Art Biz Podcast

There’s no neat way to explain what success is because it’s different for every artist. I hope this episode is the start of an ongoing conversation on the subject.

Sally Hirst was born to teach. Fortunately, she was also born an artist. Like most of us, she adapted to the new reality that she was faced with at the beginning of the pandemic. Well, actually, she did more than adapt. She thrived. She took the challenge head on and has been thriving ever since. Sally and I discuss what her income sources looked like before Covid and look like now. Specifically, we talk about her teaching: The teaching platform she uses and why she chose it The skills she had to acquire in order to teach online Her video recording setup What her teaching schedule looks like in terms of what is pre-recorded and what is live. How she attracts new students. Sally reveals how Brexit has impacted her goals—especially where she shows and sells her art. And I wondered: How does Sally manage to maintain her studio practice with her busy teaching schedule?

This episode is a remix of episode 36 from 2019. It is such an inspiring interview that I wanted more people to hear it. Adele Sypesteyn has been making a living from her art for four decades. Listen in as she takes us through her journey of selling her art, from the traditional process of applying to galleries to a more strategic approach that involved teaching herself about business and pivoting in the face of economic downturns. Adele also shares how she transitioned from galleries to the antique show in Round Top, Texas, where she made excellent connections with hundreds of interior designers. Adele discussed testing a new concept for teaching art to children and shares her approach to teaching herself about business, especially during the recession. You'll hear about how she embraced the concept of viewing her art as a product, combining creativity with research to make her work more marketable. Finally, Adele shares how she has adapted her income streams, shifting from relying on galleries to events and

Lately, I’ve been diving into money on The Art Biz. As much as I do NOT want to talk about money, I know it’s necessary. I also know it’s more necessary for some artists to make money from their work than for others. If you’re lucky enough to have outside support for your art business—even if it’s from a day job—count your blessings. Because the pressure on the work is real when you don’t have that extra source of income, which is why I will continue to bring up the topic of money. Let’s continue the conversation in this episode. Kelly Pelfrey’s goal in 2020 was to replace her $50,000 teaching salary, but she quadrupled that. Her income has allowed her husband to leave his job to focus on his doctorate, feel comfortable about taking maternity leave, and save for college for her children. Kelly shares her income sources, which are dominated by sales of commissions, followed distantly by releases of small paintings. She also sells art for TV screens, has a monthly print release, and a coffee table book. Kelly o

In this episode, I’m doing something different and sharing my money odyssey from an interview with Parker Stevenson of The Bottom Line podcast by Evolved Finance. I reveal: How my dad taught me to balance my checkbook (and how it was quite different from my mother’s suggestion). How I learned to ask for money by collecting money for charities as a little girl. That I set the curve in my accounting classes at the University of Wyoming. How I gamed the system to get cash because I knew the checks I was writing would take 8 days to process. How little money I had when I quit my museum job to start my business. How I came up with the income accelerator for artists, which I teach in The Money Plan success workshop and Create Opportunities. ⭐️ ABOUT The Bottom Line by Evolved Finance The Bottom Line by Evolved Finance explores the financial journeys of some of the most successful educators, thought leaders, influencers, and service providers in the online space. Each week, Parker Stevenson sits down with a curren

Heather Beardsley’s art has been influenced by extensive travel and residencies in diverse cultures. This started with her year in Vienna as a Fulbright Scholar and then continued for several years until the pandemic shut down her residency in Kyiv, Ukraine. Like everyone else, Heather had to pivot upon returning to the U.S. She used the downtime to her advantage by getting organized and shaping her career path. In our conversation in this episode of The Art Biz, you’ll hear how she managed to transform her social anxiety into opportunities—realizing that real growth could only happen when she overcame the urge to play it safe by sticking to open call entries. Heather has learned to navigate the complex art world with intention while connecting with institutions and curators to propel her career. She shares her experiences of the following: Securing exhibition fees, grants, and residencies while managing expectations. The importance of being organized and ready for opportunities. Using Microsoft OneNote to o

In this episode, I want to start a conversation about one of those things that can get in the way of feeling successful: Money. In particular, I want to dive into income sources for artists. Where does the money come from? I discuss: Why you might want to branch out and sell more than originals. How to categorize your income sources so that you can better understand the possibilities. How to analyze where the money has come from in the past so you can plan for the future.

In this episode, I talk with Jan McCarthy, who wants you to know that there is plenty of life to live after 50. And even 60. She describes herself as a maker because, in her eyes, that term encompasses more than the word “artist.” Jan has started businesses, founded organizations, designed interiors, organized fundraisers, dinner parties, retreats, and workshops, and made plenty of products and art. Jan and I discuss: The creativity workshops she has organized for corporations. How she has brought together monthly mastermind meetings of women, and why a casual dinner party was the best format for them. Why her project Art for the Heart is important for her as someone who has lived with heart disease for more than 25 years. How she makes connections with interior designers, what the best social media platforms are for designers, and some of their concerns. How she gets such great photos of herself. While I’m in the midst of discussing multiple income sources on this podcast and on YouTube, I don’t think Jan

In this episode, I talk with Sarah Becktel about her sources of income and how she has increased her income by 25% in the last 3 years by being very deliberate about where and how she shows her work. Sarah does sell through galleries, but she has recently increased her self-sales by 400% by focusing on 3 specific types of indoor shows every year. She breaks them down as follows: One indoor art fair, which she considers her solo exhibition for the year Two fine art and craft shows One curated and juried holiday market You’ll hear Sarah discuss the difference among these, including their costs and the type of work she brings to each.

In this episode, I talk with Kimberly Santini about a variety of topics, including how she used Covid as a sabbatical to figure out what she really wanted from her art. We also touched on her dedication to blogging and why she continues the habit after so many artists have given up or neglected their blogs. The bulk of our conversation focused on how Kim uses Patreon to teach and build a community of artists. We discuss: What she charges for her Patreon patron tiers. What each tier receives for their patronage. What her workflow is like. Why it’s important that what she shares on Patreon is closely aligned with what she is doing in the studio. How she differentiates the content for patrons from the content she creates for her blog, newsletter, YouTube, and social media. ✴️ COMING UP: THE MONEY PLAN If you aren’t clear about where your money is coming from, I strongly encourage you to figure it out. It’s only with that clarity that you can plan properly for the future. I can help with that. Soon after the re

I can say with confidence that artists who happily embrace their role as CEO of their businesses do better than artists who fight it and wish they didn’t have to deal with the grind. Wishing won’t make it go away. It only makes you more frustrated, anxious, or resentful. This doesn’t mean that you need to fake joy whenever you’re paying bills. It means that you accept that it comes with the territory. You rise to the challenge because you know it’s a necessary step toward achieving your goals. There are ways to be happier about running a profitable art business, but first you must decide that you want a business on top of making work in the studio. Not every artist should turn their art into a business. But if you choose to go the route of earning money from your art, do it wholeheartedly. You can be pouty and grumble about all of the hard work necessary for something you said you wanted. Or you can find ways to enjoy the journey. How would you rather go through life?

While not everyone will be interested in your art, you can choose to focus on those who genuinely love your work. To embrace what is rather than wishing for it to be different. In this episode Cathy Nichols went from 5,000 to 107,000 Instagram followers in 3 years by researching who they were and why they were following her. She shares valuable insights about how she continues to grow her art business with joy and authenticity. We discuss: How Cathy researched who her followers were. What she started doing differently to grow her audience. How her teaching offerings changed as a result of what she learned. What’s coming up next for Cathy. ✴️ BONUS FOR LISTENERS Tired of trying to figure out the strategies for growing your art business all by yourself? Please join my coaching community, the Art Biz Accelerator. When you are one of the first 5 new people to sign up and mention you heard about it on episode 154 of The Art Biz, you will receive a bonus, private consultation with me. All of the details are here:

In this episode, I talk with Danielle SeeWalker, a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Native American stories are too frequently told from an historical perspective, but Danielle and other contemporary Indigenous artists want you to know that they’re still here. They never left. We just silenced them for too long after stealing their land. Danielle has beautiful stories to tell, from which we can all learn. And she’s dealing with the same stuff as other artists: balancing motherhood with her art and activism. We discuss: The symbolism in her work that came from a dream. The many hats she wears. The variety of art forms she works with. How she decides which projects to take on. How the rest of us can serve as allies for Indigenous people around the globe. One lovely takeaway from this interview is that Danielle doesn’t separate her art from her life. Everything is connected.

Every artist I have ever worked with would like to squeeze more time from their busy calendars. After all, you are overflowing with ideas. You’ll never have time to make everything you want to make, and that is incredibly frustrating. In this episode I share 8 tips for time management along with 2 truths to consider.

Artist residencies, in whatever form they take, are invaluable to an artist’s growth. But there are barriers to doing residencies—primarily the time commitment and cost. In this episode, I talk with Shannon Amidon, an artist who has created a residency especially for artists who might be parents or caretakers and can’t commit to a month or more that some residencies require. In my research on artist residencies, I have discovered how helpful it is when the residency involves some kind of travel, during which you are slowly transitioning away from your daily life and toward a different mental and emotional space that opens up your creativity. The longer the travel, the better. Another plus is that the residency environment contrasts with your familiar surroundings. Shannon’s residency is The Verdancy Project and while it’s easy driving distance from Portland, Oregon, it’s far enough out that you step into a new world. It’s especially for artists who want to be close to nature. As you will hear, it provides an

There's no getting around the fact that you need confidence in your at and in sharing it with others. It's also true that you will be plagued by doubt and fear at points throughout your art career.  It might be helpful to know you are not alone. It happens to everyone, and you're going to be okay.  In the meantime, you have to get through the days. In this episode I talk about 6 tips to help you project confidence while you're trying to regain it.  Load up on experience. Spiff up. Work on the outside. Visualize the situation. Try the charm offensive. Never belittle your work. Never apologize.  To read a transcript of this episode, get links, see my featured artists, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/project-confidence Sponsored by Magnetic You, a program to help you create or freshen up your marketing materials and improve your professional presentation. Start now: https://artbizsuccess.com/magnetic 

If you are an artist who loves to travel and explore new places, this episode is for you. I’ve been wanting to dig into the subject of artist residencies for a long time now. Fate put me in touch with Amy Clay. In this episode, Amy and I talk about her life as a professional artist-in-residence. She’s gone anywhere from 4 to 6 months at a time, stringing together one artist residency after another to fulfill her lust for travel and build what she calls her visual library. We discuss: How this lifestyle started for her The various formats of artist residencies What she looks for in a location How residencies have made her feel part of a global artist community. To read more, see images, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/amy-clay-residencies Sponsored by The Art Biz Accelerator, a coaching group to support and remind you that you’re part of a global artist community. https://artbizsuccess.com/accelerator

Meeting people and building relationships is the most important thing you can do for your art career, especially when your goal is to be a full-time artist. This means you have to get out of the studio and socialize. In this solo episode, I discuss: Why everyone you meet is a potential buyer, collector, friend or fan. Where you can network, and why you shouldn’t bother with artist organizations that aren’t a good fit. There are many art worlds. You have to decide where to build your relationships. Why it’s critical to network in real life, not only online. Why it’s important to be authentic and genuinely interested in people. I leave you with a challenge of meeting 1 new person a month. If it’s true that everyone knows about 150 people, imagine the potential from 12 new people a year. To read the transcript, see featured artists, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/being-seen Sponsored by The PEOPLE PLAN: A Success Workshop to Establish Strategic Connections for Your Art Biz. https://artbiz

My utter bliss is to help artists make business systems that streamline their lives so they can spend more time in the studio. So when Skip Hill said he needed a system for following up with his collectors and important relationships, I knew I wanted to help. In this episode of The Art Biz, I walk Skip through the steps to create a plan for nurturing his relationships. We go through these steps to create his plan: What do you want to happen? By when does it need to happen? Or … How frequently does it need to happen? What do you need to have/acquire/learn to make that happen? And/Or what tools and technology will you use for the process? Who do you need to enlist to help? What are the exact steps needed to make this system hum? The steps in that last question provides the fuel. Miss a step, and your system crashes. To read the exact steps we created for Skip, see images, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/skip-hill-systems Sponsored by The PEOPLE PLAN: A Success Workshop to Establish Strate

Before the internet, artists were completely dependent on others to show and sell their work. We need to take a moment every now and then to be grateful for having the world at our fingertips. For being able to instantly send images of our art out into the world. For friends around the globe we would never have met 30 years ago. In this episode, I talk with artist Barbara Muir, who is unabashedly happy about being online. She reminds us of all the good things that happen because we are so connected. Key topics: A brief rundown of the opportunities that have come Barbara’s way through her blog. Commitment to a blogging habit—now boasting more than 3,000 entries. Her practice of making a daily list of 6 things. The sweet ritual of leaving nightly letters to her husband. To see images, full show notes, and leave a comment, visit https://artbizsuccess.com/muir-online-podcast  Want to make sure you stay connected online and off? Check out The PEOPLE PLAN: A Success Workshop to Establish Strategic Connections for