Artist Must Sharpen Marketing Skills to Gain the Necessary Exposure for Craft

The cliche about starving artists carries a sad truth: Very few--despite talent, training and dedication--ever fully support themselves with fine art.

Most learn to tolerate dual-career existences. They do time in cubicles, at restaurants and in front of blackboards, then dedicate their weekends, evenings or early mornings to their art.

Helen Betonte, 50, has been leading this double life for 15 years. By day, she’s an executive assistant for a South Bay health-care firm. Away from the office, she’s a landscape and portrait/figure painter whose work has been exhibited in Southern California galleries. She also has participated in several juried (invitation-only) competitions.

“My day job is light years away from where I want to be and where my passion is,” Betonte said.

For advice, the Lomita resident turned to Margaret Lazzari, a Los Angeles-based artist, author and USC associate professor of art. Other art career experts offered input, too.

Like so many other artists, Betonte yearns to paint full time; only by devoting more time to her art can she build a more extensive body of work--something galleries tend to demand of up-and-coming artists. But because she’s a single parent of a 16-year-old son, Betonte must make pragmatic financial and career decisions.

Lazzari suggested that she explore other income-producing jobs that might allow her more time for her art. Some artists opt to do night-shift word processing, freelance Web design or part-time teaching. Others take art-related jobs (e.g., gallery assistant, art library aide, mural painter or art studio manager) so they can learn more about the art world and cultivate contacts. And a few find employment as graphic artists to finance their fine art pursuits.

Developing marketing skills will be essential for Betonte, because she needs to introduce dealers and the art-buying public to her work. Betonte said she hasn’t been comfortable with this commercial aspect of her work, but Lazzari urged her to make it a priority.

“In truth, about 50% of your creative time has to be devoted to the marketing,” Lazzari said. “I think the act of making art isn’t completed until your viewers see it.”

Betonte should spend several months researching the contemporary art world to target a potential client base and assemble a mailing list. Which commercial gallery dealers, private collectors, art consultants, architects and interior designers might be most interested in her artwork?

One resource for her is https://www.artnet.com, a comprehensive site with continually updated information about international galleries, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs and museums. It also features art market surveys, articles and pricing trends.

Books for artists on this subject include “Art Marketing 101: A Handbook for the Fine Artist” by Constance Smith (F&W; Publications, 2000); “How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul” by Caroll Michels (Henry Holt, 1997); and “Art & Reality: The New Standard Reference Guide and Business Plan for Actively Developing Your Career as an Artist” by Robert Abbott (Seven Locks Press, 1997).

“The more you know about the profession and understand it, the better off you’ll be,” said Katharine Carter, founder of Katharine Carter & Associates, a St. Leo, Fla.-based marketing and public relations firm for artists.

Betonte should cultivate an extensive network of art-industry contacts.

“That is my greatest career weakness,” Betonte said.

She can start by attending art events, receptions, openings and lectures, Lazzari said. She also can affiliate with artist organizations, many of which are listed in the “American Art Directory” (Cattell Press, 2000), a reference work available at many public libraries. One association Lazzari recommended for Betonte is the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art (https://www.breakaway.org /openstudio/scwca/index.html).

She also should look for local sites, other than commercial galleries, where she can exhibit her artwork. In Southern California, artists routinely show their work at alternative spaces, community centers, artists’ cooperative galleries, city-sponsored exhibition sites, empty storefronts, restaurants, hotels, libraries, malls, bookstores, banks and furniture stores.

“You have to keep hammering away,” said Alan Bamberge, a San Francisco-based appraiser and consultant. “You have to get your art seen in as many places as possible.”

Lazzari suggested that Betonte contact the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Rental and Sales Gallery (https://www.lacma.org/lacma .asp), a public forum where Southern California artists can exhibit, rent and sell their art.

Betonte can learn of other exhibition spaces through the publications “Organizing Artists: A Document and Directory of the National Association of Artists Organizations,” which lists more than 300 artist spaces, their missions and the art disciplines they support; and “The Artist’s Guide to New Markets: Opportunities to Show and Sell Art Beyond Galleries” by Peggy Hadden (Watson-Guptill, 1998).

“Instead of waiting for things to happen, make things happen,” Lazzari said. “If you want to do a show, find three artists who also want to do a show.”

She said Betonte should perform at least one marketing task each day. “Consider it like throwing one small rock into the abyss,” Lazzari said. “Then in a year’s time you’ll have built a bridge across it.”

Betonte already has erected her own Web site (https://www.helendesigns .com) where she displays her paintings online. But there also are art-exhibit Web sites for her to investigate. Some, like https://www.nextmonet.com, https://www.onview.com, and https://www.paintingsdirect.com, are “invitation only”; their panels of experts choose artists’ work for online exhibition. Others, such as https://www.artmecca.com, are open to all, typically for a fee.

She also can sell her art on auction Web sites, such as EBay, and post her Web site’s url in her ad.

Carter recommends that up-and-coming artists like Betonte be discriminating about where they display their art online; their reputations can be compromised if they exhibit their paintings at amateurish or disreputable sites.

Another bit of advice for Betonte is that if her artwork is to be featured at a gallery or other public site, she should send announcements to museum directors, curators, commercial gallery dealers, academics, reviewers and other artists. She also should send news releases to art writers at local newspapers (including those at alternative papers, neighborhood publications and free weeklies).

Periodically, she should update potential clients and important art contacts about new artwork and important achievements.

She can do this cheaply by purchasing batches of custom-printed postcards. Several art career experts including Lazzari recommend Modernpostcard.com as a vendor (https://www.modernpostcard.com); its postcards are high-quality and inexpensive (typically less than $150 for a run of 500 cards).

When she has amassed a larger body of work, she might consider sending out catalogs (usually eight pages or longer) to her mailing list. In addition to art images, the catalog can include her biography, statement, exhibition list, chronology of achievements, honors and awards, as well as a preface penned by an art expert, critic or reputable dealer.

“I have so much to do now,” Betonte said. “As artists, I think we try to think of ourselves in a vacuum, just focused on our art.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Time for a Change

NAME: Helen Betonte

OCCUPATION: Executive assistant and artist

DESIRED OCCUPATION: Full-time artist

QUOTE: “Working full-time in a corporate environment has alleviated the money/benefits problem, but simultaneously caused another one: There is not enough time to create and market my own work.”

MEET THE COACH

Margaret Lazzari is a classically-trained artist and an associate professor of art at USC. She also is author of “The Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist” (Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996). She is based in Los Angeles.