You are a hunter. You didn’t know it, but you are. As an artist you are hunting elusive and rare game called the ‘Art Collector’. Mostly solitary creatures, roaming the plains of the art gallery establishment they need very tasty bait if you want them to come out of hiding, cheque books in hand.

If you manage to snag enough of these collectors with your tasty wares then there is the potential for more of them to head your way, demanding all the  morsels you can feed them. But, as an artist, do you have enough fresh carcasses in the cupboard?

Okay, enough already with the 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 buy 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.

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 they want from us artists, these elusive collectors?

First of all they do not want cheap art. They like expensive art. Very expensive art, and very rarely do they descend to the sub $3000 level (or thereabouts). Sub $3000 for a real collector is bargain basement art made by a bunch of unknowns, and there is bucket loads of competition in the ‘unknown artist’ marketplace.  Sure, they might pick up a few trinkets under that level for fun very occasionally but mostly they themselves are hunters of next big thing and big name artists.

Why is the art they buy expensive? Well, it tends to have a track record. We’re not just talking here about a few first prize rosettes at the local show; we’re talking major recognition for an artists achievements by the tastemakers and tastebreakers of the art industry, possibly over an extended period, so that the prices for works by that artist have been well established and are preferably heading upwards. Art collectors who like to live on the art investing side of town do not like to gamble; they like to really invest in beautiful things, for some kind of gain later (whether that be through status of ownership, preservation of ‘culture’ or financial gain).

Most  serious artists who the real collectors chase do a major amount of work to get to where they are. Often they study, travel, sometimes choose to live in extreme circumstances, they mix with other about to be famous artists in ‘a school’ and they pull off major exhibitions in serious galleries of both the commercial and culturally important kind.  They don’t tend to paint nice landscapes on a Sunday for delivery to the local gallery on Monday. They live  full and colourful  lives. They are interesting, intriguing and their legend grows as their dealers, friends and hanger-onners spread the word of their artistic exploits throughout the land.

Real art collectors love a good story. They love a track record. They love an established price that has been set in sales in both the primary market (Galleries) and the secondary market (auction houses). They love to hob-nob with the best Art Gallery Directors who give them the priority inside track on what’s really going down in the art world, and they like their artists to be elusive in a manner which befits their superstar artist status (even though they might aspire to actually meet them one day).

This can be frustrating for the sub $3000 artists. We actually want to engage with our clients, we are willing to meet with them, we want them to love us and we want them to love our art. Surely art collectors will buy our art if only we can reach out to them, won’t they?

No.

What they will do if they are really interested in you is watch and wait. They will keep an eye out for you in the galleries and the magazines, they will quietly pop by to see how your exhibitions are doing. They will hold you on mental file until such time that you prove you and your art are a worthy investment either culturally or financially, and then as your star begins to ascend into the stratosphere they will begin to pick up some of your work.

By this time of course you are on the way to being a successful artist and are starting to be a little bit elusive yourself (in the manner of the real superstar artists), not because of some tendency towards being a hermit, but because you are in actual fact so busy painting to supply the demand for your work. Short supply sends the prices on a skyward trajectory. The collectors like that too.

So what do collectors really want? They want you to be a serious career artist making serious art. Are you?

Year 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 dollar 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.

I was feeling pretty cocky. After precisely 6 weeks in the business I had an art agent (of sorts) with connections. Gee, I thought. My art must be pretty good, obviously I’m a genius. With the benefit of hindsight I now realise that youth also comes parcelled with a delusional state of mind. I guess we’re designed that way by nature so that we strike out into the wilderness into adulthood without a thought as to the fact that we actually have the life experience related decision making capacity of a small rodent who has lived all his life running on a wheel in a hamster habitat. I digress.

Anyway, a week or so later I received another call. My new agent no longer want to be my agent, as his own agent now wanted to be my agent instead. Agents with agents? This could get confusing. It was revealed to me that my current opportunist artist agent in fact owed his own agent a big money type favour, and, in order to pay some of the debt I had been placed on the transfer list and been parcelled up as part of a deal.

I was even more excited. Now agents were trading me, and haggling to secure my services. In my mind I was a legend in my own lunchtime.

So, off I trundled to meet my new, and slightly bigger time agent, prints in hand and really without any clue whatsoever about how anything, including the art world, actually worked, or the reality that it entails.

The same deal was struck. 30% of the wholesale. I asked for some kind of contract agreement. Blank look. I asked again. You see I had read all about the art world in various ‘how things are officially done in the artworld books’ and knew this was the proper way to go about it. I expected to come away with a typed contract detailing who would do what and pay whom when. I actually left the agents abode with a note scribbled on a piece common-or-garden  spiral bound jotting pad paper stating “I will take 30% commission and pay you within 30 days, signed, Ms Agent”. Fair enough.

Over the next few months  I waited patiently for my agent to do her stuff, dreaming of the river of dollars potentially flowing my way. All that nasty selling stuff was being taken care of by ‘my agent’ (oh how I loved the ring of saying that phrase  in idle party conversation, because everyone knows that if an artist has an agent then that artist ‘must be’ absolutely brilliant.)

Time came, time went. There were meetings, strategising and plans. I was going to be huge. The agent told me so. My work was going to sell like hot cakes. My Agent told me so. She actually sold precisely 5 prints. The agent reluctantly told me so, and then handed me a cheque and the remaining prints and wished me luck. I was relieved.

I was relieved because all of the time I was with the agent, the spoken agreement was that I would not try and sell prints myself, and by this time I was eager to actually get a return on my long sweaty hours spent in the garage. Undeterred I went out the next day and sold five prints directly to the local framing shops and small gallery’s. The shop owners gave me cheques directly in the hand. I liked that even better than the agent giving me a cheque. There was something very satisfying and direct about it. I made these things and people were willing to give me money right then and there.  I still like that feeling today.

So, after all this, did I learn anything?  Do I think art agents are good or evil for early career artists like myself as I once was?

My agent wasn’t evil. She had the best intentions. She just couldn’t sell my work to her clients. End of story. One of her other artists (the one who originally wanted to be my agent) was doing extraordinarily well with her, and making a handsome living out of it. My art just wasn’t right for her outlets.

If you can find yourself an agent who actually does have the skill and capacity to sell your stuff then this is good.  It does have the advantage of allowing you more time to actually create your artwork, but, remember, your agent is going to have to sell a whole lot in order keep you in the manner to which you would like to become accustomed, and you can’t get go out there and sell your artwork directly by yourself when things get a bit slow, because that would be undermining what your agent is supposed to be doing for you.

If your agent is  handling your original work as well as your prints, and representing you into proper art galleries, then remember, after gallery commission and agents commission, you might only be left with 35% of the retail value, so your art had better command a very respectable price, in order that you might make a decent profit.

I also learned that you can read all the ‘how things are done in the artworld properly’ books you like, but, at the end of the day if you can’t trust the person you are dealing with (ie they are evil) then a contract is not going to count for much anyway.  Are you really going to sue a person if they don’t do what they said they would? Probably not,  at least not early on in your career when the money is small. Life is too short. Move on.

Upon reflection I think I went with an art agent too early, before any kind of demand had been established for my work. If I’d done more direct selling for myself at the time I would have known fairly quickly whether there was enough interest to keep both myself and and agent well fed and watered. If the prints were actually flying out the door as fast as I could make them, and there was no time for me to process the sales then an agent would have been a wise move. As it was, my prints sold quietly and steadily over a number years as most print runs do (which was good).

So, if you are just starting out, maybe you should relax and be your own agent for a while. You’ll directly enjoy the thrill of people putting money in your hands for the things you make and you’ll experience the artworld first hand at the coal face. When you get so busy successfully selling your work that you don’t have enough time to make it, then, and only then it might be worth taking on an agent to do all that messy sales stuff for you.

Now you need to put down your brushes and read some stuff on how to close a sale.

Okay,  enough already! Everybody has now heard that we’re in recession and the media seem to bang on about it at every possible opportunity.

Worse still for artists and other creative types is that our decorative wares are now definitely right at the bottom of the shopping list for those middle to high income earners who like to purchase what we make.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that our beloved Galleries are having a hard time too right now (all except for those that are dealing in real ‘investment art’ by very famous and possibly dead artists).

Here’s a few ideas that you might like to think about…

Prepare for the UPSWING

The tidal surge of art buying is cyclical. When people feel cashed up they like to splurge. When their shares aren’t doing quite so well they panic a bit and become tightwads. At the moment many artists will be experiencing a new excuse for clients not buying their art…”Oh I absolutely LURRVE it, BUUUUTTT, with the recession and everything I just cant afford it”.  So what’s an artist to do? Well you could prepare for the upswing in the market at some point in the future, so when all of a sudden mr $$cash$$ comes out to play again, you are ready with your fine wares to capitalise on your clients perceived new bank account happiness.

Believe it or not the people who are going to have lots of money in two, three, four or five years time (and potentially the buyers for your art) are busy going round buying up assets like houses, businesses and shares right now while they are dirt cheap (as opposed to buying your stunningly beautiful but nevertheless non-essential art). When the market rebounds these ‘new rich’ will need trinkets and fripperies to display how fabulously wealthy they are. This is where you come in.

So, use this ‘quiet time’ to stock up on your artwork. Spend your time making lots of paintings, say… two or three exhibitions worth(!!). Book actual ‘selling’ exhibitions for these works well into the future. Of course you may have to find another way to make a crust in the meantime while things are quiet (uggh!), but as you create all these fabulous new works you can continue to build your profile in readiness for the new glorious day of cash-loaded clients by…

Exhibiting in Public Galleries

It’s great to have an exhibition without the pressure to sell anything, just for the sheer pleasure of executing an idea, a theme or a concept without all that nasty money related stuff. Many places in the world have galleries that are funded by the local, state or federal governments, and to have an exhibition in one is considered quite a feather in the cap of any artist who enters their hallowed halls. It gives the outward impression that serious art people (sans the money bias) do  take you seriously. So why not get started by putting together an exhibition proposal for your local public gallery?

Better still, apply for funding from  government agencies who are specifically there to develop our cultural landscape.

Even better, if you’ve got a strong concept it might be worth touring the exhibition through many public galleries. This will give your artworks plenty of exposure ready for future clients to buy when these artworks finally make it to the commercial (ie selling) galleries. Just think how good this will look on your artists statement! and while you are at it…

Enter Competitions

Another Curriculum Vitae expanding strategy which you can be getting on with while the art market is flat on its back like a fly-sprayed cockroach is to enter competitions. There’s the extra bonus too that if you win one you might be able to top up the coffers with a little prize money too. Again, these artworks can be out there in the world, spreading the good news of how brilliant you are ready for when things pick up. Everyone loves a winner, so why not invest a bit of time in becoming one?

…but at the same time, just to keep the ravenous wild howling canines from the door maybe you should also consider…

Doing something else for $$MONEY$$ (at least part-time)

If you are the kind of artist who comes under the category of “financially independent baby-boomer millionaire retiree who can do whatever you please” then please stop painting right now. Instead please immediately start buying up cheap properties and shares. You need to do your duty to the artworld by having an excess cash to burn on the artworks of other less financially independent artists when the recession turns into rampant optimism Support the Artworld that you purport to love

For all others…yes, I know, it makes you feel sick right down to pit of your stomach to consider doing other things for $$cash$$money$$.  I empathise, I really do, but you do need to put food on the table and stump up the monthly payments for that IPhone Maxi Cap plan that seemed such a good idea last year.

Okay, it’s time to take stock. Do you have some other readily marketable skills that you can sell right now?  I’m an artist through and through but I’m not ashamed to tell you that at this moment I create more commissioned websites than commissioned artworks, but does it make me feel any less of an artist?  Not one bit. It’s as simple as taking off one hat and putting on another.

del *.ego

Real artists remain artists even when they are working in a different job to survive. Don’t be afraid to do new money generating things to fund your further artistic adventures until such time as the good times finally begin to roll again.

Oh, and while you’re at it….

GO AND DO SOMETHING ‘COMPLETELY’ DIFFERENT

Seriously. If you can afford it, go out there and live a little. See some stuff, experience something. Break out of your normal day to day. Fill up your inspiration and ideas account. Get recharged and ready for the new wave of  affluence. Yes I know that time might seem a long way off, but good times will return and you need to be good and ready, pumping out absolutely brilliant stuff when that time comes. That brilliant stuff comes from INSPIRATION. Go and get some.