The last few times I've been out to openings I've run into friends who have been reading my blogs, and they were most interested in the blogs that I have written about about how to get more press, and succeed as an artist. I'm sure that there are are others more capable of writing blogs on PR, and marketing skills. I'm certainly not an expert, but I have had to pick up these tools to further my career, and most of it has been learned from watching other successful people, and coming from a family that was self employed, so I was never afraid to go out there and sell my art, in fact I have really enjoyed it.
My motivation to share these tips is from having to endure my first day of art school being told by the head of the school that 95% of us would fail. Motivating! not all, and apparently it goes across right across the board with Design schools as well.
The other thing that the head of the art school used to like to say during class, was that when we leave and we probably don't become artists, we can always use the creativity that we have learned here and become chiefs? what...............I know! I didn't want to be a chief either!
I really believe that the main reason that reason people don't succeed is because they are not equiped with the skills, and by skills I don't just mean talent, because there are many talented people in the world, I mean the confidence to treat your art like a business and marketing it accordingly. Success is in the eye of the beholder too. If you are exhibiting and selling your work, no matter on what level, that is a success.
People need positivity, and encouragement. The negative comments at Art school went right over my head, because I never truly doubted myself. The other core thing to attaining the success that you want is to toughen up, and filter out negativity, and concentrate on creativity which is positivity plus plus.
Whatever skills I have picked up here , sure weren't from doing a harvard school of business degree, they are from wanting with everything in my soul to succeed as an artist, and knowing that nothing else would make me happy. These simple tips for PR which I believe is so important are outlined below.
MY PR TIPS
This really important, to building your career, and expensive. So you know that what a PR company would charge to do the recent pr campaign I did for my show, would be within the vicinity of $5000-$10,000. As this is not an amount of money that everyone has at their disposal I hope that you find some benifit in these tips.
Most of the free magazines, such as MX have a section where the writer has their contact details for you to email. Every body reads the free mags by the way. Build up your contacts by compiling a big list of arts writers from many magazines, and newspapers. You will find the writers email addressses by contacting the paper directly.
Create a Simple PDF with some good images of your work, and a press release. Then send out to all your contacts at once.
Regarding the Press release, keep the writing readable. Don't get too long winded on the artistic explanations here. Remember this is a sum up of your artistic statement. When writing the press release think of human angle, a story, something personal, that will amaze people, or that they can relate to. People will often remember the stories long after the art if it's an interesting one.
Include images in the PDF that are bold, or have eye catching colour combinations. This always comes out better in print, and writers, and editors will seek these sort of images over blander more subdued work in general.
The following day you can begin to follow up your emails with phone calls. Remember that the Press are always looking for stories, so you are doing them a favour by sending them in one, so don't be nervous. Begin by introducing yourself, and then ask if it's a good time to talk, if so then ask if they received the Pdf of your Press release. This process can go on for a while. In my case I sent over 500 emails so I spent 1-2 weeks following up with calls and further emails. It's quite a lot of work, but the results will be worth it.
WEBSITES
Even if you're with a gallery, It's very important to have your own website. One that show cases the full depth of your work, to the world.
It amazes me how some very established artists, only have some very paltry examples of their work on a gallery site. It's not really enough. Websites need to be updated every few 4 months at least with new work, other wise they become out dated, that's why it's a good idea to attach a blog so that you constantly show new work.
BLOGGING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Many people have covered this topic in some depth. The main points are that once you have established what the blog will be about, it has to be regular or otherwise people will lose interest. 1-2 times per week at least. Some people Blog every day. I've found that Blogging is a great way of connecting with collectors, friends, and fans, while not having to go very far from the studio.
Most people I went to art school with were very talented people, some of them just lacked a bit of confidence. The world has opened up so much with web, and it's possibilities, that so many things are more possible today than they were even from 2002 when we all sat in that room and were told that we probably wouldn't make it as artists. Now is the best time to be an artist, we have so many things to comment on, and the means to comment on them so very quickly. I hope this information has been useful.
