For the artist who aspires to become more business-like about their art

FACT: Very few artists can earn enough income from art sales alone to go full-time
However, getting to grips with art business knowledge and skills unrelated to your art practice
can help you climb the ladder to success as an artist and work more as an artist.
BUT......
Where do you start when you want to be a professional artist?

TIPS about "being a professional artist"
​

Your art is improving, you are making sales and you start to think more about:
  • how you can be more business-like about your art
  • how you can make money from your art
  • how you can be a professional artist as a career.

In other words, what's involved in being a professional artist.

In this section my aim is to highlight what information and advice is available for free online.
  • How do I set up in business, organise events, make proposals?
  • What are my responsibilities on copyright, insurance and health and safety?
  • What's the best way to price work, approach galleries, get legal advice and collect debts?
BUT FIRST - DO NOT FORGET TO READ!!!
STARTING OUT - Tips for Emerging Artists because this page assumes you've worked your way through that one and know some of the  basics.
This section covers: various aspects of making a career as a professional artist - including
  • being a professional artist - definitions
  • the reality of earnings by artists
  • building a portfolio career
  • professional standards and contractual relationships
  • how to avoid legal problems & cons
  • reality checks
  • ​useful websites for learning more about the business of being an artist
PLUS on separate pages
Some very useful books have been written by people with an online following relating to their helpful advice . These are listed below and included in The Best Art Business Books for Artists and Designers ​
This is a work in progress.
  • I'm including all the links I've got to useful information - but I've not yet listed them all - but there's enough to publish! :)
  • I often change and rewrite sections as I develop them and think about them some more.

Being a Professional Artist
​

What's YOUR definition of a professional artist?

  • What, in your view, are the defining characteristics of a professional artist?
  • Do you have to be able to sell your work to be a professional artist?
  • Do you have to make enough money from your art and give up all other employment to be a professional artist?
  • What characteristics or attributes or practices distinguish a professional artist from an amateur?
  • How do you define a Professional Artist? | Making A Mark 
The first thing it's essential to understand is.....
BEING A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST is more than a state of mind or a making a decision. You are have to operationalise it and develop knowledge, skills and competences related to the art business - NOT just how to make your art.

So being a professional artists is also about
  • business training and skills related to making a living from your activity.
  • character traits and habits - which mean you will persist in your aim
  • desire, dedication and commitment - to maintain your career in the face of challenge and lack of earnings.
​
SEE Working Lives of Professional Artists 
​- on this website 
- if you want to know about what it's like to be a professional artist ​
Definition of Professional
professional adj 
1 earning a living in the performance, practice or teaching of something that is usually a pastime • a professional golfer. 
2 belonging to a trained profession. 
3 like, appropriate to or having the competence, expertise or conscientiousness of someone with professional training • did a very professional job. 

noun 
1 someone who belongs to one of the skilled professions. 
2 someone who makes their living in an activity, etc that is also carried on at an amateur level. professionalism noun. professionally adverb.
Chambers 21st century Dictionar
REFERENCE: Being a Professional Artist
The following are various articles which talk about what's involved with being a professional artist. If you're contemplating going down the professional route, they are worth a read. ​
  • Note some are more inclined to focus of the development of the art
  • while others recognise the importance of getting down to the nitty gritty when it comes to running an art business.

I'm differentiating between UK/European authors and American authors because although the basics are the same I think there's a certain difference in approach or tone for "how to get on". So you might want to start with the culture you know and then try and alternative perspective.
UK / EUROPEAN AUTHORS
AMERICAN AUTHORS

Making a Living as an Artist
​The reality of earnings as a professional artist
​

It's ESSENTIAL that all those contemplating life as a professional artist understand that
the reality for the majority of artists is that they don't earn much from their art.

Visual artists have precarious careers, with typical earnings well below the UK national median wage of £21,320. In 2009/10, the typical photographer earned £15,000 (median), the typical illustrator earned £15,723 (median) while the typical fine artist earned only £10,000 (median).
Research on Artists Income (2010 - published 2011)
more than 72% of visual artists earn less than £10,000 / $13,000 per year from their art practice.
Arts Council England commissioned a national study to find out directly from visual artists in England about the economic, social and cultural factors which affect their ability to develop a sustainable practice.
  • The study was conducted in 2016 by TBR and funded by Arts Council England. 
  • The Report detailed findings of a large-scale national study of the livelihoods, careers and needs of visual artists in England.
  • It collates and analyses a significant volume of quantitative evidence exploring artists’ incomes, factors that influence their careers, artists’ mobility and where they are based, and their relationship with the creative industries.
Key findings of the Livelihoods of Visual Artists: 2016 Data Report 
(click the link to download the PDF report file

​These include:
  • In 2015, the mean AVERAGE TOTAL INCOME FOR ARTISTS across the UK in 2015 was £16,500
  • BUT in relation to AVERAGE INCOME FROM ART PRACTICE ALONE
    • average income from art practice overall = £6,020 (i.e. 36% of total income) AND
    • 2/3 of artists earned LESS than £5,000 
    • 36% earned less than £1,000.
    • Just 7% of artists earned £20,000 or more 
  • ​The majority of artists (69%) have other jobs to supplement their income. However, time spent on these other jobs mean that artists are less able to dedicate time to their art practice. 
  • There is a direct, positive relationship between art incomes and the amount of time spent on art practice (i.e. the more time an artist spends on their art, the more they earn from it). However:
    • whilst artists that spend more time on their art earn more from it, the overall level of total income does not increase.
    • If more artists earned a greater level of income from art, they would not necessarily become wealthier overall, but they might become less reliant on other sources of income.
  • Both total incomes and art incomes increase across the career stages, with
    • established artists earning the highest art incomes (£13,300 per annum on average).
    • however incomes fluctuate - between 2014 and 2015, one third of artists report an increase in their art income compared to one quarter who reported a decrease.
  • Those artists who earn more typically had:
    • parents who went to university
    • had gone to a fee-paying school earn more than other artists.​
  • Overall, only one fifth of artists (21%) indicate that the income they receive from their art practice allows them to spend as much time on their art practice as they would like.
REFERENCE - ARTIST INCOMES
This is why it's essential for most artists to consider the development of income / earnings from a PORTFOLIO CAREER

Building a Portfolio Career​

It's extremely common for professional artists to have a SECONDARY income which is reasonably steady and contributes to paying the baseline bills which keep you fed with a roof over your head.
Even artists who have "made it" in some people's eyes think long and hard before giving up all other income streams and focus all their working hours entirely on making art. Even they can only do that if they've got somebody else taking care of the business end of "being an artist"
multi-strand careers are a growing and significant part of the jobs market that many graduates are choosing over conventional careers.... Graduates in the creative arts – such as artists, actors and photographers – are most commonly those with at least two jobs
A portfolio career for a professional artist is one in which they have a a number of different income streams from a number of different economic activities.

It can mean lots of short-term opportunities as you start your career

For more mature people, it often means having more than one steady stream of income - with one being routine and steady and the other being all over the place - the feast and famine scenario. Plus occasional work which they do from time to time if experiencing a "famine" in relation to the unpredictable main income stream

You can have one main secondary activity - such as being an art teacher in a school or art college or university. Or you can have various things you do to generate income.

Some call those with portfolio careers "slashers" in relation to the / employed when asked to describe what you do!
REFERENCE: ​​
Their income comes from part-time employment, temporary work, freelance assignments or a personal business—or they work a full-time job, while pursuing other lucrative interests.
Portfolio Careers: Is the Latest Work Trend Right For You?
BELOW are some of the things which people do as well as making art
​

Education / Teaching
​

  • the most common additional activity is teaching. This can be
    • either in the formal sense of working for an art college or school.
    • Or delivering your own programme of workshops from suitable premises or via painting holidays etc.
  • It also offers the opportunity to be with other people rather than always working on your own.

Working for an Art School
​

There are various ways in which you can stay in the art world and meet useful people to know. You can be:
  • functioning within the admin world
  • or you can work part-time as an artist's model!


​Grants & Fellowships

  • READ Artists' Grants & Scholarships page on this website
  • These can be remunerative - but can also involve quite a bit of effort to become a serious candidate
  • These require:
    • finding opportunities
    • completing applications
    • doing interviews (for some)


​Artist Residencies

  • READ Artists' Residencies page on this website
  • These can bring you paid time and space to make art
  • Locations can vary - from the very urban to the very rural
  • However they can also exclude you from other opportunities for making ancillary income (like spare time jobs)
  • search for #artist residency on twitter​

Public Art
​

Public art programs are charged with administering the development and management of public art in their communities. The methods used to build a public art program include, commissioning artwork for temporary installation, purchasing existing artwork for permanent or temporary display, placing artists on design teams and creating artist-in-residence opportunities. 
Percent for Art Programs | Americans for the Arts
  • generally more suitable for those who produce 3D and/or large visual art rather than eg painters
  • experience in managing a project is essential
  • applications can be labour-intensive
  • vetting of applications can be rigorous - often because of the funds involved

Working for an Art Gallery
​

Art Galleries always seem to have part-time artists acting as galleristas. 
  • do an internship
  • do an art degree relevant to the gallery
  • try public museums as well as commercial art galleries
  • don't limit yourself as to location
REFERENCE:

Generic employment
​

  • Not necessarily anything to do with art. 
  • of the sort which has flexible hours which suits being able to do as much or as little as you want.
  • Some people use this (e.g. bar work) as a way of getting to socialise and speak to people after long hours on your own in a studio!
  • Being a parent also counts as generic employment - but is unpaid!

CONTRACTS AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
​

Advice and guidance on professional standards and contractual relationships
​

Whether or not you earn all your income as an artist, once you start taking money off people or trying to take money you need to start to act in a professional way

Below I'm trying to build a resource of the national organisations in each country which provide help and advice to their artist members.
UK:  a-n The Artists Information Company
In the UK, artists have the Artists Information Company to provide them with help and assistance. You need to join to access most of the resources.
  • a-n The Artists Information Company - Largest membership organisation in the UK (22,000 members). Useful website exposing and exploring the diversity and complexity of artists' practice
  • a-n CODE OF PRACTICE - The Code of Practice for the Visual Arts, a-n’s key publication for artists and all those working in the sector, has been relaunched with new content. The updated publication now includes features that demonstrate how the Code’s four principles – Contribute confidently; Prepare thoroughly; Collaborate creatively; Aim high – are applied by artists.
Some of their most visited and recommended resources:

Legal problems & Cons - and how to avoid them

Avoid Legal Problems

READ Law for Artists on this website
REFERENCE - LEGAL PROBLEMS:

Avoid being scammed

READ How to spot art scams and fraud on this website

Anybody who has been around an online art forum will have witnessed the sharing of the latest email received relating to an art scam. Indeed the art scams and the emails they generate almost justify being a member of online art groups - on Facebook or elsewhere.

You also need to be very careful about art galleries which will defraud you.
The two main scams relate to:
  • the vanity gallery - who approaches artists who obviously haven't yet made it with a quality gallery and offers to show their work - for a fee. 
  • READ Vanity Galleries on this website
  • the overseas buyer - not all overseas buyers are scammers, but you need to be aware that many artists probably get more approaches from those who are than those who are not! Look for evidence of poor English and irregular payment methods.

Reality Checks - Don't try and reinvent the wheel!​

It's ESSENTIAL you know how you can ruin your business and go under.
  • ​There's a lot of experience out there.
  • You need to become aware of the pitfalls by
    • talking to fellow artists.
    • reading around on art business topics
REFERENCE:

USEFUL SITES: Learn more about the business of being an artist

There are a number of sites which regularly provide advice and information about the business aspects of being an artist.

Some - like this one - provide information for free. Others are selling a service or a product or a book - because that's now how they make their money.
One cautionary note - the art market has changed over time and what has succeeded in the past can now prove to be very difficult. Plus not everybody is up to speed with new ways of marketing. That said there's a lot of good advice available online.

UK Resources

Artquest
Artquest is London's advice and information service for visual artists and craftspeople providing online and face-to-face support. As well as our website, which receives over 25,000 visits a month, we run conferences, training events and networks.
a-n The Artists Information Company
a-n is the largest artists’ membership organisation in the UK with over 25,000 members. It support artists in many practical ways, acting on behalf of its membership and the visual arts sector to improve artists’ livelihoods. 

The Arts Development Company 
Connect arts, health, business and environment sectors together, to deliver enriching experiences in Dorset and beyond

USA Resources - Major players
​

Alan Bamberger - Art Business.com
  • Alan's generic art business website provides free advice to artists via his suite of free Articles for Artists. These are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by me - they stem from practical knowledge and sound common sense and are written in a direct no nonsense way

Cory Huff - is not actually an artist - he's  an actor who is good at telling stories. However he also worked in digital marketing and consulted on technology strategies for various 'name' clients. He's also has written a best selling book about how artists can sell their art online (see below). 
  • The Abundant Artist is a very popular website about dispelling the starving artist myth and teaching artists how to sell their work online. It includes links to coaching and courses.
  • The Abundant Artist Blog - RECOMMENDED - markets what's on offer on the website but also provides useful and free advice. ​
Alyson Stanfield has a great reputation in terms of educating aspiring artists about the art business and a very faithful following. Every one wants and agent and Alyson is about as close as you get. She has two sites - see below.
  • Artbizcoach - which provides ​Art Marketing Workshops, Classes and Consultation. Essentially where Alyson's priced products and services are for sale.
  • Art Biz Blog - RECOMMENDED - this is her art business blog where she shares information for free about marketing your art and promoting yourself as an artist. You'll find a number of her blog posts linked on this site. I recommend you subscribe wherever you live as although some content is relevant to the USA most of it is of a generic nature and applicable no matter where you live.
I'd rather be in the studio - The Artist's No-Excude Guide to Self-Promotion
by Alyson Stanfield

Note: The third edition is ONLY available via Kindle and has attracted some criticism online in relation to the price charged for a book which has not been designed or formatted for being read online.
This book was originally published in 2008 and had a HUGE impact among those looking for advice.

It's now is now 10 years old and is still available as a paperback.

It can be read in the Kindle version as can the third edition. Although it has been formatted for reading  on a digital device I can see what people mean about it not having been written for reading on a handheld device.
Paperback: 279 pages
Publisher: Pentas Press; Second Edition: Updated & Expanded edition (April 22, 2011)

Rated an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars by customers (for the paperback version; rating for the 3rd Kindle version are lower)

USA Resources - Other resources players

Linda Blondheim -  a hard-working Florida-based professional artist/teacher who likes to share her experiences of the reality of being an artist.Selling Art Online: Information on Where (and How) to Sell Art on the Internet
​Artists, need help selling art online? EE has tips for how to sell art online, reviews of art-selling websites, and online art marketing advice. Learn what art buyers want, how to price your art, and which online art galleries you should use to succe

Dick Harrison - After 'retiring' to Florida Dick Harrison an art rep experienced in art marketing - selling to selling art mainly to Interior Designers, Architects and galleries throughout Florida.
  • Sales Tips for Artists - Age 84, he created a website that shares his knowledge about selling art via free podcasts / talkcasts - it's suggested you may care to contribute.
Sylvia White - a gallerist who has documented various aspects of what it means to be a professional artist - in terms of professional practice. Her site is now getting a little old and dates - but some useful references.

​Christa Cloutier is one of the latest people on the scene

Renee Phillips
​​
Barney Davey

Aletta de Wal

Lori McNee

Blog posts about individual artists

Maggie Stiefvater - two of everything - Maggie Stiefvater tells how she organises her art and art business around her other major responsibility - being a 'stay at home' mum of two young children (Written in 2006 but the advice does not date)

Other sources