The Art of Selling Art

Image courtesy of the website theArtLegue.org

Ever walk through a gallery and see little red dots on the wall tags and wonder what they mean? Red dots on a gallery wall mean that a piece has sold. By using a red dot, it's clear to viewers that a piece is no longer for sale while still leaving it on view for the remainder of an exhibit.

As an artist, seeing a little red dot next to your painting or piece of artwork can lead to a feeling of accomplishment, validation, and relief.

Why relief, dear reader? For several reasons, one is that you have income, and another is that now you don't have to pack up the piece and store it. Storage of artwork can be a very challenging issue for artists, especially prolific artists.

But the real puzzle is how to sell artwork.

Selling anything is an art in itself, and there are countless books written on different approaches. When I was learning good customer service skills, most of what I learned could be distilled to the act of listening. When you take the time to listen, you learn what someone wants and then can simply present them with something that meets their needs.

Since then, I've learned some additional tips and tools, much of which revolves around the steps outlined in the classic book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It also has a cornerstone principle of listening.

Overall, I've become a very good listener (most of the time). And when I was working in retail, I was very good at sales. No doubt it helped that I was a consummate people pleaser and would consistently go above and beyond to help people get what they wanted.

Selling artwork, especially my own artwork, is a different animal in many ways. Yes, listening is still important, but art isn't seen as a need like other retail items, so potential buyers shop differently. And I find it much more challenging to sell myself.

A friend who is an artist has been learning an interesting sales technique. He's shared a little with me, so I am the first to say I don't have all the information, but it seems to be about diving deep with a potential buyer. You ask a lot of questions to understand what they are missing in their life, and then help them connect the dots to how your artwork would fill that hole. In the end, they think they can't live without the artwork and so buy it at whatever price you offer.

I'm sure that is an oversimplification. And I certainly need more information, but at this point in my discovery journey, this technique seems like calculated manipulation.

And, at first glance, I find it to border on being dishonest.

But what do I know? If someone is really happy about their art purchase, does it matter why?

And if the artist can support themselves to create more art, that's a good thing.

sigh

This quandary of how to sell art is complex and complicated, which is why artists often prefer for an agent or a gallery to sell their art for them. But statistically, of all the people making art, only a small percentage are represented; the rest are on their own to figure out how to sell their artwork.

Making it even harder for female artists, despite some evidence that galleries with higher numbers of women artists perform better overall, women still account for only 40% of artists represented by galleries. (The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2024).

double sigh

Truthfully, most days, I have to fight to create time to get in the studio to paint. Thankfully, I've been able to figure out how to get my artwork in group shows, and I even had a solo show here in town for my Rattlesnake portraits, but staying on top of exhibition opportunities and deadlines and meeting each exhibition's requirements is a lot of work. And when you add on discovering how to find people who would like my art, and then convincing them to buy my art, well, to say it's a lot would be an understatement.

I think I'll keep my focus on making my art and getting it into exhibitions where the public can see as much as I can. That's probably enough for now. 😉