Fine craft market? Fine art market? No market?
Sometimes I can be so rash in my proclamations. Like saying I don’t see myself producing for a fine crafts market. It isn’t that I think I am “above it”. (Some folks seem to think that if you are aiming for the art market you are snooty and think you and your work are better than those producing for the craft market. But then there are also those who think they are better than those producing for the art market because we don’t do multiples or whatever.) That’s not me. If I decide I am not going to aim for a certain market it is because I know my limitations. First and foremost my limitation is time. If I worked full time at this then maybe I would be focusing more on producing for the wholesale market at least part of the time. But I don’t and won’t anytime soon, so I can’t.
Last month I stated emphatically, no fine craft market for me. Last night as I pulled another color study out of the kiln, I wondered if I could make these in such a way that I could profit from them. And that means hitting the fine craft market. Will I do it? I’m not sure. It’s a big undertaking and I haven’t got the free time to do it. I will have to stop making these addictive trays if I am not going to sell them. I really need to hold fast to my commitment to show my work in juried shows, or at least submit to them, this year. I have work in one juried show already.
I found it difficult working for one of the local glass galleries. First of all, what they wanted me to make wasn’t what I liked to do but I kept trying to make what they were looking for. And hated it. They weren’t too interested in the work I wanted to make. So at some point I decided that it wasn’t worth the meager amount of free time that I had to work in the studio on work that I didn’t enjoy making. And when I let go of the need to produce for the gallery my work began to take off. I started thinking about it differently, approaching it differently, spending more time on the planning and execution of the work, and seeing the results of that shift. Plus, somehow, letting go of what I had been doing enabled me to be so much more creative than I had been in the past.I could not have let go of that need to produce work that was selling without the support of my husband.
Now I have to figure out where to take my work next. Because I need to be in a gallery somewhere.
posted by Barbara Muth at 10:41 AM
1 Comments:
I am a big believer in the let-them-come-to-you philosophy. As a fine craft producer ;-) I do that by advertising in the Crafts Report (I can't yet afford NICHE or American Style, let alone American Craft) and doing the Rosen wholesale shows. I have done the peddling door-to-door in person approach before and have never been happy with it: To me it feels like if you come to them, both you and they see you as coming to them asking if your work is good enough for them. And I feel that way even if I manage to portray that I am doing them a favor by offering to let them represent my work (chutzpah--a necessary component to artistic success).
For you, I would also say trying to get more shows going would be a good approach. A representative of another store or gallery attends, sees your work and may be interested in representing you long-term.
The one thing about advertising and wholesaling (as you have mentioned) is replicability. The pieces don't have to be (shouldn't be) the same, they just need to belong in the same series. So if you like doing the color-study trays (and they are gorgeous), branch out to a couple of different sizes and palettes, have them professionally shot, make a postcard and send it out to a list of galleries.
And here’s a tip on where to send to send your mailing: go to the NICHE top 100 retailers page for a start: http://www.americancraft.com/BMAC/top100Retailers2005.html and then go to other artists’ web pages who have work you feel to be complementary to your own and check their gallery listing pages for addresses.
For whatever reason, sending out an impartial mailing to galleries showing them your work and offering to send them a pricelist if they respond is much more professional (and big-time) to me than calling a gallery, setting up an appointment with the owner and going in to show them your wares. The Art Calendar did an article once on putting together an artist's portfolio to send to galleries and I just found this link on the web that seems to have similar guidelines: http://www.nyfa.org/level4.asp?id=255&fid=1&sid=51&tid=197
Good luck!
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