1. Get after it.

From my experience this is probably the single most important piece of advice I could give, you have to get after it.  It is a mistake to passively sit by and wait for things to happen.  I believe much of what has brought me to the point I am at today has been driven by passion along with a willingness to do whatever it takes to get to where I want to be.  If you are a young artist reading this wondering how to start selling your artwork I recommend starting out with these thoughts:

First, create what you are passionate about with the best of your ability and don’t worry about what will sell and what will not.  I don’t like it when people say “hey if you paint this it will sell” what they don’t get is that I am not painting to sell, rather I happen to sell what I paint and I am very lucky to do so.  Also, if you are creating what you are passionate about, I am guessing that you are putting everything you have into your work.  This is key, take a huge amount of pride in what you create and do not cut corners on craftsmanship, people WILL respond to this. Whether or not this is a big demographic or small just depends on what you are creating.

Second, find the people who will appreciate your work and do whatever it takes to get it in front of their eyes and subsequently on their walls.  Whether this is through local coffee shops, galleries, retail shops, online via Facebook or other websites, find a way to make it happen and yes this takes lots and lots and lots of work usually coupled with lots and lots and lots of rejection.

2. Sell your work for as cheap as you can for as long as you can.

Many will disagree with this point for a lot of different reasons.  I get push back all the time that my prices are too “low” and I am “under selling” or “under valuing” myself.  There is certainly some truth to their concerns but I choose to disagree with them and let me tell you why.

Back in 2007 when I was trying to figure out which way was up, I read a blog article that argued this very same notion.  For whatever reason it struck a cord with me and through the years to come I have stuck by it with success.  In, 2008 alone I sold over 200 pieces (originals and prints) by the time I graduated law school in 2010 I had sold over 400 worldwide.  Already in 2012, I have sold 104 pieces.  I share these numbers to emphasize that this equals a LOT of art in a LOT of places.  I look at is as planting seeds while investing in my future.  At this point in my career I do not focus on building an inventory rather I sell everything and have continued to price so my work to do so.  Personally, I see more value in becoming more prolific with artwork everywhere rather than having a huge inventory of paintings in my studio sitting at prices that it will take months, even years to sell at.   I could go on and on with more detailed explanations and examples about how moving a lot of work has helped but I think I will save that for a separate post in the future.

3. Believe in Yourself

When I first started putting my art out into the world I couldn’t help but have this vulnerable feeling and I still get it sometimes.  This is natural and often reinforced by the rejection that young artists often get.  Also, there are so many talented artists out there, it is hard not to compare, be envious of others skills and just think that there is no way that I can compete at their level.  To think like this is a mistake, we all start somewhere.  It is those who persevere that succeed and I believe what drives this perseverance for me has to be an underlying belief in myself.  When this belief is honest, it shows and I guarantee that people will see and buy into it.  Once they have bought into it, they will more than likely become a loyal follower and perhaps even a future investor.

4. Network With Everyone

This is pretty self-explanatory but almost every door that has opened in my career has been because I knew someone or knew someone who knew someone. You know how it works.   I would encourage you to purposefully put yourself in positions to network.  For example, in 2010, I donated a lot of pieces to charitable causes and with that came many events, banquets and dinners to attend.  I went to them all in a tie, with a smile, and with business cards in my pockets.  Even today some of my most loyal collectors were people I met at these events.  I don’t think there are enough artists out there who leverage this kind of exposure and really these types of events are just one example of the type of networking I do.

Put yourself in positions to meet new people and be sure to leave a positive lasting impression. Again my philosophy about selling art has to do with planting seeds and it is hard to plant seeds if you are not standing in the field.

5. Organization and Planning Promotes Discipline and Efficiency

Before I was painting full time I did not think about this notion very much.  I just painted when I could paint and that was that.  However now that I make my own schedule there is no one over my head telling me what to do and when to do it.   Awesome, but without discipline this can result in a lot of wasted time and an inefficient work schedule.  I am not going to share a lot of my secrets in this post about how exactly I am staying organized but I will tell you that I devote a lot of time to making sure that I understand all aspects of my business to the point that through monthly forecasting I know what I need to get done on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to keep chasing this dream.  It is not by luck that my lights are still on.

6. Build an Email List

This is a mistake that I had made because only recently have I started doing this.  Much of my early success can be directly attributed to Facebook as I invested a lot of time building my business page.  This is all well and good but like any other social media platform I fear that it will too fade away.  Maybe this is far down the road, maybe not.  However, whenever Facebook fades away all of my time and resources I have invested in building a following there will end with it as well.  The nice thing about building a solid email list is that even though people’s emails may change with time the odds of everyone on your list changing all at once is probably not that great.  Thus it allows for a more stable platform to reach out to investors and others interested in following your career and work.  Again, I wish I would have started this years ago.

7. Listen to others but don’t ignore the feeling in your gut

This idea touches a lot of different areas but I am sure most artists can think of situations where someone is feeding them some solicited advice or many times unsolicited advice, whether it is in the form of a critique, pricing, where to show, etc..  People have opinions about everything and in my experience when these people offer their thoughts it often comes with little thought of their own as to how these ideas will be received.  When this advice is coming from someone who is farther in their career I have a tendency to give their advice some pretty good weight as they have obviously done something right to get to where they are.  However, if you reference my point #2 above I continue to go against the advice of others as at one point is just didn’t “feel” right but now I can back up that “feeling” with metric driven data and facts that supports my position.  In sum, I believe it is very important to continue to learn from those around you but make sure that you do so while staying true to yourself.

8. Luck favors those who are prepared.

These ideas are quite well know but I totally buy into them.  I believe hard work makes luck and luck favors those who are prepared.

Make your own luck.

Good Afternoon,

My name is Justin Vining, I am very excited to be writing you today to announce that I have recently joined the team at Twinrocker as their Marketing Manager.

I was first introduced to Twinrocker almost 10 years ago as an undergrad student studying art education at Purdue University. I was in a printmaking course and took one of the tours that Twinrocker offers. I subsequently invested in some of their papers, fell in love with them, and all of my orders since, I have picked up in person at the Twinrocker Paper Mill in Brookston from Gail and Fran.

To very quickly catch you up to speed, in the years since Purdue, I taught elementary art for three years (loved it). I left my job there to attend law school with my younger brother. In law school I found my artistic voice selling over 400 pieces worldwide (many on Twinrocker papers). Post law-school, I passed the Indiana Bar Exam, but I have continued to focus my efforts as a full-time professional artist working out of my studio in Broad Ripple, Indiana.

Much of my modest success can be directly attributed to social media marketing. I was very lucky to have good mentors in law school who helped teach me the business side of creating. My primary focus with Twinrocker will be to help develop their online presence through the various social media channels. We have many different ways with which we are going to develop this presence but one of the primary ways is to highlight and share artist’s work who are currently using Twinrocker products. If you do not mind having your work shared through Twinrocker’s social media channels please email me at justin@twinrocker.com.

I am very honored to have this opportunity and I firmly believe that once you create with Twinrocker products you will never want to use anything else.

If you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, please find us online at these links:

http://www.facebook.com/Twinrocker
http://www.twitter.com/TwinrockerPaper
http://www.pinterest.com/Twinrocker

If you would like to learn more about me, you can find me at:

http://www.justinvining.com

I hope you have a great day and feel free to reach out to me anytime,

Justin Vining

HUGE thank you’s to Upland Brewing, Projekt Media, RNG Unlimited, The Indiana Recycling Coalition and everyone else who helped make this event a success!  Also as a side note, in the first interview of the video please forgive my sleepy appearance as I had been awake for days at that point making sure everything was completed in time.  All but two of the pieces in this show were created between January 5, 2012 and February 2, 2012.  When committing to this show in early December, I knew it would be a ton of work putting together a solid body of work in such a short amount of time.  However, as I am fully vested in my career as professional artist I do not fear the hard work that it takes to survive.  A month of 16 hours days with brush in hand never occurred to me as over committing.  What I didn’t expect was since I was painting all cityscapes, the complexity of each individual piece demanded more time with precision brushes in hand (i.e. tons of buildings per image vs. my typical landscape painting with three buildings at most).  It was about two weeks before the opening that I really started to realize what I had just jumped into, needless to say that last week before the show I formed a schedule to where I stayed awake every other night all night painting straight into the next day with the last two days before the set up I would just make a big push to finish it all.  That plan worked, when we hung the show I still had two paintings unfinished but talked Upland into locking me into the Propaganda room and continued to work until I finished the last two pieces around three in the morning the day of my opening. Again, a huge thank to everyone who helped make this event happen, it was a blast!!

The main wall of Upland’s Propaganda Room in the Murphy Arts Center

The Family during the event

]]> http://www.justinvining.com/urbanscapes-solo-exhibit-in-upland-brewings-propaganda-room/feed/ 0 http://www.justinvining.com/wfyi-interview-about-my-solo-show-with-upland-brewing/ http://www.justinvining.com/wfyi-interview-about-my-solo-show-with-upland-brewing/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:00:05 +0000 jvining http://www.justinvining.com/?p=199 Recently I was invited to be interviewed on WFYI’s radio show “The Art of the Matter” by host Travis DiNicola to discuss my upcoming solo show with Upland Brewing titled “Urbanscapes”.  I have uploaded the audio from that interview to YouTube which follows.

The audio from the interview.

Jason Cooper, with Upland Brewing and WFYI host Travis DiNicola getting ready to start.

Travis, and I post interview.

Good Evening, 

It is that time of year again for my annual end of the year update.  This year I find myself sitting 16 stories above the Atlantic Ocean in Miami getting ready to start a commissioned piece for some very good friends of mine.  I’m soo excited to be down here as South Florida is such a beautiful place!

Last year when I posted my end of the year update, one of my old friends from Purdue commented with a fitting quote by Mark Twain stating:  “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  Well, in 2011 I threw off the bowlines, caught a breeze, and have set sail.

2011 was a solid year in terms of both development and cultivating the business aspect of creating.  On the development side, I believe I have improved my ability to create what I am calling more “visually complex” images while maintaining my more simplistic style.  On the business side, I have continued to have good fortune with sales up 27% in the months of November and December.  I also showed quite a bit in both public and private venues in late 2011 and have already booked three solo shows in early 2012 one of which will be Super Bowl weekend in Indianapolis!   So psyched!

So what will 2012 bring? I could start to list many things already in the works, but the one thing I want to continue to focus on is improvement.  In 2012 I want to continue to push myself to improve my raw ability to create stunningly beautiful artwork.  Really, everything else is secondary.  I love to create.

Thank you for your continued support, without it I would not be able to chase this dream.

Have a beautiful evening,

justin

Here is a visual recap of my 2011:

1.  Set Goals.

So where do you want to take this? Your local coffee shop?  Art fairs? Local galleries? Wholesaling prints and originals nationally? Larger galleries in big cites?  Museums?  You don’t know? Artists have very different goals, which change over time, and the answer to this question will more than likely be a big factor in moving forward with the business side of creating.

My personal business model has gone against the advice of fellow artists, gallery owners and peers who own their own businesses.  However, my personal goals do not align with theirs and I have subsequently structured my business to hopefully take me where I want to go.  For myself, it has never been about making money.  I want to do three things, create unbelievable beautiful paintings with highest quality supplies so it can become a long-term investment for my collectors, put my art in the hands of those who appreciate it the most, and use this gift to best serve the community in which I live.

Now, the decision making process becomes more pointed as I have direction in which to move.  Just to give one example, a year and a half ago, I decided to stop making prints of my artwork as it was time consuming and I found myself spending so much time in the proofing process ensuring the prints were of the highest quality that it was preventing me from painting more.  I found this to be a great way to generate additional income off of already created work but it did not align with my original goals.  As a young artist, I am focused on improving the overall quality of my work, exploring new mediums, painting more, and spending less time exploring alternative avenues to make money off my work.  This is not to say that I will not explore this avenue in the future, but it does not align with my current goals.

2.  Think twice before lowering your prices.

First, how does one even go about pricing their work? Starting out, a young artist will probably have to experiment finding a fair price in which their work moves quick.   However, once this price is established, I do not believe it should be lowered.  At this point, I look at the collector purchasing my work as an investment and at a fundamental level, investors do not want to see their investments decrease in value.  That being said, it is important for a young artist to show a steady increase in prices, thus increasing their value.  In the beginning, struggling to sell art, I would put artwork “on sale” just to move it and in hindsight, I am not sure that I would do that again.  It works to undermine a previous purchaser’s investment since they purchased my work at full price.

I also quickly discovered that there is a fine line between too cheap that it appears you undervalue your work and then priced at a point where collectors are enticed to buy.  Putting a price tag on a tangible item that I’ve created is a difficult thing to do as it has special personal meaning and it is essentially priceless. Instinctually, I started my work priced high but was not moving anything and then found myself practically giving art away.  At first it was difficult, walking in and out of galleries, no one wanted my work.  Finally, putting my stuff in a local coffee shop, just to watch most of the stuff sit at prices that were probably too low.

Another consideration to think about is the difference between priced-to-sell and priced-to-sit.  I prefer selling a lot of work at lower prices, thus making less money, which sometimes when galleries take their cut, I make very little money, but this aligns with my goal of putting art in the hands of those who appreciate it as my work is currently affordable to a wider range of income brackets.  Out of the gate, others prefer pricing their work higher, building up a big inventory, doing lots of shows thus building credibility, but more than likely selling less work, which in my eyes, keeps the paintings in their studio or a gallery and out of the hands of someone who is going to display it proudly in their home. What will work for one may not work for another but it is important to think about how even a small difference in price could potentially mean the work will sit for 6 months rather than 6 hours.

3.  Don’t get discouraged.

Knowing nothing about how to go about selling my work, I was living in Indianapolis the first time I walked into a gallery with art in my hand and the hopes that they may like what I was doing, possibly give me a chance to hang some of my work on their walls.  Long story short I walked into several galleries that day and went home with all of my paintings and a whole lot of humility.  Now three years later, building a modest following of collectors and really starting to throw myself out there in the world, I sometimes receive comments, messages, and emails from people offering words of discouragement, many times with unconstructive negative feedback about my artwork and what I am doing.  Even still, now that I have really developed some confidence in my paintings, my brand, and myself, it is difficult not take these messages personally.  However, at the end of the day, I believe in who I am, what I am doing, and where I am going and as hurtful as it is sometimes to get your ego crushed, it is important to take the licks and keep looking and moving forward.

4.  You are a brand.

I believe one of the more important exercises I have done over the last three years was taking an 8?x8’ blank wall and visually brain storming with my friends about my career goals.  On Wednesday nights over the course of a few months, we took turns writing, drawing, and listing all sorts of stuff on this board.  Doing exercises like each one of us would write one word that describes my art, one word that describes my brand, one word that describes my goals.  We created slogans, logos, picked apart the repeated elements in my work and discussed the underlying symbolism behind these elements.   In doing these exercises and more with my closest peers, I really started to learn things about myself and where I wanted to take my art.  This process also helped define my short and long term goals and again gave me direction in which to guide my ultimate business decisions.

I strongly recommend taking the time to go through this great slideshow by Marty Neumeier that describes what it takes to create a strong brand.

5.  Quality vs. Quantity

Most artists could probably testify that if they made only one painting a year, they could probably make one very incredible piece of artwork, spending months on the planning and execution.  But this is an unrealistic endeavor for most artists and many artists prefer plain-air painting or creating paintings in a much shorter time frame, thus they have the opportunity to create a higher number of works per year.

I mentioned before that I have sold over 400 pieces in the last three years and when you do the math that adds up to creating one piece of artwork every three to four days.  Honestly, three years ago when I started selling my work, my goals were different.  I was not thinking of my artwork as a long-term investment for my collectors, rather, I was thinking about my bottom line, generating more income and the way to do that was creating more paintings.  In hindsight, I was painting a ton and producing a lot of work which really helped my skills improve quickly. However, looking back, I think I was focused too much on quantity rather than quality.  I believe it is important for an artist to continuously be producing in order to foster development, improvement, and growth, but at the same time producing too much can result in a decline of quality.  For myself, I am still finding a balance between creating a lot of work and maintaining a very high quality.  Not all paintings are great successes, but when I finish a painting I want to be able to confidently say to myself that this is one of the best pieces I have created to date.  If I cannot say that to myself, I believe it will be time for me reassess what I am doing.

I do not want to jump through their hoops, so to get your name put your name in the bucket for free art you don’t have to do anything on Facebook but if you feel moved to do so that would be awesome.

Participation is EASY – just sign up for my newsletter by simply putting your email in the box at this link: http://eepurl.com/gK-sH

(if already subscribed then send an email to justin@justinvining.com letting me know you have done this and I will put your name in the bucket.)

What I am giving away:

• 24×24” Giclee Proof of 100 Pages of Property, a $200 print if purchased off Etsy
• 2 12×12” Gallery Wrapped Giclee Prints of “Chicago”
• 1 Hand Painted Linocut of “Hopper House”
• 2 6×6” Orignal Hand Painted Watercolors
• 8 other Miscellaneous Giclee Prints and Linocut Prints

I want to hit 11,000 fans and need your help to do it.

Thank you all for your continued support.

I will draw all winners on Monday, January 30.