I have been making a living, entirely, from painting and teaching for over 20 years. There are a variety of ways of doing this, of course, but if one is interested in independence and the freedom to paint whatever it is that moves one, entirely self-directed, then my story may be of interest. Here it is.

As I have explained elsewhere, in 1989 I dropped out of academia and decided to move to San Francisco. It would be there, I had hoped, that I would be able to make a living as a painter. As it turned out, San Francisco was a good place to be. They had a long tradition of artists exhibiting and selling their work in the parks.

Initially, I was averse to selling in the parks. The “shows” had, to put it bluntly, the appearance of art swap meets. So, instead, I brought my work around to galleries. I was able to get into a few (San Francisco, Carmel, Northampton, MA). But the truth is that while I have sold over 1,000 paintings in my life (and to collectors in every state in the US and in a dozen or more countries), I have never – not once – sold anything in a gallery. What was worse, for me, was the way I was treated. I was the “street scene guy” – kind of a painter-worker-bee – who delivered a specific product to the gallery. Appointments to have gallerists come by my studio were regularly blown off. I could go on; gallery horror stories abound.

But let me jump ahead: in the end I decided to exhibit with one of the outdoor groups and guess what? I began meeting hundreds of people who expressed an interest in what I was doing – “my audience.”  I began to develop a very good mailing list. Given the large number of artists who participated, I learned about framing and presentation, shipping, as well as other media and approaches. I began to sell. I began to paint more. And most importantly, I grew.

Given all these positives, the one remaining thing to change, I thought, was the look and feel of the group so that one could sincerely claim that it helped beautify the public space and provide to the public a direct access to art and artists. So with others, I began to re-invent the outdoor show. After about 10 years of building, we created a new group, called Red Umbrellas (RU), and in this video you can see what we looked like as we exhibited with performing arts non-profits (SF Jazz, a string quartet from the SF Symphony, the Gay Men’s Chorus, and the SF Opera) on successive weekends (a September performing art series) in Union Square in San Francisco. The featured image on top shows the look of Red Umbrellas just getting set up for an exhibition in the 2002 performing art series.

If you wish to create an outdoor exhibition group in your town, here are some pointers:

1. Become a non-profit, not a promoted show.

Promoted shows are run by “promoters” who are profit motivated. This means that they are interested in as many fee-paying participants as possible. It is not a group. One pays a fee, participates in the exhibition, and goes home. The promoter (and/or board) makes up the rules and juries the show. In addition to fees, a percentage of sale proceeds generally go to the promoter (perhaps 15% – unless the fee to participate is large, then the commission may be waved altogether).

RU, a non-profit (501c3), was and is a group of artists who are juried into the group by other artists. Officers are elected. Decision-making is democratic. The jury is chosen from among the artists. As a non-profit, the idea is to first provide a public benefit, sales are technically speaking “incidental.” Artists pay a fee, which goes into the treasury, and the artists keep 100% of all sales proceeds. We eventually reduced the fee to zero by incorporating a “Lobby Program” (read below).

2. Develop a Uniform Look

The look of the show is critical. We wanted the public to see us as a group of artists, not a collection of individual booths, each with a different look and feel. Therefore, our display system for each artist was identical. Each of us used the same red umbrellas. And we agreed on a set of rules to insure that only the art displayed varied, at the same time that anything “junky-looking” was eliminated. Remember: outdoor shows are considered the last rung on the ladder. As an independent group, as an independent force, we set out to change the paradigm.

3. Make it an exhibition space, not a market.

A “show” that is a market is one where individuals are free to exhibit whatever they want. This inevitably leads to artists making copies of what sold last time and in the end, one sees the same artist selling the same cat painting or print over and over. In our case, we did not allow the selling of “mechanical reproductions.” No digital art, for example. With regard to prints – etchings for example – the artist had to have limited editions that met professional standards. Only photography developed in a dark room with limited editions was permitted. But obviously, your group can set whatever standards it pleases. We wanted to be taken seriously.

4. Have enough shows to make a living.

Our group consisted of about 20 artists (other groups were larger) and we organized anywhere from 60 to 100 exhibitions per year. Obviously, the goal is to find an exhibition space where there is a lot of commercial traffic. And access to “better” sites often depends on how the group is perceived. Hence the need for the standards noted above. It was much easier to approach property managers or city officials if I could say, “We are a non-profit with high presentation standards that first and foremost wishes to exhibit original work to the public.”

All the “regulars” who did most of the shows were able to make a living and make whatever kind of art they wanted.

5. Reduce or eliminate fees through special exhibitions.

In the video above, you can see our “Performing Art Series.” It was expensive to produce, but with in-kind and monetary contributions, we actually made money from the series. One of our best fundraising programs, which you can develop even if you never exhibit out-of-doors is the Lobby Program. As you will see, the goal here was to pay artists to exhibit, all the while they kept 100% of their sales proceeds. In addition to paying artists to exhibit (on average $1,500 per artist), we generated enough money so that we could reduce participation fees in the outdoor program to zero. Here’s how the Lobby Program worked:

The Lobby Program

Basically, RU replaced the “art consultant,” whose job it was to hang shows in SF’s financial district or “downtown lobbies.” It goes like this: generally an art consultant will approach an artist and say, “If you would like to participate in the exhibitions I hang in prestigious lobbies, just give me some photos of your work. If you are selected, I hang your work, and if you sell, you get 60%. Plus there is promotion and a reception.”

Sounds pretty good. A better cut than most galleries. But wait. Think it through. I went to visit a variety of property managers and discovered that the art consultant, besides taking 40% of your sales proceeds, was getting a healthy stipend up front for organizing and hanging the show.

In one prestigious building in SF (101 California Street – about 30 stories, with a magnificent lobby and landscaped terrace outside) I found that art consultants were paid $7,000 for a 6-week show. Art consultant who can get a few properties can make a bundle. Thank you artists, who jump at the chance to get only 60%.

So as a group, we decided to replace the art consultant. We developed a portfolio of interested artists (we decided that artists could participate in our lobby program without having to do outdoor shows, too). We hung the shows. Half of the $7,000 was used to pay artists to exhibit. The other half went into the RU treasury, which enabled outdoor show participants to exhibit for free.

Conclusion

There is only one profession where the word “starving” is accepted as an appropriate adjective – ie, starving artist. To be honest, I think this is due to the fact that artists embrace and celebrate the market and the private economy instead of resisting it – instead of thinking creatively beyond the canvas. I don’t think it takes a whole lot of insight to figure out that the point of the art industry is not to expand the circle of art and creativity, but to insure that “art” is the province of a few very wealthy people (think auction houses, museum boards, the Venice Biennali). Branded galleries, for example, are intentionally designed to intimidate and to feel exclusive. The point here is that in this environment it is functional for artists to be dependent and poor.[1]

Unlike other professionals, as visual artists, we accept the fact we are often working for free: we provide a free inventory to galleries (unlike, say, in the days of the Impressionists when dealers bought work straight out), we decorate restaurants and other spaces for free (in the off chance we might sell), and we give our work away for “benefits” (generally under the heading of, “Many rich collectors will see your work!!”). The worst indignity to me is what all this does to us. We become marketing freaks. These situations describe artists who are of the market.

I’ve just described two situations in which one sells – hence one is “in” the market – but obtains independence, meets more people in a day than she would in a year in a gallery, gets the names and numbers of interested parties (often disallowed by galleries), meets directly and often with her audience, has total control over production and distribution of her work, develops as an artist, and makes a living. In these situations we might be in the market but we would not necessarily have to be of the market.

For a painter dependent upon sales, the distinction is an important one.

—-

[1] Once at an outdoor show, a gallery owner asked me how many paintings I sold in a year. At that point in time my answer was 75. He responded, “Well, you don’t need me.” I said nothing but thought to myself, “Yes, that’s right. But do you still want to have a conversation?”