With the extremely high price of showing your work in a gallery these days , I was thinking again of setting up a gallery in my home. I have seen artists do this in Paris with much success. Of course, Paris is a huge city and my house is in a small country town with very low traffic passing.
Many years ago I rang my local council suggesting I was thinking of using my home as a gallery to show my work. They didn’t have a problem with it. They only wanted to know if there was an area for public parking and said I would need public liability insurance etc. At the time there was no parking so I didn’t try it. Maybe that’s the way to go…
Sometimes it seems to be a no win situation for artists these days. Gallery commissions are going up and up (50- 60% in some galleries, plus other costs) while the galleries are doing less and less for their commission.
There are just too many artists, all trying to get gallery representation, and now many artists pay a gallery, unrealistic fees for hire of the space just to get their art up on a wall. The artist then has to pay for transport costs, design and print promotional invites, posters and flyers,opening night costs, food and wine. They are also responsible for their own advertising, media costs and have to supply, their own arts mailing lists etc.
The galleries have artists over a barrel, and the result is that most artists have extremely low incomes, even with good sales, once all the costs and commissions have been deducted.
Exposing your art on the web promotes and gets your work seen worldwide but you are also competing with millions of other artists as well. Resulting in maybe, a few sales and there are exceptions, but in reality, not many has resulted in big on-line sales.
On the up side there are many great opportunities online, work on collaborative art projects with other artists worldwide, enter competitions, art awards, arts residencies and many online exhibitions and other websites and blogs with heaps of resources for the artist.
Do you make a living from your art ? What do you do to get your art seen?
Some really useful, positive articles for Artists
Making Art and Making a Living
You’ll never Make a Living as an Artist
How to Make a Living as an Artist in Australia
I wanna be a Famous Artist and Make lots of Money
How to Make a Living as an Artist
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