Selling Artwork

but i think it's good to take things you make, and just break them in half and destroy them. whether you like them or not, and whether anyone else likes them or not, but particularly if you're an "eh" on it and they're a "nah" on it, generally. it feels better to me to be like there, this is editing via public feedback and a lack of a strong defense. i want to have lots of cutting room footage on the floor, the stuff left behind. i want to paint faster and faster! that would be amazing. i would love for the stuff on the floor to be decent rather than bad. but at this point, i trust that if i don't love it and no one else does either, it's probably just bad and more useful as a weird-ass underpainting! :P

oh jesus

I would like, in the next year, to work up to a gallery show of the collaborative work I'm doing. I think my partner and I are ready.

yeah? that's awesome! would you be putting together the show yourself, or more like trying to find people who put on those shows and introducing your work to them?

Yeah, I'm too precious about it. The problem is I'm a collector at heart. And I like my art, I like seeing it on my wall. But if somebody wants to pay enough for one of them, then it is sort of fun to see it fly off to another home.

Still, I have this idea for a show called 99 Collages, and it takes me a long time to make one of them. I've been working on it since 2017 and I'm not halfway there yet. So when one sells, the end of this body of work feels farther away.

It's not like I can't borrow the work back, it just feels out of my hands and distant.

oh, i didn't mean to suggest you're too precious or right or wrong! it's just different! that's why i bumped this thread tbh, i want to see how people deal with it. i get that too. i'm about to get divorced, but my current partner really loved two of my earlier paintings and I held off on selling one of them for about a year. last month i sold it for $200. then we split. coincidence?!?!

xxp: I'd be coordinating with some friends to find a gallery space to display. There's a zillion of those out here so I don't think it would be that hard. Having anyone come to see it and/or buy anything is a totally different questions though.

having any of your work sell is really impressive, so congrats! seriously, anything over $50 is impressive. ... unless you are working in like, precious metals or something. Occasionally I wonder if you took all the unsold / ungifted paintings created in one year and calculated the square footage of said paintings, how much room would be required to exhibit them all in a traditional modern way? (e.g. no salon style hanging or pottery barn style "clusters" of small works)

KM: is there any way I can see the work you have available for sale? Have always loved the digital stuff you post. We do occasionally buy work from friends and have accumulated a very small collection. If you're actually managing to sell on a regular basis that's impressive - H has tried (although never as anything close to a full time thing) and it's tough and she's only sold occasionally even though I legit think her work is really good and really original.

thank you man alive, i appreciate it! and yes, it is very hard to sell anything, i think, i feel that. i feel like i'm hustling as hard as i can (not very), really dedicating everything to it, and still running at a loss. i'm sure if i went to a financial advisor right now they would just slap me across the face and show me the door, lol!

so, now that i see i'm making this post way too long, as usual, so let me do some quick editing and summarize here:

if you're on instagram, it's currently the way i show most of my work. (@zach_tbd)

if you're not, i have a skeleton website up now, zachtbd.xyz, and i truly do aim to upload some paintings that are available soon! right now i only have two images up, and they're both sold already! i have the documentation photos of more paintings that are available, i just need to upload them!

and also a couple other options - i do post paintings and other things on Hey, let me drunkenly animate your photos in about 25 to 60 days! sometimes, but not systematically. i don't want to permanently kill that thread (or this thread) by turning it into a sales zone. and also, i'm always happy to just send emails and include attachments of particular paintings you might be interested in.

----- here's a bunch of the same information, written slightly differently! -----

right now, the primary way i'm showing my work is on instagram (@zach_tbd). all of this is very new to me, and i don't think this is a permanent strategy or anything, but i mainly show my works in progress in the "stories", and then when i finish something i put it up as a "post". then, i'm trying to hold monthly sales on instagram. so far this method has sort of worked, but i don't think it'll last for long. i was hoping that by using #artistininstagram and #oilpainting and #abstractexpressionism and tags like that, eventually i would start to break through to people outside of my personal network, but so far that hasn't really happened.

i also post my paintings on twitter sometimes, but the people who follow me there are either ilxors (waves to ilxors!) or people who followed me because of conferencecall.biz. that, and just random people i follow because they're funny, stuff like that. so that hasn't worked out so well. i have heard about a "painting community" on twitter that migrated there after tumblr began to suck. my experience with that is that i always hit the like button when i like their work, i always post a meaningful comment that shows i actually engaged with it and that i'm interested in their art, and that they never, ever, ever follow me back or look at my art in return. but that's social media for you.

i am also trying to figure out if i should try to sell my work to a broader audience, like something like cargocollective, society6, etc. again, social media, but - it's weird because when you post paintings on there with hashtags, the first thing that happens after every post is a wave of bots giving you hearts and telling you to send it @whatever for promo opportunities. which basically means, pay them $75, they'll put it up on the promo account which has 1.4M followers, and you're guaranteed to get a few thousand "likes" on it, but they are very empty because they all seem to be bots and people who just continually reply with a heart emoji or the fire emoji, no matter what you make or show. anyway, also part of that wave of bots and replies is the occasional seemingly real seeming "invitation" from places like websites offering to have you join them as an official artist of whatever unknown website in japan. it's very hard to separate the real opportunities from the scams.

so at this point i am just doing what has worked so far, showing my progress via instagram and trying to hold sales and things like that through it and try to build up a larger pool of potential buyers that extends outside of my personal connections.

modern era question:

someone follows me because they like my art. it's a stranger. i can't see anything about them (it's hidden unless they accept my follow back request). am i supposed to follow them back? i would like to, just because i like to know a tiny bit about people who follow me. who are you out there? or is it creepy? am i being weird in asking to follow-back a stranger?

it's that classic FOLLOW BACK?! conundrum!!

can i say, i'm reading 9th street women and it's an inspiration. it reminds me that there has always been this bullshit, everywhere. it has never been simple, it has never been easy. there have always been villains, there have always been charlatans, as well as useful rich people, people who had connections and money and could put on a show or start up a museum, and really did want to do something revolutionary. it's incredible, it really is - you would think that really good art would naturally be the stuff that sees the light of day, but almost every time, it is a struggle to do so, a perpetual struggle, even a conspiracy. and that's for the really, REALLY good stuff! it's daunting to face that as a new painter, but also very, very, very, inspiring

i love reading about this time in the 30s when the WPA fed arts project money came out and suddenly so many people were able to be pro painters, at a set weekly wage, and 1/5 were women (which is horrible, but at the time, revolutionary, and the first time women had been recognized as equals as artists). there was this one line about a painter from that time that marveled that they wore "workmen's" outfits, just coveralls, like house painters. god damn. that was the time. that was the time.

there is so much in the 30s and 40s history of that (American) era that resonates with me, especially all the union, communist and organizing stuff. that was a very heady time

bravo Karl on selling your art. Something I tried very unsuccessfully a few years ago after I was made redundant. Only customers were sympathetic friends.

"The Shed at Stone Ridge"is VERY nice. Keep on keepin' on, Karl.

Zach how did you find your buyers? Any online marketplaces you would recommend?

xp ste

as far as i can tell, "sympathetic friends" is by far the most likely pool of people who might buy your work. from what i've heard from others, too, it's very common that your first buyers are people you know. and that can't last forever (or even 6 months, if you're trying to make a living). i'm still early on in this endeavor - started painting a couple years ago but only stepped it up big-time in march and april of this year, didn't move into my studio until late May. it's scary, trying to think of what happens when the sympathetic friends that can afford to buy something have all done it already. for now, i focus on how good it feels to finish up something and send it to a friend, especially pals i haven't seen in forever, or ilx pals i've never met. maybe some day i'll get to visit and see something i made up on the wall!

xp cow_art

thank you! an ilxor snagged that one! it was actually my first attempt with oil paint, that one, originally. it was a shed that i painted relatively conventionally, just outside the cabin i stayed at for a few weeks after my dad died. it was a decent first try, but i never really finished it and i really messed up the woods behind the shed. a few weeks ago i needed a canvas so i took that one, turned it upside-down and painted over it. it felt uniquely nice to do that and to improve it in some way. it makes me look at some of my other earlier tries, realizing i can just try again over it and change it so much! painting, i tell yeah what, lol

xp calstars

in short, instagram is how i'm doing it right now, even though i know that's not a permanent solution and there are tons of people who aren't on instagram, for good reason. i've done a couple sales, and am planning on doing my next one next week, last week of September

i was hoping you or someone else could tell me about that! so far, i have done everything via instagram and twitter. i like instagram, in particular, because i can post day to day, work in progress, in studio stuff via "Stories", which disappear after a day, and then post regular Posts with things once they are done. i don't have a large instagram following, mostly my friends and family. but for now, i think it's useful to show the day-to-day stuff because by the time i finish something and it's "for sale", maybe you get an idea of what went into, or how much i've been drinking that much, or what it looks like in relation to other things that are recently finished or just getting started. i hope it seems more "real" than a typical online transaction, and that even if people i don't know start following me, they could get to know me just a bit before buying something. i don't think it's important for everyone or even most people, but i almost always buy art from people i know, even if it's just a little bit from afar.

also heavily related -- soon after i started, i realized that i needed to make smaller pieces too, not just smaller paintings, but also quicker sketches, watercolors, pastels, etc. personally, my budget only allows me to spend about $50-75 on art a month, so i'm very much in the situation of my friends where i can't afford my large paintings or even come close. so on some nights i purposefully try to make something fast, all in one evening, so that when i do sales i can have a variety of prices.

prints, too. i had an interesting convo with a painter friend who is anti-print. she doesn't like them because she says a handful of people buy the prints and then no one ever buys the painting. i'm trying to figure this out now, but my current policy is that i won't make prints until the actual painting is out the door to someone. but that's also another way to have lower-priced items, i think.

re the anti-print friend

That seems a strange stance, surely the (assumingly much cheaper and more quantity) prints offer a way to broaden your audience. Seems like cutting off the nose etc.

Sounds like a good idea though to get the original out the door first, like you said. Would be interested to hear how you get on with it Karl.

Re: marketplaces, I wonder if etsy would be fruitful. Or do they just sell crafts and such

Just another poster chiming in to say wow & good luck, I also sold a handful of pieces to sympathetic friends and a couple on https://www.artfinder.com/ - maybe something worth looking at, 40% commission for the free plan might seem pretty steep but normal gallery commission is 50%! I never made a serious go of it, just sketching for fun and seeing if anything sold but it turns out a) not really and ii) the best stuff I didn't want to get rid off, there's one piece I still regret selling.

thanks ledge! there are a few places i can sell online that i'm thinking about. i'm still early on (early on where friends still feel sympathy for me, says my depressed morning mind), so i'm hoping i can still sell them to people i know for a bit longer. i have a couple larger ones that i like a lot, one of them is my favorite, and i'd like to send them to a friend so i can see them again someday. but at some point, i might list the ones that don't sell for way too much on a big website like artfinder (so after their commission i can get what i think i need), and if that doesn't work i'll paint over them and add an x-man or something on the front

my current living hell is this:

Parcels Shipping

IMPORTANT TIP for anyone buying a canvas that they ever intend to ship anywhere: do NOT buy splined canvases:

https://i.imgur.com/GTstFYF.jpg

if you go to Blick to buy a canvas, the sick joke is that the splined canvases are generally more expensive. it'll be under "Profesh" or "PREMIER" line. this is a sick joke. once the canvases are splined like this (canvas tucked way back into the nether region of hell between the stretcher bars), they are very difficult to take off the stretcher bars to roll for shipping. whenever possible, buy the traditional back-stapled canvases, or, if you have the space and time, stretch them yourself (which saves money).

i'm currently in hell because that big commission i sold, the 40x60" one - i can't ship it for less than $950 right now. if i start over from scratch and repackage it for the 3rd time, i might be able to get it right under the dimension limit for packages and get it down to the $250-300 range. if i could only take the fucking canvas off the stretcher bars, i could roll it up and ship it in a tube for $30. instead, i am now contacting the buyer to see if i can work up some plan to drive it out to them or have friends drive it out, have friends me in various cities across ohio and pennsylvania to transfer them to different cars, etc. it is hell, and so dumb. never buy splined canvases!! (unless it's for you and you just want to hang them up on your wall. if they're staying in your home, they are great)

i'm headed home to see my old friends today for the first time in forever. my only task this morning is to contact the buyer and somehow explain everything above without sounding like a gigantic fucking moron

also - sorry for multiple posts - one kind of fun thing is that when the fedex employee (who was awesome) told me that it was slightly too large to ship in a normal way at the store, and that i'd have to go home and create an account and then create a pickup order for an oversized item, which later led to the $950 quote, i got to say "i'm just going to burn this painting down!" really loudly and everyone was a bit startled in the store. but then i laughed and said "like a TRUE artist!" and everyone kind of got the joke i think. it felt really good to leave that fedex in a wave of laughter and companionship

since i speak relatively loudly and people were waiting in line behind me and it was a complicated issue, multiple started to get involved, workers and customers alike. we were all trying to figure out how to send this fucking thing. by the end we were all in solidarity, workers too, that fedex sucked, but that they all sucked, really

if you want to see how a true moron gets on irl via social media, i'm doing my monthly sale right now

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUd2kHwNl6l/

it is EXCRUCIATING