ART TALKS at The Artistic Forum

From the first day you decided to become an artist your dream has been your own one-person show in a prominent gallery. Well, it doesn’t have to be big and famous, just a gallery show. One of the first statements an artist makes, “Someday I want to do an one artists show at the… ( fill in the blank)” Like if you have a show then you will be discovered and all will be “hunkie-dorie”. Success will follow like a bad odor does a diesel freight train.

The sad thing is this myth has formed legs and now has engrained itself into the art community so firmly many believe the mendacity. Like all myths there is a grain of truth encapsulated in it. There was a time shows did help. There was a time when the horse and carriage was the best mode of transportation. That was then and this is now, the year 2002.

I am finding the need to seek new and improved ways of marketing art. No, I’m not suggesting we follow the Kinkade path even though I got an interesting email last week suggesting that I was just like him. Not so, his American Express bill each year surpasses our gross income. He earns millions annually. We do limited edition gicleés that cap out at 95 units per edition. We want limited to mean limited. Thomas Kinkade calls 35,000 units a limited edition. Thomas is left handed, I’m right handed. We are both believers, we each have a moustacI cannot carry his briefcase when it comes to earning money. We earn a comfortable living; he is amassing a fortune. I realize the email was meant to be degrading but to me it’s a compliment comparing my marketing skills with Lighthouse Publishing. He has art in 20% of all American homes. He found a new way to market art in the twenty first century. He stopped doing shows and began to think out of the box. None of us will ever be a Kinkade even if we wanted to. He is like Madonna or Elvis, one of a kind. Love him or hate him, he is here and immensely successful; however, we can all do better than we currently are in selling ourselves and our art. We work in oils and that’s about as close as we get.

"Bald Eagle", a limited edition gicleé by Mr. White.
"Bald Eagle", a limited edition gicleé by Mr. White.

Years ago a friend sent me a drawing with nine dots placed equally to form a square. He suggested I connect all the dots by making four straight lines. I am not good with puzzles but thought it looked simple enough. Finally after a week of fiddling with it, off and on, I phoned him to find out if it could be done. After he finished laughing he told me the secret, “Jack, you gotta think out of the box.” To connect the dots you have to make the lines extend past the box at two corners. It was a piece of cake once I went outside the box. I would never have gotten a job with Henry Ford. He used the out of the box thinking when he interviewed prospective employees. Over lunch he gave them the puzzle. If they could solve it he gave them the job, if not he felt they were not creative enough.

It happened early on in my art career and helped me more than any one thing that I can pin point in my success over the years. I started to understand he didn’t say because the lines were straight that I could not go beyond the box. The limitations were self-imposed. I removed the limitations off marketing myself and used those same out of the box principles to make the difference in my mate’s amazing success as an easel painter. In my own career I was an “out of the box” marketing man. With Mikki I followed the same plan. I taught her to paint and sold her first painting in 1990. Using out of the box thinking I took an unproven oil painter and propelled her to near stardom in ten years. You can do the same with smart marketing and thinking of ways other than the old, tired, failure driven programs many are using over and over. I want to share some out of the box ideas I’ve come up with as examples of things that can be done to market our art. Art is not a product folk’s need. We must invent a need and generate a desire to own; because art is not purchased - it must be sold.

Following old ruts will lead to the same destination every time.

When we were struggling to get my mate’s career off the ground I realized one of the problems was her galleries really didn’t know her. They didn’t know how she made a painting or much about her. I devised a program that I called “A-I-R”, an acronym for Artist In Residence. You now see galleries all over the country using this idea.

We made new ruts and others are following our trail. This is what happens when you advertise your coined acronyms in national publications. Her galleries thought it was to bring in customers and generate sales for a weekend. I let them think that but my out of the box reason was to acquaint them with Senkarik. I wanted her to spend two days in their gallery selling the salespersons. Motivate the motivators. Artists fail to understand the importance of selling those who sell their work. Artists need to make the gallery personnel trust them, believe in them and discover how they produce their art. We scheduled an AIR event two times a year in each gallery. She set up on Friday, blocked in a painting and began to interact with the owners and gallery staff. Friday evening we would take the entire gallery gang to dinner. Another aspect of our out of the box thinking. We decided not to “mooch” off the gallery, we picked up the tab for dinner. That’s correct, we paid for dinner. Have you ever heard an artist say that? There were a few times it was painful, because some would select the most expensive items on the menu. Ouch!!! Occasionally someone ordered extra expensive bottles of wine. I can assure you none had screw tops. We understood all artists expected the galleries to pay for dinner. We knew by being different we would start to stand out as special and not freeloaders. When customers were in the gallery looking at a Senkarik and another artist of equal skill, which one do you think the salesperson will push? They know Senkarik; after all she spent two days with them, paid for dinner and taught how she made a painting. Other artists whined, moaned, complained and had to be cajoled almost weekly. Never once had one of the other artists even offered to pick up the dinner check. The gallery didn’t have a clue how their art was made. The question is who do you think the salesperson would suggest buying, the malcontent or Senkarik?

We employed out of the box thinking while Senkarik was in the gallery painting. She asked about them, how old were their children, birthdays, anniversaries, hopes and dreams of those selling her work. She asked about the most important person they knew, themselves. She only answered questions about herself when asked. She asked, “How did you get in the art business.” She spent two power packed days selling them on Senkarik by being interested in what they care about…THEM.

After more than ten years of doing our Artist In Residence (AIR) program we have become like family to the galleries representing Senkarik. We care about them as people and they in turn feel the same about us. It is more than just a place to hang our art; it is a symphonic relationship. There is a harmony of focus on selling which would have been difficult to produce unless we had moved past the self-imposed limitations of normal, in the box, artist’s marketing ideas.

OTB number four: We encourage gallery sales of other artists. We help the gallery find artists we think will improve the gallery income. Artists we feel will not be whiners and can help carry the weight of the overhead. How many of you help your gallery find artists who sell well? We have a saying in Texas, “If the ship sinks the rats go down with it.” We want our galleries to succeed because if they fail we will fail with them.

OTB number five: I started seeing the handwriting on the wall several years ago about how out of date shows are. They are poorly attended with the exception of high profile artists like Peter Max, Kinkade, Pino, Royo, Bateman, Bev Doolittle, P.Buckley Moss or Glenna Goodacre. For the millions of artists who do shows each year the results are usually a dismal failure. There is tremendous effort put forth preparing for shows and mailing invitations, not counting the hopes and dreams that are crushed when the show flops. The artist works months getting ready for the big night. There is a fairly good crowd. About twenty-five percent of the audience is made up of other artists. Forty percent come for the music, food, wine and conversation or just to give them something to do. A few come to criticize the work and some because they feel obligated. All in all there are a lot more lookers than buyers. Gallery art shows have become a social gathering place. Shows cost a great deal of money to do and the bottom line is profits do not justify the expenditure of time, money and energy. Recently we visited a Carmel gallery show. The artist was a major player in the mid-price range. He displayed twenty-seven paintings. We viewed the work the third week of the show and didn’t see one red dot. I bet he is home moping and crying the blues because he had pinned his hopes and budget on that big event. We were told by inside sources the opening was sparse in real collectors. The crowd was mostly artists and those wanting to party. No sales were made.

I felt challenged to find a way to overcome this plaguing problem. We are fortunate to now have a large base of collectors whom we call Team Senkarik Members. My out of the box thinking was everyone had “collectors”, so I made ours a part of the “success team”; hence, “Team Senkarik”. They become team members the moment they make their first purchase. Even those buying a note-card or tee shirt become team members. We talked our Carmel dealer into doing a “Team Event” in the gallery. Only team members would be allowed to attend. It was an RSVP catered night exclusively for Team Senkarik Members. The gallery response was excellent. We were told it was the best-attended and most successful gallery event in years. We sold all of Mikki’s art the gallery had, plus what we brought with us and took orders for four collaborations. Collaboration is our out of the box way of saying commissions. Pitzers of Carmel is one of the largest and most prestigious in that quaint little art community hosting more than 90 galleries. We made people feel significant when they got their invitation. They understood it was a reward to be allowed to attend this RSVP event. Instead of begging them to come we reversed our thinking and made them feel they were lucky to be invited.

Our Napa Valley Gallery was willing to go all the way with my out of the box marketing idea. For them we did a Team Senkarik Breakfast on Sunday morning. The room only had space for sixty people. The gallery filled all of the available reservations within two weeks of announcing the event. We made it seem like getting a ticket to the Super Bowl. I can speak from experience. Mikki and I have been to two Super Bowls and always gloat to our less fortunate friends about how great it is to be going. I wanted that same feeling portrayed about this Sunday Brunch. I wanted it to be their Art Super Bowl Sunday.

We arrived early and “mingled” with those attending. I made a point to introduce each couple to Mikki before they were seated. We gave them an hour to preview the art, drink champagne, wine, coffee or fresh hand squeezed orange juice. Heck, we even had water. I instructed the gallery to have nametags for everyone and to type them in at least 24 pt letters. I wanted Mikki to be able to see their names at a glance and not be forced to bend over to read the tag. She could say from a few feet away, “Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood, how nice it is you could make it. Are you still enjoying Radiant Retreat and Napa Valley Shadows ?” We knew prior to the event the names of those attending and Mikki looked up in our files which originals each couple owned. She, of course, could not remember all but enough to impress her team members. They were shocked she would recall the name or names of their paintings. Again out of the box marketing. She showed interest in them. She made them the star of the show and not herself. Most artists are there to stroke their own egos and just don’t understand success will follow when you make your collectors the most important people of the event. Make them the star and in turn you will be the one to shine.

After the guests ordered from the menu we made some announcements and then let them enjoy each other and swap stories on how many Senkariks they each owned. We sat them at round tables of six so they could interact. Large long tables are not effective. Cruise ships seat guests in a circle at dinner. The idea is not original…didn’t I read somewhere about a famous King having a round table for his knights? At a round table all are equal. As I saw them beginning to finish I asked Victoria to stand and address the group. Ed and Victoria King own the gallery. I instructed her to say, “Now is the time some lucky couple gets the opportunity to be the first to purchase a Senkarik today.” She paused to add drama. “I know you have had time to view the magnificent group of paintings Mikki and Jack brought us and are anxious to see who gets lucky. We do apologize that we can’t have something for everyone, but you as Team Senkarik Members know her work is scarce these days. (This added urgency to buy now) I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. Please Mikki, draw a name and let’s see who gets lucky.” I had her emphasize lucky over and over. Out of the box thinking…they are lucky to get to purchase, not that we are lucky they are buying.

Mikki slowly reached in the hat, pulled a name and read the note. “Victoria King.” The audience broke out in laughter. Mikki finally recovered from laughing so hard at her own joke and continued, “Victoria made me do it. The name reads, the lucky Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Jones.”

From the back of the room we heard a scream. “Oh My God!!! I have never been lucky in my life. I can’t believe it.” She jumped up with her husband close behind and dashed over to a $10,000 painting, pulling the tag off. The audience started to clap. I must confess I did begin the clapping and the group followed suit. One after another, as their names were drawn you could hear the ooh’s, ah’s and spontaneous clapping. Immediately the lucky couple would head for a painting, yanking the tag consummating the sale. In about ten minutes every piece of art was sold. One lady sitting at a table said, in jest, to a “lucky” couple, “You bums.” We had created such a festival atmosphere that everyone got into the act. It was an event, which caused a buying frenzy.

We must become inventive in selling art and give as much thought to selling as we do producing. When those two are given equal importance success will follow like water does a dry creek bed.

In closing, keep this Jack Whiteism in mind: Prior proper planning prevents pitifully poor production.

Jack White is the author of “The Mystery of Making It” and “The Magic of Selling Art”. You can find his work and where and how to purchase his books: http://www.jackwhiteartist.com

Mikki Senkarik, Jack’s mate’s work at: http://www.senkarik.com