Art isn't really a team sport, but what if it were?
The artists of old weren't concerned with posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all the other social media sites, nor were they really involved with marketing their work, because if you were Hemingway or Dalí in the 1930s or 40s, you really didn't have that much competition to be marketing against or that many new people who you could reach.
Well, in today's times this has changed, sure big names like Takashi Murakami or Yayoi Kusama (the polka-dot lady) have a head start, but for us mortals being "merely" an artist just isn't enough. Maybe you could have a day job and do art on the side or maybe you do art only as a hobby — if so, this post isn't for you. I am focusing on all of us who have decided and are working on becoming full-time artists and who wish to create our works for a (decent) living. But this isn't really a shocker to all of us, who are serious about our artistic profession; marketing is important, that's just how it is. The problematic part of this idea is more the fact that a day only has about 24 hours, and if you take away 7 or 8 (hopefully not less) hours for sleep and a few hours for cooking, eating, cleaning and other life's necessities, you end up with about 10-12 hours a day tops. Now let's say we work a normal 40 hours a week (which, realistically speaking, is by far not enough time allocated to getting any business running) that's 8 hours per day spent creating, writing, researching and brainstorming. And that's all fine and dandy, because we still have 2 hours of leisure time left to stretch our legs and celebrate a day well spent creating better art for our fans, followers and clients (and of course ourselves). The problem though is the following: All we did was work on our product — our art. There was no time spent marketing our work. And no, the tweet about that fun quote and several Instagram pictures of our dirty brushes aren't going to do much in terms of finding new clients or fans, no matter how much we keep telling ourselves that if we just post regularly, our fanbase will grow in the long run, because if the highest quality content our social media followers receive is a quick pic of our studio or us creating, well, let's just say our effort in creating our marketing content reflects the results like a freshly polished mirror. Bad content, bad results. OK, marketing's off the table, and finances and planing probably weren't given the proper attention either. If you're like me, and have a big chunk of your yearly income tied to government grants and other public money, you know that they demand a thorough balance sheet at the end (or beginning) of any project. And if nothing else, personal accounting is probably the last on anyone's To-do list, but it's important regardless of how we feel about it. So, marketing and finances, now the last important part of any functioning business is a good salesperson. Without one, you can have thousands of potential collectors showing interest in your work, if somebody (more or less you) doesn't pop the big question, they'll just move on to the competition. While we are busy creating we can't also be busy arranging new work with potential clients or managing our cashflow, we probably can't even make good quality content for our social media profiles, but non of these are the real issue, because no-one could do all of what I just mentioned in one day. The problem is more of a question: what if we wanted to play basketball in the NBA, but decided that, because of financial constraints or other reasons, we just won't be looking for any other players for our team and just going at it solo. So we'll just go play a few games, try to score a few points, maybe even win a game (maybe we just get lucky or maybe we're just that good at it) and after we get some money from sponsors or brand deals, we'll then go and get some new teammates, that we can afford. Is this a reasonable approach? But why do we think that the same plan will work in other games, like the game of being an artist in 2019? Why not ask that friend who studies business or economics for a barter; maybe we give her one of our works or make one just for her and in return she can help us get our finances in order (even if just a bit). Or connect with someone who is good at social media; we could make some designs for him, to use for his own product or service, and in return he can run a few campaigns for us as well. What would take us a month to get the hang off, could takes those, who know what they are doing, a few hours, maybe even less. And the same goes for us; why try to learn a gazillion things that a professional business has to know and do to be successful, if we can delegate the parts we don't know to others and help them with the things that we do? And it isn't really a problem if you don't know anyone who could help you with your work, more of a small but powerful wake-up call that you should be more out there. Because it doesn't matter how good of a painter I am, if nobody knows about my work and nobody has ever seen what I do, I might as well not be doing anything at all, at least as far as making a living off of it is concerned.Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://survivingart.com/2018/12/08/art-isnt-really-a-team-sport-but-what-if-it-were/