Matrons & Mistresses

Articles

Big Money

© Mieke Marple

© Mieke Marple

Big Money ‘A’
Mieke Marple

It’s crucial—not only professionally but creatively—to put your work out there.

– Mieke Marple

 

An Article by Guest Writer & Artist: Mieke Marple


 
 

Someone once told me that until you’re in three different 12-step programs, you’re still in denial. I’m in two, so in denial I still must be. Were I to choose a third, it would probably be Underearners Anonymous—for even when I ran a successful gallery and could finally pay myself a salary after three unpaid years, I still regularly pulled from my inheritance to pay for both lifestyle and business expenses. With this in mind, my initial pitch was to write about self-esteem and underearning. But wouldn’t it be more helpful, I thought, to write a list—using my experience as both an art dealer and artist—of 12 best business practices for “starving” artists? I come from privilege. Nevertheless, as someone who used to be anorexic, I understand how it feels to live in deprivation. Thus, the word “starving” is really for anyone who feels they deserve more abundance in their life—be it of money, time, love, or appreciation. This list is, perhaps, first and foremost for me. Still, I hope others will find it useful. At the very least, they can take what they like and leave the rest.

1. Get on social media and post frequently

Being on social media is even more important than having a website, though I’d recommend doing both. Top companies post an average of 1.5 times a day and many influencers post more than that. Social media has its problems, but to deny its importance is to deny reality. While it’s tempting to post only finished work, I’d encourage you to post work at various stages of completion. People want to witness your process. They want to see the inner workings of your artistic mind. Social media is also a great tool for storytelling. Post videos or texts that explain the thinking and inspiration behind your work. I’d refrain, however, from posting too many photos of your cat or lunch. Keep some mystery to yourself.

2. Attend openings and talks

Back when I dealt art, I was one of those spiteful people who loved and was good at networking. I don’t attend as many openings or talks as I used to, partly because I burnt out on them, partly because there’s a pandemic. However, I recognize the need to do this again. It’s essential to maintain an insatiable curiosity for all things art—and to view such events as not only networking opportunities, but as forms of Continuing Education. So go to these events ready to learn and to connect. If you meet someone interesting, ask them out to coffee, and—if you still like each other after that—invite them over to your studio.

3. Take good photographs

99.9% of people will see your work online before ever seeing it in person, so—yes—clear, high-quality photographs are imperative. That means: even, white lighting, a neutral backdrop, and no Instagram filters with dark halos around the edges. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t also take photos of your work with pink filters in the middle of the forest. Just don’t have these photos be the only photos of your work. Professional art documentation photographers can be expensive ($75 an hour and up). However, if you can afford them, I think they are worth it. Either way, do yourself a favor and invest in a set of studio lights and learn some basic photo-editing skills so that your work can be color balanced and your lines, if you have them, can be parallel and perpendicular.

 
 
 
Image Courtesy of Mieke Marple

Image Courtesy of Mieke Marple

 
 

4. Get an inventory system

An inventory system is an easily searchable database with images and information on all your artwork. I use WrkLst, which has a user-friendly interface and, in my opinion, is reasonably priced for artists. Regardless of what you use, being well organized is essential. I can’t stress this enough. Scaling your business is much harder if your essential information is all over the place. When your career takes off, you do not want to spend hours looking for photographs or dimensions of old artwork. Get organized early. Build it into your studio practice DNA, so that it never holds you back when it counts. 

5. Develop an email list

Social media is a great way to update people. However, not everyone is on it and sometimes a more formal, in-depth announcement is called for. This is where the email list comes in. Email lists are also great because they force you to organize your contacts. Spending hours looking for an old curator or collector’s email is just as potentially harmful as scouring your computer for old photographs or artwork dimensions. Create a list of people interested in receiving updates in Gmail or Mailchimp (P.S. WrkLst integrates nicely with Mailchimp), and send out an email every time you have something newsworthy.

6. Form a support group of fellow artists 

While emotional support from friends and partners is great, support from fellow creatives is invaluable. No one knows the trials and tribulations of being an artist like other artists. One way I have met this need is by forming a creative recovery group with seven other writers, artists, and musicians who are all in 12-step programs. We meet weekly over Zoom as we work through Julia Cameron’s 12-step-inspired book: The Artist's Way. However, you don’t need to be in recovery to form a support group. By all means, gather with your artist friends at a bar, casino, or strip club. As long as you feel safe being vulnerable there, I’m all for it. 

7. Track your sales and expenses

This can be painful. For many of us, art expenses outweigh art sales. And so, we’d rather do anything else—hear about our parents’ sex lives, hike Mount Kilimanjaro—than look closely at our sales vs. spending. The point of this exercise is not to shame you into not spending money on artmaking, but, rather, to help you make smarter choices around it. Which artworks (in terms of size, medium, or content) sell the most? Which sell the least? How much does your work cost to make? What are your profits or losses on each piece? Can your work be made faster or with less costly materials? Also, if something takes you much longer than it would a fabricator, then you might not be saving as much money as you think—for those are valuable hours that could be spent doing any of the other points on this list.

 
 
 
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Image Courtesy of Artsy

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Jenny Holzer, Tom Otterness

8. Don’t wait for opportunities

Our artworks are our babies. Thus, it’s tempting to believe they deserve only the best galleries, art fairs, etc.—and many are even willing to wait for years for this to happen. My advice: DON’T. If you find yourself with a body of work you’re excited about and nowhere to exhibit it, show it anyway. Rent an empty space or find an abandoned one and mount your work there. Host an open studio or create a virtual experience and invite everyone you know. It’s crucial—not only professionally but creatively—to put your work out there. Doing so allows you to see your work through others’ eyes, i.e. with a bit more distance, which often leads to creative breakthroughs.

9. Don’t work for free

Use your judgement here. Some opportunities that don’t pay are worth the exposure. However, most—I believe—are not. This is a hard one for me. I used to do lots of writing and lecturing for free and expected the same from others. No more! I recognize the problematic nature of not paying people for their creative labor. Not only does it devalue such labor, but it favors those who come from means and can afford to work for cachet alone over those who don’t and can’t. And trust me, I understand the impulse to take advantage of any self-promotional opportunity, but have some self-respect. You aren’t as desperate as you think. Besides, if you’re doing all the other points on this list, then you’re already plenty out there.

10. Get a flexible, undemanding day job

In America (as elsewhere), we tend to conflate what we do for work with who we are. Don’t believe it. It’s tempting to get an “impressive” day job and then try to be an artist in your spare time. The problem with impressive jobs is that they tend to be stressful and all-consuming. You’ll have little energy left over for your own practice. Instead, look for work that is flexible and emotionally undemanding. I, myself, am a K-12 tutor. I work 12 hours a week and am amazingly able to cover all my bills with those earnings. It’s not an “impressive” job, but it affords me lots of time and mental bandwidth. My clients don’t email me late at night or on weekends, and if sometimes I can’t tutor because of a looming show deadline, they are very understanding.

 
 
 
© Mieke Marple

© Mieke Marple

Big Money ‘B’
Mieke Marple

Make a list of everything that makes you weird and double down on it in your art practice, art business, and art marketing.

– Mieke Marple

 
 

11. Write about your work

Actually, just write in general. As recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, I write three pages of free association each morning. This helps me dump out the chatter in my head so that I can a) more clearly see my own thoughts, and b) unblock access to my subconscious. Writing is one of the best therapeutic tools I know and—yes—your art practice needs its own form of this. In addition to preparing you for studio visits, writing about your work will help you identify subconscious motives at play inside it. And once you’ve unearthed these, you can return to your work with greater awareness and intentionality.

12. Lean into what is unique about you

If you follow nothing else, follow this. Make a list of everything that makes you weird and double down on it in your art practice, art business, and art marketing. If you don’t know what makes you weird, here’s a trick: what do you feel shame around? Oftentimes, we feel shame around that which we believe alienates us from others. We feel shame around physical disabilities, learning disabilities, mental illnesses, fetishes, our weight, our finances, our race, our gender orientation, our gender identity, as well as silly things like, say, a love of The Bachelor

Here are some things I have felt varying degrees of shame around: not making art for 10 years while being an art dealer, walking away from a successful gallery to be an artist, living with my parents for 2 ½ years during this transition, my attraction to men in drag, my love of rainbows and bright colors, my love of wigs and costumes, my desire to be photographed, my desire to write explicit material, my financial history, my love of working with children and teens. I felt shame about these things because they didn’t match up with the supremely confident, supremely hetero, supremely “not strange” business maverick I thought I needed to be to earn others’ love and respect. Yet, when I finally allowed myself to do all the childish, matronly, silly, performative, and even perv-y things that I previously thought of as shameful or beneath me, I ended up in a much better position to earn others’ love and respect than before. This was not because others were into the same things as me, but because they could sense, on an intuitive level, the freedom from shame I exuded in every stroke of my paintbrush or click of my keyboard—a freedom that fosters a sense of abundance in both my life and theirs.