The “Office” Side of Art

Here are some lecture notes from “All You Wanted to Know About Art” Summer 2003.

  • Keep regular business hours.
  • Size counts.
  • Make mailing list to send stuff to galleries.
  • Create a history of applications.
  • Write thank you notes.
  • Stay in touch with folks who know your work.
  • Layer idea of community and patronage. It’s bigger than just a purchase.
  • Encourage a personal relationship with the artist.
  • Take the lead.
  • Make slides and color printouts of your work to send in to galleries.
  • Send the best slides, rather than the best work, and send prints also.
  • Send in accompanying list with with a paragraph about each slide, still, or video.
  • Make sure your “First name, Last name” Internet search is good.
  • If not, clean it up and if no hits, sign up for sites or make your own.
  • Increase name hits, your name is very valuable.
  • Art in America annual guide shows places to sell art.
  • SFMOMA has groups exhibition spaces.
  • Work first on the long list of CV.
  • Don’t be “over exposed”.
  • Don’t give different prices, have consistency.
  • Think about supply and demand, career level.
  • Size is the only objective pricing strategy, bigger is more.
  • Visit galleries to do research on art pricing in your community.
  • Art commissions: consultants charge 25%, galleries 50%, non-profits 10%.

Published by Pete Ippel

Pete Ippel, the son of a dancer and a musician, was born in Oak Park, Illinois and has been surrounded by the arts since birth. He moved to Morris, Illinois in 1989 and started to participate in athletics rather than dance. After high school, Pete attended Cornell University where he received a BA in psychology and a BFA in photo / digital art making. He continued to follow his sporting dreams in the high jump, which culminated in a school record leap of 7 feet 1/2 inch in 2001. In May 2004 he attained an MFA degree in the New Genres department of the San Francisco Art Institute. Presently Pete is a practicing artist whose work is in numerous private collections and has been exhibited in New York, California, and internationally. Mr. Ippel resides in Working Artists Ventura, a sustainable artist community in southern California. In addition, he teaches art, is a web developer, an active blogger, and still high jumps from time to time. As a passionate problem solver and a pragmatic optimist, Pete’s art and his life are full of exciting challenges.

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