I’m planning on meeting the owner of an art gallery to show her my work and hopefully have it in her gallery.
I draw pictures on regular drawing paper with graphite pencils. Do I just take my pictures the way they are in a portfolio without any sort of framing? Will the gallery frame the art themselves?
I’m new to this, so advice is appreciated. Thank you for your time!
I’m jumping in over my head here, but I have a few thoughts. It’s wonderful that you are going to meet with a gallery owner, a lot of artists don’t get that far for a long time. Have your portfolio set up professionally. I would suggest since your illustrations are in graphite, that it would make your portfolio look more polished if these pieces at least had a mat around them. This will finish off the look that you’re trying to show. I wouldn’t attach the mat permanently, but use an adhesive that will allow you to separate the mat from the drawing if necessary. If you have a few pieces to bring in that are already framed, that will help the gallery owner in getting a look at your artwork as a totally finished piece. But, you still need a good portfolio to support your work. I don’t know if the gallery would frame your pieces and what percentage of the sale they would take plus the cost of framing. They will work in a labor charge for framing as well I would think. So, this is something to talk about with the owner if they decide that they want to show your work. They may even refer you to a framing business that has done a lot of work for them. Ask a lot of questions, in fact, start making your list of questions up now in a separate binder. I would set these up in two columns, the question in one column and the second column to jot down their answer. Don’t go overboard with the questions, but you do want to know how to proceed. You could actually set up your binder in two sections, one with questions to the owner if they say you are not ready to show your work yet. Have questions ready like, where do you feel that I need to show progress in before I’m ready to show my artwork? Is there other subject matter that you feel would be more suitable for your gallery? I hope all this makes sense. I want to see you make the most of this meeting even if it turns out that you don’t have your work shown at this time. You may only need to tweak some minor details to get the gallery owner interested. Regardless of the outcome of the meeting, send a handwritten thank you note to the owner for taking the time to meet with you. This will show that you are the professional that you are and know how to conduct yourself in business situations. Good luck! I’ll be thinking about you and hoping for the best!
From http://improveverywhere.com/, 50 Improv Everywhere agents create and art gallery opening on a subway platform.
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Music video by Mario Vazquez performing Gallery. (C) 2006 Arista Records, LLC, a unit of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT
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I love art/ the arts and i’ve always wanted to run an art gallery of my own work or others’. What goes into starting this type of venture?
It isn’t what goes into it that will bring success…it’s who goes into it once it is built: customers. The key is to have the demand for what you want to offer. Do the market research upfront. Too many people get into retail thinking they have a good product. Well, it might be good, but if there is no demand, there are no sales. Price point is next. Can you offer value and still make margin? If you charge a 50 percent commission, you’d better work at getting people to see and buy. Advertise, direct mail postcards, mailing lists…marketing, marketing, marketing. It’s work. There are few, very few, "build it and they will come" success stories, especially in the art world today.
I am 25 years old and getting my MFA in figurative painting…how can I begin to get my artwork seen? I would really like to get some of my paintings into a gallery, but I need to know the best approach. Can anyone help me?
My major was Commercial and Illustrative Photography / Minor in Graphic Design and Illustration.
Getting your work seen should be your primary goal right now.
Unless you have connections, an amazing portfolio or pretty strong credentials you’ll have to wait a little on gallery showings.. (with a few exceptions I’ll mention later)
1) Get your portfolio together and TIGHT (also practice your presentation).
2) Get business cards you can leave at locations you show at (and/or on your artwork)
3) If possible, have slides of your work shot. (“Call for Artists” always seem to want slides)
4) Start your research and lay out your plan on paper (you’re starting here which is GREAT)
Your main goal is to locate business that need artwork on the walls, are appreciative of the arts and that have good traffic. Look for art districts in your town or towns near to you. Also, (I was apprehensive about putting the following down, due to how it sounds.. but it worked for me)….It may sound snobby, but this is a business… It doesn’t hurt to look for areas where upper and upper middle class people live – If they like your work they may have connections to gallery owners or art dealers. Places I’ve had success – Coffee shops / Small restaurants / Pottery shops / Country Clubs / Jewelry stores (NOT in malls)/ Winery’s/ Specialty Grocery Stores (the type that has imported cheese and aged meat-lol) . One of my best locations was a County Government Executive office building (go figure!) – My work was in a long corridor between 2 buildings – LOTS of traffic.
The goal is to make an appointment with the owner to present your portfolio. (Also, create a flyer with examples of your work and your contact information on it- which you will be able to leave). And follow up, follow up, follow up!
Your selling point – You have a rotating gallery that you will maintain /change (every 2 months is what I did). You attach your contact card to your artwork (as well as leave additional cards with the receptionist for inquiries they may get)
Find a radius of large towns to market to – My area consisted of Pittsburgh / Cleveland / Columbus / Toledo and Detroit. (I later found out this was too big of an area)
To begin, you may want to find good prospects in 2 of the larger towns near you.
Regarding gallery showings: After years at a college you have great connections without even knowing it – Your art instructors. They may have knowledge of Artist Galleries. Those galleries owned and run by artists, and looking for new work on a regular basis. Also, join art societies (national and local) – either specializing in your medium or interest. They always seem to have gallery showing information (local or out of town) and always seem to be asking for submissions for one thing or another. An odd “get it out there idea” that worked for me – Subscribe to a magazine in your medium / area of interest. Most have contests a few times during the year.- or have “calls for artists” listed in the back of the magazine.
Last (and sorry for my rambling) — Go to every gallery showing you can—drive the extra miles and stay out of town if you need to. NY,NY, NY! (I made more connections at a 1 week show in NY then I did after 1 year of local showings)– Become chatty, make friends / connections. (Travel with your portfolio attached to your hip!)
How artists fail (and I’ve seen a number fail over the years) – They aren’t willing to go outside their area, they aren’t willing to work at selling their "product" (it is a business no matter what we want to believe)– they hold on too tightly to the idea of being a starving artist or suffering for their art.
It’s a wonderful field!—I’m very excited for you, hope I’ve given you a few ideas—Enjoy!
Tomorrow I have my first interview with a gallery, I have already the works that i want t show and my portfolio. but I don’t kow what to wear, any sugestions?
cool! congratulations! okay lets see. designer for sure. as high end as you’ve got. i would wear a slim-fitting pencil skirt, probably grey, and some kind of lacy blouse. or i would wear short sailor shorts and a drapey jersey t shirt. it sort of depends on the gallery. if it’s conservative (you do oil pantings of landscapes or portraits or ab-ex or straight photo or figure sculpture) then i’d go for the first look. womanly and together, but au courant. if it’s more of a cutting edge type of place i’d dress more trendy and you can throw a little bit of yourself into the outfit. like feel free to wear a studded belt with the dolce and gabbana dress.
I have three orignal paintings it says royal albert gallery and its authenticated but im not sure how much its worths. Paintings are from around 15 hundreads.
Any gallery will have many pictures of different values, without knowing the artist it is impossible to say.
With paintings that old your best bet would be to take them to one of the reputable auction houses, such as Sotherby’s or Christies to have them valued, this will ensure you get an accurate valuation. You will not get this if you just take them to an art dealer as with all antique dealers, they will want to make as much out of them as possible, whereas the auction houses take a set percentage of the sale.
Ok I am trying to put an add on Craigslist… I took pictures with my camera and put it on my computer with the SD card… Now when I upload the pictures onto the craigslist ad creator it says my images are too big and need to be resized. Does anyone know how to do this through windows picture gallery? Please give specific directions.. I don’t know what I am doing lol. Also, just a note I have Windows Vista.
Thank you!
Hi MrsSchmidty,
The easiest thing is to use Paint to resize the picture (for most Windows users). When you’re looking at the picture in preview mode, right click and select the “open with” from the menu and select “Paint” from the resulting slide-out menu.
From there, the picture will open up in Paint. Click the “Image” button in the header and select “Resize/skew” from the drop-down list. From there, you can simply change the percentages to make your image smaller. Be sure you save.
Cheers,
Ron
Windows Outreach Team
Roy Grounds designed it in 1959 and construction began in 1961. So was the original 1861 gallery elsewhere? Or did Grounds’ building replace it on the same site?
Same street, different buildings.
Ok I am trying to put an add on Craigslist… I took pictures with my camera and put it on my computer with the SD card… Now when I upload the pictures onto the craigslist ad creator it says my images are too big and need to be resized. Does anyone know how to do this through windows picture gallery? Please give specific directions.. I don’t know what I am doing lol. Also, just a note I have Windows Vista.
Thank you!
Hi MrsSchmidty,
The easiest thing is to use Paint to resize the picture (for most Windows users). When you’re looking at the picture in preview mode, right click and select the “open with” from the menu and select “Paint” from the resulting slide-out menu.
From there, the picture will open up in Paint. Click the “Image” button in the header and select “Resize/skew” from the drop-down list. From there, you can simply change the percentages to make your image smaller. Be sure you save.
Cheers,
Ron
Windows Outreach Team