The Business of Being an Artist

As I mentioned in a previous post, Bill Loyd’s New Sign in Truchas, NM, Anna, Bill and I have been in the process of putting together our primary advertising for the year. Many people don’t realize how much “business” goes into being a working artist. Whether we are in galleries or not, each one of us needs to market ourselves.

The Essential Guide, Santa Fe & Taos, owned by Trish and Chip Byrd, is the one publication we simply must be a part of every year. (see http://www.essentialguide.com/) It’s a lovely book that covers galleries, shopping, dining, spas, lodging, museums, attractions, wine tours, special events, recreation, the High Road, the Low Road, Santa Fe and Taos. It is out for the entire year and is an invaluable resource for visitors to the area. And it’s a tremendous marketing tool for artists. If we do no other advertising during the year, The Essential Guide gives us a great presence. It is, in fact “essential.”

The deadline for delivering our camera-ready art has come and gone, but the good folks at The Guide granted us an extension. Thank you Trish and Chip! Bill’s been busy making and installing his sign so we could photograph it for the ad—a very big project—and all three of us have been putting together files in preparation for building the ad.

Finally, all of our ducks were in a row so we stopped by the gallery to pick up a couple paintings and then headed to Taos to create the ads. We’re doing two ads, one for Bill Loyd’s bells (see previous post The Farmer’s Mantra) and one for our Anna Karin Gallery (see previous post Anna Karin Gallery: Before and After). While I am only a partner in the gallery with Anna, the lines between our businesses get blurred. Anna shows some of her work in the home she shares with Bill and Bill shows his bells at our gallery. Bill has also been responsible for creating the whimsical signs at our gallery and his studio/gallery. So, you see, the three of us have become rather entwined. And I feel incredibly fortunate that that is so.

We went to Taos because that’s where Barry Norris Studio is (see http://www.barrynorrisstudio.com/index.html). Barry runs a copy business shooting high caliber scans of original art. He works with some of the best artists in New Mexico. He also has a terrific designer on staff named Gak Stonn, and this is who we were going to see. We met with Gak in the morning and laid out our ideas for the ads, which he entered onto his computer. We left to have some lunch and run errands, while Gak shot our paintings and tightened the ads. Over lunch we realized we needed to change our original concept a bit. And, of course, since we were in Taos, we visited our good friends at UpCycled Fashions (see previous post UpCycled Fashion: Cutting Edge Clothing With a Conscience).

So we arrived back and Gak happily made the changes for us. He’s a very accomplished designer and understood everything we needed. He was professional, fast and good. A rather wonderful combination. And we are done with our big push to accomplish our ads—more work than it seems.

Now we are back in Truchas enjoying the OTHER side of this artful life: the actual making of art. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Love to you all,
Jeane