How To Build a Following for Your Art? [90]

Apple podcast

How do I actually sell my art? This can be so frustrating for artists especially if you look at people further ahead than you and think there is some magic formula. But artists today have a massive opportunity to create their own following independently of, or in collaboration with galleries.

This week, we discuss how to attract a following for your art – a topic that was prompted by a question from Maureen wrote and asked:  “Could you discuss the challenging task of selling artwork? It’s all very well to produce a good selection of work, maintain a well-designed website, upload to Saatchi (or wherever) and add the best hashtags until you’re blue in the face! However the stumbling block in my case is clearly apparent. I, like many other artists, have no great following. Building a following takes years for the average person. I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

We actually agree with Maureen – all those things mean nothing without a following and yes it takes years to build a big following – but it doesn’t take years to start attracting new people to your work and it doesn’t take much for you to start selling paintings.

In this episode, we share how we each developed our audiences, particularly via Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Our tips include; choosing one or two platforms rather than trying to do everything; showing up consistently; acting like a pro even at the very beginning; focusing on sharing things that are of interest to others rather than just selling; engaging with others; and above all – being yourself.

Mentioned:

Ira Glass: The Perpetual Struggle to Find Your Creative Voice:

“Ted Hughes: an unauthorised Life” by Jonathan Bate

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

How do you measure your success as an artist? [89]

Apple podcast

Many artists shy away from numbers and spreadsheets, but we both believe it’s vital to track key metrics in order to measure your progress. But don’t panic! This week we’re discussing the idea of success… what does it mean to be a successful artist and how do you know if you are achieving your goals?

A listener questions if she will ever have ‘success’ if she keeps switching direction so the discussion starts there and then we talk about what metrics might be right for YOU to track which are aligned with your own aims.

These metrics change at different stages of our career – in the early stages we can track the numbers that tell us if we are showing up consistently (things like hours spent painting and number of social media posts). Later on, we might be more interested in sales, expenses, web traffic, and social media engagement. But before you can decide what numbers to track, you really need to understand what success looks like for you – everything else flows from that key decision.

Are you more interested in selling your work or in living a fulfilling creative life (or both)? Once you know where you are heading, you can determine what to measure.

Mentioned:

Abigail Bowen Dark Days http://www.abigailbowen.com/
Hicks Gallery https://www.hicksgallery.co.uk/abigail-bowen-dark-days/

Jackson Pollock documentary Mural:

Yvonne Lyon https://yvonnelyonmusic.com/
Susan Hart https://www.susanhartart.com/

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Go Big! Should you scale up to larger work? [88]

Apple podcast

Is there a perception in the art world that big is better?  Do you gain more respect if you make larger paintings? This week we debate whether size matters and share our own personal experiences of scaling up our work.

We discuss the challenges of working larger, including the need to think differently, choose the right substrate and tools, and – most of all – buy enough paint.

We also challenge the notion that big is better and discuss the importance of finding your own desired way of working. We feel that so much of this depends on what your work is about and what feels right to you. The right work will always find an audience, no matter the size. And if it doesn’t, does that really matter if you are painting what you love?

This week’s chat also covers internet scams, inspirational emails, school reports that miss the mark, and Alice’s first in-person art event in 2020.

Alice is showing with the Cowshed Collective 5-20 September 2020 
https://www.artwavefestival.org/2020venues/cowshed-collective

Mentioned:

Ethan Hawke TED talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRS9Gek4V5Q
Polly Dutton https://www.pollydutton.co.uk/
Rachel Davies https://www.racheldavisstudio.com/abstractportraits

You can see ‘Canopy‘ on this page: https://alicesheridan.com/landscape-unlocked/

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Recognising transitions in changing times [87]

Apple podcast

As we approach “back to school” in the UK and Louise’s course comes to end, we are both thinking about making changes to your studio work and how we manage transitions. But the Covid-19 pandemic has taken its toll and in this episode, we discuss how that has manifested for each of us.

From a general feeling of being scattered (Alice) to a fear of public transport (Louise) and the over-riding sense that very little is certain anymore. But since uncertainty is our new reality, how do we stay upbeat and motivated?

Our wide-ranging discussion spans meditation, managing moods, enjoying the present moment, insomnia, self-knowledge, the joys of a Sunday newspaper, and how we can make more time for things we enjoy. We also discuss what keeps us from doing what we want, including the fear of becoming totally selfish, the habit of staying busy, and the danger of failing in public. In the end, we both believe that this strange lockdown time has made us re-evaluate our priorities and tune in to what we really want out of our lives.

Mentioned:

Alice is showing with the Cowshed Collective 5-20 September 2020 
https://www.artwavefestival.org/2020venues/cowshed-collective

Alastair Campbell “Living Better”: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/aug/30/alastair-campbell-surviving-depression-how-i-learned-to-live-with-my-enemy

Annie Nightingale: “Hey, Hi, Hello” 5 decades of popular culture https://www.waterstones.com/book/hey-hi-hello/annie-nightingale//9781474616683

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

How to make decisions (when you can’t know the outcome) [86]

Apple podcast

Our podcast reached 500,000 downloads this week and we are celebrating by looking back on our decision to start recording together. This led to a discussion about how we make decisions and how we judge success. What would have happened if we hadn’t done this together? And would we have continued if no-one had listened to the first 20 episodes? How do we even judge success, given that we never set a target in the first place?

Alice suggests that one way to decide anything is to ask ‘does it feel fun?’ Louise suggests that there has to be some kind of reward to keep you going – and sometimes the reward is simply the enjoyment of the process.

We both agree that (a) your decisions should be guided by what feels good (b) the rewards have to be internal (external validation is less important) and (c) that we shouldn’t look for results too quickly; everything takes time to build.

In this episode, we also take a detour into our school days via Alice’s school reports and answer a question from a listener about selling styles – when are we helping people decide and when are we just being pushy?

Mentioned:

Alice is showing with the Cowshed Collective 5-20 September 2020 https://www.instagram.com/cowshedcollective/
Tracey Ross Art https://tracey-rossart.co.uk/

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License