Heartsong Studio

    

Do you shudder at the thought of marketing your art ?  Is the very idea of promoting your work somehow foreign to your sensitive, artistic side ?

Well, you aren’t flawed, over-sensitive, or even lacking self-confidence. Your repulsion of trying to make yourself more attractive is a good sign that you’ll make a great job of marketing your artwork.

Marketing art is the bane of many artists. It feels like a totally unrelated job to being an artist.  But the sharing of your work, the letting go of your creations is the completion of the creative cycle.  It makes room, literally and figuratively, for the next
step in your work’s journey.

Showing your work isn’t about making it or yourself more attractive.  It isn’t about guessing what types of art people want.
Any attempt to make your art or yourself more attractive comes across as artificial or manipulative. 

When did you last feel the urge to do something unusual, like buy a piece of art ?  Did you jump right in without another
thought because it was so attractive ? 

I don’t.  If I get the urge to buy someone else’s work, I’m very cautious until I’m quite sure that I’m going to love it forever,
that the image really speaks to my heart, and stays on my retina. That’s what makes it a safe buy for me. 

It’s the same for everyone, buying anything of importance.  Buyers want safety.  They already know what they find attractive.  They need to feel safe enough to trust that pull from their heart. 

The fact that you feel repelled by coercion is a wonderful guide. The viewers of your work are very much like you.  They don’t
respond well to being talked into, or completely ignored, any more than you do. 

If you find someone who’s lost, your impulse is to help them find the way they’re seeking.  Your impulse to help will guide you to connect with your viewers’ needs, and allow them the support and
spaciousness to feel sure of their impulses.

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Doing what you love and marketing it are close to the same thing. If you make the art you truly love, then helping people who also love it to feel right about buying it will be providing them with loving support.

Now until they’ve become a paying client, you don’t want to give away a fortune in attention.  Just a little attentive listening
will put them at ease.  Listen for what they need.  It’s in their words or lack of them somewhere. 

If a potential client asks you about your work or yourself, of course you should answer them.  It’s often subtle hints that tell you what they really want to know, and how much they’re just being polite. 

Once they become clients, then they give to you in return, and you have a reciprocal relationship which could easily continue in
future.

Your artwork also goes out into the world, encourages other people to find meanings there, and your creative process continues to thrive. 

Marketing – showing and selling – doesn’t have to be a tainted or coercive business.  Doing what you love and marketing it with love can be part of connecting with the wider world.

Selling your art work is a perfectly natural part of the creative cycle.