The Power of Stories in Selling Art - Part III
Your ongoing public artistic story
Artists often say, “My work speaks for itself.”
But your art doesn’t speak for itself.
People do buy the art, not just the story. But the stories do matter. What you tell people about your work will affect how much of it you sell, and how much people enjoy it. However, artists, and marketers often misunderstand what we mean when we say “the story” and mistakenly assume we mean the story of the artist’s background.
What we actually mean when we say “the story” is an amalgamation of many different kinds of “stories”, both verbal and nonverbal, that define the brand, or the vibe around your art.
This series explores these different kinds of stories.
Here are the topics we plan to cover in this series:
Previous Articles in Series:
1. Overview
2. Your Origin Story
Today’s article:
3. Your ongoing public story
Planned for the next few weeks:
4. The specific story between you and each fan
5. The context your art is displayed within
6. The story of each artwork
On to today’s update!
You probably think your brand and product is your artwork. But, as we’ve pointed out, that’s only one piece of your brand.
As
says in his book Show Your Work: “There’s the artwork, the finished piece, framed and hung on a gallery wall, and then there’s the art work, all the day-to-day stuff that goes on behind the scenes in your studio looking for inspiration, getting an idea, applying oil to a canvas, etc. There’s “painting,” the noun, and there’s “painting,” the verb. As in all kinds of work, there is a distinction between the painter’s process, and the products of that process.”