You are Now Both the Artist and the Gatekeeper
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You are Now Both the Artist and the Gatekeeper
And brutal honesty is required in both roles
Quality is, in many respects, the most important element you need to consider when you turn your art into a product you intend to market and sell. High quality work puts a huge tailwind behind all of your other marketing efforts. To put it bluntly, if you’re just plain better than the other guy, you usually win.
In the current “Sovereign Artist Era”, an era with no gatekeepers, quality is even more important than in the past. Since there are now no gatekeepers, you are essentially competing with everyone in the world.
Think about that for a moment. You're competing with the most skilled, most driven artists from every corner of earth. In addition, you aren’t protected from competition by a trademark, or a patent, or a gallery’s endorsement. It’s just you vs everyone else. So, yes, it’s easier than ever for you to get your work in front of people, but it’s easier for every other artist too. So you must bring real skill to the table, because collectors too can now connect with any artist and often they will want to purchase from the best ones they can find.
In the past, because artists generally had to get past some kind of gatekeeper to get their art in front of the public, it was important to encourage artists to learn to ignore the feelings of self doubt about their art. The gatekeepers controlled what the collecting world was allowed to see and they acted as curators, so it was in their best interest to see as much as possible, regardless of the insecurities of an individual artist.
But, in a world with no gatekeepers, in a world where everyone wants to share and sell their art online, in a world where everyone expects to be able to easily sell their art, the opposite has become important. In this modern age, perhaps it’s now important to reintroduce ourselves to a little self doubt. We must all learn to be more discerning about our own art and its potential market-readiness.
I read somewhere that the way writers deal with this duality is to “write like a baby and edit like a bastard.” The idea is that, while you are writing you should not allow yourself to criticize anything, and you should banish all self doubt and simply create. But later, generally in another session on another day, when you are editing your own work, you become a “bastard” about everything. You are hard on yourself. You send the work back for more polishing. You poke holes in the plot. You become a grammar nazi.
In this day and age visual artists need to apply the same maxim. Perhaps “paint like a baby, curate like a bastard.”
Before posting your latest artwork, which may have been a ton of fun to paint, become the gatekeeper. Become the gallery director. Become a curator. Pretend you are paying rent on an expensive gallery location and ask yourself “could I realistically sell this piece?” “Is this up to snuff?”
Writers have to learn to kill their darlings and the most successful visual artists do the same thing, sometimes even burning finished canvases that they know aren’t good enough.
In short, we must each now be both the artist and gatekeeper. And we must be honest with ourselves in both roles.
Until next time,
Clint
Instagram has recently made a lot of changes to how their algorithm works and it has frustrated artists, and plenty of non-artists. Our Saturday editions have been sharing with paid Sovereign Artist Club members what to do about that and what to post so that they can continue to get their art in front of potential customers. Here’s an excerpt from last Saturday’s paid issue:
What should you post to grow your Instagram page?
Currently that answer is simple: Reels. Post Reels.
And here's the reason why: Reels provide entertainment. And they also keep people on your page for longer.
If you just post an image, it takes only a couple of seconds for a person to see it. But with a Reel, if they engage, they will watch your post for at least 15 seconds. This drives up the average “dwell time” on your posts. In other words, Reels keep someone watching your content for more that 7X longer, if your Reel is good, which it will be if you follow our recommendations. As an aside, if you don’t have time to make a Reel, posting an image is better than not posting at all. Images still perform fairly well. It’s just that Reels do a lot better. Not only that, Instagram is currently giving Reels preferential treatment because they want to do their best to compete with Tiktok. We think that trend will continue, but, of course, the algorithm could change further and if it does we’ll update this information.
You want people to stay on your page because this means your page is performing well. And then the algorithm will recommend you to other people who also might be interested in your work.
So the strategy is simple: post as many Reels as possible.
We’re going to give you a kind of hierarchy of posting: If you can't post a Reel at the moment, the second best would be carousel posts, which is a series of pictures in one post, then Stories. Stories don’t currently get as much engagement as Reels, but they're okay. And lastly, it’s still fine to post just one image, although they tend to not have as much reach or engagement as they used to for the reasons we outlined above.
Seamless Loops
The best kind of Reel to post is a “seamless loop” post. A seamless loop is a short video that loops in a way that it seamlessly restarts and you don’t realize that it ended and started over. If people are entertained, they will watch it multiple times without even realizing it. They might rewatch it 20 times, because they are so entertained. And they'll just stay on your post a lot longer than normal.
A great way for an artist to do a very simple seamless loop is this: brush stroke palette, stroke, with your paintbrush. So if you were going to paint on the canvas, or, you know, mimic that you're painting on the canvas to create an interesting Reel. Start at the actual canvas, and then go to the palette and then go back to the canvas. That way, you're starting in the middle, you're showing the beginning and end, and then you're back to the middle……..
You are Now Both the Artist and the Gatekeeper
Thank you so much, Clint, for writing this post. It's long overdue. It can be very discouraging for an artist who has worked long and hard to attain competency and quality to discover that those who attended a 'sip and paint' now call themselves artists: everyone's now in the game. As an artist and former gallery curator, I know what to do with mediocre paintings. They go into our New Year's Day bonfire. Thanks for reminding us all that quality is more important than ever. Edna
This is so important Clint and I’m glad you pointed it out. Having written articles for art magazines for 2 decades, I understand what you’re saying about writing like a baby and editing like a nazi. It’s interesting to think about applying the same to my artwork.