Current mood:	hungry
Entry tags:	12 mistakes of the young artist, art mistakes, gallery related, online exposure

12 Mistakes of the Young Artist.
Over the years I have been guilty of an amusing mound of mistakes when attempting to present my artwork in various ways, whether it be to galleries, online, or in scholastic presentations. The following are a few to learn from:

1. No front-loading frames. This means you. If you catch yourself looking at them and thinking "how cheap ♥" pop a beer (foreign or domestic does not matter) and walk slowly away. While these frames are cheap and slick looking, they are also increasingly undependable the more you use them. I have had several pieces fall out of the frame while presenting them to galleries, or even *SHUDDER* in the gallery.

2. It must have a wire. No matter what those people say, MAKE SURE you have a wire on the back of your picture for easy hanging. Again, I fought another gallery over this. I had suitable mounting on the back for screws and even though they never specified that pictures need a wire on the back, they were ready to reject my work without even looking at it. (The story had a happy ending, but only because the adorable little volunteer registration guy and his middle-aged handyman lover buddy took pity upon me and specially rigged the walls so my pieces could be displayed.)

3. Businesspeople suck. Be prepared. The most well-meaning, enthusiastic, genuine businessman who has suddenly decided to "go into the arts" is still perfectly capable of losing your slides, being unreachable by phone, and even worse, losing your art or vanishing with your art if their business goes under. How do I know this? Guess. What can you do to protect yourself? For one, maintain CONSTANT CONTACT with anyone who has your art for any reason. Get as much contact info from them as you possibly can, flood them with your contact info, and when possible give them duplicates (slides, cds, etc). And for the love of god hand them your policy on "appropriate use" of your art.

4. Open air shows...! Spontaneous, free...yeah, you still need a mat and frame. If anyone else loves "Plein Air" or "Open Air" shows where you all get little signs around your neck like marathon runners and sit around doing art all day as a public event, take heed! A gallery may still be nice enough to display your painting or charcoal piece(s) if you did not think to mat them before turning them in, BUT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO SELL. And you probably want to sell that hideous picture of that stupid picturesque building that you would never, never have otherwise drawn, right? Then plan beforehand the size of your paper or canvas and bring stuff to mat or frame it WITH YOU. A fully-finished piece will look great in the show and will sell much better than something a patron has to frame...I have easily sold such pieces on the street before gallery, where such "sidewalk art" is considered natural and even charming, but never at gallery time.

5. Oh, and about mats...when a show says "appropriately matted," that is what they mean. I got burned good on this one. I spent an ungodly amount to print up a lovely digital piece and it never saw gallery space because I chose to slide it directly into a frame like a poster. I looked around the show and every single piece, no matter how innovative, had mat-BOARD as well as frame. Frame alone is not enough. Well la~de DAH!

6. Framing faux-pas. To name a few: front-loading frames, glass or plexiglass that is scratched up (even if you think it doesn't look bad, they are prepared to get really picky, really quickly when they have to narrow down a huge amount of show entries), scuffed frames, assembled frames that are not flush, black or colored mat-board. Your gorgeous, original, AWESOME piece can easily be rejected by some idiot with a particular "framing" axe to grind. If you suck at framing and you care about the show, get your stuff framed by a craft store. As you slowly die a little inside, consider that it's still a better feeling than knowing a city-full of people didn't get to see the best thing you've made all year because of the "bad" frame.

7. Alien Cogitations. I was literally told I missed out on Grand Prize because of one piece I did having "alien cogitations." The sophisticated lady who judged that show was an "Environmental Designer" [read: port-o-potties and benches] and I assume she meant "alien CONNOTATIONS." Why did she think my piece was about aliens? It featured two rather ethereal people looking at each other, one bald, and was called what I considered to be an innocuous/appropriate title, Encounter. Yeah, no. Be hideously careful when choosing the title of a piece so as not to invoke some moron's prejudices (and worse, their malapropisms). Again, as you die a little inside.

8. Conventions: Don't send a friend to do an artist's job. For the love of god, if you want to make any money at a convention at all, GO YOURSELF to help run the table. Even the best and most faithful friend has no effective way of talking up your art, adjusting prices if you notice your prices are too high for the general range, spontaneously entering art shows, and spreading the word of your website(s) like a VIRUS. You are your own biggest fan, so go forth and evangelize. If you cannot go, minimize potential losses by not spending an inordinate amount of money on business cards and prints, provide your friends with alternate pricing labels, and have no expectations.

9. Google Image Search! Why am I invisible?! From Google Image Search: Help: "Google analyzes the text on the page adjacent to the image, the image caption and dozens of other factors to determine the image content." In other words, you have to have the text you want near the image. For years none of my images have been on image search because I don't have a little caption under them saying "By Heather Landry // Sandpaperdaisy." I am having to rework pretty much everything to change this. Avoid my pain.

10. Maximizing your online images. Seems obvious, but PUT YOUR ONLINE NAME and/or ART SITE ON EVERY ONLINE IMAGE. Think of your images as an advertisement for what you actually want people to buy, the book version or the print. It's okay for things you're selling online to just have a signature (which you should keep consistent) since people will most likely be turned off by some big watermark. But anything lower rez that you're not actively selling in single-image form is fair play for a little ADVERTISEMENT. Make damed sure that when people download your images for personal use, those images lead you back to your site. Filenames can be changed.

11. Consistency woes. This has caused me no end of trouble. In a nutshell, check every outlet you are going to use your art identity with before establishing one. What do I mean? On deviantART I am sandapaperdaisey. My site is www.sandpaperdaisy.com. (no extra E) This journal is heath-art. NOT good, eh? Sadly this is something I can't really fix easily, but I want you to avoid my pain. Make a firm decision about your online identity, then run it through every potential exposure channel (domain name, MySpace, deviantART, eBay, LiveJournal, Amazon), then sign up for all of them at once when you find an untaken name.

12. Beware the Photo Center. In a nutshell, if you're going to try to save money by getting slides or black and whites or some other uncommon format developed at a supercenter's photo kiosk, BE CAREFUL. I went to one and had my photos explicitly marked to be made into slides; what I got were awful 3x5 color photographs that cost me roughly $50 more than the slides I wanted (since I wanted two slides of each exposure, I got two photographs instead). And to top it off my negatives were no longer able to be made into slides. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth that day, especially since they were for an important grant presentation...

I could go on, but I won't.