse of construction leftovers and good old fashioned muscle and help from family members! …it took us almost two years  because  we paid as we went along. No debt .

So today, we were able to step back and admire our new section of fence. It’s the same kind of fence we have around our rose and herb garden. Tobacco stick screwed to treated wood…and the sticks, if not touching the ground, last as long as the treated wood!  We had to first tear down the picket fence we installed at the beginning as the invading wisteria (yes we stupidly planted it on purpose!) had started to pull it down. Putting up the fence was the easy part. Attacking the vegetation with chainsaw, clippers and Round Up, was a the hard part . Oh well the original concept was good…we just picked the wrong plant for an arbor!

Artists often need beauty and quiet times for inspiration…. it’s a perfect place for many of our classes and our art retreats. Sure you can find the beauty elsewhere as an option. But being a part of it, nourishing it and reveling in it…well now, that’s the artist’s life!

Same type of fence around herb and rose garden

OK. It’s been a tough couple of years. We all admit it. Everyone and every business has felt it to some degree.   As working artists, whose total income comes from the sales of our art,  we have had to improvise, expand,tweak, adjust, invent, add and scramble to live a comfortable lifestyle and pay our bills!  To us, making a business plan has always been a call to action and we have done it successfully for over twenty years but never so much as the past two years!
So, IF you have heard enough of all the artist whining that has been going on about the economy and how no one is buying art  and how no artist should have to sell or market and where is the guaranteed way and place to sell one’s art, then this article is for you.   The economy is what it is and to achieve your goals in your plan of action, you simply have to make a few adjustments in your thinking and decide to work within the framework of what is here and now.
And as you can tell, at Art Career Experts, when it comes to selling your art,  we have always felt that there is WAY  too much emphasis on “making the artist feel good” talk and not enough on action. In a world where people feel it is their right and duty to  “feel good” about everything,  the fantasy world of expectations of what being an artist is all about has led to many thousands not realizing a dream. The reality is that all successful artists have had to work hard.  Developing a strong work ethic has never stunted any artist’s creativity.  And whoever thinks that is simply looking for an easy out!

So with that in mind, if you need your ego stroked and your hand held, and my “get ‘er done” directness offends you, there are plenty of other bloggers making big money soft peddling the “artist life fantasy!”  So I won’t apologize for skipping the feel good stuff because if you are serious about making a living with your art, you will be more interested, and won’t mind, getting down to brass tacks and making a  Plan of Action for the year.   Your mindset needs to be on getting it done and turning it into your reality. The one guarantee is that once a plan is written out and put into effect, it is a record of each quarter and each year of your art business and shows you exactly where your ideas are or are not working.
1. Start with what you accomplished last year. It does not matter how you felt your year should have been-  look at all the positive events and accomplishments.
2.  Look at how these accomplishments helped you realize or move toward your goals. Look at what you planned to do and didn’t get done. Did that hinder you or did you end up taking another path toward your goals?   Everyone has a goal whether they wrote it down or not.  Let’s assume for the sake of this article, that you are a visual artist and that your goal is to make  $50,000 in art sales income this year.
Let me digress as I am going to assume that you have the ACE  marketing book  or audio or workbook or even the basic business plan. To have and have read or listened to them indicates your decision to get serious. Because the basics are in them all and you will already know the over 75 places online and offline to sell your art! To not have any of our marketing tools means you’re not  ready to  commit to ANY plan as you are still seaching for the one that suits your needs.  Be truthful and know yourself
Now, what you want to do is look at how what you did or didn’t do last year moved you towards or away from this goal. This is what you need to know to be able to make this year’s Plan of Action and make it work.
The Goal: Earn $50,000 this year in art sales. That is approximately $4200.00 monthly. It is a figure that needs to stay in the back of your mind.
The Action Plan: So how are you going to do that?
1. List every place or way that you sold a piece of art last year or recently and decide that you will improve on it!
2. Look at every place on the ACE list of where YOU can sell your art in public.
a. Narrow the list to 2 places that you can actively pursue
3. Commit to either Etsy or Ebay for your online store.
a. Set up the store
b. Monitor it daily
4. Look at WHO else can help you sell your art.
a. local Gallery
1. contact them with portfolio of work
2. see what they do that will help you
b. Friends, co-workers, family
c. art groups, co-ops, businesses
5. Art Shows
a. which ones will support your kind of art?
b. use common sense and decide if local or distance is the way to go
6. Newsletters-monthly
7. postcards/snail mail-quarterly
8. emails, phone calls, follow ups
9. What else can you do with your art? Multiple “streams of art income” WORK!
a. classes/workshops
1. online and/or offline
b. new products
1. online/offline and where
c. reproductions in all forms-same thing
d. etc.
10. Social Media
a. commit to Facebook and develop your page or your friends
1. Hint: stay away from controversy on your business page!
b. Linked or Twitter-you can survive fine without them-work them if you want
11. Website-
a. This is all in the ACE books -you need one
b. Blogs-yes and keep it up
c. Youtubecan be a good thing for traffic-no experience required-simple
12. Cut your losses-eliminate or cut back your time and effort on anything that is not giving you some return for your investment in time and money!
13. ALWAYS know where you are financially! And which one of your streams of income is falling behind or not working!
14. Plan your marketing using all the free outlets-be very selective with paid advertising.
15.  The five words that will stop you from being successful are “I don’t feel like it.” Decide to change the way you are working and stop complaining! It’s too negative.

Remember the 80/20 rule. Twenty percent of your effort leads to eighty percent of your results. Look at what worked last year. Build on that. Look at what MIGHT work this year. Build on that.  Nothing works if you don’t try.
We want to work smarter not harder. It’s hard enough already. If you didn’t love doing it, you probably wouldn’t.  Keep you eye on the ultimate goal. Think of it as a destination. Your action plan is your ACTION PLAN.  It is way past time dreaming that past artists had it easier or that an artist should not have to market or that marketing is a “necessary evil.”
Does it really matter if you get to your destination by a different route than you planned?  No. What matters is your attitude. Stop blaming others.  Then add your determination to roll up your shirtsleeve, work with what you have and start making your goal a reality.
“Even a kick in the rear is a step forward.”

What we learned about dismissing  or negating a compliment was that you are essentially telling the person giving you the compliment is that “his/her tastes are not very good.”Think about that and it will make sense!

“I love this art piece!”     “Oh I was just playing around in the studio!”

In the art world I recently congratulated an artist at an opening on her long distance sale via telephone. I happened to be in the gallery when the owner received the call and the sale from another state after seeing the email with images! The artist’s response to me was “Oh that was just a very old friend from Florida who wanted to help out!”   Now seriously. The best response to me would have been a simple “Thank you.”  But to diminish the sale (after all it WAS a sale) by dismissing the buyer also put her confidence in her own art in question. Better for me to think that buyers were flocking to her art than only a close friend would buy my art. See the difference?

I have had students in art workshops who go on and on about how bad their attempts are until it becomes very trying for the other students! At one such event I finally said “OK. it’s not good.” There was a moment of silence but the other participants laughed and then I laughed too and said “I am the teacher. If it wasn’t good I would tell you. And I have told you it’s good! But you still don’t believe me so I might as well agree with you!”  The woman laughed as well and agreed that she would accept my compliments as fact from now on. Silly story but it happens ALL the time. You might  dismiss compliments because you honestly fell you don’t deserve them but to dismiss them because you’re fishing for more compliments is manipulative

Read the article and see whether or not you agree with it.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/why-you-cant-take-a-compliment.aspx?xid=aol_eh-emo_19-_20110905&aolcat=HLT&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl7%7Csec1_lnk3%7C94744