Five years ago, Brown County resident Linda Meyer-Wright decided she needed a change. After spending years immersed in the depths of the business world as a social administrator, she needed a break and found her release in painting. After taking a few beginning classes from the John Waldron Arts Center, she said she ventured out on her own to start a new career. \nBut business followed her.\n"I thought I'd gotten away from business," she said. "Since I'd done so much of that before, it was easier, but I probably have more resentment ... because all I really want to do is paint and create new things." \nMeyer-Wright is primarily a watercolor artist, though she also works with fluid acrylics and collages of mixed media. But art doesn't sell itself, she said. There has to be a "driving force behind it."\n"It isn't enough to create it," she said. "Unfortunately anyone that wants to see it, buy it or touch it has to have some way to find you."
Selling the work\nBloomington resident Jane Jenson began painting scenes 15 years ago while working as a missionary in Panama. She was convinced by her mother to begin painting Panamanian scenes after noticing similar artists in the area become financially successful. She adapted this talent to include Bloomington scenes when she moved to the area.\nThough she most enjoys painting nature scenes, Jenson said she usually paints Bloomington landscapes and house portraits because they sell. \n"Younger people can't afford the originals so I make the images smaller to sell at art fairs and street fairs," she said. "It doesn't make as much money, but something is better than nothing."\nMost artists do not pick up a paint brush hoping to turn it into a dollar bill. The majority of painters only make enough on one project to fund the next, with maybe a little left over.\nCommissions can help\n Bloomington resident Tricia Heiser-Wente has been painting since the age of seven, but didn't start doing commissioned work until 1982, after getting married and having children. Heiser-Wente paints in watercolor, acrylics and oils. \n"My pricing is average, but when you figure in all the other costs of materials, it's very expensive to be an artist," she said. "I don't know how it is that we are all supposed to make a living at this."\nHeiser-Wente began taking part in street fairs as a way of getting her work to the public. She said she quickly discovered doing commissions was the way to go. \n"At first I wanted to sell landscapes," she said. "But I learned early on, selling landscapes to the public was just not a reality because they don't sell."\nPainters figure out the marketing strategies as they work through their careers. It isn't something they usually learn in a class, but rather from other artists in the business. \nBloomington resident Judy Farnsworth said she is a "2-D artist" whose preferred media are soft pastels and colored pencils. She's been seriously focusing on her art since 1996. Farnsworth said she learned nearly everything she knows from either other artists or books. \n"I didn't learn much of anything about marketing my work while I was in college at Valparaiso University," she said. "It's something I've acquired on my own."
Marketing Art\nThis lack of education is not uncommon, said Betsy Stirrat, director of the IU School of Fine Arts Gallery. She teaches "Professional Practices in Studio Art," the only class in the Fine Arts program dedicated to marketing. \nStirrat said most art students never get the chance to take her class because it's an elective course, something many students find difficult to fit into their schedules.\n"Traditionally art teachers taught students that simply creating great art would make them successful, but we all know that's not true," she said. "Most of the faculty here don't understand the importance of classes like mine."\nIn her class, Stirrat works with students on résumé writing, cover letters, marketing, researching residencies and many other aspects of art management. \n"I hope that I can give the students tools which make them informed," she said. "So that once they leave here, hopefully there won't be too many surprises."\nMost artists either rely on their spouses' income, have alternative jobs or both. Sara Hatch, primarily a water-color artist, said her husband is her best patron.\n"He's a better salesman than me, so it helps a lot to have him around," she said. \nHatch said rejection is something an artist must learn to deal with on a daily basis.\n"Artists have to consider themselves business people because I think marketing is 90 percent of the battle," she said.
Alternatives for artists\nHaving a back-up plan, such as teaching, is very important Hatch said.\n"No matter how hard you work at your art, there's a chance it might not work out," she said. "Teaching is a great alternative for artists who can't make their painting into a full-blown career."\nSophomore student artist Brett Owen said making a career from her art is one major issue that concerns her as a painter. \n"I've worried about how I'm going to eat once I get out of college," she said. \nOwen said she changed her major to include a concentration in teaching. This will allow her to teach art at the high-school level while at the same time getting started as a painter. \n"I don't know what I'd do if I (didn't have a concentration in teaching) because I don't like anything else," she said. "Art is my life; it's what makes me happy."\nThough marketing is clearly an important aspect to making a career as a painter, Owen said she has received no training thus far on how to market her artwork. \n"It's something they don't seem to be concerned with here at the art school," she said. "I think they are more interested in the glory of being an artist than they are teaching us how to make a living at it."\nOil painter and Bloomington resident Wayne Manns said even after 14 years of painting, he's still working on his marketing skills. \n"Even I still don't know all the answers on which way is best to sell my art," he said. "It's different for each individual and I'm still exploring my options."\nManns said despite the difficulty in making a career as an artist, it's something he will always be faced with.\n"As long as God gives me the ability to pick up a paint brush, I'll be painting," he said. "You don't find art, but rather, art finds you and it's up to the artist to decide what to do with that."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Lynndi Lockenour at llockeno@indiana.edu.
