I write this weekly Art Marketing News Substack from the pulse of the fine art market, through the lens of what I call unheralded Main Street artists. They create beautiful artworks, mostly without the illusion or delusion that they are museum-bound. Some struggle while others make six figures. Rarely is the artwork the sole difference-maker.
I write for artists like you who work incredibly hard to make and market art in a constantly changing world, including shifts in who buys art these days, where they buy it, and the growing array of tempting choices for spending discretionary income.
For example, a buyer with extra income might be thinking of buying a piece from you while weighing whether to spend $3,000 on a bottle of 30-year-old single-malt scotch, a collector’s wristwatch, a Caribbean cruise, or a zip line tour or surf trip to Costa Rica. Your competition is not just other artists. It’s for attention and experience, too.
Rather than elite, exotic locations, I find most of my AMN readers hail from places called Springfield and Litchfield, Franklin and Fairview, and thousands of other places that aren’t art destinations. They create their art and try to reach the people who might care about it, working in near obscurity, certainly by the standards of what makes headlines as art news.
So, I’m constantly thinking about how the market is performing for them, how they are faring, and what interesting angles they are using to get their work to market. That’s why I started the Art Business Brief periodical report for my paid AMN subscribers. We benefit from AI-assisted research that helps us understand what is otherwise hard to grasp. Grassroots news and views for everyday artists.
I don’t think the market for Main Street artists is collapsing, and I don’t know of any statistics that neatly measure it. I’m pretty sure they don’t exist. It’s just the way it is: simple economics dictate there’s little to gain from trying to gather that kind of information unless you are the odd sort, like you and me, who care about it.
It’s hard to find useful data because artists are too scattered, too independent, and selling through too many different channels to fit conveniently into the reports we read about the art business. And frankly, what happened at the weekend art show in Springfield never makes the news unless a man bites a dog there. That’s okay. We toil away making art and getting it to market in our own unique ways, and if we are lucky and good, it pays off well enough to keep at it.
I’m more than an optimist because I think despite increased competition, there is also increased opportunity. In my career, the changes are extraordinary. Not that long ago, monthly magazines were one of the most powerful and effective ways for an artist to build a reputation and make sales beyond their regional market.
But the cost was prohibitively expensive, and the results were spotty. Plus, it was considered career suicide because galleries, which carried much more clout then, were likely to never give an independent artist the time of day. Why work with someone who competes with you—an understandable reaction. It’s still mostly that way, but coopetition is evolving since social media gives artists opportunities to have influence and share it like never before.
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In the mid-90s, a single full-page, four-color ad in Decor magazine that reached just under 30,000 retail art and picture-framing shops cost roughly $2,000. And there's no reliable way to know how many saw the ad or even opened the magazine. By comparison, spending that same amount on highly targeted Meta ads guided by increasingly smart algorithms could deliver and measure hundreds of thousands of impressions, thousands of engagements, and help build a growing email list. It could be the basis for a learning system that keeps improving who it shows your art to—all for the same price as one static page in one trade magazine for one month.
Essentially, we are living in different worlds. Nonetheless, fundamentally, people still want to make art and others want to buy it. But how that happens has expanded more than it has changed. Galleries, fairs, and studio tours remain excellent venues, but online marketing with highly effective, inexpensive advertising, along with organic social media and expanded media options, adds dimensions that create new opportunities.
If you are on Xanadu Gallery’s artist mailing list, you’ve no doubt heard about its ArtBoost program. My friend, the gallery owner, has successfully run Xanadu Gallery on Main Street in Scottsdale for two decades. It’s one of the most competitive art markets in the country. His savvy business skills have contributed to his ongoing success, including considerable digital and social media marketing.
He’s reporting very encouraging results for artists participating in his cooperative social media advertising, and many are succeeding despite never having shown in his physical gallery. It's easy to say he has advantages that an unknown artist lacks, and that would be correct. But it would be wrong to believe that there is still no opportunity.
The good thing is that social media advertising comes in different sizes. Whether you can afford a $20 or $200-per-day ad campaign, there is room for you in the market. That wasn’t true with $2,000 ads in Décor in 1995. And, honestly, one-time ads were nearly always a bust. It always takes repeat exposure to build awareness, trust, and interest before something happens. That never changes. The cost is much lower and more scalable than before, and buyers are demonstrably willing to buy directly from artists online with no prior relationship.
It’s not a panacea or miracle. There is no guarantee, but the odds are not totally against you like they were 30 years ago. You will still have to get more from what you learn initially than what you earn; that also never changes.
You have to pay to play, and you have to learn to make that investment pay off. So, you start with the right mindset. Have your stuff together as much as possible before you launch, and budget enough to keep you in the game long enough to start turning things to your advantage. Using ChatGPT or any AI assistant can help you make good choices, navigate complex ad platforms, and understand how the market works. They can help you do the research that lets you make informed decisions.
The one thing that has remained constant is the connective glue of relationships. It’s true: people buy the artist and the art. They buy the story. They crave authenticity more than ever because it is so easy to fake creativity these days. Being real and uniquely you is what will build your career, sell your art, and make you feel fulfilled financially and emotionally. AI cannot replicate that now or ever. People get it when they see it and will support you for it.
When you shift from thinking about making sales to building relationships with people who will buy your art, something changes. Over time, you begin to realize you are accumulating friends, admirers, benefactors, and collectors who stick together, held by the connective glue of shared stories, interests, beliefs, and reputation. Your art sales and your existence as a creative soul evolve through such experiences.
Your connections, whether digital and distant or close enough to share a cup of coffee or a beer, or even a phone call, are the coin of the realm. And not every connection means a sale is imminent; that’s irrational and unrealistic. Sales come when awareness, interest, and desire converge. A great prospect can take months or years to become a buyer.
Some sales that seem natural never transpire, just as some unlikely ones happen to your delight. It’s not yours to decide. Your job is to be present, keep your end up, and be there when opportunity strikes, including having the fortitude to ask for the sale when it does.
I’ve often and long said that everything good that happens in an art career begins with a conversation. Not just sales, but getting grants, getting into galleries, negotiating better spots in shows, and more—all start with conversations.
So, yes, the competition is greater, but so is the opportunity. A comment and reply on a social post or ad is a conversation; an email exchange is, too. It’s not the same as in-person, which is hard to beat when it happens.
Today’s artist in Springfield has something artists of an earlier generation didn’t have. The next person who becomes genuinely interested in their work might live across town, across the country, or someplace the artist has never been. Finding, connecting, and communicating with that person is possible in ways it wasn’t before.
You are more interesting than you realize; your stories matter, and so do relationships that form because of them. You have more ways to share your art, your story, and a little of yourself today than ever.
There simply are more opportunities that are real and present. You can make them happen on a scale and pace that fits you, uniquely.
The interesting question isn’t whether the opportunity for relationships exists. It’s how well and how often you recognize that possibility, turn it into an actual, natural human connection, and nurture it.
Once you get that going, things start to get interesting, profitable, and fun.
See you next week.
—Barney
Thank you for the wonderful article Barney! I was thinking about trying Meta Ads. And doing a couple of in person shows hopefully next year.