WHY?

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Over the 50 plus years I've been capturing images of people and places  I'm consistently asked about my motivation for photography and in particular about my style. Typical of my generation I answered in a way that largely focused on motivation and how. Both age and maturity have led me to know … [Read more...]

The summer of love, and the rise and fall of the hippie-dippy business model

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How many of you are old enough to remember the days of the “hippie-dippy parking lot art fairs”? For those of you unfortunate enough to be born after that era, let me enlighten you. Similar to what we are experiencing today, it was a time of major social, economic and cultural upheaval, and it … [Read more...]

What does your art business really look like?

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How and if we chose to build trust with our buyers and clients is a very personal choice, because when all is said and done the way we chose to build trust comes from who we are. Who we are is how we are seen by our buyers and clients, how they experience us,  which in turn heavily influences … [Read more...]

TRUST: the ultimate secret to repeat sales

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We hear a lot about the importance of building trust in order to nurture repeat sales and ultimately create a word of mouth following. Typically the concept of building trust has been highly associated with freelance services which tend be highly skill based, such as writing, consulting, … [Read more...]

Going Pro, the secret weapon for today’s turbulence

Over the last several weeks we have taken a trip to discover what a Professional Artist”  looks like so we could better understand how potential buyers see us and use that image to decide to buy our stuff. As I’ve discussed many times here, knowing who our work attracts is important, because it … [Read more...]

Professionalism in practice…setting the stage

Being a pro is a mindset, a way of seeing life and the world. Because it is a mindset that can be learned, practiced and improved it lives in constant change and is not the exclusive domain of super stars or any other elite class. A part time artists possessing the desire to grow and willingness to … [Read more...]

Four key elements that define a Pro

Over the last couple of weeks we have begun to see the emergence of what a Professional might look like, what qualities of character or heart she might possess along with how she might live a professional life. We’ve examined qualities like: Mastery Growth Fear Transparency We’ve seen how … [Read more...]

The Art of Going Pro: living professionally II

Last week I took our framework to a different level in order to refine the concept of being professional and begin painting an image of what a professional looks like.Describing each characteristic of a professional in behavioral terms helps form the palette for creating a visual foundation of what … [Read more...]

The Art of Going pro: living professionally

The last two installments addressed two key issues related to success as an artist. The first installment presented the core issue facing artists today.That  issue was described as a lack of  unified identity that clearly frames the meaning of what an artist is and how that blurred identity is … [Read more...]