Three New Exhibitions...

We are very busy here at "Business Towers" supporting artists who are exhibiting their art in Yorkshire. We have three exhibitions starting this month to take us through to the New Year. more information about each exhibition will be on its way.

South Square Studio Artists at New Bradford Playhouse. Open now, three of South Square's studio holders, June Russell, Patricia Calver and Tony O'Connell are exhibiting their work in the bar area of the New Bradford Playhouse in Little Germany, Bradford. visit the theatre's website for opening times.

Barcaeyes by China9

China9 at Central Hall, Keighley. Huddersfield based artist, Dex Hannon, exhibits unusual art as his alter ego, China9, at our regular exhibition space in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Show starts Wednesday 28th November. Check out the Facebook Event HERE

Labyrinth 

This is a first! Sally Storr and Jo Whitehead exhibit glass, ceramics and plaster at Otley Courthouse, West Yorkshire from Sunday 2nd December. The exhibition, called Vessel, explores the deconstruction of the purpose of containers that hold liquid. Visit the Otley Courthouse website for opening times. 

Opportunity for Yorkshire Artists

South Square centre, Thornton

South Square Salon 2012 | Call for Works

Following on from the success of the South Square Salon 2010, South Square Gallery in Thornton near Bradford, West Yorkshire is offering artists another opportunity to display their works in a salon-style exhibition during the months of December and January at South Square.

Artists working in any media are welcome to apply, there is no selection process so all submissions are guaranteed at least one artwork on display. For a £10 submission fee artists may submit up to 3 works for the show. This is a great opportunity to exhibit and sell your work in a professional gallery space.

If you are interested in applying please visit www.southsquarecentre.co.uk/index.php?/news/south-square-salon/ to download the application form.

Akari Maharani - Sab Rang Exhibition

Akari Maharani

A young self trained artist, who uses her heritage and love of colours as inspiration, Akari Maharani’s art draws influence and motive from her British Indian culture and organic nature. She combines the two and creates her works on a variety of medium. She is currently showing her art at Central Hall, Keighley as part of the Sab Rang Exhibition. 

She is hugely inspired by a mass of modern western artists, Rangoli (indian powder paint), Hindu festivals and her family. Taking on all external factors, be them the bustling streets of a major city or the British countryside, her work reflects this by using traditional Indian mehndi (henna) patterns, peacocks and flowers.  The paths between all the components of the pieces are as important to her as the shapes and the colour as it adds contrast and depth to her pieces. 

Sab Rang is showing at Cafe Central, Central Hall, Alice Street, Keighley until Friday 13 July. Admission is free and the exhibition is open from Monday to Friday 8.30am - 4pm and Saturday 9am - 2pm.

Zareena Bano - Sab Rang Exhibition

Sab Rang exhibition at Central Hall

Zareena is a Visual Artist and works as a freelance Creative Arts Tutor.  She has worked in the arts for over ten years now and is exhibiting her work as part of the Sab Rang exhibition at Central Hall, Keighley.

The artwork is made up using mixed media. The work is inspired by traditional South Asian and Arabic calligraphy designs fused with modern and contemporary art. The diversity of the range of work she has been involved with and has tutored on has reflected the needs and interests of the client group injected with her own style and passion.  She possesses a wide skill base of creative arts and attributes to be able to deliver different forms of art for different styles and levels of engagement.

Zareena likes working with different communities, sharing her passion, joy and knowledge of art, exposing talents of local people and provoking people to succeed in life. She likes to encourage people to express themselves, to exchange creatively and interact with each other. In doing this, she has reached out and touched many peoples’ lives therefore making a difference through art.

 Sab Rang is showing at Cafe Central, Central Hall, Alice Street, Keighley until Friday 13 July. Admission is free and the exhibition is open from Monday to Friday 8.30am - 4pm and Saturday 9am - 2pm.

Opening Your Studio to the Public

Leah Virsik's Studio

Spring is springing and it's THAT time of year for artists and makers to fling open their studio doors to the public.  Open Studio events are nothing new and, if managed successfully, they are a fantastic way to get the public to see your work, learn more about the work of the professional artist and make some sales too. 


But if you have never opened your studio to visitors before there are some important things you need to consider before you take the plunge. Of course, if you are taking part in an organised event most of the "issues" will be covered by the organisers and they will be there to support you.  Before you sign up for the best event of your life here are some things you will need to consider:

• What are you hoping to achieve? This could be meeting more artists, promoting your work to new audiences, making sales and/or educating people about your art.
• How are you going to market this? If you are taking part in an organised event, what marketing will they do and what is your responsibility?
• What will it cost you to open your studio? Will you be able to recoup these costs through sales?
• How will you measure success? Will this be through increased visitors, sales or commissions?

About Your Studio

Francis Bacon's Studio

Is your studio easily accessible to the public? if not, you may want to find out if anyone will share their studio space with you for the event. This happens at North Yorkshire Open Studios  where two or three artists with similar or complementary work may show in one place.  Or you could move your "studio" into a room in your house - setting up a display of your work in your living room. 
Your studio is your "story" and how you show this is very much up to you. Many of your visitors will be interested in the life of an artist as well as wanting to see your work so presentation is important. That doesn't mean you have to clean it so that it's sparkling, sterile and sparse. Instead you may want to show off the tools of your trade, have your latest work-in-progress on your bench and greet your visitors in your apron/overalls. This is particularly apt for those of us who work at the kitchen table - leaving your sewing machine out with your latest creation or your lino cutting tools with your most recent lino design shows visitors how you juggle your artistic practice with your domestic life. 


All Things Financial
Opening your studio to the public WILL cost you money - but how much money depends on the following:

• Inviting the public in without having any public liability insurance is extremely risky. If you are exhibiting as part of an organised event will you come under their umbrella PLI or do they expect you to have your own? If you are in the UK the best value for money PLI is AIR
• Are you insured against thefts and breakages? does your household or premises insurance cover this?
• Will you be paying for publicity? Most organised events will ask for a donation toward their marketing costs (they may call this a membership fee) Our next blog post will be about marketing your Open Studio
• If you make a sale how can the buyer pay you? Try to make this as easy as possible - if you can't afford to share the costs of using a card payment machine then offer to take payments via Paypal or, if you have on-line banking, by BACS. Not so vital if you make fabric corsages but worth considering if you sell sculptures with a minimum price tag of £200.... not everyone carries a cheque book around with them but they always have their credit card in their wallets.

The Facilities

It is really important that visitors know the opening times of your studio in advance. If you are taking part in an organised event make sure that this is stated in the publicity. If you can't do every date and can't be open 9am to 5pm then visitors will be really annoyed if they have travelled 50 miles to find that you are shut. Also, if you have a step up to the studio (or stairs) and no ramp this also has to be made clear. You don't have an obligation to make your studio accessible to all but disabled visitors need to know if they can gain access.

You can offer your visitors a cuppa if you like but you cannot sell home cooked refreshments without the necessary paperwork from your local environmental health department. You will find them on your local authority website. If you do serve refreshments you are obliged to allow visitors to use the "smallest room in the house" or, if you don't have facilities at your studio perhaps an agreement with the pub next door.  

Finally, occasionally things are stolen - it's a fact of life and hopefully it won't happen to you. 99% of visitors are genuine art lovers but be a bit cautious by locking up your valuables if  the public have access to rooms you can't supervise and don't leave your purse/phone out on display. 

Good luck with your Open Studio event - it is a great way of promoting your work and making creative friendships.  Look out for our next blog post on Marketing Your Open Studio Event. 

Aire and Worth Valley Arts Consultation Event

Invitation to Have Your Say

Are you a visual artist, designer, digital and media artist, maker, professional or keen amateur?
Do you live in the Aire Valley between Shipley and Skipton or the Worth Valley?


The Aire Valley Consortium for the Arts (a working title!) would like to invite you to a consultation about Arts in the Aire and Worth Valleys on Wednesday 29 February from 5.30pm at Small World, 20 Russell Street, Keighley BD21 3JP

This is YOUR opportunity to have your say about the provision of support for artists and the arts. Your contribution will be presented to Bradford Council and will help us, Aire Valley Consortium, to focus on the needs of local arts practitioners. There will be refreshments and the consultation begins at 6pm

About AVC: we are an arts collective from Kirkgate Studios and Small World whose manifesto is to champion creativity, culture and learning and to promote and improve the cultural life of the Aire Valley area.

Death of an Icon

It's with sadness that we heard about the death of Leonora Carrington, a female surrealist artist in a male dominated world. Carrington's work had a dream-like quality with both real and imagined animals featuring regularly in her paintings, many of which have a strong narrative theme.

Carrington was largely ignored in Britain and, after her meeting with the surreal artist Max Ernst, became his muse. Living in  Paris, Carrington suffered many trials including the internment of Ernst by the nazis and a breakdown and admission to a hospital in Spain. Eventually Carrington ended up in Mexico where she lived until the end of her life, appreciated for the fine artist that she was. 

But it's the storytelling element of her work that appeals to me with a combination of folk art and wild fantasy. Carrington didn't like to explain her art which is fine by me as it makes the interpretation more interesting and much more bizarre too.

Graphics Fairy - Shameless Promotion

The Graphics Fairy has an image to suit your every need.
"The Graphics Fairy is an Angel Company. You are free to use all clip art and photos, with the exception of the banner, in any of your projects created for resale or pleasure. Please do not use more than 4 of the graphic images within any one project, or withing a single page of a blog or website. A link to the Graphics Fairy is very much appreciated, when including clipart on your blog or website."

Visit The Background Fairy Here

Visit Fleurish here

Graphics Fairy on Etsy

Partnerships - Made in Heaven?

In my post, Do YOU Have What It Takes?, I stated that I would be talking about Business Partnerships in a future post. Well, that time has come!



Why should you start a partnership? What should you look for in a partnership? Who is the ideal partner? How do you sever a partnership?

There have been many successful business partnerships (just think of Marks & Spencer) and being in a partnership has its advantages:
differing strengths and skills
spreading the financial burden
spreading the risks
moral support
stronger business "clout"
but sometimes partnerships can go wrong for a whole host of reasons so, if you are embarking on a partnership, think about it very carefully.

Most sole trader partnerships start through friendship or a common interest. It could be that you were at art school together, you are related, she/he's your best friend - but, quite frankly, this is not the best reason to go into partnership and can end in tears (yours probably). After the initial euphoria of "Yay! We're going to make lots of money and be a success" then cracks in friendships and relationships begin to show. Most reasons are:
one of you is doing all the work
you both have very different ideas of how the business should be run
you share the same strengths and the same weaknesses
you are sick of seeing each other
you are too competitive with each other

"My first business partnership was with my next door neighbour - we made salt dough and had "parties" a friends' houses, selling wall plaques and christmas decorations. Our biggest seller was our 'bride and groom' wall plaque which we made to order, copying the outfits that the couple wore on their big day. It was fun making the salt dough and selling it and, although we were only making pin money, it gave us something else to talk about rather than just the kids.
"We had a break from salt dough but then a huge christmas fair was looming and our stocks had dwindled. My partner/neighbour reminded me of this but I was pig-sick of making Little Bo-Peeps and Three Little Pigs and my response was "I NEVER want to see another piece of salt dough again"! Fortunately, she felt exactly the same so we called it a day very amicably". Janet.

That was a easy enough arrangement to get out of. The partners hadn't made any huge financial or emotional commitment, one wasn't more successful than the other, there was no resentment built up in the relationship. But, if you are already committed to starting a partnership with a friend or relation does it stand up to the following checklist?
You both have the same vision or goals
you both put in the same commitment in time
you both have defined roles
your partner will bring different strengths to the partnership
you have worked out the financial commitment of each partner
you have regular meetings to plan and catch-up
you have agreed time apart.

The best arrangement is the water tight arrangement or partnership agreement. This document, drawn up together, will iron out some of the issues/problems that will rear their heads at crucial moments. Your agreement should include the following:
Defined roles and reponsibilities
Record of accounts and financial input
Profit sharing
Tax commitments
Liability
Reporting Back
Dispute Resolution
Termination of Partnership
It all sounds rather complicated - after all, you were only planning on making and selling your art together. Why should you bother with all this? Well let me break it down.
Roles and Responsibilities.
Write a list of your strengths and weaknesses. Who's the financial wizard? Who has the interpersonal skills? Who is the computer whizz-kid? Who has the most "connections"? You might both be really good at something and not at something else. How will you plug that skills gap?
Recording Accounts and Financial Input.
Who has overall responsibility for balancing the books? You can agree to keep your accounts separately or one person keeps them or one does the petty cash and one the budget.
Profit sharing.
Whether you are both putting up 50% of the money into your business or a 30% - 70% split you will need to agree the financial split of profits. Let's say, for example, you are both printing hand made scarves and bags using your screen printing equipment in your studio - you would not expect to share the profits on sales 50-50. You need to agree the share of profits, in writing, before you go into production.
Tax Commitments.
We all need to pay them. Make sure you have both registered with the tax office before you embark on your partnership. State in the Partnership Agreement that you are responsible for YOU OWN tax debt and not your partner's.
Liability.
In the UK creditors can claim your personal assets if your partner runs up any debts - even if you didn't know about them. You both have equal responsibility to the debt, no matter how unequal your financial contribution has been. (Don't go into partnership with a bankrupt or someone who has known debts, no matter how much you like them).
Reporting Back.
Agree to regular meetings in your Partnership Agreement. Whether this is monthly or weekly, make a commitment to meet up on paper. You can agree to have two kinds of meeting: a Planning Meeting and a Financial Update Meeting. The Planning Meeting to discuss what you are going to achieve in the following week/month/year, what needs doing, what problems you have had, whether you are meeting your achievements or goals. The Financial Meeting is so that you both know what your financial situation is, what you have spent, what you need to spend, profit/loss. Even if only one of you is keeping the accounts you both need to understand them and share this information. If the tax man comes calling ignorance is no defence.
Dispute Resolution.
Those niggling little tensions are building - they need to be resolved BEFORE they become a torrent of accusations adn recriminations "you ALWAYS do so and so" or "you NEVER do so and so". By writing a Dispute Resolution you are stating that every effort will be made to resolve conflicts within the partnership.
Termination of Partnership.
Before you even start a partnership you need to decide how it will end. you might agree that a partnership can be wound up at any time and that either party can terminate the agreement. Or you may need to set out a timetable of, say, a month or after all financial commitments have ben paid back.

Once you have drafted the partnership agreement find someone to check it for you. This may be a solicitor or business adviser, either at your bank or at your local small business centre. Then you both need to sign and date it and keep a copy each.

"I was selling art at local shows and fairs when I met another artist who I got on really well with. Her work was very similar to mine and we decided to exhibit together and run workshops too.
"The partnership worked well at the beginning. I learned a lot about selling from her (she could sell snow to eskimos) and she was very ambitious with her business - she made anything seem possible. But there were niggling irritations on both sides - I sometimes resented her success and how she "took over", she resented my children coming to shows and that family life stopped me from committing fully to our partnership.
"I am not a risk taker nor will I borrow money I haven't got - she was both of these. She had a real entrepeneur spirit and was always buying the latest gadget or tool that she saw as an "investment". I'm so glad that we didn't pool our finances and kept our business interests separate as this made it easier to part company. I later found out that she had huge debts which I could have easily been liable for.
"Since then our artistic lives have both taken different routes - I sometimes read about her new ventures in the press and she appears to have made a success in her chosen field. I'm so grateful that she taught me how to be customer-friendly and how to promote myself but I wouldn't choose to go into a partnership with a friend again". Rachel.

This post has been about partnerships on a small scale but there are also partnerships with banks, other businesses and sponsors that hasn't been discussed. We will be returning to the subject of partnerships in the next post.

Selling Art/Selling a lifestyle

One of the most effective ways of viral marketing is the blog and I have talked about how to be an active blogger in a previous post.

An advantage of using Blogger is that you can "follow" blogs that interest you and also be visible on the blog you are following as long as they are using the FOLLOW widget (and they don't have hundreds of followers - or you become a face in the crowd). But the most popular blogs tend to fall into three categories:
resource blogs
funny blogs
lifestyle blogs.
resource blogs are the kind you follow to keep up to date with the latest art trends, markets and business (like AIB). Here are some more:
The Graphics Fairy



Art News

Funny blogs have a cult following. Who can predict that they are going to be successful? Here's my favourite:
F U Penguin



and life style blogs are very popular with women. I believe this is because we would like to subscribe to the life that's being portrayed. More women buy lifestyle magazines than men - particularly interior design and gardening. Look at the popularity of Martha Stewart and designer Kath Kidston. I have been looking through my favourite blogs list and I really enjoy reading about people who have orchards, grow vegetables, own french ateliers and live in rural places that I may never visit. Here's some of my favourites:
Blueberry Park
Pamel Angus
Patchwork Butterfly



So how can you use this type of viral marketing to sell your art? By combining the three popular blog categories into one blog you are satisfying a wider audience than you would if you concentrated on one style of blog. You may already have a website selling your art and your blog can complement this by showing your more "human" side as an artist. You can also blog about the area where you live, the things that inspire you and your daily life. Selling the "life style" is more about the types of images you show such as your garden, your home, your pets (if they are cute) and, by combining this with stories about making art you have a great piece of viral markting.

And finally, just a personal gripe of mine. I don't like blogs that regurgitate the latest images from home style magazines or crafts magazines just to group them into "themes". This is lazy and unoriginal blogging (but that's just my opinion). Enjoy!

Making a Statement

How do you start to write an Artist's Statement? What should it include? What shouldn't it include? The artist’s statement is subjective and, in this post, we will not be telling you YOU ARE WRONG – instead we will give you OUR perspective on the subject and help you to write a compelling and interesting statement.

We have hosted a lot of fabulous shows over the past ten years at Keighley Arts Factory and every artist has submitted a statement to accompany their art. We have read statements that tell us about techniques, inspiration, concepts, study and, occasionally, stuff we just didn't understand.

Why do you need to write an artist’s statement?
"I am an artist, not an author – my art is visual and should speak for itself. Why can’t people take away their own experience?"
Well, I sort of agree with this - art should speak for itself but there are other reasons for the Artist's Statement.

Your statement is a vital selling tool, use it to promote yourself as an artist to buyers, curators, critics and fellow artists.

Here is an example of an artist's statement.
"My work is created to depict a sense of self and how we perceive space. We are able to project and construct space within our own experience and knowledge. I create environments that take the viewer on a journey and makes that person redfine their preconceptions of spatial dynamism. The viewer is encouraged to interact with the work via their navigation of the space and the juxtaposition of other viewers around them. Creating my work is an intense process that, through its construct, takes me to another artistic plane and helps to redfine the meaning of space. I challenge the viewer to decide whether the transfomration is real or illusionary -my work is a mere suggestion that grows organically".

What kind of art does this artist make?*
What are his/her influences?
How much did you learn about the processes of making art?
Does this statement make you want to see the art?

*If you want to know what the art is, send me a message using the contact box below and I will respond.

So, what would you like to put in your Artist's Statement? Here's a couple of short exercises that will "limber you up" before you embark on writing your actual statement.

Find a fellow artist or like-minded person to work with and take a few minutes describing your art to them. Whilst you are describing ask that person to jot down the "key" or important words you have used. After a short time reverse the process and ask your partner to describe his/her work to you. When you have finished this exercise ask your partner to describe, in his/her own words, what you do. Now do the same for that person.

Did your partner have a clear idea of what your work is about?

Did they decribe something about your art that surprised you?

Did you discover anything new about yourslef or your art whilst you were describing it?

Here's another short exercise for you to try.

On a piece of paper write one short sentence in response to the following questions:

What is your favourite tool and why?
What is your favourite material and why?
What do you like best about what you do?
What do you mean when you say that your work has turned out well?
How does it make you feel when it goes well?
Do you use colour in your work? If so, what is your favourite colour and why?
What do you do differently from the way you were taught?
What do you want people to see/think/feel when they view your work?

Hopefully you now have enough basic information about your work and your creative process to start to write your statement. Before you do here are some tips about the actual writing.

• Write in the present tense.


• Say nice things about your work.


• Include a quote or two - either ones that are relevant to your work or nice things people have said about you.


• Watch out for paragraphs and sentences. The average paragraph should be five sentences or more and you should have a minimum of 3 paragraphs. It is tiring for the reader to plough through one long unbroken statement or to read one-sentence paragraphs.


• first person or thrid person? There's a bit of a debate about this. It's about friendliness versus formality. I prefer to write in the first person as I feel a bit pretentious writing about myself in the third person but it's all a matter of taste.

Do you know what you want to say but are having trouble organising it all on the page?

It will be easier if you write three paragraphs in the following order.

Paragraph 1 About your work, your goals, your aspirations.

Paragraph 2 How you make your art, materials, tools, way of working.

Paragraph3 How your work has evolved and what you are working on at the moment or how you see your work developing.

Read you statement back to yourself. How does it scan?

When you have finely tuned your statement find someone to read it to. Ideally it should be someone who has never seen your art so that they can answer those questions that are at the top of this post.

And, by the way, Here are some of my pet-hate words:

juxtaposition, fragmentation, redefinition, encountering, interaction, durational, amalgamation, transformation

Lynn Fraser - Artists and Illustrator



Artist Bio - "My name is Lynn Fraser and I am an artist based in Liverpool. I have always been interested in drawing and painting but work life took over. I went to night school to reawaken my desire to draw. I paint in acrylic on canvas and am trying to keep original art affordable. My artwork is eclectic varying from black and white icons to the Harajuku girls of Japan."

Lynn Fraser.co.uk

Lynn Fraser on Folksy

Lynn Fraser on Etsy

Illustrator Lynn Fraser blogs about her work and gives some useful tips for the struggling artist.


"I have always enjoyed drawing and painting. I have no formal qualifications but decided to reawaken my desire to draw by going to night school to learn to work with soft pastels. After leaving work in a fashion buying office several years ago I was able to spend more time with my art and decide which direction I wanted to go.
"I settled with acrylic on canvas.I love the near instant effect and fast drying time. My inspiration comes a lot from fashion and style. I also like to paint in a folkart inspired way with angels, fairies and cute comic images. I sell art through my website
Lost heARTS and I also have Folksy and Etsy shops. I show my work at exhibitons throughout the year and have just started doing craft and design fairs".





"Tips for other artists - Stick with it! I'm sure anyone who is involved with art in anyway does it for love not money. If you are going to show in craft and design shows have smaller paintings, prints, bags, badges etc which people are more likely to impulse buy and will draw them to your stall. You can hand them a business card so they can check you out later on the web which will hopefully result in extra sales. Folksy forums are also a great help. If you have any questions there is always someone to point you in the right direction. I found a great badge supplier from advice on the forum. The advice helped me choose the right one for me and knowing that a few others approved them made it easier than going in blind".

Know Your Customer

Do you know who your customer is? Do you know their tastes and shopping preferences? Do you know when and where they like to shop? Being able to identify who, and identify with, your customer will help you to plan an effective marketing strategy.



There are six types of potential customer who browse the hand made selling internet sites.
The “buying only” customer
The “relationship” customer
The impulse buyer (that’s me)!
The collector
The bargain hunter
The Hand Made supporter

Let’s look at these customers more closely. (Please note that these are generalisations – there’s always potential customers who don’t fit the profile).
1. The Buying Only customer doesn’t have a shop of their own. They may not make regular purchases on hand made sites and probably don’t frequent the forums often either.
Positive point: they are here because they like to shop.
Negative point: it is difficult to build an on-line relationship with this customer.

2. The customer that you have a relationship with (by that I mean you are on chatting terms) is usually a seller too. This customer may be a familiar name in the forums and on other promo sites.
Positive point: this customer is easy to reach through forums, chat rooms and promotions.
Negative point: selling may be more of a priority with this customer than buying.

3. The Impulse Buyer may be shopping for a variety of reasons: boredom, the urge to spend money, saw it – liked it, chatted with you and liked you.
Positive point: anything might catch their eye, your item could be in the right place at the right time.
Negative point: they don’t linger long and rarely make a repeat purchase from the same shop.

4. The Collector is looking for something specific – it may be a particular style or craft.
Positive point: If you have what the collector is looking for then you have found the perfect customer.
Negative point: collectors avoid consumables such as soap, food and clothing.

5. The Bargain Hunter is looking for – yes, you guessed it – a bargain. Sales items, novelties, low cost jewellery are attractive to this customer.
Positive point: good news if you make very affordable items.
Negative point: bad news if you are a high-spec artisan.

6. Have you taken the “hand made pledge”? This customer has and will buy because they support hand made.
Positive point: if you are an applied artist making hand crafted items it’s all good.
Negative point: if you are selling vintage or supplies this is not your customer.

Of course, your customers will be a mixture of all of these. How many of these profiles do you fit into? I am no’s 2, 3, 4 and 6.

Here's a short exercise for you to do: Take a couple of minutes to visualise the type of person who might buy your craft. It’s easy to say, EVERYONE but that doesn’t help to define your market/target audience. Think about their age, sex, ethnicity, social class and background. Do you think your customer is just like you? Are they the people you WANT to sell to? Are there other types of people you would like to reach?
Now think about the types of people who wouldn’t buy your craft and the reasons WHY they don’t buy your craft. It doesn’t matter if you are making assumptions, you won’t offend anyone if you keep this in your head!

Researching your existing customers. OK. This is going to take a bit longer than the previous exercise. Take a look at your existing customers and try to find out the following about them (without behaving like a stalker):
What else have they bought from other sellers?*
Is there a pattern to their buying habits? Do they have certain tastes?
Are they social networkers?
Have they bought from you before?
What do they do socially? (gigs, theatre, pub, sport, high street shopping)
You can find out an awful lot about your potential customers by talking to them. We social networkers love to talk – that’s why we are on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, chat rooms and forums. Just by talking we can share ideas, tastes, trends and predictions.

* I’ve just realised that, unlike Etsy, we cannot track the buying profile of buyers on Folksy who are not sellers too – rats!

Market Research can work. I always thought that market research and customer questionnaires were a pointless pain in the *rse until I started working in a gallery. A carefully worded questionnaire can give valuable insight into the profile of your customer and help you to plan your Marketing Strategy. Of course, we have to be careful on Folksy not to spam customers or badger them with lengthy customer feedback forms but, invariably, the Feedback we receive via folksy is inadequate and doesn’t really tell us what we want to know. Potential customers, and also buying customers may, however, be willing to answer one or two questions that can really help you to understand how to market your craft. You might contact the customer after a sale or ask in the forums. Remember, open questions give you so much more information than closed questions.
Here are a few examples:
Where did you find out about my shop?
Is your purchase for you or is it a gift?
Do you regularly buy X?
How does this item compare to the high street?
What other crafts do you like to buy on-line?
What comments would you make about my customer service?
Would you shop here again and, if not, why?
It’s fairly easy to build a profile of your potential customer (you can also research strategies to attract buyers who don’t fit the profile) and it can be fun finding out too. In a future post I will be talking about marketing yourself using the research that you have found. It would be great if you could comment on this blog post with more insights, advice and ideas on customer profiling.
Thanks for reading.

In The Studio (Part 2)

"Well you're in your little room
and you're working on something good
but if it's really good
you're gonna need a bigger room
and when you're in the bigger room you might not know what to do
you might have to think of how you got started in your little room"
Jack White





Wesley Perriman Steam Punk Artist (artist can be contacted via this blog)

"My Main studio/workshop is based in Cononley, North Yorkshire at my House and is generally a mess. At the moment it houses the frame work for The Tranzient Gallery which is undergoing major renovation work. I am also producing Steampunk jewellery and pewter castings for Medieval re-enactment.
"The Tranzient Gallery is basically a “Wunder Kammer” or Curiosity cabinet which has been mounted on to the rear or a specially built tricycle. After it was put in to storage for 3 years it suffered badly from the damp which caused the wood panelling to warp out of shape. Currently I have stripped it back to the basic frame so I can repair certain things and put in some new modifications in. My main problem has been finding new rear wheels as the old ones are not in fantastic state.
"So with work on the gallery going slow I have been concentrating on building up my stock for it. I am at the moment working on a range of Steampunk Jewellery that is being built from a large assortment of clock parts I was given, these are taking the forms of cufflinks, brooches, rings and pendants.
"The other things I produce a lot of are reproduction pewter pilgrimage and livery badges based on examples dating from the 13th-15th century. To make these I hand carve out the reverse image of the badge in to soapstone and when this is completed I cast the final badge in pewter. During the summer I take part in living history displays where I demonstrate this process for the members of the public.
"Other than my little home studio I can also be found working on projects Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in the Carriage restoration shed at Oxenhope. At the moment I am in the process of hand painting destination boards for the sides of carriages."





Phil White, Fine Artist Phil White Paintings

"Since relocating to West Yorkshire in December 2008 from Cheshire, I needed a place to work, leaving a large studio space in Cheshire was going to be difficult to replace as it was unique in it's location. I moved to West Yorkshire with my wife and daughter due to my wife's job moving to Leeds. We needed to choose a property to buy that would accommodate guests and a place for myself to paint, this was difficult on the budget we had, the best option was to use a concrete sectional garage.
"After settling into our new surroundings I decided to clear out the garage, make it water tight, also installing a new chipboard floor with damp membrane and insulation, this made a huge difference to the working environment. I was due to start insulating the walls in the same way as the floor until I discovered a product on the internet that you add to paint, this product turns the paint into an insulating coat, seems to work a treat. After completing all the necessary works to the garage, storage, floor insulating etc, I needed to create an area for my three and a half year old daughter to draw, chalk and paint, she loves to be creative, especially painting. The area I created for her is a small section at the rear of the garage, i installed mdf to the wall of the garage, painted it with blackboard paint, the painting area was done in a similar fashion with adjustable brackets on the wall and mdf was used to create her easel.
"We now have a very modest place to work, it may be modest but it is very functional and works for me and my daughter, I am producing lots of new work now i have completed the studio space, with plans for exhibiting in the near future, hopefully Grace will benefit from what has been created for her."




Sharon Shoemake Glass Artist, Glass Fancy

"My studio is nothing fancy but it is functional and I know where everything is. It seems I always have more than one project going at once. Having a large work table comes in handy for that reason. All my supplies and tools are right there when I need them. I recycle old butter tubs and coffee cans for mixing grout or storage of glass scraps and other supplies. My space takes up half of the laundry/storage room in our basement. When we finished out the room, we added built in shelving, commercial vinyl tile flooring, acoustic ceiling tiles and a laundry sink. I have clamp on task lighting and another table for my glass scraps. If I have a window that is too large for my work table, I build it on the pool table, in the rec room.
"I can really get into my zone in my studio. It is isolated and out of the way. I am known to work well after midnight, but I don't bother anyone sleeping upstairs even if I crank up my music and grinder."

Shasglasscrafts

Glass Gardens Whatnot




Jennifer Beaudet, Fine Artist Beaudetart

"I've been an artist for as long as I can remember. I've been painting for too many years to mention but recently started using oils. I love everything about them, but the smell can get pretty overwhelming in our living room! Yes, that's where my studio is: not some hip, urban loft in the city, just my boring, old, messy living room. I have a corner all to myself where I can paint anytime I want. My other part of my studio (yes, I get two rooms!) is our computer room, where I do all of my photoshop work for my fine art photographs.
"I'm new to the photography business but have always had a love for it. I got my first polaroid for my 10th birthday and was hooked! It wasn't until my birthday this year that I got my first dslr and am having so much fun! My photoshop skills come from many years of working in a fine art printing studio.
"So this is where it all happens. Probably not what you'd expect but that just the way it is, for now. Until I get "discovered" and can get that hip loft in the city this will do just fine."

jbeaudet.etsy.com

"In the Studio" is a regular feature showing artists' studios. Whether you work in a purpose-built studio, a shed, an attic or at the kitchen table, we are interested in seeing where you create your art. If you would like to be featured "In the Studio" contact Artists in Business via the email link at the bottom of the page and prepare a short write up and four jpegs too.

You Been Framed!

If you are an artist, would you want advice about your framing? Choosing the right frame is quite difficult as much of it is down to personal taste but I sometimes wonder whether artists put enough thought into their choice of framing. What do you think?



Choosing framing to complement your art says a lot about how much you value your work. At Keighley Arts Factory we see a lot of framed (and unframed) art and we have seen the good, the bad and the just plain ugly. Our pet hates are:

• plastic frames from Matalan or similar stores
• paintings cut down to fit the frame
• old photo frames or re-used frames
• badly mitred frames
• badly cut mount board
• badly fitting frames

A well made, well presented frame can make all the difference to whether your work gets accepted for exhibitions or open shows.

My personal dislikes are (and you can disagree with me in the Comments)*:

• brushed gold, silver or bronze moulding (sooo 1990s)
• thin plastic moulding (sooo 1980s)
• metallic or dark coloured mount board
• mount board chosen to pick out a colour in the painting
• mount board with differing measurements at top, sides and base
• Box canvases

Mount Board. What is wrong with ivory, cream or black? and why the fancy ruled line in a contrasting colour? Why do you want the mount board to stand out anyway? Surely it's better to let the painting sell itself and, if the customer wants to mount the art in a sludgy green or maroon, they can change it. Why cut the mount board yourself with that blunt Stanley or Xacto knife? Those jaggedy edges stand out a mile and detract from your art. A bevel edge looks so much better and if you don't possess a professional mount cutting machine - go to the frame maker.

Framing. Why did you pick that expensive heavy brushed metallic moulding to frame your art? Are you hoping that a customer might buy it to match their leather sofa or their wallpaper? What kind of philistine buys art to match their decor anyway - Isn't that what Ikea's for? The rule of K.I.S.S. should apply to choosing moulding (Keep it simple, s....) My idea of a good frame is a pale wood, dark wood or ebony frame that allows the art to speak for itself.... and it's not the most expensive moulding in the shop.

Box Canvas. OK. So you can buy them for pennies these days (they even sell them in Poundland) and they save you the hassle of framing your work and they make you feel like a "real" artist. But the box canvas is the poor man's stretched canvas in standard sizes and nasty textured surface. Then there's those annoying sides - do you leave them bare or do you wrap the painting around them? Recently I overheard a visitor criticizing one of our exhibiting artists because he had left the sides of his STRETCHED canvas messy instead of painting around the edges. Wha....??? It's a serious piece of art - who cares about the sides? It can be framed later or left as it is. I would rather see brush strokes and smudges than dabbed edges.

Frame Makers. You get what you pay for and it SHOWS. Frame making is a highly skilled profession and a properly framed piece of work should have mitred edges, bevelled mount board, pinned and taped at the back, D rings with taut hanging wire or nylon cord and clean glass. Cheap framing is exactly that - cheap. So if you are wandering around the junk shop looking for a frame to match your painting/print/photograph - go seek a trained professional.

I guess it's really about how much you value your art compared to how much effort you will go to present it well.

*The personal comments of the author do not reflect the opinions of Keighley Arts Factory.