Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes is an award-winning fine art photographer and digital artist from Philadelphia, and her work has been featured in venues, that include the Tiberino Memorial Museum (PA), City Hall (Phila, PA), and the Straube Art Center (NJ).

Her photography appears on the cover of the 2009 “Paws for Charity” Art Book, and her whimsical collection of nursery art called “Alphabet Soup!” is now available as children’s book by the same name.  She photographs everyday things in extraordinary ways:  www.mkcphotography.com

Her work is available for purchase from her artist website and her Etsy shop. In addition to fine art prints, she offers gorgeous wearable art created entirely by hand using only sterling silver and my original photography. Come have a look!

In the Philadelphia area, you may also pop in to the Mew Gallery on Christian Street to purchase her matted fine art prints and art glass trinkets.

Michelle also accepts custom, commissioned assignments from anyone who loves my style but wants me to create something to fit their exact needs. Please feel free to contact her.

Exhibitions and Publications:

The Tiberino Memorial Museum (Philadelphia, PA)
City Hall (Philadelphia, PA)
Milkboy Cafe (Ardmore, PA)
Landfillart Project (http://www.landfillart.org/)
Abington Memorial Hospital (Abington, PA)
Straube Art Center (Pennington, NJ)
Once Upon a Gallery (Philadelphia, PA)
Mew Gallery (Philadelphia, PA)
Steel City Coffee House (Phoenixville, PA)
ArtistRising.com (featured artist, January 2009)
Tattoo Highway Literary Journal
Paws for Charity 2009 Art Book benefitting the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade (cover art)
“Alphabet Soup!” by Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes

Current Shows, etc.

November 13, 2009: Trinkets and Treasures
A night of shopping, just in time for the holidays! Join her for “Trinkets and Treasures” at the Rosemont School and enjoy a festive evening of food and shopping.

November 9, 2009: Artist of the Month, Rosemont School
“Artist of the Month” for November 2009 by the Rosemont School of the Holy Child. Her work will be on display in their gorgeous Great Hall beginning November 9th for one month, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting this outstanding school.

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Marketing is all about networking which is about being social as in making connections that bring people to buy your stuff. How you fit those connections together as a network depends on the environment in which you need to work.

The success of your network depends on everything from where you live, who lives there, who your stuff can be sold to and how much those folks are willing to pay for it.

I  call all of these factors “contexts”  because they all have some influence on how you go about your business and whether you’ll have a business at all! How you deal with the contexts that influence your business is also a major factor, in fact I’d almost say it is the key factor.

Contexts play a key role in marketing strategies. If you live in East Timbuktu your strategies will look different than if you live in New York. If you are geared to only selling to the wonderful citizens of E. Timbuktu  and they’ve never heard of the Internet, you definitely won’t need a web site or even e-mail. Likewise, if you live in Omaha you won’t likely need to learn how to use carrier pigeons.

Contexts come in as many different flavors as there are people and places, they are generally combinations of social, geographic, technological and psychological factors related to your market.

Social

If you are gearing up to sell to the Amish ( assuming you have something they would want) your marketing needs to consider the social constraints of life in the 18th century. Short of joining their religious community you’ll have to find some way to interact with them in person. You’ll need to consider the factors that would attract a community of simple living rather reserved folks.

You’ll have to learn how their social network functions, how they are all connected and the key roles in their community. Throwing a rousing bash to announce the launch of your latest thing-a-mabob might not draw a lot of people and it might end up getting you run out of town on a pole.

On the other hand, volunteering to help erect a barn might be just the thing to at least get you a hello.

Geographic

While it certainly could be said that technology has shrunk the world, all but eliminating geographic barriers, geography still remains a factor. If you are selling your stuff on-line geography effects how your wonderful stuff is going to get to the folks who buy it. Delivery time in Northwest Yukon Territory will be a lot different than the delivery time in Kansas City.

Geography also effects the way you connect, especially if you live on a farm in Western Wyoming and internet access depends on the frequency of solar flares. In this case, selling on-line might be kinda hard… you might want to try pony express.

If live in the frozen tundra getting out and meeting other folks might also be a little sketchy when the temp drops to -100!

Technology

If you or your buyers are technologically challenged, you’re going to experience some serious limitations on how you communicate to potential buyers, as well as, how your buyers find you. The pool of potential buyers will probably be limited to those raising carrier pigeons, which is fine if they are your market.

If you live in Appalachia, you’ll not only be influenced by the feuding clans but also by the fact that there probably won’t be a lot, if any bars, on that iPhone of yours. So, you’ll have to get a little creative at building your network.

Psychology

Are you a people person or…not so much? Does you stuff appeal to a different market than you’d like? Just as with the other contexts your personality, your psychological make up influences everything you do from what you make to who you want to sell your stuff to and how want to tell everyone about it.

So…if you are a people person and love meeting and getting to know new folks you’ll have better luck building that network with other  people who have a similar make-up as you. Trying to build a network in a community of Norwegian bachelor farmers might be difficult unless you are offering a dating service that features Norwegian single women who like farming in the middle of nowhere.

If you are shy and shudder at the thought of putting yourself out there then maybe blogging is not the right tool for you to build your network. If you freeze up at the thought of meeting strange people then that weekly networking event the chamber puts on might not work so well for you. You might want to try a less public way of networking.

On the other hand, if you thrive on one on one contact but are a little shy at first a less intimidating way to network might be using Facebook, or Twitter but you may want to check your fears of technology  before you sign up.

The Moral of the story…

Before you head off to market your stuff based on what someone else said would work really well for you, step back and look at the big picture. What context does that way work best? If you’re not a public person then blogging or tweeting may not work best for you. Likewise, if your market is Norwegian bachelor farmers who live in nowheresville then Facebook or anything else that requires anything other than smoke signals to connect might be a little hard to make work.

So…the moral of the story is, how you choose to build your network and market you stuff is,  in the end up to you. And for everything to work you will need pay attention to context every step of the way.

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Background

My mission in creating The ARTISTScenter was to promote and help visual artists by teaching them how to market their work in ways that will allow them to increasingly support themselves from their art.

One of the ways I do this, is to feature visual artists who are expanding their horizons by finding new and innovative ways to get their work into the world and develop additional income streams that support and build their artistic voice.

Who can be a Featured Artist?

• Both emerging artists or seasoned veterans.
• Visual artists including painters, photographers, illustrators, potters, etc.

I look for artists who:

• Show a willingness to step out of the intellectual paradigm and into one that simultaneously honors their voice, and helps them build a sustainable business from their art without compromising their integrity.
• Demonstrate a willingness to lead by example through teaching, mentoring, sharing and connecting with both their public and other artists.
• Have at the least a blog with regularly posted content that provides valuable information to their readers.
• Uses 21st Century tools such as Social Media to promote their work.
• Is continually building a strong network of followers both on-line and off.
• See their art as a business and is working towards growing their business.

When you are featured…

• I will interview you either via e-mail and /or phone.
• The interview will be posted in four segments, one each week.
• Your work will be shown both on the interview pages and daily in a special section on the front page of the blog.

The interview will cover:

Your Art

• Your roots, how you got started in art and the evolution of your artistic vision.
• Your favorite mediums and what draws you to them.
• Your influences.

Your Art as a business

• How you integrate your creativity into the business end of your art.
• What tools you use to.

Breaking new ground

• What you do differently to get your work out to those who want it.
• How you are using new technology and selling techniques to make your work available to more potential buyers.

Featured Artists also…

• Have an opportunity to take part in panel discussions by way of teleconference, and other online events I am working on.
• Have an opportunity to use The ARTISTScenter Workshops & School platform (once it is developed) to teach and or offer workshops of your own.
• Have their work featured in a special spot on the site for the entire month you are featured…see the screen grab below.
• Have an opportunity to guest post on both the blog and Newsletter.
• Are permanently placed in the “Featured Artist” section of the blog.
• Will receive additional exposure in Social Networking sites like Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook.

Recently featured artists have included:

Robin Pedrero

Kristen Stein

Christy DeKonig

Liese Marten

Jane Campbell

Check out the Featured Artist section

How to Apply

Fill in the form below to receive further information.

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Our recent seven day challenge was designed to help you start understanding the steps needed in marketing your work so it doesn’t become a hair puling, teeth gnashing avoidance supporting awful task.

The challenge was also designed to illustrate that it doesn’t have to be done in one fell swoop…it can be done in baby steps, with you in charge of the size of the steps. The steps in the challenge represented a framework not a one size fits all template ( although it can be used as that), because frameworks can be dynamic, they make room for change and adaptation. Templates on the other hand, are meant to be static working only under prescribed circumstances.

The framework I’m talking about is your business in general, because you can’t really make your business work until you see the big picture and the frame work is how you get there.

In order for your business to be successful you have to really know it, what it is, where you want it to go, how you will get it there and how you will use it to support you. This basic framework is the tool you will use most as you guide your business through its life.

The story

The framework also is the story of you and your business. It is that story that tells potential buyers whether there is a match between your business and their search for the best solution to their current problem. How complete and understandable that story is will ultimately determine your success.

At this point, it is important to understand that the framework can be used to tell a different story for different aspects of your business. So your story will be different if you  focus your business entirely on art fairs, or gallery exhibits or on-line store fronts. Each venue requires that you apply the framework to discover the story that venue needs to hear. If you are developing your business to work within more than one venue each of those venues will have their own story and those stories will complement the even greater story of your business as a whole.

For example…

You are an exhibiting artist…

Your focus is on showing in galleries and museums, so your story will be different. To be taken seriously as an exhibiting artist showing in high end galleries and or museums you’ll need a well written artists statement. Generally, that statement is designed to describe the message behind your work, why you do what you do and how you do it. That is your story, the story most recognizable by art buyers who primarily buy through galleries.

While the overall story may remain the same it might need to differ in style and approach for different venues say a gallery in New York vs. one  in Omaha, because buyers in one location won’t necessarily respond the same as those in another.

On the other hand…

An artist focusing entirely on art fair sales or even on-line sales, needs to tell a different story. Their story needs to be related to potential buyers, it manifests more in being quickly digestible and understood by potential buyers, the story is told more through visual and interactive tools than written description. Whether someone buys a set of pots or jewelry, will be depend on the story you have built around your work. If the work is shown together as sets the buyer will likely see them as being together and hence may be more open to buying the set than if each are displayed and priced separately.

What about diversity?

Naturally, you may want to evolve into having multiple ways or avenues for selling your stuff, each of those avenues needs a variation of your story one that is translated into the language most common for each respective market venue. While the greater theme of your story may include elements such as customer service, friendliness, and product line, it may vary by venue emphasizing, price, display, even work. You probably wouldn’t show or price the same work in Omaha that you did in New York because the markets aren’t the same, but your overall story of having a widely diverse body of work that can speak to each market through different elements of that work.

So you see, your story cannot really be told in all the ways it needs to be told until you have a solid grasp on those seven steps. Also, the depth you to which you tell your story is directly linked to the depth you have developed each of those steps.

The final point of baby steps, is to learn that you don’t have to write a story in a day, and that story will evolve over time but the basic outline will remain the same.

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Objective: Learn how to make your self visible, identify your best potential buyers, and connect with them and be the nice person you are in the process.

Today we wrap things up but before I do that let’s remind ourselves of the purpose of all this.

Every one of the baby steps we covered these past seven days has built on the previous one, to help you understand, where you want your business to go and who would want that stuff you make. Finally, we use all that to be seen by the people who have the problem to our solution.

Hopefully, you’ve seen how this gives you clarity,which ultimately saves you on blood, sweat and tears and gives you an edge over those skeptics who are still running around in circles screaming “I don’t have time”.

Once you get all of this down, you’ll have a good foundation that and only need to come around to this process once a year or so. The time you need to spend on marketing will not feel overwhelming, confusing or burdensome, in most cases it will become easy.

Now that we have that out of the way let’s move on to the final baby step…getting seen.

The idea here is to be seen as human, one who creates exquisite work for a select group of people, one who is an expert and willing with potential buyers is the key to breaking out of the cage of random sales.

Everything about this final step and in fact marketing your work is about networking, and networking in an altogether different way than has been done. That is why you built that list of where your ideal buyers hang out.

Here’s what you do with that list…

Select a few of the hang outs you are  comfortable starting with,  start following them,  joining a  forum, subscribe to a blog etc. Then follow the “good” instructions below.

If they are blogs and/or on-line forums:

The Bad

Announce your presence and talk about something totally not relevant to the post you are commenting on.

If it is a forum sign-up and immediately start breaking into conversations to let people know you are here to save them.

Start forum threads that pump up your business and little more.

Make a lame comment like ” cool post” or “great idea”…you may as well save band width and not do anything.

Why Bad?

Pretty obvious that you haven’t contributed anything and only made yourself look like an evil comment spammer…a real good way to build a bad rep if that’s what you want.

The Good

Start commenting on posts it will help the blogger, her readers and you. Make your comments worth reading add something to the blogger’s post, or additional information her readers might like.

See if the blogger will let you guest post.

Sign-up and watch the posting trends for topics you can contribute to, then start contributing.

Start your own threads about something your ideal buyer would be interested in

Why Good?

Commenting with information of value not only to the blogger but also for her readers helps everyone.

You become part of the conversation around the information,

You become recognized as someone worth paying attention to and

you become gain authority in your field

All of these reinforce your authenticity and sincerity instead of making you look slimy. By being part of the conversation, you become visible within your medium, adding  evidence as someone worth listening to. That evidence increases your standing in your medium’s community and finally as your authority in your field increases so to does your visibility and place in the minds of potential buyers.

Social Networks Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The Bad

Send out Facebook status updates or Tweets every 15 min always talking about  youself.

Always use updates and Tweets to talk about how great you are and brag about the number of followers/friends you have.

Have a billion followers/friends but hardly show up and when you do you don’t have much to say.

Why Bad?

Social networks are all about being social they are the networking event of yesteryear except they now cover the entire world instead of on tiny little piece. Word travels fast especially where sliminess is concerned so always talking about yourself will not get you ignored real fast.

The Good

Be selective about who you friend/follow or accept as a friend/follower vet them to make sure they aren’t  high in the slimy scale.

Make your profile page have value and make your updates/tweets about something of value to your friends/followers, and don’t forget the human side. Include information that helps folks know you can be trusted. Just don’t always talk about brushing your teeth.

Why Good?

The whole point of social networking is to have a network of folks you can connect with and vice-a-versa. As a single person small business you are its face to the world. Having a network of mutual support can build your authority and standing as an honest and sincere person to do business with and refer business to.

Your final task now is to find those places and start making yourself visible.

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Objective: Use information developed so far to search for and find buyers who fit your ideal buyer profile.

Yesterday you developed a good sense of who has the problem you solve and you built a profile of an ideal buyer so you could see those folks.

Today, we’re going to use that info to find out were those folks hang out so they  can get to know you, and learn about your stuff. You have to find people who adore you before you can have endless sales from them.

Using the profile

Take that profile you’ve been working on along with the common problems you listed yesterday and list where people having those problems might be found.

People looking for unique wall art  might be new  home owners, single homeowners, home businesses, etc.Narrow this down by picking the category that works best with your ideal buyer.

New homeowners looking for unique wall art might hang out in forums specific to design, or visit interior design studios.

They might frequent blogs that talk about interior design for home owners

They might read on line magazines related to interior design.

One way to make this a little easier…

Think of the words your perfect buyer might use to search for solutions to her problems, these are key words, so write a list of them and stick them in google. You’ll likely get a gazillian possibilities, so just look at the first page or at most the second. People looking for what you have will likely limit their search to those two pages.

As you check out the results, bookmark those that fit your buyer’s profile. You might also do a search for:

Blogs about your medium;


Web sites about your medium or art in general;


Your medium as wall art or some other  not yet thought of way;


Art forums;

You now have a list of places to find potential buyers who closely fit your ideal buyer’s profile. You can do this as many times as you want, each time around will bring you more and more insight into who your buyers are.

Tomorrow, we’re going to answer that burning question of yours …”What do I do with all this?”

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Objective: Further identify a market and potentially suitable buyers by discovering the problems common to the market.Then using that information to build a profile of those most likely to buy;

It is day 5 in this little event and we are going to take yesterday’s solution exploring to find problems looking for our solution. In other words, who wants what you have?

You’ve done the solution/problem thing and come up with a list of problems only you can solve. So, take a closer look at the list, are there any common threads that could link a series of problems/solutions together? I’ll bet there are some common problems out there.

Well…for starters let’s look a few examples:

Lots of folks like to have art on their walls to make a room feel lived in so they would be looking for wall stuff but that’s a pretty wide open problem.

So step back and look at your work..

Can it be used for walls?

If so how?

How would you show that it works ?

So to get a little specific…

Let’s say, you’re a paper maker and you want to start making specific mixes of paper that emphasize color and texture and you want to frame them large.

The problem your stuff solves

is not only linked to folks looking for wall art, it is also a solution for people looking for large and unique wall art that isn’t a painting or photograph. You now have more information about who might buy your handmade paper wall art. You can stop here or go a little deeper…for now we’ll stop here.

Now, grab some paper and a pen and make a list of who might be looking for:

Wall art in general

Unique wall art

Big wall art

Wall art that is colorful

Wall art of hand made paper

OK….

you now have a list of who might be interested in your work next, look at the list and star those those who:

Might easily buy your stuff

Might be open to your “outside the box” style

Might share your vision

The Final Part

Take all of the information you have gathered so far about who might buy your stuff and build a profile of the ideal person you would like to have as a buyer. Think of it like this: “Who would I want to invite for dinner?”

Give that person a name

Give them an income

Give them a dress code ( how do they dress?)

Do they live in the city, the ‘burbs or the country?

What are their values? Are they close to yours?

The ideal buyer for the paper artist might be:

A mid to early career woman named Carlotta who works in design is single, owns a walkup in the city.

She commutes to work by bike or bus because she is environmentally conscious.

She also loves color and texture as reflected in the way she has decorated her flat.

She highly values handmade work to the extent she tries to buy mostly work made by people she can actually get to know….

You get the drift keep going until you feel like you’ve written about your best friend.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at what to do once you have this profile.

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Objective: Identify the key problems your buyers in your market have and how you can provide the solutions that suites both you and them.

Yesterday we talked about benefits and hopefully you could see that all by themselves benefits are meaningless. See, the whole purpose for the existence of benefits is that they solve a problem or problems for someone somewhere sometime.

If those benefits are going to serve any purpose for  you, they have to really solve some problems that either have not been solved before, or they do so in some magical way that that only you can do.

You might be thinking…

Dude! I’m an artist, I don’t solve problems, I just make cool stuff.

Ding wrong !! Your art definitely does solve a problem so here are some problems art solves:

Problem:

Bare walls, room feels cold

Solution:

Painting, fiber hanging or photographs add life to a wall and warmth to room.

Problem:

Cheap dinner wear inherited from garage sale no fun makes eating dreary and discourages lingering and conversation.

Solution:

Custom made pottery that creates conversation and makes dinning fun.

Problem:

No where in yard to sit and contemplate my navel or nature or…

Solution:

Sculpture added to garden creates a quite contemplative space

Ok…got the idea?

Basically, what you are doing, especially since you are creating a solution without a problem, is finding the problem that fits your solution.
Why you say?

Because the rest of the world works by finding a problem and figuring out a solution, but because that doesn’t work for us creative types we have to do it our way.

Now…

make a list of at least 10 solutions your stuff offers


then list the problems needed to solve that solution or solutions.

Tomorrow we’ll use this info in a special way.

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Objective:Learn the difference between features and benefits and how to use benefits to focuse on value only you can provide.

Today we are going to start drilling down into those issues we uncovered on Day 1. Remember so head back here to jolt you’re memory.
The baby step today will be more about that stuff you sell…so let’s get started.

Ok, your stuff is…

Hand made, you put lots of sweat and tears and maybe some blood into making it and it is special, not doubt about it.

That specialness is what is going to be THE thing that none of your competition has, it produces benefits for those lucky enough to own it.

Because we are artists, we are going to take a different path here, we’re not going to even think about features because features are like leather seats in a car.

We don’t have no stinkin’ features because all our stuff has benefits!

One more time:

Features come from saying “wouldn’t it be nice if …” without consideration as to whether the super cool feature added anything to the prospective owner’s experience of using it.

A benefit is something that happens to or for the person who owns your stuff, it is something  you or your stuff does that no one else does for their owners.

Example

The Bad

My photographs are cool to own so you’ll be cool if you have one.

Your funky knitted wrap is all creative and cool….

Why Bad ?

Sure my photos taken with that Holga camera are cool but maybe I’m not going for cool as a benefit.

Or that wrap has more to offer than coolness.

The Good

My Holga photographs make people think and see something new each time they look at them.

Those photos can become a set, a wall collection.

That hand knit wrap not only makes buyers feel warm it also lets them feel wild abandonment, joy, and because it specially made a connection with the materials.

Why Good ?

The benefit of collectibility give the buyer of the photo permission to own more, and helps them in the design of their house by making rooms interesting.

The wrap connects the buyer to the artists intentions as well as evoking other emotions. The fact that it is hand made as well as one of a kind encourages the buyer to feel special and have a creative connection with the artist.

Now…

go out and figure out at least five, that’s five benefits of your stuff;

do the same with yourself because who you are in your business can have as great or greater effect on who will buy your stuff.

Figure Out…

Why would somebody want to buy from you?

What do you have that can be of benefit to buyers that no one else can offer?

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Objective: Check out your competition

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