This question has been asked of me more times than I can count: How can I survive as an artist?
It is the dream of many artists to spend their day creating and not think at all about the business. I’m not sure if anyone is blessed in such a way and if they are, they must be extremely rare. Even the person who has an agent or a manager cannot just let the business side go completely, there are too many decisions to make.
I often hear the artist say, “I just need to get into a couple of decent galleries and they will do all of the work for me.” That only works if you meet a very specific set of criteria. First, your art must sell well to the target market of the gallery. If not, the gallery will not spend much effort marketing your work for you. Who’s art is featured prominently on the gallery’s advertising? The big shots, the ones that sell a lot and make a lot of money for t