|
Hi,
Let's say you would were to sell 5 commissions at $2000 a piece through this arrangement. The total income would be $10,000. Then take away $4500 to pay the gallery for that year. You've now made $5500 for doing 5 commissions.
If you thought of the above figures in terms of financial return on investment (you've invested (spent) $4500 to receive $5500, do you think you could do as well if you instead cut the gallery out and did it yourself with the same investment? I mean could you make $5500 in you spent $4500 on brochures web design, trade show marketing, etc and done as well? I think so. In fact I think you could do it for half that amount. And the benefits are many, but I think the most important is that clients establish a direct relationship with you, and that you "own" any leads generated (in the other case the gallery may foward that prospect to another artist in their line-up.
The gallery is benefitting wonderfully from the framing - which can easily cost $1,000 for a single project.
This above scenario presumes that you get the 5 commissions. You could theoretically spend a few thousand in marketing expenses and get no business. But you don't have to spend a lot to "test" what response you can get from the market.
Example: the first marketing venture I ever did (at the time I had never had a commission and had never tried to get one) I made some brochures (designed them myself, printing at Kinkos - $400), made business cards at home - $50, made some signs and rented a booth/booth space at a local show in an area that was wealthy - $300, made "example" paintings and opened up a wholesale framing acct so that I could frame them beautifully but cheaper - $1,000. Add misc costs and I probably spent $2,000 total to do this first show. I received $13,000 in commissions! And the best part is that the next show I did (the following summer) I spent probably $500(booth/booth space, more brochures and cards), but could "reuse" the frames, paintings, and signs, etc. - so my cost for getting more commissions was lower.
Now let's say I didn't get any commissions from this first show. Well at least I would have had the front seat view in the process to figure out why.
As you can see, a concern of mine in going with a gallery at the beginning of one's career, is that whether you get clients or you get none, you never get to see for yourself why (is it your talent, the marketing, ...)
A thing to consider, thinking really negatively against the gallery (just playing devil's advocate here, so I don't mean to 'dis them) is that technically they probably would love to sell your work for as cheaply as possbile - so that they can get as much framing work as possible.
Now if you're not at all into marketing or selling yourself, maybe this is attractive. But if you can do it yourself, I can tell you I have really appreciated the education and sense of control as a result.
This is not to say an artist/gallery relationship can't be a perfect set-up for both - for example what I described does mean a serious time investment to pull it off - a gallery relationship on the other hand can sure reduce your time involvement spent on non-painting issues.
Hope this helps,
Linda
|