Bert wrote:Picasso did pretty well in the marketplace and in critical acclaim. He made up the rules and others wrote them down.
Well, not exactly. Read Jackie's post. His acceptance as a contibutor to the arts and legitimization and acclaim came very late for him and others working with the same concerns. But your point is well taken and I think that there
is an overlap between production values and artistic...there is also a disconnect that makes it hard to talk about these approaches as if they were the same.
Picasso's focus was the integrity of the work and not what the market would support, which is why I believe we will still talk about his work in 200 years and the value of that work will continue to increase, and Kincaid will be forgotten.
We are approaching this topic with differing ideas of what success means as well. There is the success of artistic achievement and there is business success in making sales=making money. They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive concerns. You can have one without the other and in the perfect world we could have both. We seem to be forgetting though that there is a difference between the approaches to, and intentions for different work.
Many of us want and need to make a living at this, so understanding the market is imperative. How we go about doing this work and what our markets and the intentions of our work are will change the approach to marketing we take for differing work. The market for mass produced items is a different audience than the market for individually conceived and created works.
Dennis wrote:...Whether it's a trashy imported trinket, or a unique and exceptional piece of art, the selling price is determined by the buyer's perception of value. If you want to alter your prices, you'll first have to alter the buyer's perceptions.
This statement is advocating education. To alter the buyers perceptions, you give them an education about the work. A work containing a high degree of accomplishment in both artstry and skill sometimes will require that the audience understand the work in terms of it's content as well as process in order to appreciate it's value. When I say that the client doesn't care about how long it takes to create a piece I mean that they are interested in learning about and accquiring a piece based on it's integrity and content more so that that it takes more hours to cold work this piece than that one...
Dennis wrote:...How long it takes for an artisan to make something varies substantially from one to another. Some are slow - some are quick. The biggest difference between an amateur and a pro isn't quality - it's speed. Pros work much faster than amateurs . An amateur might take 40 hours to do something a pro can easily complete in 10...
I think this is where the biggest disconect is. You are talking production here, and you can't apply the standards of the creation or marketing of production work to artwork. Quality refers not only to the craftsmanship but the level of artistic achievement as well...So I feel it's important to understand that this definition of a Pro and an Amateur is Dennis' concept as applied to production. I would appreciate the work (all work) be attended to in terms of quality craftsmanship over speed of execution...and this rapidly produced work with little attention to the level of quality is exactly the kind of work that causes some buyers to turn some of us away before seeing any work with comments such as..."Fused Glass? Seen that, not impressed." It worries me that this is how Dennis would attend to the work he wholesales...that speed is professional and quality is amateurish. Is that truly what was meant?
The market for production, the retailers that purchase it and the folks who are buying it, are different animals in a different slot in the food chain than those who are purchasing, collecting and representing works of art.
I think Genn's guidelines are valid and useful guidelines to marketing. You do have to put yourself out there and find your groove according to the type of work you are doing if selling is one of your concerns. If it's dichro jewelry you create you will be marketing to a different crowd than if your work is architectural installations. You will price and market according to the the work you are doing just like you would approach keeping a tiger alive and healthy in a completely different manner than you would a giraffe. They are both animals, wild, beautiful and exotic...but they require different environments in order to thrive.