For me, the choice was to make a run at the grassroots style of art sales. My art does not translate well to galleries and while I do make some “FineArt” pieces the majority of the art I make lends itself to print sales and lower price-point type of sales. Now, how do I do it?
Research: I attended as many shows, cons, and artists markets that I could to see how people like me do what they do. My advice to you is to do so also. Find your style and educate yourself on how to accomplish your goals, this is by far the most important step.
Be creative: Now that you have a model for your art, how can you still use the model to sell, but then differentiate yourself from other artists? My decision was to have a traditional display style for my booth, but my front table would show, through displaying original art in portfolios, how my art is created. My goal was to spark conversations with viewers about my style and focus on art creation. It was a gamble but people love to look at the step by step creation of the art and it makes them feel like they are involved in the process. I get 25% of my sales just from talking to people about how I make my art.
Decide what you need: Supplies, displays, baskets, print baggies, baseball card holders, whatever you need to make, buy, or procure to show your vision of the display to people. This is where your overhead cost is at. I had to drop about $400 to get the display to be what I wanted it to be. Keep track of ALL your costs and always use these numbers to help you weigh whether or not a show or display opportunity is worth your time/cost ratio (we can talk about that later).
Find your first show and GO FOR IT!!! There is so much more to talk about at this point, but for this month that will about do it.
Until then, keep hustling!
