{"id":254593,"date":"2025-05-24T01:41:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T01:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/the-strategy-of-art\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T01:41:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T01:41:46","slug":"the-strategy-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=254593","title":{"rendered":"The Strategy of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Strategy of Art<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

If you can find a job you
\nenjoy, you\u2019ll never work a day in your life. I\u2019m not sure who first said that,
\nbut I followed that advice and became an artist expecting that my days would be
\nfilled with glitter and paint, evenings would be spent nibbling on canapes at
\nmy next art exhibition and I would be able to wear paint-stained clothes in
\npublic and drive around in a sleek Italian sports car. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At no point did anyone ever
\nsuggest that it might actually be hard work, nor that I would end up driving
\naround in a cute little yellow Fiat 500. <\/span><\/p>\n

To be fair, I did manage to
\nfulfil the dream of owning a sports car, although it was a British Jaguar
\nrather than some sleek Italian number. The Fiat 500 though had been on the
\nbucket list for a while, and I wanted to become a lot more environmentally
\nfriendly, and in part, because art supplies have become exponentially more
\nexpensive and my keen to be green attitude meant there would be more cash
\navailable to import Japanese paintbrushes. I never questioned if they were
\narriving by air.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor did anyone mention that
\nmostly, I would need to be concerned about things like sales funnels or
\ndistributed growth strategies, which to be totally honest, I\u2019m still not
\nconvinced is an actual thing. More recently there\u2019s so much currency given to
\nbeing \u2018agile\u2019, a business buzzword that as far as I can tell, means that you make
\nit up as you go along. Not that there is anything wrong in making it up as you
\ngo along, I\u2019m convinced that\u2019s exactly how you innovate, it\u2019s certainly how you
\nlearn, it\u2019s also how you make mistakes which are also great and essential
\nlessons to learn. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whenever I write an article
\nabout starting out in the art business I always mention having a strategy that
\ncovers both marketing and sales, and I have often talked about having a content
\nstrategy for the works that you create and of course, the content you put out
\non social media. That\u2019s all well and good but what I don\u2019t usually expand on in
\ntoo much depth is what you really need to focus on when writing those
\nstrategies. <\/span><\/p>\n

This week, we\u2019re going to take
\na dive into the world of creating a strategy to build your art business on, and
\nI will provide a few ideas that you might not have thought about but might be
\nimportant. They\u2019re certainly things that have helped me over my increasingly
\nlong career.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"80s<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
80s Pop Music Culture by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

When I first started out as an
\nindependent artist there was no such thing as the internet, or at least the
\ninternet that we know today. Hey, we had bulletin boards and a dial-up modem
\nthat the phone needed to be placed on top of. If you were born in the age of
\nanything more recent, you most likely have zero idea what I\u2019m even talking
\nabout, just know that life was hard. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you needed to find anything
\nout about running a business it usually involved some insane amount of effort,
\na few books, and some good luck. It\u2019s a little easier today in one respect,
\nalmost everything you need to learn can be found online, but to some extent
\nrunning a business has also become much more complicated than it once was. There\u2019s
\na heap more distraction for a start.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the art world of the past,
\nthere was a structure that an artist would generally follow. You would go to
\nart school, make contacts, work your way up through the gallery system and then
\nhopefully at the end of it, you might have sold some work. There was though,
\nnever a guarantee despite being told that was the only way.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a well-trodden, almost
\nlinear path that was more or less easily understood, even if it was next to a
\nnightmare to navigate or even get a foothold into at times. Today, that
\nstructure has been eroded away, gone are the gatekeepers to the art world that
\nonce stood outside the gallery doors. \u00a0Today
\nit\u2019s entirely possible to have a successful career in the creative sector
\nwithout ever having stepped into a gallery at all. <\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s relatively easy access
\nto the art world doesn\u2019t have anywhere near the same structure. Sure, there are
\nstill, gallery routes that artists can follow, but you now also have the option
\nof going it alone or working in collaboration, assuming you can find someone
\nwho is willing to collaborate and understands that collaboration is a two way
\nthing, but that\u2019s another blog entirely. The downside is that you then have to
\nalso, do the job that the galleries once did, and that means that you need to
\nlearn the art of the business of art, rather than just the art of creating
\ngreat art. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Tools<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tools of the Trade – by Mark Taylor and now available in my store!<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is no
\nsimple shortcut that allows you to only ever focus on creating art if you want
\nany of that art to find a paying wall to hang itself on. It takes effort, an
\neffort that can feel herculean at times, and I think it\u2019s fair to say that
\nalmost every artist who has chosen this route in the history of ever has found
\nout that at times, going it alone in the art world can feel incredibly daunting,
\neven lonely, and it most certainly identifies and exposes your vulnerable side
\nlike no other business I know.<\/span><\/p>\n

That daunting feeling is a
\ndifficult one to overcome. An artist today has to work in so many different
\nareas than they did at any time before. Back in the days of showing my work in
\na gallery, I had no idea about any of the business buzzwords that we hear so
\nmuch about today, it was simply a case of knuckling down and doing your best
\nand following the galleries lead, it was still incredibly hard though. I don\u2019t
\nthink I even came across terms such as progressively disintermediating
\nfunctionalized channels until a few years ago and to this day, I still have
\nlittle idea about what it really means. For all, I know it could be a made-up
\nbusiness buzz phrase designed to put us off even trying. <\/span><\/p>\n

One thing I absolutely do know
\nthough, is that the daunting feeling can be overcome and the business side of
\nthings can start to become second nature, so long as you have the absolute
\nbasics in place from the off.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the rub with so
\nmany of the new artists I come across who are just thinking about stepping out
\nonto the creative path as a professional artist. Knowing exactly what the
\nbasics of running an art business are, isn\u2019t a topic generally covered in any
\nmeaningful depth in many academic art studies, that\u2019s if the subject of
\nbusiness is even included at all. <\/span><\/p>\n

My advice to anyone thinking
\nof formally studying art is to double up on the learning and take an academic
\nprogram in business too and maybe even do this first. For those who are going
\ndown the self-taught route, \u00a0it matters
\nnot where or how you learn, that\u2019s another upside that has come from the
\nerosion of old school ways of doing things, but my advice is the same. Spend as
\nmuch time learning about business as you spend learning about creating great
\nart and then some more if you can.<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning about the business of
\nart is more critical than ever before. There has been an explosive growth in
\ntechnology over the past eighteen months and that growth has fractured an
\nalready outdated art world even more. It\u2019s a sector that has become much more
\ndestabilised due to the pandemic, and as a result, the way we now have to work
\nhas changed almost beyond recognition. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Ascend<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ascend – one of a number of Space inspired artworks in my new collection – Space and Beyond!<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

That might sound as if a
\ncareer in the art world should be even more daunting than before, and it can be
\nif you don\u2019t have a plan that builds the foundations on which you can build a
\nsuccessful career, one step at a time. Given that the art world now looks and
\nfunctions very differently to the art world we all knew just a little under two
\nyears ago, having a strategy that factors in those new changes and challenges makes
\nsense, even for artists who have been in the business for a while. Things have
\nchanged, it might be time to change your forward strategy a little to take into
\naccount what might be around the corner and of course to take into account the
\nmassive changes we have been seeing over the course of the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

The single most critical
\nelement when writing any strategy, be it for marketing, sales, content,
\nwhatever is to avoid noise. It\u2019s essential that the foundations are well built
\nand robust enough for you to build a business in a world that has changed,
\nin some cases, almost beyond recognition when compared to the same business a
\ncouple of years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Noise has no place in an
\nartists strategy, yet I see it far too often, and I see the impending
\nfrustration emerges when the art fails to go out of the door. Whenever I work
\nwith new artists, I\u2019m often struck at just how hard they work and by how much
\ncurrency they give to new trends. <\/span><\/p>\n

Some trends are worthy pursuits,
\nit\u2019s great to be right in at the start of something, but the fact that a trend
\nis a trend implies that you wouldn\u2019t be the first to do it and that
\nautomatically puts you in at least second place. You need to spot the next
\ntrend way before it\u2019s a trend and that my friends ain\u2019t exactly easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the more recent trends
\nthat we have all seen is a classic example of noise. The noise in question is
\naround the use of non-fungible tokens or NFTs. \u00a0No doubt a trend spurred on by recent NFT
\nsales that have grabbed headlines in mainstream media around the world. Inevitably,
\nafter about ten minutes of the first headline to announce that millions had
\nbeen paid for artwork through an NFT, artists were offering work for sale
\nthrough NFTs and perhaps missing the point a little that NFTs aren\u2019t something
\nthat only takes five minutes to master and slightly less to set up. <\/span><\/p>\n

NFTs aren\u2019t new. A few years
\nago I wrote an article asking whether artists were ready for bitcoin,
\nblockchain, and cryptocurrency in the art world. This was something that I had
\nbeen dabbling in at that point for a while, more out of interest than it being
\nwritten in any kind of master plan. It wasn\u2019t an easy process back then and
\nit\u2019s still as complex and costly to do it today. Another misconception that
\nseems to influence a lot of strategies is that NFTs are some kind of golden
\npanacea to being discovered, they\u2019re not. <\/span><\/p>\n

NFTs won\u2019t make your art
\neither more valuable or more desirable, indeed, they might even put a lot if
\nregular buyers off. If you are totally unprepared for NFT then it\u2019s better to
\nleave that as a strategy for later, in the meantime, it\u2019s totally fine to
\naccept the currency of RFM, or real freakin money, just like millions upon
\nmillions of artists have done and continue to do every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a place for NFTs, and
\nthey will continue to be prevalent for a while, although my guess is that at
\nsome point the world will change. Indeed, they can provide the provenance for
\ndigital works that have been impossible to supply in any other way. But their
\nprominence could be undermined if some of the financial institutions, countries
\nand governments who are generally doing their best to make them less relevant
\nget their way. <\/span><\/p>\n

Personally, I can see some
\nform of the blunt instrument called regulation being imposed on them, not least
\nbecause the other side of cryptocurrency has both uses in illegal activity
\nand a massive negative impact on the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"vintage<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Obsolescence by Mark Taylor – available in my store – digitally hand-painted recreations of vintage technology that was designed to become obsolete!\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is, that many trends
\nare generally noise and they can hamper whatever strategy you currently have,
\nespecially if you\u2019re not well prepared. Once those foundations of a strategy
\nare built, that\u2019s the time when you can begin to lay the bricks, and then in
\ntime, you might want to add the roof and a few essential extras. You don\u2019t have
\nto do it all today, you don\u2019t even have to do it all tomorrow, art isn\u2019t a
\nrace, it\u2019s way beyond even a marathon, it\u2019s an entire career that can last a
\nlifetime so you need a strategy that evolves and flexes throughout that
\nlifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s address that one thing
\nwe all know but prefer to never really talk about. Writing down strategies and
\nplans is plain and simply, boring. I know, and it\u2019s not lost on me that the
\nminute anyone sits down with the good intention to knuckle down and strategize,
\nthat\u2019s when life 1.0 gets in the way, or oh shiny happens, or another
\ncommission comes in. The thing is that you are the one who knows where you want
\nto go with your art business so it makes sense that there is only you who can
\nmap it out. There are no templates, art is the least cookie-cutter type
\nbusiness to be involved in, your strategy has to be as unique as your art, and
\nas unique as the people you want to buy your work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you begin to recognise
\nthat you don\u2019t have to fall in with every trend or become distracted with every
\nlittle noise, or get confused by the obscurity of business terminology, you can
\nbegin to focus on the basics. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you were to ask a business
\nguru, and that\u2019s definitely not me, they would tell you that a well-developed
\nmarketing strategy will help you realise your goals and focus on what you need
\nto be doing to reach your target market. In my experience, which to be fair
\nover the years has often drifted between try it and see and a laser-like focus has proven to me that it\u2019s the time when I\u2019m least lazy about doing the
\nbusiness-critical things is when I tend to get the majority of sales. Equally,
\nit\u2019s not always possible to be 100% focussed on the business side of things
\nwhen you also have to be 100% focussed on creating the art at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"computer<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Storage Wars by Mark Taylor – one of my latest creations – all drawn by hand using a digital medium and saved on, you guessed, a drive that isn’t depicted here!<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

At its most basic, a strategy
\nis something that provides you with some direction that makes it less easy to
\nbe lazy, we\u2019re human and by default, we\u2019re tuned to seek out the shortcut. The
\nstrategy has to identify the core principles and direction that your business
\nneeds to take, in a way that you can follow. It has to outline what your
\nbusiness is, what your aims are, what your product and\/or service is. Knowing
\nthat should give you the confidence to know the value and purpose of your
\nbusiness, and identify your place within the industry. Those really are
\ncritical things to know and understand. Break it down to its most basic level
\nand it becomes exponentially easier to get to grips with.<\/span><\/p>\n