Words, words, words..... Is that all sell your art really is?

Words, words, words….. Is that all selling your art really is?

I’ve been around art sales most of my life and one question that I hear is, “How do you sell your art?”  I’ve been told by many starting out that they don’t know how to sell art.  Many are afraid to be like the salesmen you see selling cars, furniture or insurance; high pressure.  If you are pressuring someone to purchase your art, the customer really doesn’t want it anyway.

Selling your art isn’t like that.  Most people don’t want to be sold, they just want to know about who made it and what gave you the inspiration to create.  In reality, they just want you to talk about yourself.  I also understand that most artists don’t like to do that.  Many lack the confidence to talk about what made them do it.  Artists can feel very self-conscious of their artistic process because they might not actually know how they did what they did to accomplish that piece.

Talking about your art and how you did what you did, gives you something back.  You can discover what your process was so that you can repeat it.  Do you remember when you were in math class and the teacher would tell you to show your work?  Or when you wrote reports, you had to list your references? Part of that was to prove you didn’t plagiarize or copy off your neighbor’s work.  The other reason was to help lock in what you learned. It’s verbalizing your process and will help you mentally remember what to do.

People will purchase your work if they like it.  Nothing you can say will get someone to buy art they don’t like.  This isn’t the 80’s where people thought that buying the right print could put their kid through college.  No one looks for the next big investment at a local art festival so don’t worry that you are trying to force your art down someone’s unwilling pocket book.  If they stopped to look, they are interested.  Just say hello, ask if they have any questions or even, “What do you think?”  Don’t take it personally if they tell you they aren’t impressed.  They aren’t criticizing you, they just don’t respond to your art.  (Besides, if they stopped to look; they were impressed on some level.)  Remember, not everyone is going to like your art and that is ok.  You might just learn something from what they have to say.  You never know.  It is going to be alright, just keep painting!