What do collectors want?

Okay, enough already with the selling fine art safari adventure. Lets leave the Land Rover and gun behind and check out of the Treetops African resort to examine what it is that art collectors really want from an artist and their artwork.

Most people who buying art are not art collectors. They are just people who like to decorate their homes with nice things. If you and your art have a good name and that certain je ne sais quois then these home decorators will buy your art, maybe even lots of it. There is money to be made there.

Real Art Collectors on the other hand (of the serious variety) are also ‘art investors’ to varying degrees, and when I say ‘investor’ that can mean not just in terms of money. Art Collectors want much much more than a pretty picture when they are considering buying your art, but of course they may also be in the business of selling fine art themselves (ie buying your art with a view to selling your art in the future when your stardom climbs to the stratosphere).

My own art has been mostly been bought by home decorators; the people who just love it because its a beautiful thing to behold, and it makes them happy when they see it in their homes. I have though on occasion had my art purchased by the real deal collectors that artists dream about having on their exhibition mailing lists. I once delivered one of my paintings to a client who had a collection in his multi-squillion dollar home that almost made me weep with joy at seeing it (after all it’s not everyday you see a Gauguin hanging in someone’s living room.)  I wish I had more clients like that, but he is the exception rather than the rule in my customer Rolodex.

So what do these elusive collectors want from us?
Read on…

Years ago when I first took the plunge into the professional art world I started out creating screen prints in runs of up to 100 at a time with home-made equipment in my Garage. I figured it would make sense to be able to distribute my wonderful works as widely as possible, and what better way than producing a ton of copies and then selling them to eager buyers.

At the time I was inspired by some local artists who seemed to have their work in every framing shop and exhibition that I saw around town. I figured that these guys were making it big, as their work seemed so popular.

They were themselves creating prints, both regular four colour process and handmade screen prints. Since the cost of a run of 1000 4 colour process (poster style) prints was many thousands of dollars and ‘Giclee’ colour inkjet printing was a mere twinkle in technology’s eye at the time, I opted for the home-brew screen printing approach.

Well, after a short while one of the local artists that I’d admired so much spotted my work in a shop and gave me a call. I was excited!  He wanted to represent me himself and use his connections to get my prints into the outlets that he had access to. This made me even more excited.

He only wanted the very reasonable sum of 30% of the wholesale price as commission, and since my prints at that time retailed for the absolutely enormous sum of $100 each (Framing Shops like to make a 100% markup) that meant that I would receive the princely sum of $35 for each print, and therefore $3500 for a complete sell out of a print run. I was almost salivating at the thought. It actually seemed like a lot of money to me at the time.

What happened when I stopped salivating?
Read on…

The income of a professional visual artist can be a roller-coaster ride of financial highs and lows, and knowing this, many artists naturally turn to teaching art in order to bring in some bread and butter income. I myself have taken this path in the past, and along with my Wife we ran the largest private art tuition program in our local shire for about 5 years.

Today we still run a version of our original live tuition program, but now it lives online in a ‘Virtual Classroom’ instead, which suits our lifestyle very well, however, if you are just starting out and are thinking of teaching art in a live setting then here are some tips for success:

1. Be an art tutor because you want to share your love of art

Your students deserve an art teacher who really wants to share what they know. Artists who are in tutoring just for the money generally don’t last very long, or grow to resent their new ‘day job’. If this is you then don’t do it to them and don’t do it to yourself.

2. Be organised, professional and business-like

If you are going to be doing this for the long haul then you need to set your art tuition business up as a ‘real business’, just like all the other real businesses in the world. Your clients will respect you for it and place more value on what you do.

3. Create a structured course

Just running short stand-alone workshops is fine and dandy but that will mean that you have to find new students every time you run a new course. This can be expensive in terms of time and money when it comes to advertising and marketing your art tuition services.

If you create a structured course it’s much easier to retain the same students for a long time. Make sure you build in progression and recognition of achievement. This will require you to develop plenty of different art skills which you can teach over a long period. It’s hard work, but it will make you a better and more versatile artist in the long run. Remember you don’t have to create your entire course before you start teaching. You can just start with a general outline and create it  ‘just in time’ if you are brave enough

4. Create course materials which students can take home

This adds value to what you are offering and sets you head and shoulders above the rest of the private art tutors in town who are just teaching in an ad-hoc fashion.

5. Charge well for your classes

You will get more respect from your students if your classes are refreshingly expensive. Your professionalism will allow you to command a good price for your time. Don’t worry about the competition or community groups that charge next to nothing. You are not in that market. You are providing an excellent and very professional art tuition program and people will expect it to pay for it. Don’t undersell what you are offering by going too cheap.

More on the next page.
Read on…