If you’re a visual artist still struggling to make money selling your art in coffee shops — then you need to get with the times.
Local engagement will always be a vital part of the artistic community, and there’s nothing wrong with convincing the local cafe or art gallery to put your work up on the walls.
But the reality is that online engagement has become necessary for the vast majority of emerging artists to find an audience and build the clientele they will need to succeed in the long-term.
This situation has been deepened by the pandemic, when the only opportunities for discovering and patronizing new artists was through a computer screen.
So if you’re talented and you know it, but you need to find new ways of reaching a wider audience, here’s a few things worth your consideration.
Social Media
This might seem a little obvious, as nearly all professionals must now have some sort of social media presence. However, it’s not just about creating a Facebook or LinkedIn account. There’s way too much competition for that.
Successful artists learn to leverage the particular personality of each social media platform for their benefit. For example, many painters now upload time-lapse videos of their work, so that viewers can watch the work completed from start to finish. This allows people to understand the amount of work and skill required for your artwork, as well as the beauty of the finished artwork.
Learn more with this great article from Superfine about “The 9 Best Social Media Platforms and Tools for Emerging Artists”:
“By catering to each social media platform’s unique audience and desire for content presented in different ways – and there are a lot of platforms to choose from, and many approaches to presenting content and information – you’ll be exposed to collectors you may have never dreamed of reaching before!”
Etsy — And Sites Like It
While Etsy may have started as a marketplace simply for arts and crafts, it has grown to include all kinds of artists and creators looking for a place to sell their wares.
Many kinds of artists have found a market on Etsy that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. If your art is about beaded necklaces, crochet Pokemon, bottle-cap maps, or something else equally unique, it’s going to be more difficult to get those things exhibited in art galleries, which tend to favor more traditional forms of art.
While Etsy is a great option, there are now many alternatives as well, including ArtFire, Ruby Lane, Storenvy, and Aftcra.
NFTs
This is a risky one, but if you haven’t learned about NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, then you need to at least give it a look.
NFTs are essentially a kind of digital collectible that’s backed by blockchain technology and bought and sold with crypto currency.
They’re relevant to artists because painters, musicians and online creators of all kinds have flocked to NFT marketplaces in the last year to try and get a piece of the billions of dollars now spent on NFTs.
“It’s a strange new phenomenon to many people because collecting has for so long been dominated by physical collections,” said Thomas Kane, a private wealth manager and art aficionado based in Chicago. “But the growing market for NFTs, especially as they relate to artists, is impossible to ignore,” Chicago’s Thomas Kane added.