B2B Monday - Recapping the year

Happy last Monday of 2013! Before we sail into a brand, shiny new year and set a few goals and pick a new word to guide us, now is the perfect time to look back on this year and take pride in all that we've created. Make a list of all of this year's art-related accomplishments. How many works were started? Completed? How many proposals were written and submitted? How many shows were entered? How many new techniques were learned or old ones honed? What kinds of art "field trips" did you take? When you sit down to think about it, there's always more to write down than occurs to you at first thought.

Creating this list also helps you figure out what you might need to focus on for the year ahead. I'd love to see all or part of your list if you'd like to share it here!

Happy New Year! Bring it, 2014, we're ready for you.

B2B Monday - Art Field Trips

With the year drawing to a close and the holidays upon us, this week's tip is simply to set some time aside to enjoy some art. You can take an actual field trip, by yourself or with others, or a virtual one. I recently had the opportunity to visit DIA Beacon in New York with a group of friends and it was so creatively stimulating. We had interesting, in-depth discussions about what we were seeing and what it made us think. I highly recommend the experience!

If you don't have time to get in the car and head off to a museum or gallery, take a tour of a museum's website or visit an art blog. In the midst of the holiday craziness and preparation and stress, a creative time out can be very refreshing and inspirational.

Here are some virtual favorites of mine:

This is Colossal
Google Cultural Institute
Virtual Museums

What's your favorite place for an art field trip (real or digital)?

B2B Monday - Are Your Tools in Top Shape?

Happy Monday from very icy Connecticut! This week's tip deals with your equipment and tools and getting them into the best shape they can be in for the coming new year. If you are in the thick of creating for holiday gifts, disregard this tip until you've wrapped up (har har) your work for Santa, but then hop to it. Because we are all busy with parties, family, and holiday preparation for at least the next few weeks, this is the perfect time of year to send your sewing machine for a "day of beauty", your scissors to be sharpened, to spend time re-organizing your Dremel drill bits and replacing the ones that need it, stocking up on needles, new brushes, and whatever else will put your basic supplies and tools in fine fighting shape to hit the studio in January running and ready to create!

Here's a small list of tools to check over:

• Sharpen scissors
• Send sewing machine for a tune-up and cleaning
• Soak and restore paint brushes (did you know that using a drop of hair conditioner in the final rinse water can keep your brushes soft and the bristles behaving?)
• Clean iron
• Clean or replace painting palette
• Sharpen pencils
• Discard dried up paint jars and tubes
• Check all lightbulbs in your studio area and replace any that need it (fluorescents lose luminosity over time, for example, and become dim gradually enough that you don't notice unless you're really paying attention)
• Stock up on blades for Xacto knives, bits for a Dremel, sandpaper, batting, basic thread, and any other consumable supplies

What is on your list of tools to service and equipment to check? Let me know in the comments.

New for 2014! - I'll be offering one-on-one mentoring for a limited number of artists. Find all of the details at the bottom of the Studio Workshops page.

B2B Monday - Revisit Your Prices

Good Monday afternoon! As we enter the last month of the year, busy with lots of holiday doings and the anticipation of a brand shiny new year, now is a good time to re-evaluate a number of things to do with your art business. This week, your mission is to revisit your pricing. If you sell your work, or teach or lecture, revisit your prices to determine whether they will increase in the new year or remain the same.

Have you sold a lot of work at your current prices? Have your prices remained steady for 2 or more years? When was the last time you raised your fees for teaching or lecturing? It might be time for a modest increase. Check out what other teachers are currently charging for similar classes. Add 10-15% to the retail prices of your artwork and see if the number seems reasonable and comfortable to you. Revise price lists and any online shops to reflect the changes.

Are you looking for an in-depth online course to focus on your art business in the new year? Consider signing up for my Jump Start Your Art Career workshop. All the details can be found in the Online Workshop tab at the top of this blog, or by following the link.

Do you want to see all of the tips in the Back to Business series? Follow the link to see them all!

B2B Monday - Retire Your Art

Happy Monday! This week's tip will help you prepare for the coming new year with some cash in your pocket and some space in your studio. Evaluate the inventory of your art to see which pieces can be "retired" and sold for a lower price than you'd normally offer. You may find that you've moved on from certain pieces or series and are ready to let them go. Having a sale, with a definite beginning and ending date, can clear space in both your studio and your mind to explore new directions. The holiday season is the perfect time of year to offer a sale like this.

List work, with prices and photos, on your blog, website or in an Etsy store or other online venue. Advertise your sale to your email newsletter list and on social media sites. State that the sale is on pieces that you're retiring and emphasize that each piece is being sold at a price below that which it would have normally sold. Add an ending date to your sale to create a sense of urgency. 

Come the new year you'll be ready to work, knowing that the older, retired art has moved on to good homes, freeing your creativity!

B2B Monday - Sort Your Supplies

Happy Monday! If there's one task that needs doing on a semi-regular basis, it's sorting through your art supplies. Throw away used up or dried up paints and mediums. Store "like things" together to prevent re-buying things you already own (I'm guilty of this one!) Check your scissors and cutters to see if blades need replacing or sharpening. Evaluate supplies to see if they're still needed or wanted. If not, donate them to someone who will use them. As our interests and skills change and grow, our need for certain supplies may change too. The space you make can be filled with new supplies or supplies that don't currently have a "home".

When was the last time you sorted through your supplies? Have you outgrown any? Found that you have 3 of something that you only need 1 of?

B2B Monday - Keeping Track of Work

Good Monday evening! This week's tip to help your art career has to do with record-keeping and organizing.

You may have a system for keeping track of all of the bits of info that are important to your art - prices, shows, awards, etc -  that works just great for you, but you may not have a system at all and now is a good time to set one up, add in all of your older work, and use it with new work moving forward.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started. Create a page in a word processing program for each artwork. Add a photo of it to the top of the page (this is a good way to make sure you remember to shoot all new work too!) Below the photo record the title, the dimensions, the price, and leave room for any exhibitions, sale date with name and contact info for the new owner, publications it may appear in, awards, statement, and any other relevant category that you might need.

A simple page created in Open Office or Word

When you've finished creating the pages for each individual work, print them out and place them in a binder. You can sort the pages by series, by size, or any criteria that makes sense to you. When you are looking for work to enter into a show, flip open your binder and all of the info is right at your fingertips.

You could create a master list of all work for the front of the book, add columns to each page for exhibition submissions, ship dates, and return dates, etc. Keeping a book like this will take the pain out of submitting to shows, keeping track of prices, remembering to take photos and write statements, and locate work wherever it may currently be.

Do you have a system to record all of this info? What works for you?

B2B Monday - Collaborate!

Happy Monday! This week I have a great tip for you to get your creative juices flowing. Consider a collaboration with another artist or other artists. There are SO many different ways to collaborate with others and all of them can lead to an invigoration of your own work.

You can choose to work on a joint piece or each work on your own pieces, but watching another artist's process and techniques can cause you to find a new approach to your work moving forward and give you food for thought that pushes your work in new directions. Plus it's fun! Most of us work in solitary in our studios and miss out on the interaction with other members of our "tribe". A collaboration is an ideal way to connect and dispel the isolation for a time.

A couple of ideas for collaborations to get you started-

• Pick up a random book and choose the 11th word in the 3rd line down from the top on page 47. You and a partner each make a piece of art in response to that word.
• Arrange a day in your studio and invite some artists over to "play". Spread a canvas or large piece of paper out on the floor or on tables. Everyone starts working on the section in front of them and after a half hour or so, everyone moves to another section and adds to the previous artist's work. The end result could be cut up and divided among the participants.

If you  start a collaboration or have recently finished one, please leave a link to photos or a description in the comments. And let us know what you got out of it artistically.

B2B Mondays - Update Class Materials

Here's a good tip for all of the teachers out there: Check over each of the supply lists for your current workshops and update, add, subtract, and tweak as needed. If you're like me, you're constantly on the lookout for ways to make classes go smoother and to insure that every student has as good an experience as possible. A well-thought-out supply list that doesn't contain items the students never use and does contain everything a student does need goes a long way to providing an excellent experience for teacher and student alike. Classes evolve over time so be sure that your supply lists reflect the most current iterations of your workshops.

And while you're at it, take the opportunity to review the description you've written for each class as well. A good class description entices students to sign up. It will contain an appealing explanation of what a student stands to learn and perhaps include something about your teaching style or other specific information that helps "sell" that workshop.

If you provide photos for workshops to organizers, double check to make sure they are all as appealing and relevant as possible. If you haven't yet organized all of these files (supply lists, descriptions, and photos) into one single folder on your computer yet, now's the moment! The next time you're contacted to teach a class everything will be at your fingertips and ready to go.

And I'm off now to take my own advice and get my class materials in order!

B2B Mondays - Enter a Challenge

Here's this week's B2B Monday (er...Tuesday, don't ask) business tip: Enter a challenge or answer a publishing call for submission. This can be the very best and fastest way to bring your work to the attention of magazine editors and book publishers.

If one of your goals is to write your own book, contribute to a book, or pen a magazine article or two, look for a challenge or contest to enter. Even if your work isn't chosen as a finalist, your work will be studied and noted by editors and others. If your work is chosen and published, even better! More people will be exposed to your work. Answering a call for submission on a book publisher's website can also lead to good things. And seeing your work in print is such a rush! There are a variety of opportunities that can arise from publication - teaching opportunities, invitations to appear on television or radio, request to submit a book or dvd proposal, and a lot more.

Here are a few resources to get you started:

Quilting Arts magazine challenge page
Cloth Paper Scissors magazine challenge page
The Artist's Magazine contest page

Stampington magazines challenge page

500 Series books page for LarkCrafts
Calls for collective books for LarkCrafts

B2B Monday - Take a Scary Step

Happy Monday! This week's tip involves scaring yourself. I'm not talking about ghosts and goblins here, but getting out of your comfort zone and taking a step in your career that you've been putting off because it makes you nervous or scares you a bit.

I always tell my students that real growth, both personally and as an artist, occurs when you are trying or doing something outside of that zone where you feel comfortable, the zone where you know the outcomes before you start, and where boundaries aren't pushed very hard. By definition you will feel uncomfortable outside that zone. That's the stretching and growing you need to do as an artist in order to progress, to expand your skills, and to make the zone that much bigger.

So this week, take a scary step forward on your career - submit an article idea to a magazine if you never have before, enter a big show, attend a meeting of a new-to-you group of artists, approach a gallery about showing your work - do something that makes you feel a little nervous and a little uncomfortable (or even a whole lot uncomfortable), and take comfort in the fact that you're growing and stretching and moving your career forward!

Please report back after you've taken your scary step and let me know how it goes. Onward, peeps!

B2B Mondays - Professional presence

Today's business tip for artists has to do with your professional presence. Your business cards (and postcards if you use them) are an excellent marketing and networking tool that you should carry with you at all times.

You have no idea where the next opportunity will come from and being prepared with a snazzy business card with all of your contact information printed on it means that you won't miss the opportunity and you won't be scrambling for a napkin on which to jot down your details.

Keep in mind that your business cards should be in alignment with your brand so tie them in to your blog or website design, colors, and fonts. Use the space on the card to highlight a photo of your work, even a thumbnail is great!

If you're low on business cards, or if you haven't printed any yet, take time this week to design and order some. Think about adding links or icons for social media so your contacts can connect with you on the platform of their choice.

My favorite online resource for business cards is Moo. The quality of their cards is outstanding and their customer service is amazing. I have ordered cards from them for years and have been more than impressed every time. If you'd like a 10% discount on your first order, click here. Disclaimer: I receive a credit to my account when you click that link, but I love Moo so much, that I'm just as happy if you visit their website directly and bypass the affiliate link (there's no discount if you do though, lol).

There are, of course, many other places to have business cards printed, both online and locally, so I encourage you to explore all of your options. Think carefully about using a "free" printing service if the catch is that they print their logo or web address on your card. This option appears much less professional because it gives the receiver of your card the impression that you aren't serious enough about your business to invest money in it.

Another great option is to design and print your own business cards. Most office supply stores carry business card blanks - sheets that you can print in your own inkjet or laser printer that snap apart easily and look clean and professional. I did this for years before discovering Moo (and still sometimes resort to this option when I've run out of cards before a new order arrives). One drawback I've found is that the paper isn't quite as thick and luxe as the paper used by a commercial printer.

If you design and print a new business card, please add a link in the comment section here so we can all see it!

B2B Mondays!

I'm excited to start a new feature on my blog - introducing Back to Business Mondays! Every Monday I'll be offering an art-related business tip to start your week off with an action you can take on your art career.

This week's tip is for all the smart phone and tablet users. Create a new photo album and upload some images of your most recent work into it. Then, when you meet someone who wants to know what you do and what kind of art you make, you'll be all ready to go and won't be scrolling through a million photos looking for the right ones. A little work up front will result in a more professional encounter! This is also a really excuse to make sure that you've taken photos of your recent work.

Remember when you're processing your photos to save the original image separately, and then, leaving that one untouched, save the image at different sizes and resolutions for various purposes (websites, blogs, Facebook, etc). You can always go back to that original, untouched image and create a new size or resolution as needed, without loss of image quality.