Posted on: Monday, June 14, 2004

AT WORK
Artists need not starve in doing what they love best

By Andrea Kay
Gannett News Service

Say "starving artist," and most people think of someone who does something creative but makes little money. But the artist can do something about that by learning the business side of his work.

Most people involved in a creative endeavor of their own loathe the business aspect.

"It's just not my thing," says mixed media painter Glenna Atkins, who is based in Cincinnati. "I just want to make art."

Despite her adversity to the business part of her work, she embraced it, and in the last two years has gone from being a part-time to full-time artist with a following of admirers.

Getting her name out was one of her first business challenges. "Promoting myself was hard. But I realized you must seek attention."

She developed the basics — first, just getting a computer. "I reluctantly gave in," she says. She took photographs of her work, which are all on her computer, and developed a mailing list and Web site.

Then came a plan that would let her be seen by the largest number of people. "I decided to focus on outdoor art fairs and in a particular geographic area where I'd get tons of people seeing my work in a couple days instead of maybe 25 in a gallery."

Tracking inventory was another tough business process. "But the more you sell, the more you have to produce and track. By knowing which pieces are where and what sold, it helps me see which pieces people are responding to."

Judy Hand, an illustrator for stationery products, didn't necessarily want to market herself either, but says, "I really like painting pictures and realized the only way I'd get more of that was to start calling up people and showing them my work."

She is also very responsive — which many creative people aren't, failing to call people back immediately or sometimes, ever. "I always call people back and when they say they like my work, I follow up sending a thank-you note and 20 color copies of my work," she says.

Even if a creative endeavor doesn't require extensive business processes, creative folks need a professional way to invoice clients — something some independent contractors don't have, either.

A director of commercials told me he hired a production crew of five people for a two-day shoot and asked them to invoice him that week. He's still waiting for two invoices. "One invoice was handwritten on a little piece of lined paper that I couldn't read," he said.

"I had to look at the envelope's return address to see who to pay and then rewrite his name and address on his invoice to submit it to my client. Another guy sent me an invoice for another job, so I had to call him up and ask for the right one."

As a painter who also runs a well-organized business, Hand says the business is secondary — but necessary to achieve her financial goals. And whether you're a freelance camera person, writer or artist, as she summed it up, "If you want to sell your work you'll either pay someone to take care of the business or learn to do it yourself."

Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of several books on landing a job. She can be e-mailed at: andrea@andreakay.com.