Art, Inc. summary

So you want to be an artist? Fantastic! But first ask yourself, “Do I want to make a living out of it?” If so, you’ll need to be more than an artist; you’ll also need to be an entrepreneur.

To start thinking about yourself in a business sense, the first thing you should do is determine what kind of image you want to project. What type of artist would you like to be? What type of art do you want to make and what are your most important values?

What is most important in the artistic process? The art itself, right? Actually, as important as creating your art is, whether you’re successful or not depends on how effective you are at promoting it. So how can you improve your promotion skills?

Start with the internet, which offers a vast space to promote your work. Make sure you have a good website where people can view your art and read about you as an artist. Make it easy to navigate and have your work readily available for people to view. You’ll also want to make sure you have an easy, memorable domain name.

Being an artist in the modern world is actually pretty great as you can enjoy many benefits that previous generations never had.

One main advantage is access to digital technology. Whether you’re a photographer or a painter, modern technology is a real asset. One such technology is digital reproduction. By replicating your work this way, you can sell your art to a multitude of people.

There are many different artists and all have different requirements when it comes to displaying their work.

For many, the goal is becoming a gallery artist, a visual artist who shows her work in exhibitions. So let’s look at how to do this.

So we’ve seen how to get started as a gallery artist. Yet this is just one road an artist can choose to go down. Another rewarding path you can follow is illustration.

The illustration world is largely commercial and you’ll need to have a good idea of how exactly you’ll sell your work there. To do this, first think about which area you wish to focus on.

Constant movement keeps artists working and in the flow. But taking breaks every now and then is just as important and experiencing peaks and valleys is normal.

If you’re experiencing some downtime in your career, it doesn’t mean that you have to stop working on anything altogether. You can use your downtime to refresh your portfolio, take up a personal project, make new connections with people in the local scene or even take on a residency. These can be highly beneficial to help you evolve artistically.