How To Start An Art Business

Can you be an artist as a business? Usually no, unless you do this…

I am at the university of art in Warsaw. I am going to talk about a very interesting question that someone asked me yesterday and that is: “What is business? Is it really that important?”

Not everything in life is business. However, if you want to use the example of art, because we are at the university of art, then artists that are famous are the best business people as well.

For example Andy Warhol have spent most of his time not making art, but promoting art. These people are not just sitting in a basement and making a painting that no one is ever going to see. If you just sit in a basement and you are making the art and no one ever sees it, then you will never become relevant.

In your lifetime, if you want to become an artist and make money from it and not have a day job, then you need to run it as a business. You will see that a lot of these artists do exactly that. They are very good business people. Because they are good business people, they become famous artists.

You can even argue that if you are an artist and you are not a business person, then you are not even an artist, because no one sees your stuff and buys your stuff. Then, are you still an artist? I am not saying you are or you are not. I am just making you think about this.

A lot of people ask me question about how to become what they want to become and what should they do. I ask them: “Do you work on your art every single day?” And in fact they are not. They only work on it when it is necessary for school. Basically, they are not really perfecting their art at a speed that is necessary to become world class.

When people want to become musician, I ask them: “Are you making music every single day? Are you putting it on YouTube every single day? Are you doing live streams on Facebook every single day?” Then they are like: “Wow, what a great idea. I will start doing it now.” And very rarely they do that. For example, Justin Bieber started making videos on YouTube and it just blew up. He got discovered.

People discover you, because there is evidence of what you are doing is awesome. Not just because you are a good singer, but because you have a good audience. A lot of people who discover you now are people who are able to discover the audience. It is very important to understand that. That applies to all types of art.

I remember a painter who was doing the basement method. He made a great number of painting and it was an amazing art work and he burned all of his paintings. No one ever saw it, because he was not promoting it very hard. He got frustrated and that is probably why he burned his paintings. An artist who is really serious about his art should be spending 50% / 75% of his time on the art and 50% / 25% of his time on the business side.

Once you do that, you will develop an audience. You get positive feedback from the world. You get paid. Then you will be more motivated to become an artist. You will have this positive feedback loop that will allow you to build it as your life goal passion.

If you do not follow these steps, you become super frustrated. I have seen this happened with several artists. They become super frustrated, because it does not work. I am not getting discovered. Instead of loving their art more by doing more art, they start resenting it, because they are looking for an excuse that is outside of themselves. They blame the art. They think it is the art’s fault. It is not the art’s fault.

You need to take personal responsibility and not be a victim. This applies to all kinds of businesses. Any kind of business can work out.

That is what I wanted to share with you today. If you are an artist, let me know what you think in the comments below. If you like this video, then please thumbs up and share it with your friends on Facebook. If you would like more free videos about marketing, sales and entrepreneurship, then please subscribe and I will see you in tomorrow’s video.

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