The Artmoney Podcast
The podcast for independent visual artists. Follow Catrine and Kristian on their journey of helping independent visual artists succeed.
About:
Artmoney is a curated network of independent visual artists. If you want to make it as an artist, your future starts here 🤝
The Artmoney Podcast
7 superior ways to make money as an independent visual artist
Ever wondered how you can can turn your art practice into a thriving business?
This episode is packed with actionable insights that will change the way you think about art monetization. From streaming your creative process on platforms like Twitch and Picarto TV to attract a global audience and potential buyers, to setting up streams with minimal equipment, we cover it all. We'll also share how services like Restream can help you manage multiple platforms efficiently, making your artistic journey not just visible, but profitable.
We explore how artists can create subscription-based art clubs, where supporters receive regular doses of creativity, from digital pieces to reproductions, in exchange for a fee. Drawing inspiration from the business model of Thomas Kinkade, we discuss the benefits of forming an art company with partners to scale up production and distribution. This approach not only fosters a loyal supporter base but also opens avenues for selling larger, more expensive works.
Finally, we delve into the economics of treating art as a financial asset. Learn how to license and sell your art for ongoing income, create online academies for passive income, and even explore the innovative concept of art rentals. We'll also share the inspiring story of The Most Famous Artist, who used SEO and sponsored murals to transform urban spaces into marketing phenomena. With practical advice, historical anecdotes, and a blend of art and business strategies, this episode will equip you with the knowledge to turn your creativity into a sustainable career. Tune in and get ready to transform your artistic passion into a thriving business.
Show notes:
- Follow The Most Famous Artist aka Matty Mo on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/themostfamousartist/?hl=da
- Art City: https://www.artcity-inc.com
- Art licensing with Cat Coquillette https://catcoq.com/blog/art-licensing-how-to-partner-with-big-brands
- Streaming platforms: Picarto https://picarto.tv, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ & Restream: https://restream.io/
- Listen to our episode on Thomas Kinkade: How A cottage-painting outkast became a billion dollar painter
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About the podcast:
The Artmoney Podcast is the podcast for independent visual artists around the world. Follow Catrine and Kristian on their journey of helping these artists succeed on their own terms.
About Artmoney:
Artmoney is a curated network of independent visual artists. If you want to make it as an artist, your future starts here 🤝
Get in touch:
Reach out at kristian@artmoney.org
Welcome to the podcast. I will be your host, and together with me I have my husband and business partner, christian. Welcome, christian, thank you. So you and I run Art Money. Art Money is a curated network for independent visual artists who want to go from passion to profession. So today we're going to share seven superior ways for independent visual artists to make money on their art. Let's just jump into the first one. Let's do it, and it's art streaming. We know gamers who are streaming online and we actually now look into the same kind of streaming but for artists, into the same kind of streaming but for artists. And you, as an artist, can actually stream your art online in your studio, your processes, show your techniques, involve your audience in your studio and share what you do. You can also get people to know you better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so streaming of computer games I don't know if you know this, but that's become a huge business. There's a huge platform called Twitch, which is generally the biggest one, and they have a lot of features, and one of them is that you can charge subscribers to follow you. Of course, you need to build an audience first, and ad streaming that's relatively new. It's not as mature as streaming of computer games, but Catherine and I, we think that there's a really great potential. Yes, because there are so much interesting things happening in your studio from the perspective of other people. Yes, I'm sure there are people around the world who would love to get to know you also as a person, your story and everything that your artistic life involves, but also how you actually make your art. If art streaming is going to develop the way that we think, there's going to be actually a lot of artists that are going to make a full-time living from streaming alone. And, of course, if you have an audience, this can lead to a lot of other things.
Speaker 1:Exactly, they can see your art and maybe they want to buy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it can be your audience just paying to see you in the studio, but it could be potential buyers. Yes, and actually you and I, we tried to make an online session with me, so we streamed me in my studio working on some sculptures and it was really good because you asked me questions and then I answered it and then I showed how I actually build up a sculpture and what my thoughts are about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we did it in the format. Yeah, we were two people right, I was holding the camera, it was my phone, yes, then I asked you questions and you did the work and that worked pretty well. Yeah, we put it on TikTok actually. Yes, we had a very good response. But what you could also do maybe you don't have somebody- we had a very good response, but what you could also do.
Speaker 2:Maybe you don't have somebody. Yeah, exactly, then you could have a setup where you put up the camera and then you know that camera will film you without having a set in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't need to buy a lot of stuff to make a good film, because you can use your iPhone and it's pretty good.
Speaker 2:So what we also have done is we bought a set of wireless microphones. Yeah that's right, like one or two hundred dollars. You can have right, but you don't need fancy equipment. I also want to mention that you could either live stream what you do, but you don't have to. You can use service like the one called restream and what that is that you can actually film yourself, not live, but you film yourself and then afterwards you upload your recording to the restream service and then it sends out your stream live.
Speaker 2:It's like quote-unquote live live right On all different platforms and then you could actually sit behind the screen and chat with people, having they ask you questions on the quote-unquote live stream right Of you.
Speaker 1:But then you're there and you can actually answer questions live.
Speaker 2:Well, I did this there and then I did this, and this is my thoughts about that. I just want to mention one thing there's a specific platform called Picarto. Yes, p-i-c-a-r-t-o-t-v. Yes, exactly, picarto TV, and that's specific for ad streaming and creative streaming.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you might want to look into that, but the big one, I would say, is still Twitch, and there's still an opportunity also to build an audience as a visual artist on Twitch, yeah. Having said that, you know you could also stream on live on YouTube, instagram, yeah, and all the other platforms, and it's pretty convenient to have a service that pushes out your stream to all of these places at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you don't have to manage it yourself and actually the limit of time is increased so you can actually stream for longer. Okay, yeah, yeah. So let's jump to the next one, and it is subscriptions. Oh yeah, wouldn't it be nice, as an artist, that someone wants to support you. Have you thought about making an art club?
Speaker 2:Generally, people are fascinated with you and your dedication to being an artist. It's so difficult to make it as an artist right. And people. They sit in their nine-to-fives and they may not be particularly passionate about it. They see you and they're very impressed.
Speaker 1:So they see you as a magical person.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you can do things they don't even know how to do, so they are like so fascinated.
Speaker 2:You're a free person, right? You express yourself freely, yeah, and people respect that. They also know that it's you know it's not as easy to make money as it is for them in their nine to five, exactly, right. So they want to support you, yeah, okay. So that's the basis of it, that's psychological basis. People want to support you, right? Yes, so a way of using that fact is set up a club, a system where these people, your supporters, pay you, let's say, every month or quarter or year, and then you give them some of your art in return. Do it the way that makes sense for you. So what's going to happen is that your supporters will get an ongoing relationship with you. They'll get reminded again and again that you exist.
Speaker 1:Maybe you can send out newsletters for them as well, so they can keep up with your process as an artist.
Speaker 2:Definitely right. So what's going to happen? Is that, maybe? So one way of doing this is maybe send smaller formats. Yeah, exactly, it doesn't have to be original works. It could be. Sometimes it could be reproductions, it could be a lot of different things. Yeah, actually, it could be digital work. Whatever you do and the way that you'd like to do it, yeah, this will remind people that you exist and over time, they will also be interested in other things that you have, maybe bigger works complicated works, other offerings, and that you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and because they have an ongoing relationship to you, it's going to be stronger.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can give them Like behind the scenes, look On what you do and how your career and your art business Is developing, and a lot of people. They just feel joy Beyond the inside. Yeah, exactly Of your journey, your exciting journey In this world. Side of your journey, your exciting journey in this world that maybe they don't have the courage to, maybe they secretly dream of doing themselves right, but you do it and they love to follow you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they also like to share it with their friends and family and tell that they're supporting an artist and it is like a magical thing.
Speaker 1:So what we see in Art Money is that there is a lot of artists who are having art clubs. So the way they are doing is that they make Art Money, and Art Money is a small piece of art and they are sending it out for their supporters every month. So you, as a supporter, get one art money. It's really easy to send because it's not that big. So they are getting an artwork every month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one thing is that you actually get paid for, in that case, in the exact way that you want to, but this format has proven to work. These small artworks, you get paid for those, of course, the price that you set yourself.
Speaker 1:You decide on that.
Speaker 2:You need to figure out what's a reasonable level for your supporter base. Maybe, and then frequency also. Maybe it's not sending out each month you could, but you also do something else, right. But what is really interesting is that art money is a smaller format which can serve as kind of an appetizer or an entry-level work that somebody could buy from you and then they could graduate later into buying bigger works from you. Exactly, and that has been proven over and over again. I just want to mention one thing.
Speaker 2:I did an episode on the billion-dollar painter. I called him Thomas Kinkade, and Thomas Kinkade, he did original paintings, but he also did a lot of reproductions which were quite a lot cheaper than the original paintings. But what happened was that people started buying the smaller, the more less expensive works. Actually, you know, once a special occasion came up in their lives or maybe they had made some money or something good had happened, then they bought something more expensive from Thomas Kinkade.
Speaker 1:And they will also do that from you.
Speaker 2:So an art club could be done the way that you want to, but one way of doing it is to give people a little taste of what you do on an ongoing basis, and then that'll improve your business over time as an artist definitely, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And now you mentioned Thomas Kinkade. That leads me to the next way of making money and it's art company, and can you tell a little bit about?
Speaker 2:that, yes. So the art company, that's like an idea that I think there's so much potential in it. And it's because visual artists normally don't think like that, and I do understand why. So a lot of visual artists they think, okay, being an artist, I'm a lone wolf, right, I have to be by myself in the studio, by myself, do everything myself, because that is the way of the artist. Maybe you picture yourself like on the seventh floor in an apartment in Paris, right, yeah, exactly Like a rooftop apartment, like in the movie Ratatouille. That's you, yes, okay, but you know what? It doesn't have to be like that. Actually. You can. Actually, instead of just being yourself, you can scale yourself up by starting an art company with other people.
Speaker 2:So, let me tell you about how that works in general. So let's imagine that you go out and you find one or two business partners to start your art company together with, now, the three of you, you start a company together.
Speaker 2:What does the company do? It revolves around your art, right? So you make what you make, right? You make a number of original artworks every year, right? And what's the role of the company? The job is to take your painting, paint original paintings and make reproductions in various different forms of your works Painting, sculptures, whatever you do, right, it could be canvas prints, it could be fine art prints, it could be lithographies, any other reproductive format based on your original art. And then the job of your business partners is to set up the business. Right Is to distribute, sell, market and to do all the administrative tasks in the company. And a great example, like I just mentioned, is Thomas Kinkade. Thomas Kinkade, he started an art company pretty early on, right? Yeah, he had tried, but not very successfully. And pretty quickly on he thought, well, I'm going to do something else, and he started this art company, which I thought was quite fascinating.
Speaker 2:And it ended up being actually a giant success. They sold his artworks in various forms for billions of dollars and got listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 1:That is amazing.
Speaker 2:So you know, in business terms, this is a way of scaling yourself, right? Yes, because Thomas Kinkade, he did specifically, he painted 12 paintings a year, right? Exactly, it was not a lot, no, right? So a lot of artists, they do much more right? They kind of become a sort of factory, and if you want to make 300 original artworks a year, okay, fine, it's up to you. But there are ways of doing that in a more intelligent way.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and you will only get paid one time for the artworks yes, the original artworks, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and that's one of my other issues. Is that, if you're in the US?
Speaker 1:or in.
Speaker 2:Canada, there's no resale royalty.
Speaker 1:No, that's right.
Speaker 2:What's that? Let's say that your work sells and then somebody later resells it for a lot of money. You don't get anything additional. No, that's right. In the EU you get a little bit, but at max 10,000, 12,500 euros.
Speaker 1:But there's a limit. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:My point is with all this is that originals you get paid once, right, and then you don't get paid anymore. But what if you could actually sell one of your works a lot of times? Yes, yeah, that could be nice. Your upside is totally limited. Now, originals that's also a proven way, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, for a lot of like it.
Speaker 2:It is the basis, yeah, what they do, right. But I just want to get you to start thinking and knowing that there's actually a lot of other ways to capitalize. And on the on your artistic work, right, yes, because artistic work is, is not the medium, no, no, it's like it's. It's yeah, the work can be reproduced in a lot of different formats and you can use that.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and then you can make money over and, over, and over again, and also when you sleep.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and also when you maybe you'll get old at some point and you don't have the energy or you don't have the physical abilities anymore. Exactly, you still make money right, yeah. We know that from famous artists, painters, their estates, the people that have inherited their rights, they still make money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or the owners of the works still make money despite the fact that the artist doesn't live anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you want to hear more about Thomas Kinkade, then we have a podcast, an episode, about that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Let's jump to the next one Online Academy. You have been working with your art for a long time. Why not share what you do? Do it on platforms like Skillshare. You can show your audience what to do and they can learn from you. So you can set up your own academy. It can reach a global audience and then it can also give you passive income while you're sleeping, as we just talked about. You are the teacher. You can show your process, you can show techniques, you can show everything you do as an artist, and people can buy access to that.
Speaker 2:So it's very common for artists to do in-person workshops or courses, right? So maybe you do that first and that forms the basis of your online courses and online courses. That sounds very, very complicated, but basically it's only having somebody film what you already do in person, maybe with some additional recordings where you talk to the camera.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it's basically about taking the in-person experience, the in-person workshop, and put it then online, because I'm sure that you have a very unique way of making your art and I'm sure you have developed over the years very special techniques. You know what works and what doesn't. There's techniques, materials, tips and tricks where you can go wrong, and so on.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and all of that can help your audience and also, once somebody has attended your in-person workshops, they can extend or brush up on what they learned by paying you access. Or somebody who doesn't have can afford to attend your workshop, or maybe they live in another part of the world. Right, they can get an affordable way want you and you, your personal and what you can do. Yeah, you can scale that up and make it available to a wider audience and once it gets popular, you can actually make quite a good income from that.
Speaker 1:So instead of making a physical workshop with, let's say, eight people, then you can scale it to the whole world. So wouldn't it be nice to do that?
Speaker 2:I would say and there are actually a lot of examples of artists having done that Because once you actually do in-person courses, the step of going online is not that big. No, exactly. Of course people have to know it, of course you know the word has to spread right. But you don't have to like hire a developer. There are already systems and platforms that you can plug into.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And maybe they'll take a cut of what you make.
Speaker 1:And you can even make like a course for five sessions. And then they can of course, buy more from you. So instead of just here is one session, you can buy for that. But you can also think about how you can make more money.
Speaker 2:So maybe make the sessions over five steps or something like that and we've realized that there's a whole group of people that are not that. They're not, you know, they don't consider themselves artists and maybe they have like a fantasy of being it, but they're really not going after. There are more like creatives as a hobby or dreamer creatives, right, yeah, it's actually a huge group of people. It is around the world and they really uh, they think they think you're a wizard. Yeah, exactly, they have an idea of the artist like a mythical figure up in their head and they're fascinated yeah, you and with, as with the, once you get a real, they get a relationship to you. Right, they probably want more and you will probably also experience at one point that they're going to buy your original artworks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Because they respect you as an authority, exactly.
Speaker 1:So the next one is sponsored murals. You stole the idea from the most famous artist. Yes, because it is so great. Yes, and it is so. Can you tell a bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yes, Catherine and I, before we got on here, we just decided to ask a little something of you. So, if you enjoy this podcast maybe you've listened to other episodes please rate us five stars. That's going to help us tremendously. It's the best thing that you can do for this podcast. Is it on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to this. Please, if you enjoyed, give us five stars, and then we're going to make a promise, which is we're going to continue doing this podcast and we're going to share everything that we learned on this journey that we're on and building art money together and helping independent artists succeed all over the world.
Speaker 2:Yes, so thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Definitely. So. There is an artist who's literally called the most famous artist. Please Google this guy. He also goes by the name Matty Mo. He's one of our biggest inspirations because we see him as an independent artist and he does things his own way. So at some point he realized that nobody had laid claim to the artist name of the most famous artist, right? He got the domain and he used search engine optimization, basically, and a lot of other things.
Speaker 2:So what happens right now? If you Google the most famous artist, you see. First comes up Matty Mo, the most famous artist, then Van, Gogh, then Ferbier and Da Vinci.
Speaker 1:And the others.
Speaker 2:And this is kind of brilliant and this guy has. I would say he's extremely fascinating and he has a lot of deep truths about how people perceive the world and art and you as an artist. So please go follow him and learn from him. So that's what we've done, and let me tell you one of the things, one of the ideas that I stole from him. This is the idea of the sponsored murals, or making a mural agency. So a mural, what's that? Well, it's basically a wall, a big public wall that usually you paint right. So this is what you do In your city find a very cool spot and, ideally, where a lot of people come by in some way or the other.
Speaker 2:It can be a wall, but it could also be like maybe there's construction of some sort and there's like a container or some like impermanent structure that you can do your mural on.
Speaker 2:You go to the owner and you say, hey, I'm going to pay you to make a mural and I'm also going to pay you to use the commercial rights of this wall afterwards. And maybe it's for a limited time, maybe it's for six months that the mural is there, 12, two years, whatever you can agree on. But I would actually say, if it's not there forever, if it has a limit, it creates scarcity and the value is even bigger. Now the most famous artist says that this has to be selfie-friendly. That's a term that I've stolen from him Selfie-friendly.
Speaker 1:What does that mean?
Speaker 2:It means that you should choose a motif on your mural which makes people want to stand in front of it and do selfies and share it on. Instagram and other places online. Right, Okay, they start doing this Now. You have created a phenomenon in your city, right, Exactly? And brands companies. Now they're interested in getting associated with this phenomenon.
Speaker 2:Then you contact relevant businesses and you ask them hey, would you like to do some advertising for your company in front of this wall? Yes, if you do, I have the rights to license this wall out to you and you're going to pay me X amount and you can earn money on that. Yes, exactly, and it's a very creative way. The most famous artist has actually done that himself.
Speaker 2:And there's a podcast with Greg Eisenberg we're going to link it in the show notes where he describes this idea in detail. But I think it's interesting because usually the way that I see artists think about murals is oh, can I get the? You know, if I get to paint a mural, I'm very lucky. Exactly, I pay for the materials, but then I get exposure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm not sure that there's much else Exactly Going on, maybe some public support if you're in Europe for this right, and a lot of the murals are very high and you cannot stand in front of it and take pictures. Yeah, so that's what we see in Copenhagen. There's a lot of murals in places where there are buildings, big buildings. It's very huge. But you have to stand from a long distance to see the actual mural.
Speaker 2:So one hack is to do it on a lower wall Exactly. That's what the most famous artist did. I just want to mention a couple of examples. He did the polka dot wall, which I don't know. If you know is the Damien Hirst work with the dots. It kind of reminds. It's not a copy, but it kind of reminds people of the same and people kind of they have like a reference. I think of the head to these dots, so the dots.
Speaker 2:and he had another wall that just said selfie, selfie, selfie, selfie, selfie, selfie, selfie, selfie selfie on the wall. So it doesn't have to like oh, esoteric artsy, no, no, it has to be something cool. Yeah, that's people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:People want to stand in front of it because it's cool. Yeah, don't overdo it in terms of complexity. Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But go check out the most famous artist he has. I would say he's really opened up the possible range of, I would say, ways of making money as an independent visual artist and also how to promote yourself. And what I have learned from him. One of the many things I've learned is start with the end game. Start with the story. If you want the press or online, offline to write about you, right, make it newsworthy. He calls it headline worthy right.
Speaker 2:Start, you know from you know backwards what's the headline going to be, and then build back and create your art project from there. He does that and I would say that's an art form. Yeah, he does it. This is art. He uses business in an extremely creative and artistic way right.
Speaker 2:And I would say, when I see the most famous artist, it reminds me of Damien Hirst, it reminds me of Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, some of the artists that are infusing the money part, the business part, into their art. I would just say people really love that. Yeah, it's kind of. I think it's very honest and also completely dissolves the boundaries between art and money. Yeah, there is no boundary.
Speaker 1:No, exactly it's the same thing yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, it is. Yeah, so the most famous artist you know, he completely separates, like, the line between having people talk about your art and the art itself. Yeah, it's one thing, exactly, and it's just brilliant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so actually at the moment he's working on a big art city.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So it sounds really really great and I have to check more about that yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's New Mexico. Yeah, in a small town on the highway. Yeah, so it's New Mexico. Yeah, in a small town on the highway, just off the highway in New Mexico, and it's basically a sculpture park yeah, that's right and a lot more where artists and other art enthusiasts can go and come and live and stay.
Speaker 1:They can make their art or they can just come and look at their art.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I know it's under development right now. Very interesting, so go and follow Art City on Instagram, as well as the most famous artist on Instagram as well. Yeah, yeah, should we go on to the next point? We go to the next one is licensing?
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you think about it, there's a lot of products around you it's the bedsheets, pillows, calendars and all that and there is actually art on that. So the art needs to be created by someone, and why not you? So can you tell a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2:Yes, so when you sell original artworks, as we mentioned earlier, you get paid once per artwork and you never see any money from that again. So I would say licensing art licensing is kind of the opposite. Your artwork reproduced, printed on whatever product yeah. You team up with a brand that has a product, let's say it's linen for bedsheets yeah, then you get your works printed on that and then the brand the company distributes sell those products in huge quantities and you get paid a smaller percentage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a royalty yeah.
Speaker 2:So this kind of turns the model on its head right, because now you do the work.
Speaker 2:once you sell the work, you license the work to a company and that company is going to send you a check, as long as somebody actually buys the product. Now, of course, it's harder upfront, right? The sale is harder, right? Yeah, so it's just like. It's not like selling one work. No, it's much harder to sell at the beginning, but if you succeed, it's a very interesting business model that, I would say, solves a lot of the problems of only focusing on selling original artworks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, start with a pillow, then it can just expand to be really, really like a big interior product line. Yes, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you want to learn more about art licensing, I would encourage you to google a woman called Kat Cuckulett. I don't know if I pronounced her last right, but I think it's Kat Cuckulett. She has great knowledge about art licensing and start there and she's going to tell you everything about how the art licensing industry works and how you can get into it, and we're going to link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Just to get started. Yes, somewhere.
Speaker 2:So what you actually like from a business perspective, what you're doing here is that you're building an asset in of itself, right? Because once you've done the art and the licensing is in place and the products actually sell, that's a financial asset. It has value, so you can build a number of those and actually in theory and not only in theory, but this has economic value and you can actually sell that asset. It's not dependent on you anymore. You did the creative work. It lives out there, right, and you could. Also, because this asset has value, you can actually actually in some cases, also use it to borrow against, you know, if you want to buy a house or something else, it's. It's a financial asset and a lot of artists don't think about their art in that way exactly can actually be financial asset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that can feed you and your family and future generations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yes. So let's jump to the last one. Yeah, it's art rentals.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Art rentals is actually a really cool thing to think about. So if you go to restaurants, hotels or dentists, you see art on the walls and have you ever been thinking about what is the contract with that artist? And actually a lot of the places are renting art. Maybe you can talk to, let's say, a restaurant. They will rent your art for like six months and then they have access to buy the art.
Speaker 2:That would be nice, yeah, to do that in the traditional art world, everybody seems to be focused on art at the very high end, like going to high-end galleries and trying to increase the prices of each artwork to the highest possible number. And I just want to tell you there's very big group of buyers that are not going to buy art like that Because to them, art is small for decoration purposes and I know you're not supposed to say that in the traditional art world, but it's the truth. They're not going to buy very, very, very expensive artworks, but they do have a need to put up some very cool artworks on their walls, but it also has to be able to make economic sense to them, right. So use that as an independent visual artist, because you know how you understand this dynamic and you can actually sell greater quantities of works to these places, either yourself or maybe through an agent that works in this way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but do know that it is also possible, if you get in touch with companies, to do this yourself, and because your rent works to them, it has a liquidity advantage to them. And what does that mean? It means that they don't have to pay as much upfront, but they do commit to paying you over time and, as you said now, they can buy for a favorable price maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, For example a hotel. Maybe they also have hotels in other cities.
Speaker 2:If they're expanding.
Speaker 1:Maybe they are expanding and it has to be. It's maybe a boutique hotel. Everything needs to be the same, yeah, so that's also an idea to get it out in the world.
Speaker 2:So imagine that you're the hotel owner, right? You want to have great art on your wall, but you don't want to sit and choose 100 artists and 100 artworks, right? So, if they can trust you with the artwork, but also as being the curator, Exactly, and so the art that you suggest to them.
Speaker 2:generally, it'll fit well in their specific locations. That's going to be tremendously helpful to me as an owner and I can finance it over time. That's also a great proposition because maybe I don't have that much money to pay up front. Oh, I would prefer to spread it out over a period of time. And of course, you also get the exposure of people coming by on these locations and maybe noticing your art. I would say it's a secondary benefit. The most important thing is you get paid but you get exposure and you could also do shows at the hotels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Events that could attract attention for the hotel and for your artworks.
Speaker 1:And maybe it could be the only income you have, like a steady income. Yeah, only in that partnership.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. Exactly, so exactly. Try to do this. Take out a pen and a note and do the math. How many paintings or sculptures, or whatever kind of work you do, would you have to sell on a yearly basis? At which price point? Or rent out? How many would you have to rent out? On this model to be able for you to make a living, Because once you have that number, you work towards it. I really like it. You know the quantity part of it.
Speaker 2:It's not one work. No, exactly Nothing wrong about selling each work at a time. But now we're thinking quantities, bigger amounts of works, exactly.
Speaker 1:Think about if a restaurant is renting your art and they have it for like a year, then they I'm sure they want to buy some of it because now it is like in the decoration in the room in the restaurant. So I actually have done like, not a rental, but like a guy who want to buy a painting from me. I told him that he could borrow it for a week and after the week guess what happened? He bought it because he got it home and then he got like a personal relationship to the artwork.
Speaker 1:So that's also. But it's like if you only sell one, or maybe up to five or whatever, but it's also a nice thing to say, okay, then you can borrow it and see what's happening.
Speaker 2:There's a legendary story about an art dealer. This is like a legendary American art dealer called Joseph Duveen. He was the first really known art dealer and he had this knowledge that you're talking about about human psychology, and so he actually wanted to sell sculptures sculptures to JP Morgan, like hundreds of years ago, to a businessman very rich, and JP Morgan was, like I didn't quite know, joseph DeVean told him.
Speaker 2:Well, you can have it for one year, you can borrow it for one year, place it in your home and if you want to buy it after that year, this is the price. Jp Morgan, he agreed, and when you know, the day before the year had passed, he bought the sculpture. Yeah, and I think it goes to this principle that once people have your artworks in their homes on location, yeah, because of the mere exposure, they see your artwork each and every day.
Speaker 2:And over time it just becomes the part of their lives and they don't want to depart with it. You know what? I think it doesn't really matter so much whether they like it or not. No, they get used to it.
Speaker 1:They learn to love it in a way, and I think that's one of the very interesting things about like physical artworks that you get exposed to on a daily basis, exactly, and if you're, for example, making big sculptures and you cannot store it in your studio, then reach out to a company. It could be like a lawyer company, it could be a technology company. It could be like a lawyer company. It could be a technology company company who has big house in the area you are living in and then ask them if they want to borrow it for maybe one year and see what's happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to build on that. You know, you could contact, like, the local government, municipality where you live, right, and, on the same deal, have your large scale sculpture placed somewhere, because it also becomes part of, like, the public space and people start to associate it, you know.
Speaker 1:And if it could be selfie friendly exactly that's so interesting for for the local government right and then you don't need to pay to to get your sculpture stored in another company or a place. That was seven superior ways for independent visual artists to make money on their art, and it has really been a pleasure talking to you about these topics.
Speaker 2:Please let us know if there's anything that you'd like us to cover on the podcast. Until next time.
Speaker 1:Yes.