Art Print Issues by Barney Davey

Art Business is Big Business - Art.com Pending IPO Proves It

I recently posted about the emergence of Artaissance on to the art print scene. The post delved into why it's parentage was important, which is it is curated and managed by the same team that drives the bus over at Larson-Juhl, only the largest picture framing company worldwide. If L-J's size fails to impress you, certainly the fact that it is a Berkshire Hathaway company ought to.

The story goes that Warren Buffett met with then owner Craig Ponzio for all of 90 minutes before making the decision to purchase the company. Surely, it had to pass muster on its financials, but whatever the time taken for the decision it fit the concept Buffett likes. That is big profitable companies in relatively sleepy corners of the business world. Few outside the business would argue that picture frame moulding is a sexy beast.

When it comes to moving art prints, Art.com has proven it can be done big time on the Internet. The March issue of Business 2.0 magazine identified six tech companies set to go IPO and Art.com was one of them. The article says Art.com was hot because it was producing $100 million in revenue after its merger with rival Allposters.com. That's one heck of a lot of posters, framed or otherwise!

It's Good to be Godard - An Art Print Success Story

One of the hottest print and licensing artists in the industry during the past several years is Michael Godard. A self-described, "One-man circus." The demand for his ubiquitious martini and gambling themed prints continues unabated. In a seeming dichotomy, this heavily tatooed, rock music playing artist whose scenes depict merry humorous times around booze doesn't drink.

Godard burst on the scene at the 2005 ArtExpo show. To promote traffic to his booth there, he hired a couple of "little people" and a go-go dancer. The loud music and large crowds drew the ire and protests of nearby exhibitors and the attention of the New York Times. The event created a perfect blend of art and artist ripe to be thrust on the national scene converging with publicity and opportunity.

A recent news item from the Springfield, MO News-Leader provides more details about the artist. It says his art is in more than 500 galleries. That is a feat most artists only dream about.  The story written from a press release mentions his appearance at one of his Oh My Godard galleries in the nearby resort town of Branson, MO. His success is proof that artists with the right look and the ability to promote, publicize and capitalize on fortune can still launch on a national scale in a short period of time. As with many artists' success story, there is a bit of luck involved in his trajectory. But, it came from working and planning and having the ability to respond when the break came.

Graphics Artists Guild - Great Resources for Artists

Q. What bond do Andy Warhol, Richard Thompson and Arnold Friberg share? 

A. They each began their careers as illustrators, or graphic artists in today's parlance. Each went on to make significant careers as fine artists in the originals market and the print market. Though the latter two did not gain the international superstar status of Warhol, their careers were artistically and profitably rewarding.

If you haven't been to the Graphics Artists Guild site, you owe it to yourself to visit there. It is a wonderful resource with lots of great information. The freely supplied scoop on keeping your work from being orphaned is alone worth the time. Members enjoy a host of other benefits, including access to a health care plan. A list of benefits taken directly from the site include:

• Advocacy
Grievance Committee - Legal Referral Network
Pre-Paid Legal services - Contract Monitor

• Insurance Options
Benefits Plan - Media Alliance - Local Chapter Insurance Brokers

• Professional Development
Artist to Artist Hotline - Job Referral Systems &
Promotional Services - JOBline news - Web Portfolio

• Information Services
Guild News - Local Newsletters - Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidlines 11th Edition

• Professional Discounts
ADBASE - Theispot - Allworth Press
and much more . . .

Natasha Wescoat - an Online Artist Success Story

I first encountered Natasha Wescoat when researching for a chapter on email and Web site marketing for my How to Profit from the Art Print Market book. At the time, she was a Power Selling artist on eBay. Power Sellers must move lots of product or do a big dollar volume to attain such status.

What was interesting about her was she was selling originals. Because she could paint her abstracts quickly enough, she was able to keep a steady stream of new work available online. That she can paint fast is one talent. That she could paint art that would sell fast is another. That she could do this against a backdrop of personal financial hardship with two small children makes her story more compelling.

The Art of Licensing - Extending the Value of Your Art Prints

If your art is in the print market and you are not licensing it for more than giclees, posters and prints, you are leaving money on the table. In the art print market, art licensing means placing images on products other than wall decor. It could be playing cards, note cards, linens or a myriad of other items. Typically, licensing companies pay lower royalties than print publishers. But, they have the means to get your images on many more products and to create a steady stream of income from your original art.

License! Global magazine just released a digital version of its Art Licensing supplement. It contains a wealth of information for artists seeking to enter the licensing market, or just to learn more about it. The advertisers represent some of the top art publishing/licensing companies in the industry. I regularly urge my consulting clients to become students of the industry. A primary means is to read trade publications. You simply must know what is going on in the business to be able to make the right decisions about your print career

 

Artaissance - One to Watch

Sometime last year a new art publishing company called Artaissance came on the market. Its debut tradeshow appearance was this year's ArtExpo. While news about a new publishing company launching is not always noteworthy, this would be one to watch by anyone's standards. Artaissance stands to be a formidable player in the art print market. That is as it should be when a new venture is launched and curated under the auspices of Larson-Juhl.

Larson-Juhl even prior to becoming wholly owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company was easily the largest picture framing company worldwide. The company is a marketing and sales juggernaut that commands attention with its every move. It was the first to fully realize the importance of the luxury buyer category to the fine art, wall decor and picture framing businesses. It embraced this knowledge with a long running series of branding ads in shelter books such as Metropolitan Home, Home & Garden and many others. It has gone on to promote its brand and custom picture framing and the art displayed therein as an important design component through home decor cable shows.

A news item in the Atlanta Daily Business news about an artist, Kim English Marks, newly signed by Artaissance. The article gives details on both companies and provides insights into how good networking techniques helped a deserving artist gain an audience that led to a publishing contract.

The important thing to learn here would be to never discount the value of who those you know happen to know. It's estimated the average person knows about 250 other people. If you can effectively tap into just 10 or 20 of those folks in your circle of friends and acquaintances, you might be quite surprised to find you are only one or two degrees of separation away from someone who can boost your career.

The business model used by Artaissance is important for other reasons besides its ownership. I'll get to those thoughts in a future post.

ArtExpo New York - What's Next?

I can't emphasize strongly enough how important I believe a thriving ArtExpo is to the growth and stability of the art print market. My wish for the art print market is to have a successful ArtExpo for all to benefit from.

The 2007 New York ArtExpo show concluded on Monday, March 5. I managed to get there for Friday (a trade-only day) and Saturday, which is open to trade and public. A flu bug bit me on Saturday; I did the best I could to see as much as possible.

ArtExpo, as a vestige of its former self, is a testament that things change. The show in its heyday was an incredible powerful fine art tradeshow with a flourishing consumer component. No fine art print publisher in those days could consider not having a sizable presence at the show. It wasn't a fear of being conspicuous by absence, but more an excitement of money to banked and great contacts to be made that drove booth sales.

In a sign of the times, in my humble opinion, the show has morphed from a must attend for buyers and exhibit for artists and publishers tradeshow with a consistent consumer component into a run of the mill (for a New York art fair) consumer show with a dwindling tradeshow component.

Why Every Artist Needs a Blog

This is a topic that springs up regularly on artists' discussion boards. Recently, Alyson Stanfield on her Art Biz Blog has been championing the idea. She has some powerful demographic data regarding blog users you should know. Alyson's story about how she helped artist Margret Short start and effectively utilize a blog is enlightening and encouraging. You will find a link to an 8-minute audio Podcast on Margret's blog. I commented on the post and offered this link to a story titled, Why Blog Search Matters to Your Business.

When I first launched my Web site to help promote my book, I engaged Kristin Royce to help me optimize the site and improve its rankings for desirable keywords. She is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) guru and an artist herself. Kristin did a nice job for me and I still get top of fold rankings on Google as a result of her help and advice.

She has also authored two very informative articles on blogging for artists. I borrowed part of the title from one to title this post. You can read the articles for free. I encourage you to do so: Why Every Artist Needs a Blog & How to Create an Artist Blog and How to Increase Traffic to Your Artist Blog. If all this doesn't motivate you, then you may be a lost cause to blogging.

Do You Blog?

As with so many things techie these days, there are early adopters and others who are lagging trends and developments. Blogging has been around for a while. Its importance is increasing for business purposes. For artists, Blogging is a remarkable tool that can be used very effectively in marketing art helping an artist to brand their name.

If you don't know what a blog is, then I suggest searching the word in Google. You'll find a wealth of information there. For those of you who want to get started with an artist blog, you could do far worse than Margret Short. She is an artist and the topic in one of a series of blog posts by Alyson Stanfield on her Art Biz Blog. You should also check Alyson's www.artbizcoach.com site. It's loaded with great information.

$20 Million Giclee Printer Art Fraud Racket

I planned on reporting on ArtExpo with my first post after the inaugural post, but with another mention of this story, I have to go with it.

Last month, I noted an article in the Petaluma, California Argus-Courier. I have been busy on some other projects and wanted to wait till this blog was up and running to mention it. Seems that Kristine Eubanks, who has been printing fine art giclees in California for many years is in serious hot water for fraud, tax evasion and other crimes. Every artist I knew that dealt with her found her at the least difficult and at worst not trustworthy. Seems they were correct in their perception. Read this story to learn how she bilked a now deceased artist and his widow in several ways: http://www1.arguscourier.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070131/NEWS01/70130028.

Today's headlines bring on yet more news about Eubanks and her accomplice, Gerald Sullivan. They weren't just ripping off single artists, they were publishing fake prints by everyone's favorite knockoffs, Picasso, Chagall and Dali. Read this to learn more about how these crooks were making fake prints and selling them on a cable TV show called Fine Art Treasures: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1477881.ece

If it weren't hard enough to sell art legitimately, scumbags like this make it all the more difficult. The buzz in the past year has been about the increased competition for illegal copies coming from Asian markets. If you are one who worries about such things, you can add crooked giclee printers to your list. My advice on the Asian counterfeiters is stay ahead of them with fresh design, copyright everything worth defending with the US copyright office and then let it go. Regarding crooked printers, they are the minority for sure. To be safe, learn the names of artists who are already working with the printer you have in mind. Insist on getting the phone numbers and call them up. Ask others related to the field who are in a position to know. Sales reps are always a good source.

I had a dilemma when artists asked me about Eubanks Finer Image services. That was due to her advertising with me in Decor magazine and taking space in the Decor Expo tradeshows. It's not nice to dump on an advertiser. On the other hand, I'd heard enough rumors to know that despite her lowball prices it wasn't a good shop to do business with. I did my best to tactfully steer artists to shops I knew were reputable. However, if I were asked point blank, I'd refer the artist to former customers who I knew would not speak kindly of Eubanks. Still, I never realized she was a crook, I just thought she was a lousy business person with a bad attitude.

Don't let the negativity around these things get you down. You have to choose what you let affect you and how you react to the news. Get enough of a dose to make you careful, but not so much you get your dauber down. There are sales waiting to be made and distribution channels open to be explored. Keep that in mind and use Ronald Reagan's maxim for dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev when dealing with anyone who can mess with your business. Reagan's sage advice was, "Trust, but verify."