Art Print Issues by Barney Davey

Art Business News, Decor magazine, Decor Expo, Artexpo Get New Owners

Amidst what often feels like an unrelenting assault of depressing and sometimes scary news stories about job losses, businesses folding and housing foreclosures comes some very good news for those in the art and picture framing industry. Summit Business Media LLC has made a deal to sell trade magazines, Art Business News, Decor and Volume, along with the Decor Expo tradeshow to its current publisher, Kim Feager. The Artexpo consumer and tradeshow is being purchased by Eric Smith, a vice-president of Summit's Art Group for many years.

Investment firm track record with media companies not good

In what is a perfect example of the poor stewardship and lack of regard for the art and framing community its magazines and shows have represented since it acquired the properties from former owner Pfingsten Publishing LLC, it published a press release, Summit Business Media Sells Art Group, but couldn't be bothered to provide all the details. The press release states the properties were solely sold to former Summit Business Media Vice-President, Eric Smith.

Inaccurate press release indicative of investment firm lack of concern

What the press release failed to mention was that in an immediate side deal the magazines, Art Business News, Decor and Volume and the Decor Expo shows were acquired by Next Step Media, a company formed by Kim Feager. Feager has been the publisher of Decor and Art Business News for three years. Having started her career with the former Commerce Publishing Company, she is a 24-year veteran in the industry. To not be bothered with clarifying the situation is indicative of the Summit management's prevalent lackadaisical attitude towards its Art Group division.

70-year-old employee-owned Commerce Publishing company was sold in 1999 to Pfingsten Publishing LLC, the publishing arm of Pfingsten Partners LLC, a private investment company. That transaction began a dreadful 10-year odyssey for the art and picture framing publishing and tradeshow industry. For those of us who had never witnessed firsthand what happens in investment driven acquisitions, which included myself and nearly everyone else in the business on any level, it was an eye-opening experience.

Art & picture framing industry had it good and didn't know it

We had been spoiled and didn't know it. Nearly all the properties serving the industry had been started by and run by either entrepreneur publishers, family-owned businesses or art tradeshow veterans. They all brought passion and a desire to serve their constituents in the best traditions of trade magazine publishing and tradeshow productions.

Yes, of course, decisions were driven by a need to make a profit. However, those same decisions were also tempered by a long-range outlook that sought to make them in the best interest of the industry rather than the short-term interest of a few well-heeled and totally disconnected investors.

What happened in our little art & framing art patch was a model for what has happened in numerous other industries where money managers gain control of them. There was a systematic purging of top executives and key players who collectively had hundreds of years of industry knowledge. Along with the loss of their experience and invaluable corporate memory was the great loss of their passion for the business.

The next steps then are to increase short-term revenue without regard to the negative effects such decisions create long term. A prime example is how the Atlanta Art Buyers Caravan (soon to be known as Decor Expo Atlanta) was oversold years in a row. The show had grown from a strong regional show into a powerhouse international affair. It was in its ascendant rise in 1999 when it was acquired by Pfingsten Publishing LLC.

Fable of golden goose holds up - gathering forces knock the industry down

The new owners were eager to capitalize on the production from its golden goose property. Instead of keeping in mind the industry standard ratio of buyers-to-exhibitors, Pfingsten's management disregarded the ratio and drove its tradeshow staff, with Eric Smith leading the charge for them, to sell as many booths as possible. They were content to grab the profits and let the chips fall when and if the results of an oversold show came about. To those of us who had been around long enough to know, it was only a matter of time before such decisions would create a reversing backlash.

What no one could envision were sets of tsunami waves forming on the horizon that would soon roil over the industry in the most deleterious damaging manner. With the magazines and shows weakened by loss of much of its top management, most experienced editorial and sales talent and now guided by top management stooges willing to do the bidding of their investment firm handlers leaving the shows and magazines in the worst position possible to be swept away by gathering forces. These forces included the fast growing importance and use of the Internet and the online retailers it spawned such as art.com, the onslaught of cheap Chinese oil paintings, the rise of big box store retailing, the dramatic decline in the number of independent art galleries, poster and picture framing shops. 

There also were other more subtle but nevertheless troubling developments for our industry including changes in consumer habits. For instance, design trends for using consumer created images, wall decor unrelated to traditional flat art and new homes with more windows and fewer spots for wall art.

The tragedy and horror of the September 11 attacks on the U.S. were painfully felt far away from the point of impact from the terrorists planes. The 2001 Decor Expo Atlanta show was slated to open on September 14. The show management had little choice but to cancel it. It was a tremendous financial blow to the entire industry as the Atlanta show had become the top producing show for most exhibitors, eclipsing Artexpo for all but a handful of high-end original and limited edition giclee publishers.

A comeback of sorts develops, but nothing like the good old days

Through grit and determination, the industry fought back to gain a somewhat steady footing, and the Atlanta show continued to produce huge numbers of booths sold. Unfortunately, the results for exhibitors began to wane in the face of too few buyers per exhibitor. Besides doing everything to drive higher revenue, investment firms are also keen to cut costs wherever possible. As a result, the marketing efforts to drive show traffic were scrutinized and what was available was often poorly used. The double whammy from those actions drove the show to near extinction in the face of fast changing industry conditions.

What has happened is in 10 short years is the once vaunted Atlanta Decor Expo show, which ranked for one year on the Tradeshow 100, meaning it was one of the 100 largest tradeshows in the U.S., had run out of gas. This year, it was slated to be held in conjunction with the Atlanta Gift Show, returning to it roots in the Merchandise Mart. A long, long way from its gilded goose glory days at the Georgia World Congress Center.

What a shame to see the change in fortunes for that show. I know I can speak for everyone in the industry who rode the escalators down the first show in the magnificent Georgia World Congress Center facility, there was a tremendous sense of pride in how our cottage industry had bloomed into something special and larger than anyone could imagine. Little did I or anyone else know how short lived that sense of pride would last.

Godspeed Kim Feager, the ultimate survivor, she and her staff need our support

Kim Feager and her battle hardened dedicated staff have wisely decided to hold off putting on a show in Atlanta this year. She and the industry need time to formulate a workable plan. And so a chapter of three decades of success closes. Kim is determined to bring the show back and make it the best in years in 2010. She carries with her my fondest wishes along with hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees who have used it to grow their businesses, their contacts and industry knowledge over the years.

Kim Feager is the ultimate survivor. I give her tremendous credit for her accomplishments. She has outlasted, outplayed and outwitted a steady succession of knucklehead managers and owners whose decisions drove large portions of the industry into head shaking, hand wringing disbelief that things could have been led or intentionally managed to results this bad.

There is no question Kim and her staff face many difficult obstacles in their efforts to bring Art Business News, Decor and Decor Expo back from the brink. Given her track record, I would not bet against her. If there is one person who is formidable enough to mount a head-on challenge and succeed, it is Kim.

She has a small talented faithful group around her who also have all suffered through the trials and tribulations of working for a succession of investment companies with a spreadsheet management mentality. The result for them has been poorer working conditions, lessened, if any, long-term opportunity and stinging reduction in salary, benefits and bonuses. It is a credit to her leadership she has managed to keep her trusty cadre on board during very trying times.

Is Artexpo New York 2010 doomed?

Although I have not seen any official announcement, the word is Eric Smith and his group, which owns Artexpo, are planning a show in New York for late March in 2010 with Pier 94 as the venue. The dates are close to Passover in 2010. It ends the day before Passover begins. The venue does have the fact it follows the Architectural Digest show the week before. It will share many of the same touches AD will use to add ambiance to they show. I am guessing 2010 is a make-it or break-it year for ArtExpo New York.

Carpe Diem and best wishes to all for a brighter future and better days ahead

For those in the industry, and those observing who still care, it's been a long long time since there has been any real sense of optimism. If you have been waiting for a positive change, this is it. There won't be any better changes any time soon that will give more reason for hope and to look on the bright side than right now. Now more than ever, the worn Latin phrase " Carpe Diem" is apropos.

So, good luck to all involved. The industry is poised for a brand new chapter. It would have been better had it happened sooner, but at least it came while there is still a glimmer in the tunnel. Your own best interest is inextricably tied to the fate of the shows and magazines. We need them to succeed. You need to them to succeed. Let's all pull together to help support the new owners, including Eric Smith, if he manages to avoid disastrous decisions.

Apologies to Kim Feager

Although I told her I would wait for her press release on the Next Step Media acquisition to comment, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. I would have preferred to run it verbatim here, and will when it arrives. However, with Summit's press release floating around, (I've had numerous copies forwarded to me), I felt it was better to get the word out now and let the good news be known.

Phony Prosperity Plummets - Chinese Oil Painting Biz Hits the Skids

Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and bestselling author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America had an December 20 Op-Ed piece in the NY Times that caught my eye. In China to the Rescue? Not!", he discusses how China is not in a position to stimulate its domestic demand and thus help lift the rest of the world's economies out of their collective downward spiral. In a nutshell, it's not going to happen. 

Phony Prosperity Too Good To Be True

In the phony prosperity propped up in great part due to our partnership with China, where we bought ever cheaper stuff we thought we needed, but really didn't, while they bought our deepening debt, it worked until it didn't. That's where we are today. Now Chinese workers are feeling the same pinch as are those in U.S.

Chinese Oil Painting Suppliers Feeling Economic Pinch

To illustrate his point, Friedman used the example of how the art village of Dafen, the world’s leading center for mass-produced artwork and knockoffs of masterpieces — had been devastated by the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble. Apparently what used to be said about our neighbors to the North and South is now a global phenomenon. That is, when the U.S. sneezes, they would catch a cold.

Art Business Has Sex Appeal

Friedman could have picked from any of thousands of other industries where low cost Chinese manufacturing has knocked the pins from under them. It proves that although relatively small by comparison to giant businesses making furniture, machinery, etc., the art market is intriguing. It will good to remember on the days when you have second thought about painting for a living you are in a sexy intriguing business. The kind a well known columnist will showcase in an Op-Ed piece.

Sex appeal aside, you have to instinctively realize that this news from China is as much a cause for concern as it is an opportunity to look up the meaning of schadenfreude. So, take a moment to feel some glee for knowing your knockoff nemesis has hit a very rough patch. Then take a breath and realize there is little upside for you in their downfall. 

Holiday Sales Hit Retail Businesses Hard

The news today on retail sales is it is alarmingly abominable. The deepest discounts and desperate bundling techniques failed to shake dollars from consumers wallets. Considering that we are in a business providing a product that is to most a completely dispensable luxury, none of this is good news.  

There has been a slew of articles from business pundits, art and otherwise, offering untold guidance on how to survive the current downturn. It ranges from the practical to plain pollyanish. There seems to be so much that if one were to digest and act upon all of it they would soon find themselves enveloped in a paroxysm of paralysis induced by a potent combination of overexposure to bad news and bland advice. Undaunted, yours truly weighs in with observation and opinion.

Consumers Have Spoken - Make Sure You Are Listening

The consumers have spoken; they get it. They are scared and not buying things they don't need any longer. Keeping up with Joneses has given way to keeping up with the mortgage. This puts artists in a bad position, especially those who have not yet developed both a strong dealer and collector base.

Anyone who would seek to soothe you now offering advice laced with few bars of "Everything's gonna be alright," or "Don't worry, be happy" is be taken skeptically. While it's not time to get a gun and head to the hills, it's surely not time to be laying out grand plans for major expenditures either. Certainly, it's not a time to take lightly that economic conditions are eroded nearly beyond comprehension or to be persuaded a turnaround will be measured in months. Here is the unvarnished truth. It's going to take years to fix the problems we are dealing with now. And, that is if we don't take more unexpected shocks on the economic, war or terrorism fronts.

What Can You Do?

Watts Wacker, the brilliant futurist, a subject of a previous post here, who along with co-author Jim Taylor wrote the 1997 international bestseller, The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next . Here is part of a review of it from the InnovationWatch.com Web site:

The 500-Year Delta ultimately is about the shifts of perception needed to prosper in a future that is fundamentally, unrecognizably different. It is about surviving and thriving in an economy inhabited by two kinds of workers: owners and temps -- in a marketplace where customers must literally be bought, one at a time, and where mass merchandising utterly ceases to exist. It is a world, in short, where borders -- political, economic, and technological -- simply disappear.

Desire for Authentic Unique Goods On the Rise

Considering the book and review are a decade old, it is interesting how both now seem quite prescient in describing our current condition.  A point made in the book that to me is yet more poignant today, one that carries a lesson and offers a path for visual artists in this most difficult time is this: In an age where nearly everything is mass produced there will be a very strong yearning for products that are authentic. You may feel it yourself. Sites like Etsy, EBSQArt and The Artful Home and publications such as NEET Magazine all respond to this yearning. These are just a few of many serving the market as conduits between independent artists and consumers.

As a visual artist, you are in luck.

You have more control over what you produce and how. You have ways to easily stretch what you do and how you offer it. A recent segment on the Oprah program was titled Wallpaper Makes a Comeback. Hand-painted wallpaper is an example and inspiration of how you might stretch yourself and fill that need for an authentic one-of-a-kind product. Can you make wallpaper? Are their other ways to utilize your talent and training? I'm betting there are once you put your mind to what is possible.

You don't have to paint wallpaper to make authentic products. You don't have offer originals only either, although there is a movement for that notion with the painting-a-day phenomenon as one example. There are plenty of other ways to stretch yourself and find niches for your creativity.

Tap the Knowledge of Your Giclee Printer and Other Suppliers

Talk with your giclee printer, they see way more than you do. Ask what you can do to collaborate to use the technology to create reproductions of your original that are each unique in some demonstrable way. Consider everything including substrates, sizes, colors and graphic wraps, etc. Challenge yourself to think of what you can do. Test your theories about what you would never do. There are certain to be things among them that upon second review might just offer a new opportunity.

You Don't Have Make Your Own Canvas To Be Authentic

Authentic doesn't mean it has to be made from scratch. If you bake a pie with pumpkin filling you scrape from the pumpkin and use a store bought crust, is it enough to say made from scratch? Or would a purist say you had to grow the pumpkin, wheat and sugar cane to make it authentic? You already know the answer.

The point is consumers have become fickle and not inclined to buy stuff right now as the dismal Christmas retail season bears witness. What they are inclined to buy are things that offer meaning to them in their lives and that bear the mark of authenticity. Your challenge is to find ways to connect your images to your audience, to provide them with work that goes beyond decor. Work that resonates with them so they want to live with it in their home. That mission is really the same as it always has been. It's just today your focus needs to be more intense and in tune with your art buying public.

Slow Down, Produce Less, Make It Authentically Right, Charge More?

If might just be the time to make less, make what you make more pricey and more unique. Doing so could be an antidote to trying to mount a marketing scheme aimed at production run sales. In other words, just because the Chinese artists in Dafen are getting clobbered, it is still not a good time to attempt to go after their market share.

Reality Check: StumbleUpon Doesn't Work - Website Magazine

There is an ongoing thread on the Wet Canvas Internet Strategies discussion board titled, Anyone Using Stumbleupon. Begun more than a year ago, it has recently come back to being active with new comments. The range of experience is interesting to note as it has its supporters and naysayers. I have to say the studious infomation on the link below from Website Magazine would cool my ardor, assuming I had any to begin with, towards spending time to generate traffic from Stumbleupon.

Reality Check: StumbleUpon Doesn't Work - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

Posted using ShareThis

Right in-sync PC World magazine publishes this article Hands-On with the Worthless New StumbleUpon Design

There is no question that certain social media platforms can be helpful. I've suggested here before Facebook is a leading candidate. Right now, there are too many companies looking for a share of your interest and traffic. Until that gets settled, it will remain difficult to determine where to spend your limited time and energy on such projects.

As an interesting aside, I used the "Share This" feature at the end of the article on Website Magazine to make the blog post here about Stumbleupon. All I had to do was enter my username and password and the software did the rest. I'm editing it by adding additional thougthts, but really like the idea that I can conveniently repost valuable information with just a few keystrokes. That's a neat Web 2.0 development I can brag about.

Fast and Cheap Banner Testing With Google AdWords

By Alexis Siemon

If you're like most business owners just starting out with a brand-new website, you want to know the fastest and cheapest way to drive targeted traffic to it. Worried ETR (Early to Rise) readers frequently write to us with this concern. "I need traffic and sales now!" they say. "Help!"

One method I've recommended in the past is to launch a PPC (pay-per-click) search campaign on Google AdWords. But you can also use Google to test online media buys on other sites with banner ads and other creative formats. There are a couple of reasons why banner testing through Google is a great way to generate fast and cheap traffic and sales.

Bypassing Standard Rate Card Fees

At a recent in-house marketing meeting, ETR's media buyer mentioned a new banner campaign she was preparing to launch on a well-known financial website.

Usually, a website will charge you a fee for the number of "impressions" your banner serves - how many times your banner will be displayed to visitors to that site. This fee is expressed as CPM (cost per thousand impressions), and is listed on the "rate card" page of the website, along with the prices of all the other advertising options the site offers. Kind of like the sticker price on a vehicle at the dealership, experienced media buyers know that the rate card price is a number to begin negotiating from.

When you're setting up your banner on a site, they will either lock you in to X amount of impressions or will keep your banner running for Y days. Sometimes, this is a perfectly reasonable agreement. But it can be too expensive to be worthwhile for a test. (And, as you know, testing is critical when it comes to your marketing efforts.)

In this case, our media buyer lamented that the financial website's ad representative refused to go lower than the rate card price of $18 CPM for her banner test. I recognized the website's name and knew that they were part of Google's Content Network - the network of sites that display Google ads. So I suggested we use Google AdWords to serve our banners on the site... for a fraction of their rate card price.

Not only can you get banner space much cheaper through Google AdWords, you can also get your campaign up and running much faster and with much more flexibility than you can when dealing directly with the publisher. Plus, you aren't locked in to a set number of impressions or amount of time. If the campaign isn't performing well, you can stop it whenever you want. (More on that later.)

This leads me to the next reason for launching a banner test campaign through Google AdWords...
 
Expanding a Small Niche

Let's say you're a believer in the ability of a PPC search campaign on Google AdWords to drive traffic and sales to your website. But maybe your business is in a very specialized niche that not many people know about. The keyword research you did for your product resulted in few keywords with even fewer searches. You know there are people interested in what you're selling, but they might not know how to search for you. How do you quickly reach this niche market?

With a fast and cheap banner test on Google's Content Network, of course. You can target your campaign by demographic, by site, or by category to find the perfect space for your banner and launch your test on your terms with your desired budget. Here are the steps to take:

• Open a Google AdWords account. Couldn't be easier. Type "Google AdWords" into the Google search box, and follow directions.

• Create a Placement Targeted campaign. This is different from a Keyword Targeted campaign, but many of the same settings apply that let you target your banner ads in more specific ways than you might be able to do with a traditional banner buy. For example, using geo-targeting to specify what areas of the country or world will see your ad. You will also have AdGroups, like you do with a Keyword Targeted campaign, and you can use your AdGroups to organize your campaign by product, banner type, or any other way you choose.

• Research placements. This is the where the fun starts. Once you create your campaign and AdGroups, you can access Google's easy-to-use interface to research and pick the websites on which you want to run your ad.

There are several ways to search for sites. You can browse by category. You can search by topic or keyword. If you know the particular sites where you'd like to advertise, you can simply enter their URLs - and then Google will even list several other sites similar to the ones you've chosen. Lastly, you can select the demographic that you'd like to target, choosing by age, gender, household income, ethnicity, and whether there are children in the home.

After you enter your criteria, Google will list all of the matching sites, along with the ad formats they accept (text ad, banner ad, video ad), and the number of impressions each site receives per day. (Very helpful if you are looking for volume.)

• Bidding and budgeting. Next, you'll be able to bid on the CPM that you'd like to pay. And when you realize how low you can go, you're going to start to get giddy. Keep in mind, however, that you are competing with other advertisers for that banner ad space - and the higher your CPM bid, the more impressions you'll likely receive. It'll take some tweaking to find a balance between the amount you want to spend and the volume of impressions you need in order to run a good test.

I've found that you can run a good test with anywhere between a $1-$3 CPM - which is a heck of a lot better than a rate card price of $18! After you set your bid, you'll want to determine a daily budget, giving yourself enough wiggle room to get the number of impressions you need on a daily basis.

• Uploading your banners. Determine the banner sizes your sites accept and upload them to your campaign. Each banner should link to a landing page you've set up, complete with sales copy for the product you're selling. You can assign a different landing page URL for each banner, or you can point them all to the same one if you like. There is a short review process for each new banner you upload to your campaign, but once they are approved you'll be up and running!

The flexibility you get by running a banner campaign through Google AdWords really kicks in when your campaign is live and you can monitor your results. If you see that you're not receiving enough impressions, you can immediately adjust your bidding. If you are getting great traffic and conversion rates, you can immediately increase your budget. If you see that a particular site isn't performing, you can remove it from your campaign in seconds. The same goes for your banner headline, graphics, and layout. Changes can be made on the fly without waiting for an ad rep or account manager to make them for you.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Terry Redlin -- An Original Who Will Be Missed

Now it's time for all of us to say goodbye
This is coming to an end.
I know, I know,
You will not forgive me
Because you are my friend. --  Leslie West

I posted a year ago almost to the day about Terry Redlin's coming retirement event and now it upon us.

It's true in our selfish hearts those of us who love his work and admire Terry Redlin as a person won't forgive him for retiring. Not because we don't think he is entitled to a well deserved retirement, But, only because we will miss what he has come to represent as a human, an artist, an American, as a role model and inspiration to thousands.

Mostly we'll miss knowing he won't be turning out a steady stream of work that is instantly recognizable and as comforting, heart warming and touching as any artist has created. His "Spring Fever" image pictured here exemplifies his unique touch as a consummate  artist, visual storyteller, and heart string puller. We will not see the likes of him again.

A Well Deserved Rest Indeed!

Truth be told, who could argue Terry at 70 years young deserves the right to rest. Not only has he arguably created more limited edition and open edition prints than any artist, he has personally signed each limited and thousands of open editions too. In these days of automated signing equipment, it is quite a testament to his character. Here is a quote from him that says it all when it comes to signing prints:

"Throughout my career, I have hand-signed every limited edition print I release. Today, there are many ways for artists to market their prints as signed - even when the artist never touches the print. I have never changed my signing technique. Over the past twenty-five years, I have hand-signed literally hundreds of thousands of prints. It is important to me that you know when you buy a signed Redlin print, I am the person who signed it. My staff hand inspects every print, they hand number the limited editions, and they deliver them to me for my signature."

Some would say Terry had perfect timing in that he hit his stride in the heyday of the limited edition on paper market. That much is true. However, I believe with his talent, vision and drive he would have been a smashing success in any era. That is something to ponder for artists just starting out. Don't envy Terry for being lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Rather think how he might have used his talent today if he were a young man just starting a career.

He's Throwing a Free Concert

If you are a fan and going to be any where near Watertown, SD in early August, there is a free concert as part of the party to celebrate Terry's retirement. Here is the announcement from his PR guru, Tom Benson's Networking Newsletter:

REDLIN ART CENTER WILL HOST THE OAK RIDGE BOYS
The Redlin Art Center is proud to announce the Oak Ridge Boys as the featured performers Saturday, August 2nd, 2008! This FREE concert will be held on the grounds of the Redlin Art Center and everyone is welcome. Redlin Art Center 1200 - 33rd Street SE / Mickelson Drive  Watertown, SD 57201 - 7103 1-605-882-3877 1-877-TREDLIN

God Bless Terry Redlin!  All best wishes for a fruitful well deserved well lived retirement to Terry.

HDExpo Puts Art in the Hospitality Picture

Changes in the tradeshow scene regarding the art business have been frequently reported here. The traditional industry shows such as ArtExpo and Decor Expo are well off their peak years in size, as are the publications that support them. And, the total number of shows serving the industry are at lows not seen in decades. No matter what factors you use to account for the downward trend, they are sadly there and showing no signs of resurgence.

Tradeshow Woes Are a Problem Across Many Industries

It's not just art and picture framing shows that are on their heels. You needn't look hard to find evidence of contraction in all kinds of industries. Given such a multi-industry trend is surely a cause to wonder if there are alternative shows worth either attending or exhibiting for artists and publishers.

There Are Bright Spots To Be Found

One growing show growing increasingly important to many art publishers and self-representing artists is the HDExpo. It is the sister tradeshow to Hospitality Design magazine, which also is growing in size. These entities primarily serve complete design needs for hotels, restaurants and corporate centers.

Gaining traction in this market is a way to create a steady cash flow from a distribution source outside the gallery and online channels that are top of mind for most artists. Not to say the field isn't competitive. It is, but I have always maintained there is ample room in the most crowded fields for artists who bring a fresh perspective to the scene.

Hospitality Design Magazine Publishes Largest Issue Ever

As a former trade magazine rep, I drooled with lust when I saw the most recent at-show copy of Hospitality Design. At 448-pages plus cover, it resembles a mid-size city phone book. I hadn't seen a trade pub that size since the heyday of Decor magazine's show issues for New York or Atlanta many moons ago. The combination of growing importance of the HDExpo show and the size of the magazine puts an exclamation point on their momentum and the market they represent.

Las Vegas Is a Boom Town for Home Furnishings & Hospitality Design Shows

Las Vegas is also home to the World Market Center. It is the host site of the Las Vegas Market, which also is bucking the downward trend as a huge fast growing international home furnishing marketplace. The common wisdom for decades was no venue could successfully compete against the IHFC show and the concurrent shows in High Point, NC for the home furnishings market.  In just a few short years, the Las Vegas Market has proven there can be a viable alternative to the IHFC.

To Be An Effective Marketer in an Industry, You Must Be a Student of It

Effective marketing is a multi-year strategy. The first stage is to become educated about potentially lucrative markets important and new to your business. If you have your own designs on seeing your originals and reproductions used in the hospitality industry, learn all you can about the shows mentioned here and the markets they represent. You likely don't have the budget to tackle them all. But spending time studying them is a great first step towards getting your foot in the door at one of them at the appropriate time.

On the HDExpo Web site, go to Expo/Exhibitor List/Product Category Search. Start with the Artwork: Prints/Reproductions/Photography category and work your way through all the other appropriate categories for ideas on companies to approach, or to see what those exhibiting are doing on their on Web sites. It will be time well spent to study this terrific resource. And, of course, if you can actually go there, all the better. This year's May 14-17 conference and May 15 -17 exhibition dates are upon us. If it's too quick for this year, tickle it as a must for 2009.

Surtex Offers Artists Yet Another Alternative to Galleries and Selling Online

The Surtex show runs May 18 - 20 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. Surtex bills itself as a licensing show for original art and design and offers a different kind of distribution and income from the hospitality business. Surtex is a terrific venue for artists who want to license their work. It's a show to walk the first year and then to decide if paying for exhibit space makes sense. Many artists are able to make connections there by respectfully and tactfully approaching publishers and licensors when they are not otherwise busy in their booths. The better you prepare for these shows, the better your experience will be.

Learn About Licensing Art

A valuable goodie hit my Inbox today...one you are going to like too!

It is from Global License! magazine announcing its annual special Art of Licensing issue. The issue comes as a nifty free download in digital magazine format. As with years past, you will find it chock full of great insider information and inspiration about art licensing .

If the tidbit from the Senior Associate Editor Regina Molaro's column doesn't pique your interest, then think twice about licensing for your own art. She tells us the total market for wall decor in 2005 was an astounding $49.6 billion. WOW! Imagine just carving a tiny slice of that for your art publishing business.

You will find a fascinating in-depth article about the licensing of Bob Timberlake's work. He is also prominently mentioned in my book, How to Profit from the Art Print Market, as a leading example of how certain visual artists are able to make an enormous impact well beyond 2D art, and do it with style and integrity.

There are other features including, Ask the Experts, the upcoming Surtex show and on trends. The experts weigh in on using art reps and art consultants with valuable insight. Overall, the information provided will be useful for any artist interested in learning about the licensing market. I commend reading the issue and guarantee you will come away better informed about the licensing market for visual artists.

Is the Next Big Thing About to Happen?

I've been a huge fan of futurist Watts Wacker since I first heard him speak to a group of tourism executives circa 1999. His presentation was fascinating and full of compelling information.

He was as riveting a speaker as any I've heard. That he managed to mesmerize his audience of business executives while wearing long hair, shorts, sockless loafers and a rumpled button down shirt made him more interesting. It was a rare encounter where I found myself thinking, "How fun it must be to be that smart, that cool, that self-confident and worthy of having organizations fly a person in and pay them thousands to hear their ideas for a mere 90 minutes?"

At the time, his international bestselling book, co-authored with Jim Taylor, The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Happens Next was riding high on the charts. And, his subsequent books, Visionary's Hand, and The Deviant's Advantage plus his latest, What's Your Story?: Storytelling to Move Markets, Audiences, People, and Brands provide more profound and practical insight from this informative oracle.

Finding a Way to Fill the Yearning for Authenticity Can Drive Your Art Career

A key fact I landed on from The 500 Year Delta was in the monumental changes we are living through, there is a societal yearning for authenticity. Today's digital world, including giclees, doesn't allow much for it. If you can figure out how to create true authenticity in your art career and properly promote it, you will reap great rewards.

Wacker's always thought provoking monthly newsletter is penned by him and published by his company, First Matter LLC. The essay most apropos to this blog is from the February 2008 issue. It does not disappoint. With permission, here it is:

Keep Your Eyes Open I’m Convinced it’s About to Happen by Watts Wacker

I can’t help but keep thinking about this being the 40th anniversary of the ’68 Chicago convention and the tragedies of both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Especially now that so many have suggested that we are at the same, or at least, similar crossroads today, I just keep thinking about it.

I actually disagree with the assessment of similarity to the two periods of time. In 1968 the social mood was much more “down with authority” ... today? ... it’s much more like “are you prepared? ... and is there such a thing as being an authority?” We want our institutions to be prepared for the future and we’ve not so sure they are so.

There was an artist who captured the ‘60’s, Peter Max. Peter’s an amazing man. Philanthropist, humanitarian, environmentalist and philosopher ... he is the most successful living artist in the world. He truly was the catalyst for connecting art and business. Max was the first person ever to have his work placed upon everything from bed sheets to sneakers. His product was out-licensed to the tune of $1 billion (yes, billion) before 1970.

While he would likely refer to himself as a neo-expressionist today, he has traveled from realist to pop artist (maybe archetype on this one) to his latest definition. His prescience in seeing how “the poster” was on the cusp of unprecedented ranges and intensities of color (all at inexpensive and high quality) allowed him to connect romantic, playful and psychedelic. He created the yellow submarine for the Beatles. Toulouse-Lautrec would have been proud. Peter readily says that his love of the cosmos and childhood expectation of becoming an astronomer was a major source of inspiration for the art of the 60’s. He captured a period of time.

Today, we should be looking for “that look”. What I mean is, what is the look for today? We’re far enough “in” to the 21st century. And, like Peter, I believe it will be somebody born in Europe ... developing years in Asia ... than blossom in the USA. However, in the 2010’s it will be some other order and more than likely an artist who blossoms in Asia. Keep your eyes open ... I’m convinced it’s about to happen.

I'm in agreement with Watt's observations and predictions. If you want to read my TalkBack comments on his site and peruse some very interesting links related to Watts' commentary, go here.

This post comes on the close of the 30th Annual ArtExpo New York show where in its heyday none other than Peter Max used the venue to further his career. Wouldn't it be great if the artist whose talent will rise to grab our collective consciousness as Watts' envisions was exhibiting there this year? That fantasy aside, given the changing dynamics of the art market, I wouldn't bet on such a notion. It's far more likely the art print market and its primary venue will undergo untold major changes before the next big thing comes calling. Just as The Beatles and Peter Max helped revolutionize music and art by being different and not of the status quo, I believe the next big thing will break out of some yet unknown venue or channel.

Milton Glaser - 10 Things I Have Learned - The Secret of Art

Creative Director: Silas H. Rhodes, Designer: Milton Glaser, Photographer: Matthew Klein, Visual Arts ©2007

Milton Glaser is...well, words nearly don't do him justice...one of the most important, prolific and profound leaders in visual and graphic arts in your lifetime and his. He is personally responsible for the design and illustration of more than 300 posters for clients in the areas of publishing, music, theater, film, institutional and civic enterprise, as well as those for commercial products and services. The image above and the essay below are reproduced here with permission. Read on to discover his sage advice with words that ring as true today as when written in 2001. Peruse his bio and work on his Milton Glaser Web site for more essays and insights into this man's creative force, remarkable accomplishments and matchless oeuvre.

Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

1
YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

2
IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
One night I was sitting in my car outside Columbia University where my wife Shirley was studying Anthropology. While I was waiting I was listening to the radio and heard an interviewer ask ‘Now that you have reached 75 have you any advice for our audience about how to prepare for your old age?’ An irritated voice said ‘Why is everyone asking me about old age these days?’ I recognised the voice as John Cage. I am sure that many of you know who he was – the composer and philosopher who influenced people like Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham as well as the music world in general. I knew him slightly and admired his contribution to our times. ‘You know, I do know how to prepare for old age’ he said. ‘Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceedingly well prepared for my old age’ he said.

3
SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
This is a subtext of number one. There was in the sixties a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

4
PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
Early in my career I wanted to be professional, that was my complete aspiration in my early life because professionals seemed to know everything - not to mention they got paid for it. Later I discovered after working for a while that professionalism itself was a limitation. After all, what professionalism means in most cases is diminishing risks. So if you want to get your car fixed you go to a mechanic who knows how to deal with transmission problems in the same way each time. I suppose if you needed brain surgery you wouldn’t want the doctor to fool around and invent a new way of connecting your nerve endings. Please do it in the way that has worked in the past.
Unfortunately in our field, in the so-called creative – I hate that word because it is misused so often. I also hate the fact that it is used as a noun. Can you imagine calling someone a creative? Anyhow, when you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. After all, what is required in our field, more than anything else, is the continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

5
LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’

6
STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvellous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. I mean, after all, you have developed a vocabulary, a form that is your own. It is one of the ways that you distinguish yourself from your peers, and establish your identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. The question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide.
But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t change your sense of integrity and purpose.

7
HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
The brain is the most responsive organ of the body. Actually it is the organ that is most susceptible to change and regeneration of all the organs in the body. I have a friend named Gerald Edelman who was a great scholar of brain studies and he says that the analogy of the brain to a computer is pathetic. The brain is actually more like an overgrown garden that is constantly growing and throwing off seeds, regenerating and so on. And he believes that the brain is susceptible, in a way that we are not fully conscious of, to almost every experience of our life and every encounter we have. I was fascinated by a story in a newspaper a few years ago about the search for perfect pitch. A group of scientists decided that they were going to find out why certain people have perfect pitch. You know certain people hear a note precisely and are able to replicate it at exactly the right pitch. Some people have relevant pitch; perfect pitch is rare even among musicians. The scientists discovered – I don’t know how - that among people with perfect pitch the brain was different. Certain lobes of the brain had undergone some change or deformation that was always present with those who had perfect pitch. This was interesting enough in itself. But then they discovered something even more fascinating. If you took a bunch of kids and taught them to play the violin at the age of 4 or 5 after a couple of years some of them developed perfect pitch, and in all of those cases their brain structure had changed. Well what could that mean for the rest of us? We tend to believe that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, although we do not generally believe that everything we do affects the brain. I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.

8
DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Everyone always talks about confidence in believing what you do. I remember once going to a class in yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins. And then in a very real way, solving any problem is more important than being right. There is a significant sense of self-righteousness in both the art and design world. Perhaps it begins at school. Art school often begins with the Ayn Rand model of the single personality resisting the ideas of the surrounding culture. The theory of the avant garde is that as an individual you can transform the world, which is true up to a point. One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty.
Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, the issue at work is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know what to compromise. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.
Ideally, making everyone win through acts of accommodation is desirable. But self-righteousness is often the enemy. Self-righteousness and narcissism generally come out of some sort of childhood trauma, which we do not have to go into. It is a consistently difficult thing in human affairs. Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation from Iris Murdoch in her obituary. It read ‘ Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’ Isn’t that fantastic! The best insight on the subject of love that one can imagine.

9
ON AGING.
Last year someone gave me a charming book by Roger Rosenblatt called ‘Ageing Gracefully’ I got it on my birthday. I did not appreciate the title at the time but it contains a series of rules for ageing gracefully. The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last. Then I heard a marvellous joke that seemed related to rule number 10. A butcher was opening his market one morning and as he did a rabbit popped his head through the door. The butcher was surprised when the rabbit inquired ‘Got any cabbage?’ The butcher said ‘This is a meat market – we sell meat, not vegetables.’ The rabbit hopped off. The next day the butcher is opening the shop and sure enough the rabbit pops his head round and says ‘You got any cabbage?’ The butcher now irritated says ‘Listen you little rodent I told you yesterday we sell meat, we do not sell vegetables and the next time you come here I am going to grab you by the throat and nail those floppy ears to the floor.’ The rabbit disappeared hastily and nothing happened for a week. Then one morning the rabbit popped his head around the corner and said ‘Got any nails?’ The butcher said ‘No.’ The rabbit said ‘Ok. Got any cabbage?’

10
TELL THE TRUTH.
The rabbit joke is relevant because it occurred to me that looking for a cabbage in a butcher’s shop might be like looking for ethics in the design field. It may not be the most obvious place to find either. It’s interesting to observe that in the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a significant amount of useful information about appropriate behaviour towards clients and other designers, but not a word about a designer’s relationship to the public. We expect a butcher to sell us eatable meat and that he doesn’t misrepresent his wares. I remember reading that during the Stalin years in Russia that everything labelled veal was actually chicken. I can’t imagine what everything labelled chicken was. We can accept certain kinds of misrepresentation, such as fudging about the amount of fat in his hamburger but once a butcher knowingly sells us spoiled meat we go elsewhere. As a designer, do we have less responsibility to our public than a butcher? Everyone interested in licensing our field might note that the reason licensing has been invented is to protect the public not designers or clients. ‘Do no harm’ is an admonition to doctors concerning their relationship to their patients, not to their fellow practitioners or the drug companies. If we were licensed, telling the truth might become more central to what we do.

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Street Smart Stealth Marketing Pays Off

Recently, I received an email from Joy Butler. She is the author of a new book, The Permission Seeker's Guide Through the Legal Jungle: Clearing Copyrights, Trademarks and Other Rights for Entertainment and Media Productions (Guide Through the Legal Jungle) 

It covers much more than most visual artists need to know, but the parts that relate to the business of being a visual artist are invaluable. Butler provides easy-to-follow directions on how to go about getting proper permission to properly clear the rights to copyrights, trademarks and other rights for entertainment and media productions.

If you have need to know how to legally incorporate a quote, music, artwork, flim clips, people's names, faces, brand names, life stories or other sorts of protected materials into your work, you need this book. Conversely, if you want to know the best way to properly allow use for your own copyrighted images, it will help you there as well. It includes more than fifty pages of resources and forms for you to use. This could easily be well worth the $13.57 Amazon price many times over for visual artists.

I'm impressed enough by the book to recommend it to you. However, if Butler had not contacted me with an offer I couldn't refuse, I would not know about it. She found me because I have published an Amazon Listmania list, Business & Marketing Books for Visual Artists. Her simple offer was to send me a free autographed copy of her book with the condition I add it to my Listmania if I found it appropriate. No strings attached. Upon review, I was happy to oblige.

My brother is a leading legal authority on franchising which makes heavy use of trademarks and copyrights. I showed him the book and he was quite impressed. That's a high compliment because he is rarely easily impressed by such things. Joy Butler publishes a useful book and uses street smart savvy and a little elbow grease to ferret out prospects to help her market it. I'm sure she will be successful with her efforts.

If you are a reader of Clint Watson's Fine Art Views blog. You recently read a post of his about artist Hazel Dooney giving away copies of her latest print free. I commented on it because it fits with my views that there are new and unique ways artists like Dooney are using to gain publicity. She's getting another bump from me right here. Her free prints have multiplied and amplified her marketing in ways no other marketing can reach.

How many ways can you think of using unique marketing promotions to help you get notoriety otherwise unavailable? If you start thinking creatively about it, you will be surprised at what you can do to help yourself. Butler's book is a worthy addition to any serious artist's bookshelf. For the price of a few minutes of her time to write me and a few bucks to send me a copy, she's gained more exposure to a targeted audience than she could get anywhere using mainstream media. Learning how to use guerrilla tactics like this in your own business will take you a long way towards gaining the success you want.

Here is another great example of how stealth marketing can work for you. Because I am a marketing geek at heart, I subscribe to Michele Miller's superb Wonderbranding, Marketing to Women blog. In timely fashion, just a few weeks before my wife's birthday, she posted about jewelry designer, Nicole Kidd. Turns out Nicole has been sending Michele useful tidbits of information for a long time without ever asking for anything, not even a reply. Just a simple friendly gesture. Michele's blog is one of the most successful and highly read marketing blogs and as such she gets voluminous email. She also has a huge list of potential topics to write about, so for her to mention Nicole, it had to be something special.

Turns out Nicole is something special. When I saw the link and read the post, I knew I would find something on her Web site that would be a perfect gift for my wife. I emailed Nicole and we had some very nice communication, including a phone conversation. She is a dynamo with passion and energy and just plain fun to talk with.

I placed an order and it was filled and delivered on time as promised. My wife loves the unique necklace and earrings and I'm proud every time I see her wear them because she looks great and I know she is wearing something not store bought and because stealth marketing really really works. Some of her favorite stones are turquoise and peridot, her birthstone. Look what I found for her on Nicole's site.

These are but two examples of how using inexpensive creative marketing paid off for the marketer. Like Woody Allen says, "90% of success is showing up." How soon you get your marketing efforts to show up in the right places is up to you. Get started now.