Selling week: um, a wee break...

I haven't drafted today's post and am being stolen away by the nice and clever Snapdragonbeads (http://www.snapdragonbeads.com/) (and her toddler) for an escape to the British Museum and Wagamama noodles. It wasn't entirely unplanned, but unfortunately my blog was. Sorry!



So I will still post this evening UK time, which will mean a post about mid-day if you're in the USA somewhere.

Selling week: It's Seasonal

An unexpected aspect of selling art - seasonality. This surprises a lot of people when I tell them, how seasonal business can be.

A big seasonal aspect is art fairs. The big ones tend to "clump" - happening mainly in early spring (Feb/Mar) and again in autumn (Oct/Nov). I have a gallery owner friend who's main income is from the fair circuit. We hardly speak to him in November! A gallery doing the whole round can be at Art London 8-12 Oct, Edinburgh Art Fair 20-22 Oct, London Affordable Art Fair 22-25 Oct (Sydney AAF is at the same time), then Amsterdam AAF 29 Oct - 1 Nov, Art Ireland 13-15 Nov or maybe the Northern Art Show 12-14 Nov. The Frieze and Zoo art fairs are also mid-October. If you're an artist you might be providing work to your galleries for these shows and be doing artist fairs as well, for example the Brighton Art Fair 1-4 Oct.

The pattern repeats in spring. London Art hits a little earlier in January, starting the season. Then Glasgow Art Fair is in March, as is the spring London AAF and the Brussells AAF.

If you're a commercial artist represented by galleries these two seasons can be exhausting. They can also be potentially all your income for the year.

To top it off we artists do like having Open Studios! And hopefully you like those too. An opportunity to meet each other in person and have a genuine one-on-one opportunity with buyers and fans that usually only talk to the gallery staff. And guess when those tend to be? You guessed it: spring and autumn.

Now, there is a reason for these seasons. At a basic marketing level we, like any business, want to be sure to reach the most people, and the most appropriate people, at the best time.

Winter/Christmas isn't on the whole a big art buying time - by which I mean larger gallery pieces. Yes people buy small works and popular works as gifts but art can be a very personal choice so understandably it may not be a good gift choice if you're not certain. Collectors feel a little guilty buying for themselves at this time when they maybe should be buying presents for others! Hence the new "season" starting about late-January into early spring: January payday has hit and people are recovered from Christmas spending.
(Painting: "Cold Water", acrylic on canvas, 24"x36" © Tina Mammoser 2009, £900 - painted from winter days of ice and snow gathering on the Lake Michigan shoreline, in Chicago.)

Summer, at least in Europe, is when half the population disappears. Most people here take at least 2 weeks off and go on holiday, many take longer (we get a lot more vacation days than folk in the USA; I used to get 30 days back when I worked in the city, which could be topped up to 34). Kids are out of school so would need to be brought along to events. Artists themselves are of course home with kids or on holiday. (Unless you're like me and take the opportunity to hide from the direct sun in your studio for 2 months.)
(Painting: "Splash (Starboard)", acrylic on canvas, 100x80cm © Tina Mammoser 2009, £900 - painted this summer on Lake Michigan in Chicago, splashing waves on the beach wall at Oak Street Beach)

So that leaves us spring and autumn. Add this seasonality to the usual unpredictable income any self-employed person has. So when we're in the studios nonstop spare a thought for us - we probably have a bunch of shows coming up at once, or are trying to paint madly before the crazy season hits!

Selling week: Red Dots!

This week I'm going to let you in on that little secret artists don't like to talk about - we SELL our work! Oh yes. And we like to. And we need to. And it seems oh so forward, but we are businesses too. We just happen to love our business. So here's a week of blog posts about that secret we-can't-afford-to-be-quiet side to being an artist.

First a bit of trivia for those of you who don't go into galleries and the like. The Red Dot.

"Spring View", acrylic on board, sold last week, © Tina Mammoser 2009

Ah, the bright shining light for any artist! We have shows and look for the red dots. At art fairs galleries will put a little line up of tags for sold work, with red dots on them. Big shows, like the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, may have little red dots on label stickers all over the place. They're even starting to appear on websites. But, you say, what is this red dot thing?

Simply put: red dot stickers are a simple way of showing a piece of art has sold, but where the art stays on the wall for the duration of the show. Sometimes you'll see multiple red dots for things like photography or printmaking editions (so 3 dots will mean they've sold 3 prints from the limited edition). You might see an orange dot! or other non-red colour. Generally this means something is reserved. And here's another little secret - sometimes we put red dots out as a marketing ploy. Success breeds success, so the impression of sales generates interest and can draw people in.

The symbol is becoming trendy even outside the gallery itself - the term being appropriated in other ways by art organisations. There's now the Red Dot Art Fair (giving an ever hopeful impression of the sales they'll generate) and the Tate Modern used to sell a red dot tote bag.

So if you ever go to a fair or gallery and see red dots, you'll know there are probably happy artists behind the scenes!

"Blackgang, Below", acrylic, 120x150cm, sold last week, © Tina Mammoser 2009

Flashback Friday

Crest X and Crest XI
Oil on loose canvas
Approx. 5"x4" each, circa. 2000
© Tina Mammoser, 2009

Tiny oil paintings from my period of transitioning from figurative to abstract work - when I was concentrating on texture and patterns of water in my paintings.

Art for Christmas!

It's December - I can use the "C" word now! (or "x" word if you more a xmas kind of person)

I've been working on more small paintings like ACEOs (2.5"x3.5" miniature paintings) and my 5" horizons to take to this Saturday's WeMake Christmas fair. (The ACEOs are mounted on cards too, all ready to send as a gift!) It's in Chelsea Town Hall, London, and I'm looking forward to meeting more fellow Etsy craftspeople there. While you wouldn't usually find me at a craft fair I'm making an exception - because of both the community and the quality. So I'm nearly packed, and I'll be making my way on the tube to Sloan Square - the joys of not driving!

A mini-interview with me on the WeMake Blog is here!

WeMake Christmas
Chelsea Town Hall
Kings Road, London, SW3 5EE
SATURDAY 5TH December
11.00am- 5pm
(Nearest station: Sloane Square)
Entrance: £2 per person, children free

Research and development

Today is my weekly R&D day. Alongside a computer task day I give myself 2-4 hours purely to read, look things up, ponder, and just generally absorb information. Used to be I felt guilty about that time so just fit it in as and when. I recently realised that when I did set aside some solid time for this, say an afternoon, my actual painting time was more inspired and productive.

So today I'm in the comfy red chair and here's my little pile of things to read or browse through:

• Turmoil and Tranquility (looking at dark stormy seas)
• Art for the Nation (ditto)
• Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester (going to pick 2 artists at random to read)
• latest Coast magazine
• Creative Authenticity, by Ian Roberts (going to read principles 10 and 11)
• Amnesty International catalogue (a bit of xmas shopping to break up the reading!)
• An Introduction to Astrobiology (brushing up on some geology background)

Artist writing

I recently spent a week writing a new artist statement, following Alyson Stanfield's The Relatively Pain-Free Artist Statement (and that is an affiliate link).

It's still longer than it probably should be. This is meant to be a short "draw them in" kind of statement and not the typical long rambling artsy essay.

A lot of the things I wrote were already in my sketchbook thoughts in one form or another, but the worksheets and Alyson's questions made me think about them more and distill them down into the really essential points. And there were ideas in there that keep coming up in my jottings and I think are very important - but not for my artist statement. They're issues and ideas relevent to my development and conceptual side of the work. Basically, studio writing not public writing.

At some point I'll have to whittle it down more - a lot of applications and websites want 150 characters for example. But until then here is my new statement. Enough to tell you a bit about me and the work and make you want to go look at the paintings, not sit and read more words.

"The vastness and power of the sea is a constant source of inspiration. In my paintings I simplify real seascapes into tranquil spaces of line, colour and light. The sea is one of the few places we can experience total isolation and become absorbed in its overwhelming space and force. We cannot master or humanise the sea, so I capture mere moments of its lifespan.

Though the paintings are specific places from my cycling along the British coast, many people are reminded of places from their childhood or a favourite seaside spot. Simple abstraction connects with real landscape. The depth and luminosity come from many very transparent layers of colour built up slowly, an effect rarely achieved with acrylic paint. The longer you look the more of the colour and variety you see in the paintings"