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The business of art
In an increasingly savvy world, artists must learn to market themselves

by Rebecca Wallace

A chilly rain spatters the windows, but inside a Palo Alto gallery the air fairly glows with the warmth of nervous excitement.

Seven emerging artists are getting a taste of what it's like to have an exhibit, and they want everything at the March 31 opening reception at the Pacific Art League to be just right.

The refreshment table offers up the jovial smell of foil-wrapped burritos, courtesy of a restaurateur friend of one of the artists. Another artist rushes in with a cut-glass punch bowl. Still another, Suzanne Peck, hurries to put the last labels next to her dreamy hillside and park scenes.

Interestingly, Peck seems just as proud of a zippered black binder as she is of her pastels. She opens it to show off her artist's statement and biography, along with shiny new business cards.

"When you put this together, you can present yourself with a little class," she says.

Like the other six artists in the "Behind the Seven Visions" exhibit, which closed April 2, Peck just completed a 10-week class at the Pacific Art League called "Professional Practices for Emerging Artists." Participants learned such skills as writing an artist's statement, drumming up press for exhibits and even using the right screws to hang paintings.

With this nuts-and-bolts advice, Peck was buoyed to put on her first exhibit in 40 years. "I've got a lot of bodies of work, but I didn't know what to do with it," she said.

In the world of an artist, there is rarely an effortless path between sweeping a glorious vista onto a canvas and then displaying that canvas in an elite gallery. There's a reason for the old saw "starving artist." Competition for coveted solo shows can be fierce. Art-lovers' tastes are fickle. And if you don't get your name out there, no one's going to know it.

It can be rough for artists to wrap their creative brains around the hard facts of PR. But these days, learning the business of art is becoming more and more crucial, many say.

Competition is tighter because artists are savvier about how to market themselves — and they're also more assertive, says Deb Killeen, gallery director at the Pacific Art League.

"Approaching a gallery is getting tougher and tougher. They are inundated," she said. "Here there are lots of people with business talent in Silicon Valley and some are applying it to their art."

That's why the league launched the "Professional Practices" class. Graduate Bill Vinci, whose bright metaphysical oils were displayed in "Behind the Seven Visions," called it "a powerful experience."

He said: "It was like ... you want to play chess and you don't know how to play. You realize you could keep learning this game for 10 years."

And you've got to know the rules, says Susan Kraft, artist and owner of the ART21 Gallery a few blocks away. Artists must show they're ready for solo exhibitions in a gallery; she believes people just out of high school or college rarely are so prepared.

When fledgling artists come knocking, she says she gently urges them in a more realistic direction. "I ask, 'What have you done? What's your creative process? Have you shown at coffee shops, art fairs, group shows?'"

Kraft also advises getting involved with artists' groups, perhaps by taking art classes or joining an open studios organization. Informal groups of artists can also host their own exhibits.

Following this path, artists learn lessons about how to market themselves and what art-buyers might be looking for. This is crucial because, to put it bluntly, galleries need to feel confident that a new artist's work will sell, Kraft said.

Currently, Kraft is throwing her support behind 28-year-old Menlo Park painter Becca Goldman, whose first-ever solo show opens this evening at ART21.

Called "Flora & Fauna," the show includes 12 lush acrylic and oil paintings that mingle Chinese and Victorian influences. Each animal from the Chinese zodiac is surrounded by plants that — according to the Victorian language of flowers — bear similar qualities. For example, an ox is surrounded by ivy (which represents fidelity), cactus (endurance) and petunias (anger).

To earn the brass ring of her own exhibit, Goldman started out by being in the right place at the right time. With a fine arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University, she started working about two years ago to break into galleries. Goldman knew she had to learn how to sell her work, but didn't know where to start. So she came to ART21 seeking a marketing coach.

As luck would have it, Kraft needed an intern and someone to help with framing, so it was a perfect exchange of skills.

"I was her art mentor," Kraft said. "I said, 'You need to have a series that people can connect to.'" So Goldman created "Flora & Fauna," which Kraft loved. She also appreciated that Goldman now had experience working in a gallery. In addition, she praised Goldman's pleasant personality and careful work ethic — something galleries want to feel confident in.

Although thrilled about the show, Goldman knows she has to keep doing the legwork to land future exhibits and move toward becoming a full-time artist. She's calling galleries to find out who shows emerging artists and which ones might be compatible with her style, in between doing graphic art projects to help pay the bills.

It's not always easy to remember that she's supposed to be a business person as well as a creative type, she admitted. "I have to remember to carry cards of my work with me all the time (to show to people)," she said. "It feels awkward...but you have to."

When an artist has a business background, though, things can feel more natural.

For Redwood City painter Bill Vinci, taking the Pacific Art League course was part of a three-to-five-year plan he had methodically laid out for becoming a professional artist.

Vinci, 43, has owned several small businesses and once helmed the Give Pizza Chance restaurant in Redwood City. The creative bug bit when he designed menus and T-shirts, and he ended up copyrighting Give Pizza Chance designs and creating a spin-off business selling shirts and mugs.

About two years ago, Vinci came up with his plan: to educate himself with art classes at the Pacific Art League and elsewhere, develop his own style, and produce and show his art.

He's studying media including sculpture and acrylic, but has focused on oils. Works including "Ascension Foreplay" skirt the edge of reality, depicting abstract images and other dimensions.

Vinci's approach might sound cut-and-dried, but he says it's simply realistic.

"There's a great deal of talent out there, but it isn't always talent that separates you," he said. "If you want to make it to the top, you have to know the business end. I really feel confident that that is going to give me an edge."

Vinci certainly isn't moving slowly: The same night the Pacific Art League exhibit opened, he also rented space at the Modernbook gallery in Palo Alto to show four acrylics. For the event, he brought in chocolates and a belly dancer.

But just as a clean white canvas can yield anything from a Monet to a Picasso, artists choose to take a myriad of paths. Nona Haydon, a 22-year-old painter, has been cheerfully taking a more passive approach.

She's never studied art; her oil and acrylic paintings have their roots in the drawings she used to do during general-education lectures at the College of San Mateo. Her firm strokes have an almost childlike deliberateness and yet also a grace. Some paintings feature her pet frog, Humphry.

Haydon is resistant to altering her paintings to make them more marketable. In the airy living room of her parents' Menlo Park home, she gazes at her work "Out the Window," whose thick blues and greens feel Impressionistic. She says simply: "I like it. I like all my paintings."

Haydon and her boyfriend/manager, Jason Mainini, divide their time between Paso Robles and Menlo Park, where her parents have set aside a corner of the living room as her studio. The shy Haydon often brings Mainini along to help promote her when she drops off CDs of her artwork at galleries.

She knows she needs to write an artist's statement and work harder at self-promotion, but she's hesitant to write about herself. Despite her shyness, though, she's found some good successes.

Recently, she answered a call for artists by the Zinfandel Festival in Paso Robles, and her painting "Grape Life" was chosen as the face of the March festival. It covered fliers and brochures, was auctioned off along with a commemorative wine bottle for $5,000, and made the cover of a local newspaper.

She'll also show her work at a Paso Robles winery in June, and in July she'll be one of three artists shown at Stanford Art Spaces, which runs art exhibits on campus. That came about by giving a CD of her work to a curator.

"I've gotten lucky," Haydon acknowledges. "I'm kind of nervous about finding more opportunities."

At the moment she's a little distracted: she's expecting her first child in August, which has forced a temporary switch from oil to acrylic painting to avoid fumes.

Then, she knows, she'll have to get back pounding the pavement.

"Lots of galleries have asked if I went to art school. Some don't think as highly of you if you don't," she says with a small moue. "I don't like being told what to paint. Painting is something everybody can do. You don't have to go to art school."

What: "Flora & Fauna," a solo exhibit of paintings by Becca Goldman

Where: ART21 Gallery, 539 Alma St., Palo Alto

When: Through May 3. The opening reception is tonight from 6:30 to 9:30.

Cost: Free.

Info: Call (650) 566-1381 or go to www.art21.us.

What: "Professional Practices for Emerging Artists," a class teaching such skills as artist marketing

Where: Pacific Art League, 668 Ramona St., Palo Alto

When: The next 10-week session starts April 13.

Cost: League members pay $195; non-members pay $220.

Info: Call (650) 321-3891.