commissions

Artist Kelly Pelfrey on The Art Biz

The Art Biz ep. 162: She Knows Exactly How Much Her Art Income Will be Every Month with Kelly Pelfrey

Kelly Pelfrey’s goal in 2020 was to replace her $50,000 teaching salary, but she quadrupled that. Her income has allowed her husband to leave his job to focus on his doctorate, feel comfortable about taking maternity leave, and save for college for her children.

In this episode of The Art Biz, Kelly shares her income sources, which are dominated by sales of commissions, followed distantly by releases of small paintings.

The Art Biz ep. 162: She Knows Exactly How Much Her Art Income Will be Every Month with Kelly Pelfrey Read

The Art Biz ep. 110: An Unusual Path to Finding Art Commissions with Leisa Collins

A lot of artists make a good living, or at least a significant part of their income, from commissions. You know how it goes. Someone approaches you to repeat that piece you’ve already sold, but they’d like it in more neutral shades, 40% larger, and vertical instead of horizontal. Don’t judge.

What would happen if you turned the whole commission process on its head? If you got to make whatever you wanted and found the perfect buyer in advance?

In this episode of The Art Biz I talk with Leisa Collins, who started her art business by targeting people whose homes she wanted to paint. Her attempt at the flyer-on-the-doorstep thing was met with crickets, save for some abusive language by one recipient.

Then she got more specific and went to direct mail. That’s when her career as a house portraitist took off. To date she has painted more than 2,500 house portraits and has a waiting list for commissions. She no longer has to send direct mail, but maintains that the personal relationships with clients are paramount.

I’ll let Leisa explain how she did it. She’ll also share her quest across the country to paint a house in all 50 states, that following up with prospects results in 85% more sales for her, and how she has partnered with realtors to provide closing gifts for their clients.

The Art Biz ep. 110: An Unusual Path to Finding Art Commissions with Leisa Collins Read

Waiting for Santa Sema Martin drawing of cat in christmas tree

The Art Biz ep. 68: Procedures for Art Commissions with Sema Martin

By now you may have picked up on the fact that I am a sucker for a reliable system. My signature program is called the Art Career Success System for a reason. Systems work. They provide you with a framework that, once in place, you can return to repeatedly and update to match where you are at any given moment in your art business. 

I love figuring out systems, maybe even more than I love following them, because systems are always there to support my progress. And my guest for this episode of the podcast has proven that a clearly defined system can take your art business to the next level.

Sema Martin is a full-time artist living in the French Riviera. She currently has a 4-month waiting list for her pet portraits, which is likely due in part to a system she has developed that keeps her organized and her customers satisfied.

In our conversation, Sema shares the the 8 stages of commissioning work from her.

We discuss how she standardized her sizes, how she makes it easy for clients to buy from her by offering multiple currencies, and how social media serves a dual purpose to both promote her work and to share her progress with clients. You’ll hear how she stays organized and at the end of this episode I’ll tell you how to get a copy of her system spreadsheet.

The Art Biz ep. 68: Procedures for Art Commissions with Sema Martin Read

The Art Biz ep. 29: When the Commissions Gig Dries Up with Leslie Neumann

What do you do when one of your major sources of income disappears?

I wish I kept track of how often I have heard this story. It goes something like this.

Artist gets a really juicy gig. Maybe they have a wealthy collector who buys tons of their work to outfit all of their offices and homes (because of course they have more than one). Then the collector is done, dies, or disappears.

Or they have one gallery that is selling their work like hotcakes. Until the gallery doors close or the director skips town because of back taxes owed.

Bottom line: The gig dries up. You have placed all of your eggs in one basket and, due to circumstances beyond your control, what was once reliable income is no longer available to you.

This is what happened to artist Leslie Neumann.

She had a sweet deal going with Firebird Restaurants for more than four years. Their purchases of her original paintings accounted for 50-60% of her income during that period.

And then it stopped. But there’s no need to feel sorry for her! As you’ll hear in this episode of the podcast, Leslie rose to meet every challenge. She does, however, have a cautionary tale.

The Art Biz ep. 29: When the Commissions Gig Dries Up with Leslie Neumann Read

A Framework for Accepting Art Commissions

Whether you accept commissions for portraits (houses, people, pets), funerary urns, custom jewelry, or garden sculpture, you encounter situations that other artists don’t.

Commissioned artists must meet with patrons, communicate throughout the process, figure out payment schedules, and create documents that outline terms to the clients. All of this on top of making the client happy.

Commissions aren’t for everyone, which means there is plenty of room for artists who enjoy and are good at them. If you are one of those artists, follow these 8 steps to land more of them.

8 Steps for Landing Art Commissions

1. Add a prominent link for commissions on your website.

Include steps for commissioning a piece and testimonials from happy patrons alongside images of the finished work.

2. Provide at least two ways to contact you.

See that your marketing materials, including your website, have both an email address and a phone number. According to Matt Oechsli, the affluent prefer phone to email.

At least one artist has lost an opportunity for a mural commission because she didn’t have a phone number on her site and her email was down. How do I know? Because I was the person looking for an artist to help a neighbor with her project.

3. Understand your pricing structure.

Commissioned artwork should be priced higher than your other work because you are trying to meet someone else’s expectations.

Some artists charge as much as

A Framework for Accepting Art Commissions Read

Attack it Head On

Back in December, I ran a Deep Thought Thursday about how to satisfy an unreasonable client who has hired you for a commissioned piece of art. I presented a particular situation (which you need to read about to understand this post) and many alert readers helped an artist address this problem. Later, I received this

Attack it Head On Read

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Your Artist Mailing List: Rethinking + Assessing

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.

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