You are absolutely right to do whatever you can, legally and within reason, to protect your intellectual property (your art).
But what I can’t seem to reconcile is when artists aren’t taking precautionary steps to claim ownership in the first place.
I’m talking about giving yourself credit whenever and wherever you show your art—with your name and a complete credit line—even on Instagram.
Checklist for Crediting Your Art Read
A catalog of your art can be a snapshot of your career at a moment in time or a retrospective documenting your entire life’s work.
With the advent of on-demand, inexpensive publishing, every artist should be using catalogs to promote their art.
And, yes, I recommend print catalogs before electronic versions.
Artist Catalogs: Why You Need Them, What to Include, and How to Use Read
An artist newsletter is not for sales. Rather, it helps you maintain a warm connection with subscribers. It’s a commitment you make to yourself and your art.
Without the nurturing, you might find yourself having to reintroduce yourself at some point to a list that has gone cold.
Bonus: Staying in touch makes you the artist who comes to mind when people look for art.
The Purpose of Your Artist Newsletter Read
Whether it is in a newspaper or magazine or published on a blog, website, or as a podcast, you are deservedly thrilled and want to share the good news.
How do you make the most of an article about your art?
The extent to which you share the article and how you share it depends on the importance of the article and the format in which it was published.
How to Leverage an Article About Your Art Read
One of the first steps an artist makes when turning professional is to decide on an art business name, and many new artists make this more complicated than it should be.
Allow me to bottom line this entire article: If you are a fine artist, your first choice is to always use your given name for marketing your original art.
Art history is a history of individual artists, not of company names. Since my master’s degree is in art history, I naturally want you to use your name when promoting your art.
Using a company name puts you in league with all of the companies out there who are manufacturing and promoting unremarkable products. You’re different. Art is different. Art is not a mass-produced product.
Using your name for your business name tells the world that your art is elevated from the stuff they can pick up at Target or Pier One. It says “This is made by hand, and not just any hand, but the hand of an artist.”
While it may seem safer to hide behind a business name, playing it safe won’t get you too far in your art career.
I understand it isn’t always this easy. There are sometimes reasons for not using your own name, including, as I’ve learned, reasons of physical and emotional safety.
[ See Use Another Name for Your Art Business ]
Setting aside these very real concerns for the moment, the most frequent arguments against using given names for an art business are the following.
I consider these objections one by one in this post and podcast episode.
The Art Biz ep. 56: How to Name Your Art Business Read
Email is terrific. It’s fast, inexpensive, and connects to other online resources. But along with email comes a few headaches—primarily, and I don’t have to tell you this, too much of it.
It’s stupidly easy to type up a message and press send. Everyone does it. Every day. And they’re doing even more of it right now because even more of our lives are lived in the digital space while we are staying at home. That means there is a dizzying number of emails flying over the airwaves.
How can you make sure your email is being seen by those you want to stay connected to? You can’t.
I don’t want you to discount email completely, but it seems like a good time to try a different tactic—to revisit a strategy for sending real mail that lands in a real mailbox.
There are 4 reasons why I’m raving about real mail to my students, members, and private clients.
Envelopes and postcards are things you can touch. You can cut, tear, and unpack a package (sometimes you can even smell it).
Handwritten notes enhance your emotional bond with recipients—something that can’t be duplicated with email. I can’t think of a single email, regardless of how kind it was, that evokes the same level of emotion as a piece of mail with handwriting.
This tactile quality is as important to you as to the recipient. I am certain you will experience more joy writing a single note or shipping a single package than you will sending 500 emails.
Couldn’t we all use a little more joy right now?
The Art Biz ep. 47: Using Real Mail to Delight Read
Are artist brochures a thing? In a word, yes. Do you need a brochure of your art? Probably not. Some artist brochures are better than others. Most are a waste of paper because they’re poorly designed, flimsy, look homemade (in a bad way), have poorly photographed art, or are considered by their creators to be
Artist Brochures as Part of a Marketing Strategy Read
Are you confused about the difference between your artist biography and artist statement? I’m here to help!
See if these explanations give you a better picture of these two documents.
Your professional artist bio is kind of like your résumé in paragraph form (but less boring). It highlights your top accomplishments—usually with the most recent and most important at top.
Your bio gets to the point. It’s not a place for you to share everything you’ve ever done or get into your personal life.
Your bio is written in 3rd person unless it’s an autobiography, in which case you’d use the 1st person.
Formula for a 3-Paragraph Artist Bio
Your artist statement is about your art, not about you. More to the point, it’s about the current direction of your work, not a history of how you got to where you are now.
Your artist statement is written in the 1st person.
Artist Bio vs. Artist Statement vs. About Page Read
Every contact you have with someone is an opportunity to wow them with your art and your professionalism, so you don’t want to miss the chance to wow from the beginning.
Robert Mapplethorpe knew this. For his first solo exhibition in 1973 at New York’s Light Gallery – a show of Polaroids – Mapplethorpe’s invitation was a hand-printed image from a Polaroid original.
Mapplethorpe embossed his name on the outer edge, included the protective Polaroid cover, and inserted everything into hand-addressed, cream-colored Tiffany envelopes.
His invitation was a work of art in itself because, he believed, an exhibition doesn’t begin when you go to the opening, but when you receive the invitation.
The moment people hear about the show, they start judging. Will it be any good? Who else will show up? Is it worth my time? Is there something better I could do that night?
What experience do people have when they get an invitation from you?
Here are 7 ways to use your invitation to wow guests and set the tone for your exhibition.
1. Send it via post.
The simple act of putting a stamp on an envelope and dropping it into a mailbox automatically increases the prestige of your exhibition.
In these days of email reliance, almost anything you send real mail will get more attention than if it were sent via email.
7 Ways to Wow with Your Exhibition Invitation Read
I recently helped Rob, my husband, with a presentation he was preparing on the topic of virtual reality.
Now, he’s a smart guy. He has a Ph.D. in mathematical physics, so he wasn’t asking me what I thought about his virtual reality angle. He had that covered.
He was seeking tips on how to take what he knew and massage it into a better presentation.
Here’s some advice I gave him, which might serve you.
Bullet points are okay when your audience needs to write something down and remember it later. Otherwise, opt for visuals.
I use images as much as possible, but sometimes I make fun graphics out of words – sticking to my branding, of course.
You’re lucky! You so have this because your topic is inherently visual.
Most artists need only
Presentation Tips for Your Art Talk Read
Get a transcript of episode 182 of The Art Biz (Rethinking Mailing Lists for Artists) followed by a 3-page worksheet to evaluate the overall health and usage of the 3 types of artist lists.
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You’ll also receive my regular news for your art business.
