Behind the Scenes This Week: What it's Really Like to Run an Art Business
Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be a full-time, self-employed artist? Although I frequently share what I’m working on here on my blog, I don’t think it gives a comprehensive picture of what it’s like to run an art business. Are you curious?
Maybe you imagine a botanical artist spends full days painting in her studio, afternoons sketching in her garden and a bit of time here and there photographing and writing for her website. All that might be true, but there’s plenty of other work that goes into a typical week (is there even such a thing?).
Behind the Scenes This Week:
On Sunday I dropped off paintings at Viva Gallery for a group show that opened yesterday. Because of COVID they had a virtual opening on Instagram which I watched before stopping by to see the show.
On Tuesday I finished prepping 8 paintings for a solo exhibit at the Viroqua Food Co-Op. This included writing, designing and printing an artist’s statement and creating and printing labels for each piece. That evening I loaded the paintings into my car, took them to the Co-Op and put up the display with the help of the Outreach Coordinator. (You can catch a video of the show here).
In spite of taking a break from social media, this week I popped into Instagram to interact with the Co-Op and Viva. I’d deleted Instagram off my phone and realized I hadn’t saved my password so I had to re-download it and then hunt around to find where I’d written down my new password.
On Wednesday I wrote and sent my Joy Letter. This included taking photos and uploading a demo video as a free gift for subscribers.
Throughout the week I made some time for painting. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I sat down to work. Even just mixing paint felt wonderful!
As a botanical watercolor painter who prefers to work from life, I often have very short windows of opportunity to paint a certain plant or flower. As the season progresses, the more ephemeral varieties are gone in the blink of an eye, not to be seen again for another year. If I want to paint them, I have to act fast.
I’ve done a bit more work on this columbine since taking the photo, and it needs a bit more before it’s finished, but it felt good.
This week I’ve (finally) gotten serious about finishing my first embroidery kits (in case you missed it, I mentioned my embroidery projects in this post).
I am getting SO excited. But I’ll be honest. It’s been a LOT of work (even with all the help from Laura Bray). This week I worked on creating the package design. It included research, weighing options and vacillating over possibilities, putting together boxes and testing different envelopes, photography, writing copy and instructions, printing prototypes, editing… It was many hours in front of the computer (when I would have much rather been painting or out in the garden!), and I’m still not finished. But soon. Today I go shopping to buy floss and a few other bits. Because I live in a small rural town and not all of what I’m looking for is available locally, this means taking a drive to the nearest city. It’s a beautiful day for a road trip!
This week I wrapped up and sent out a print for a lovely customer in Canada (and tucked one of the remaining 2021 calendars in the package for free — I’m giving calendars away with every purchase this month). I’m in my slow season for selling art right now, which is one of the reasons that having multiple income streams is so important.
I did my monthly business book-keeping, finishing up the numbers for May and paying my bills. Keeping good records helps me to see seasonal trends for my business (and makes tax time so much easier).
I applied to exhibit my art later this year and scheduled the exhibit for December. I spent a bit of time brainstorming themes for the show.
I worked on drafts for a couple of blog posts (which I hope to use in future weeks) as well as writing this one to share with you today. Writing my blog always seems to take up more time than I think it will.
This week I also worked on my book project. Yes — I may as well spill the beans — I’m writing a book. It’s an illustrated year in the garden. I’ve been writing it like a diary, recording, observing. I started in March and hope to finish the writing and art by next March and be able to release the book in late spring or early summer. I’m planning to do most of the design myself, so I’m starting to learn InDesign (so far this class has been a good start, even if it is about designing a cookbook).
Tomorrow I need to work on the class I’m putting together with Dana.
We’re so close to finishing it but between my vacation and catching up with other things, it fell to the sidelines.
Even though I’m still working on that class, I brainstormed what I want to do for my next Skillshare class. So far it’s only notes and ideas in my head, but once I finish a few of these projects I want to tackle filming.
The days fly past. Everything takes longer than I imagine it will. I have many more ideas than time to tackle them all. I’ve been far less organized this year than in the past. I never sat down to write goals this year. I haven’t been good about assigning hard and fast deadlines for personal projects. Perhaps spending some time getting organized would be a good idea, but which project will I sideline to do so?
One thing I’ve learned is that no one can do EVERYTHING. It’s always a balancing act.
One project gets pushed aside to make room for another. One outside deadline overrides another, self-imposed deadline. Yesterday I noticed that there’s a garden-themed design challenge coming up for Spoonflower. Do I have time to create a new design by June 15?
I hinted at the beginning of this post that I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “typical week” when you run an art business. And yet, this week was typical in that it was made up of lots of little bits. Perhaps it doesn’t fit the fantasy of spending whole days painting or out in the garden sketching, but I’m so grateful to be crafting this life as an artist. A life that was once just a dream.