Art Print Issues by Barney Davey

Visual Artist Entrepreneur Seizing Opportunity

Do you blog? Do you post frequently? If so, where do you get your ideas for topics? I don't have a method for finding topics,most of them find me.

I always try to stay open to opportunity. To do that, I read lots of things completely unrelated to the art business. My previous post about using the Ferrari model of selling limited editions of its $600,000 Enzo model is an example. It provided a spark of an idea that could just as easily be applied to the art print market despite the obvious price differences.

Besides finding inspiration in odd places, I usually have a few ideas for posts cogitating and rumbling around my brain and my other brain all of the time. Sometimes they are just waiting for the right stimulus to provoke the post. Such is the case today. My friend Mike Geraghty was one of the first to purchase my book. It was through the book and my newsletter that our friendship evolved into mutual admiration. Enough to survive agreeing to disagree about politics.

I have had the idea to write about Mike's intrepid adventure into another facet of the print market for some time. Alyson Stanfield's recent post, which mentioned a NYTimes.com story, Lucrative Art Careers, on her Art Biz Blog lit the fire for today's post. Alyson is having a BIG SALE on her I'd Rather Be In the Studio book with a whole bunch of freebies good only until December 21. Check out the image on the right sidebar for more details.

Mike is an extraordinarily gifted painter. He is an avid sportsman as well. Hailing from the Baltimore area, site of the Triple Crown's famous Preakness, he gravitated to painting thoroughbreds. You can see his work at his www.ipaintchampions.com Web site. Some say faces or hands are the hardest to draw and paint. But, there is plenty of argument for the degree of difficulty in painting horses as being the hardest. Put them in motion if you want to up the ante. However you come down on that debate, there is no denying Mike's obvious talent.

To say Mike is a smart guy is a given. He did after all jump on my book early on. In the book, I talk about unsung artists who have managed to carve out a successful career selling a steady stream of art prints, but outside of the spotlight that shines on such artists as Thomas Kinkade, Wyland, Robert Bateman, et cetera. Mike is that quintessential artist. Turning out the work, finding his own markets and managing nearly every aspect of his business singlehandedly. My hat is off to him for his success and perseverance.

Mike is an artist entrepreneur who keeps an open mind and looks to seize opportunity when he sees it. A few years ago, he encountered Andy Moursund, who owned a bookstore in a nearby Washington DC suburb. As a hobby, Andy had built up a collection of vintage college football posters. He had a developed a sideline business of inexpensively reproducing them for his customers. When the two met, Mike knew what he was looking at...OPPORTUNITY.

These posters are works of art just as vintage posters are. They may not be of the same quality as a Norman Rockwell Satruday Evening Post cover, but they nevertheless carry great nostalgia and significance, which makes them ripe for the collectible market.

These posters came from a day when illustrators were abundant and worked cheap. It was not huge cost to have original art created for each game poster. Mike and Andy have worked diligently to turn this sideline into a thriving print business. They have secured a professional distribution company and gone about getting proper licensing for each image. This in itself was a huge undertaking. You can see the result of their efforts on their site: www.historicfootballposters.com.

The business continues to grow and I predict it will be a cash cow for them for years to come. When you think about it, it is a near mortal lock type of business. There is a constantly replenished built-in audience of sports fans who love their college football teams -- show this work to some of them and they are going to have to own it. What is great is there is no competition. The images are vintage, the licenses from the universities involved is very hard to achieve, so there will be no knockoffs of this art. I wish them good luck, but am convinced they have already earned it.

As another example of seizing this type of opportunity, I have another friend who has secured the artwork for hundreds of garden and flower seed packets, all vintage. I predict he won't do as well as Mike and Andy, but he's got a potential for doing his own licensing and creating a print catalog that still will be timeless.

Keep your own mind open to opportunity. You might just find a great blog topic. Or if you are really lucky and truly paying attention, you might just find a fun lucrative side business of your own that will help take the pressure off having your art sales carrying your entire overhead.

How to Sell Art Prints - a reader question answered

Occasionally, I get questions from readers that are good sources for blog posts. That is, they are general enough in context to help most who read this blog regularly. If you have specific questions, I also offer consulting in the form of hour sessions by phone or via email.

In either of these consulting cases, I urge you to first read my book because it may have the exact answer you need, or it will avoid you spending time in consulting on what you could have easily and more afford ably learned by reading it first. And, should we proceed from that point, you'll be better informed to ask better questions and get more from the experience.

I do have a day job and find it stimulating

Because I also work an 8-5 gig in the marketing department of a high tech firm to help with benefits and retirement income, (and because I like the diversity and the fun of working with a talented group of creative individuals.), I have limited availability for consulting, especially phone sessions. Accordingly, I don't actively market my consulting services. But, if it is important to you, I will find time for you.

Here is a great question posed to me via email:

My name is Kasie Sallee and I'm a young artist and mother. In the past year I've been focusing very seriously on my art with the hopes of building a career. I recently bought and read your book "How to Profit from the Art Print Market" and I truly want to thank you for writing it. The book is a treasure trove of information that I will be referring to over and over again.

In the past year I've begun a series of work, promoted my art through a blog, and very recently have set up a website. I have a question about the best path forward and was wondering if you had some advice.

My ultimate goal for the future is to license my work or to work with a publisher. My question is:

If this is my ultimate intention, will selling prints on my own, say through a site like Etsy, cause publishing companies to not want my work? I guess what I'm trying to say is will publishing companies want to work with images that I have already printed and sold?

Thank you so much for your time. I'm a long-time reader of your blog and I sincerely respect your advice.

Here is my reply

Dear Kasie:

Thanks for your kind words and question. You are on the right path in setting up a Web site and accompanying blog. They are both integral components of a solid marketing plan for an emerging artist. Both are works in progress and investments in your future. That is, neither are likely to immediately begin to return a substantial income right away. However, if both are properly maintained they will be invaluable components of your marketing efforts for years to come.

Your goal of licensing with a publisher is a good one. If you are thinking posters or open edition prints, you have to realize the income from such a situation is likely going to be minimal, especially at first. If you are thinking about giclees, your income could be more substantial as price points are far greater. 

As a way to broaden their lines, many poster publishers are now also offering POD print-on-demand reproductions. These are usually open edition and lower priced than limited edition publishers. Overall, it is a most challenging time for poster publishers with no real relief in sight. I think it will take more than time to revive the market.

Many poster publishers are also active in the third party licensing arena as represented by such tradeshows as Surtex and The Licensing Show. Surtex is where one would primarily find find companies seeking images for stationery, wallpaper, linens and so on. The Licensing Show tends to run to the animated and action figure images and less to fine art, but both can be important as sources of tertiary passive income for artists. The royalties are small and it can take a few years to make it worthwhile, but for artists with the right look, it can turn lucrative over time.

To be successful in getting a contract from publishers, you need to determine where your prints fit into the market, then determine which publishers are the best fit and most likely candidates for you to contact. It takes researching time, but it is just part of what you need to do to pursue appropriate publishing opportunities. Regardless of the outcome, the education will serve you well throughout your career. I think it was Yogi Berra who said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." This is true of all of us. You have to make an informed conscious decision about what you want from your career and use it as a North Star to guide your underlying decisions.

To answer your questions about being on Etsy, or other online sites that can sell your work, I will say no, in general, it does not affect your ability to land a publishing deal. If anything, if you have some demonstrable success with online art sales, you will give most publishers more confidence they can move your images to their customers. That said, publishers are not going to accept you competing directly with them for the same images, if at all.

There are some high-end publishers you would expcect to look down their noses at artists doing business on Etsy, but if your research is effective, you would have ruled them out as unlikely candidates to approach anyway.

Some publishers will want an exclusive on the images they want to run. Others may want more exclusivity. You have to be aware of the quid pro quo to make a good deal for yourself. This means making negotiations with publishers. I recommend you read at least one book on negotiating, such as Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. A little studying now will help you to make better deals for yourself in every aspect of and all throughout your career.

A couple of caveats here. If you paint slowly, it could be a problem for you if you have to create a new line for a publisher who in most cases will expect to be fed a steady stream of images. The other is if in your researching, you find the publishers most desirable to you frown upon seeing your work online, you may need to reassess your online strategies and marketing efforts.

The best situation for artists working with publishers would be the publishers immediately finding a bevy of repeat buyers for your line. The more likely scenario is you have to grow into your role with a publisher learning along the way what its needs are and what its buyers needs are. Conversely, a good publisher will seek to understand how to best work with you.

I would hope you get a publisher that will allow you to publish your own work. In some cases, artists use a Nom de Brusse (alias) to avoid having a conflict with their publisher. There is no hard fast rule regarding any of these situations. You must keep in mind you need to do what is best for you. You have to know whatever you are going to invest your time, talent and energy into that you stand a decent chance of getting a reasonable return for your investment.

With that in mind, do what you can to further your career, to sell more work regardless of the source. In the end, it's up to you to make it work. Having a great publisher to help you get started is wonderful advantage and great learning experience. As with many, if not most, things in life it is not where you start, it is where you end up. That is, did you fulfill your dreams and talent potential? Making the right choices for yourself is a key to your future success and your own self-satsifaction.

You see examples of this all the time. The music industry is easier to relate with this concept because much of what happens is on a national or international scale. Think about song choices and how that affects an artist. No matter how talented, ultimate success requires making good choices for content, style and ability. It's the same with visual artists even if it is harder to judge how things are going for visual artists. They don't have the equivalent of Billboard Top 100 list to let us know who is moving up the charts and who is just treading water. Nevertheless, if you consistently find some artists tapping the zeitgeist and getting great results with a steady stream of print sales over the years, you can be certain they have not only an eye for art, but an instinct for what their buyers will want to own and display in their homes and businesses.

I hope these thoughts help others as well as you Kasie!  All the best to you,

Cheers,

Barney

Creating Collectible Value in Open Editions

Regular readers know I am a frequent guest blogger Absolute Arts, one of the most heavily trafficked fine art sites on the Internet. My current post there is titled, "The Dichotomy of Rare and Plentiful."   The essay discusses the seeming dichotomy of things that are simultaneously plentiful and still some in the abundance of varied items turn out to have great collectible value. If it can happen with books and license plates, why not open edition, sequentially numbered art? 

Can such occurrences be manufactured by clever art marketing techniques? Or, do they just have to happen naturally as the outcome of publishing art that is popular? I have a framed vintage print of Maxfield Parrish's "Daybreak."  The image continues to sell well on Art.com and elsewhere for about $75.00 framed. My copy, is older, probably a bit faded and is worth anywhere from $400 - $750. It is the exact same image, something that has been reproduced thousands of time, and still in its abundance, the older vintage pieces are worth 5-10 times more.

My point is if you are using limited editions as a selling technique for a medium such as giclee that you can endlessly reproduce in any size or substrate, you may be leaving yourself and your heirs at a huge loss for the potential with no guarantee of a possible greater price point and cash flow. Imagine what a loss it would be if giants like Parrish or Ansel Adams had chosen to only sell their images in relatively small editions. Conversely, what would it look like if they had sequentially numbered their open editons? Let me know what you think.

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.

Rarity - My clickback response on Painter's Keys

If you are an artist, writer, creative, dealer or collector, you would be well advised, if you already have not, to put in for your free subscription to Robert Genn's Twice-Weekly Letter. It's a component of his Painter's Keys Web site. Robert is a prolific professional artist and a sage commentator as you will quickly discover perusing his work and clickback archives on the site. Here's what he has to say about Painter's Keys:

I sincerely hope you get something out of it. By subscribing you have joined a world-wide community of creative people. We are mostly painters, but there are also a large number of sculptors, writers, photographers, and to a lesser degree collectors and art dealers and others who are just interested. Many subscribers are art students--often encouraged to subscribe by their instructors.

Break at South Point Scotty's Lake of the Woods
Acrylic - 30 x 34 Inches

The September 7 article was titled, Rarity. Here are the opening paragraphs, go to the site to read the full post:

The Secondary Art Market - Bev Doolittle's Beyond Negotiations Sold Out & The Lunacy of Limited Edition Giclees

Brad Greek, a longtime supporter of my book, consulting and blog recently notified me Bev Doolittle's latest limited edition piece, Beyond Negotiations, was sold out at Greenwich Workshop, her publisher of many years. No surprise in that news really. When I blogged about the work last month, the larger canvas giclee 350 piece edition was already taken. It was only a matter of time before the smaller canvas edition of 3,750 would also be no longer available at the publisher level. Together, the two editions represent $4 million in retail sales for unframed work. (Erratum, the edition of 3,750 was identified on my previous post as being on paper. That is incorrect, it is also a giclee on canvas.)

There may be other artists selling out large editions like Doolittle's, but I doubt any are doing it as quickly as we've seen with Beyond Negotiations, which is her first limited edition published in eight years. Obviously, her fans, collectors and speculators remain enthusiastic about her work. The new piece is already active on the secondary market. The secondary art market and unlimiting giclees are the subject of this post.

Is the Art.com IPO for Real?

Art.com is not acting like a company in pre-IPO mode, or at least that's how it appears to this observer. The company recently announced changes to its contract with self-representing artists only to get a loud, rancorous response as typified by a month long 13-page thread on the Online Visual Artists board titled AR & Sistino firings. Apparently, many staff members of Art.com subsidiary sites, Sistino and Artist Rising were fired en masse on May 10, 2007. These firings might be construed belt tightening as the company moved closer to its IPO. But, in concert with other goings on, it seems less likely the case.

The company bumped the commission on art from 10% to 15% at the same time it took away the lucrative 10% it formerly paid for framing sales. Anyone who has been around the print business, or had a print custom framed for that matter, knows the larger portion of the cost is in the framing. The change has the net effect of cutting artist's income from Art.com.

Further exacerbating the situation are new policies governing which art gets shown on Art.com. When artists originally signed up for paid galleries, it was with the assumption their art would be seen on Art.com. Now the company is saying it will move some art and artists exclusively to the ArtistRising.com site. Also, traffic to the Sistino.com will be integrated into the ArtistRising.com site making it easier for buyers to find art on either site. But, for artists it's a blow to be moved to ArtistRising.com's site when they have come to rely on the visibility from the heavily trafficked Art.com site.

There are also reports of artists whose rankings on the Art.com Web site to have been relegated well off the top. This has the effect of chilling sales for those artists. There are reports of artists receiving favoritism, which while perhaps not democratic or maybe even the best way to operate, is the company's choice to make. Whatever right the company has to rank artist's work, it can be said it's not good public relations to do so in a way to anger artists and without explanation of why some are treated better than others when all are paying the same gallery subscription fees. You can only imagine the reaction this Non-Disparagement clause that has been added to the artist's contract:

You shall not make any negative or disparaging statements (orally or in writing or in any medium, including the internet) about us, the Website or the Program.

Dan, the intrepid erudite blogger who pens Empty Easel offers insightful commentary on the changes in these posts: Is Artist Rising Dead? and Changes in the Works for Artist Rising. If this weren't enough bad press, there are a couple of notable ongoing threads on Wet Canvas: Changes at Art.com/Sistino/ArtistRising and, An analysis of Web sites selling art online that delve into the changes going on at Art.com. Stirring up this much animus and angst is not what most would consider smart action for a pre-IPO company.

Terry Redlin's Retirement Announced

One of the most successful print artists ever is Terry Redlin. According to his www.redlinart.com Web site, he's sold more than 2 million prints and even more licensed images of his work over the past 25 years. Those are achievements few artists ever enjoy.

Enjoyment is at the heart of Redlin's immediately recognizable work, as is nostalgia. The "Spring Fever" piece shown here captures both sentiments and embodies Redlin's enormous talent. With sales totaling nearly 30,000 images, the image illustrates his reach into the marketplace.

His hometown newspaper recently ran an article on him titled, Demand for Redlin's work spikes - Artist's retirement increases interest in prints, but not value. The article provides insights and praise along with some criticism and discourse regarding the terms "limited edition",  and prints vs. reproductions. The arguments are not new, but it's interesting to see them covered in a daily newspaper, especially the hometown paper in a relatively small community. One would have expected the rah-rah homer attitude to be in play. Go figure.

Redlin will turn 70 this year and he plans to enjoy his retirement. He'll do so with a legacy firmly in place courtesy of the Redlin Art Center in Watertown, South Dakota. A place he has always called home. Redlin's son, Charles, designed and spearheaded the center.

Painting is Art, Publishing is Business

The Buzz, Balls & Hype blog recently got my attention with a multi-part series of posts titled, Writing is Art, Publishing is Business. The blog author, M.J. Rose, is a successful author of eight books and numerous magazine articles. She has a program called Author Buzz that helps authors get noticed and find readers. Wouldn't it be great to have a service like that for painters and self-represented print artists?

Wishful thinking aside, my admittedly creatively borrowed title (with homage and apologies to M.J. Rose) applies equally as well to the art biz as it does the book biz. The more authors and artists come to grips with the fact that getting work sold requires a business approach that has little do with the creative product being promoted, the sooner they understand their success quotient. I've said it too many times to have counted, "Artists who have attained success in the print market are not in the art business. They are in the business of building, nourishing and replenishing a dealer network."

It goes without saying the art must resonate or the book be a compelling read, but beyond the likability factor, there has to be buzz, balls & hype. There has to be the three Ds: Discipline, Desire and Details. When these factors are in place with an adequate budget and persistent smart marketing, success ensues. Go forth and paint. But also go forth and build ye an awesome dealer network that will love to sell your work.