I found this intriguing artist interview while browsing The Crafts Report web site, and thought it might interest people who create one-of-a-kind work. It's about a graphic artist who switched to bookmaking, creating one-of-a-kind and limited edition art books.
http://www.craftsreport.com/current_issue/profile.html
There is also a discussion at The Crafts Report's discussion forum about selling and marketing one-of-a-kind work, in this case, jewelry. The product can differ, but the problems are the same. It's difficult to find ways to market your work to a larger audience, when everything you do is a different "thing". It's not clear what to do.
A catalog is out. Catalogs are usually printed in huge quantities at great expense, and works best if you have a lot of the same things. If twenty people order the widget on page 6, all twenty widgets will look like the one on page 2. With one-of-a-kind work, the first person who orders the widget on page 2 gets that widget, and everyone else is out of luck.
Visiting each store one at a time can work, but that means a day out of your studio for each store. And soon you run out of stores you can drive to in a day. And how do they re-order?? And what if you live in New Hampshire, and there's a store in California that would be a terrific match for your work?
You can't run an ad for $500 to sell one item that retails for $250, obviously. And if the ad is of interest to the store, then obviously it's because they liked the item pictured, and that's the item they want. Wholesale trade shows are expensive, not a viable choice for many artists just starting out.
As I followed the discussion, it was obvious how discouraging the process can be. I've often felt overwhelmed by the roadblocks, myself. There is a sense that there has to be a "right way" to do this, and yet we just can't figure out what that "right way" is.
Actually, there is no single "right way." Trial and error sucks, but call it "running an experiment" and it's much more appealing. Calling stores directly and asking them if they sell one-of-a-kind work and how they do that, is time-consuming, and introverts hate it. (I do!) Call it "market research", though, and it sounds quite professional.
It's much more enjoyable contacting other artists and asking how they handle this. It's fun and can be educational. However, if they haven't figured it out either, it can be an exercise in frustration and commiseration. I see this all the time. Instead of a brain-storming session, it turns into a ...... Well, everyone starts agreeing just how impossible the whole scenerio is. This is because declaring a situation impossible to deal with lets us off the hook. It's not our fault, it's impossible. We are not responsible for our lack of success--it's impossible to succeed.
I have waves of this feeling every week. It's actually soothing to throw my hands up in the air and declare that it's just not possible for me to achieve the success I envision. It's too hard, I can't figure it out--I'm off the hook! If others succeed where I can't, then it's because they're lucky--right? And I'm just not lucky.
Unfortunately, I can't let myself off that easily. In my heart, I know it can take years to be an overnight success. And no one succeeds by giving up. You succeed by trying stuff again and again til you find something that works. Mistakes and dead ends don't prove you're wrong. It's evidence that there is still more to be learned.
I provided the link to this article because it proves to me if one artist can figure out a way to sell her very unusual art form, so can I. If she can grow her business by tweaking her business model just a bit--from all one-of-a-kind work to some one-of-a-kind and a lot of limited editions, so can I. If she can follow her passion and find a way to support herself doing it, so can I. Luck is wonderful. But as one contributor on the forum said, "Luck is opportunity plus preparedness." I'll drink to that!
