5 Tips For Hanging Your First Art Show

I've hung so many art shows over the 22 years since my first art show and have stressed out way more than I should have. I have made plenty of mistakes from artwork falling off the wall, missing sales, to missing pieces. Hopefully this article can help you relive some stress that you are probably experiencing having to hang your first few art shows. Wether its in a group gallery show, a coffee shop or a gallery, these 5 tips should really help you do it right without making the mistakes I have made. Luckily We are artists, not doctors, so the mistakes we make really only bruise our delicate artsy egos. 

5 Tips For Hanging Your Artwork On Display

TIP #1

YOU NEED TO HAVE YOUR ARTWORK READY TO HANG

You want to have your art work ready to hang, not the night before. You want to have this done as far in advance as possible because you're going to have other stuff to do. Something else always come up. Finish your art, be done with creativity, so you can focus on the rest of the installation and selling your most recent body of artwork. 

Know all the tools you will need, What type of surface you will be nailing or screwing into. Have everything you need and more. Even if I used a power drill I always bring a hand drill just incase a battery and back up battery die. If the wall is concrete you will need a concrete drill bit, and probably 2 because they seem to break a lot.

Try a test hang at home with your art. What is the distance from the hanging wire to the top of the frame. Have this data ahead of time so you don't have to figure it out on the spot. The less time you have to spend hanging the more time you will have to chat with other artist, fans of your work, the people who may be talking or selling your art. Have everything sorted out ahead of time before you go into hang your artwork. You don't want to be the one artist at the art show that can't figure out how to hang their art. Practice, think about what you need. Have a small bag with the tools you will need.

If you're in a coffee shop where there might be other people around watching, you will want to be as prepared as possible, which will make this stressful experience less stressful.

I'm always stressed and I'm going in to hang stuff. So I try to be super prepared no matter no matter where it is, that way when you're doing it, you don't have to worry about anything else. How high from the floor to my hanger so my artwork will be at a certain hight. How far left and right does the piece need to be 6" from the wall or other art. Figure this stuff out.

You just go in, execute the task and then you can leave. Being prepared is having your pieces ready, finished, done and looking good. You're better off putting four pieces on the wall that look really good, then putting eight pieces on the wall and having four of them or half of them not be that great.

Your art work needs to be signed, Ready to hang, Title and signature on the back. Nothing else needs to be done. The Art work has to be able to be taken off the wall and into the collectors hands. 

Put your best foot forward. You want to show your best work, you're going to have a lot more interest in your work when all the pieces look really good and coherent versus having twice as many pieces. When you're getting your body of work together for your first show, it's okay to have a little space between your pieces. They don't need to be stacked and full, just have your best work showing. 

TIP #2  

GO EARLY OR GO IN THE OFF HOURS

 If you're going to an art show for your first art show, be there as soon as you're allowed to hang.

You have no idea what the wall's going to be like, how it's going to go. So give yourself as much time as possible while you're there. Don't show up 20 minutes before they're shutting down. How you approach hanging your art is how others will you your professionalism as an artist. If you don’t know what you’re doing hanging in a group show you might get lucky and have someone help but don’t count on it. every artist there is nervous and stressed trying to hang their art. Go as early as you can. You will probably forget something on your list. You want to have as much time as possible and if you get it done in 15 minutes, that's great. You don't have to stress out about it anymore.

So go early. 

If you're doing a coffee shop or a restaurant or something like that, go in the off hours. It's so important to do this. It's going to take forever, you might have to move tables, someone who is on the clock will want to talk about their art or their grandma's art.  I understand it may be inconvenient to you to have to work around the schedule of someone else, but it is a privilege to show your art in most establishments. Don't get in the way, don't make a mess. Don’t be a nuisance to paying customers.

So go in off hours if you can or go super early. 

TIP #3 

HAVE YOUR NAME AND INFORMATION CLEARLY VISIBLE

Have your name on your artwork. That's you'd be surprised how many times I've seen artwork where you just can't see the name or you can't read it. If your name on your artwork is on there but hard to read, the art collector is going to have a hard time seeing your signature and correlate to a website or what to search for when they go back home. My signature is in all caps block letters. Easy to read and google. At first I had a fancy signature but no one could read it so I had to change it. No big deal, easy change to make sure people know who made the artwork.

Make a little aluminum plaque, you can get them printed. Big enough font to read from a short distance with your contact information, website, instagram etc.. It doesn't need to be much.

You can always do this in a printed up on 8 x 10 piece of paper and put that in a frame. But aluminum prints work really well and they're really cheap, so have your name visible so people can find you and access you and your contact information.

TIP #4 

SELLING AND PRICING YOUR ARTWORK

If you want to sell your pieces in a coffee shop, it's really important to have the price of your artwork visible. So you either need to have like a little sticker on the side that will say $150 or whatever. Don't do a Red sticker, generally red means sold. Maybe do your stickers in white so they blend in the wall. 

Another way you can price your artwork is one piece of paper or plaque like a menu. 

If the place doesn't want you to have stickers on the wall with prices on it, which is totally understandable, you can do a menu where this could go on your plaque or a piece of paper printed up. It can have little images of all the artwork, titles and prices. 

 This way you don't have to have a bunch of stuff up on the wall, stickers and stuff, but people can still see what the prices are and be able to purchase your artwork that way.

TIP #5

KNOW HOW THE SALES TRANSACTION WILL GO THROUGH

How is the sale going to go down of your artwork. If it's just a show where it's a group show, no one selling anything, then you don't really need to worry about it. Maybe you just stand there and try and sell it yourself. Every show is different, so make sure you will know how the sale will go down.

If you're doing your artwork in a coffee shop, a store or a little restaurant, you want to be able to speak to someone like the cashier that is going to be taking the money. Have an envelope for them with your name and number and a list of the artwork on display with prices so they can cross it off the list. Oftentimes people want to buy it right then and there. So you need to make it a seamless process.

If you have a relationship with the people that work there, the owners, employees, whatever it is, that is a good thing. You can have the art collector pay for the artwork at the register and then you go and collect your money later. This is why you want to hang your art efficiently so you have more time to discuss the sales transaction with the people who will be present making the sales. Everyone needs to be on the same page of how the sales transaction is going to go down that way there is no confusion. 

Makes it easy for the person who goes in, sees it and thinks, I love that. I want to buy that. They ask the person in the counter, Hey, how do I buy this artwork? And they go, Oh, you can pay for it right here and take it off the wall. 

In Conclusion

Be as professional as you can be. Plan ahead. Something will always not wrong so hope for the best, plan for the worst. I got my start in a coffee shops and group art shows. They are a great way to get practice and confidence showing your artwork to the world. Unfortunately, these shows and shops to hang artwork usually have beginner artist showing their work, and in the beginning it's easy to make mistakes. Making mistakes at these venues may result in them not asking you back. You don't want this to happen. You want to be invited back to the group art show, or to stay on the wall in the coffee shop permanently. This will only happen by being as professional as you can. And always, clean up after your art install. Leave the area cleaner than when you got there. 

Get out there and show your work!

Stay inspired,

Aloha 

Welzie

How To Price Your Artwork And When To Raise Prices

So I get asked this question a lot, "How much should I sell my artwork for? and When should I raise my prices?" Now, this is a pretty tricky little topic, but I think for beginners this article might really help you out and get you through the first couple of years when trying to sell your artwork and for how much. These are 12 things to consider about the prices of your art and when and how to raise prices. 

MAKE A QUALITY ART PRODUCT 

UNDERSTAND THE COST TO MAKE YOUR ART

HOW MUCH EXPOSURE YOU HAVE CREATED

HOW MANY ART PIECES YOU MAKE AND SHOW

YOUR AUDIENCE DETERMINES YOUR PRICES

RAISE YOUR PRICES EVERY YEAR

YOU CAN ALWAYS RAISE PRICES BUT NEVER LOWER PRICES

OK TO BE A STARVING ARTIST... FOR A LITTLE BIT

SHOW YOUR COLLECTORS WHY YOUR PRICES ARE GOING UP

PRICE YOUR ART TO BE ABLE TO BE IN AN ART GALLERY

ITS NOT YOUR MONEY 

ADDING PRINTS AND REPRODUCTIONS

MAKE A QUALITY ART PRODUCT

You can't charge a ton of money for a piece if it's not really finished that well or, it's just kind of in that beginner stage or poor craftsmanship. So, you know, you need to have your name on there, title of the piece written on the back, ready to hang a finished quality, something that you just something that you ran out of time on. This is going to play a big role in what the buyer is going to see and how they're going to value your artwork.

UNDERSTAND THE COST TO MAKE YOUR ART

The cost to make your art is important. If it costs you $100 to make it, you don't want to sell for $80. You also might not be able to sell it for $3,000. So you kind of have to figure out where a little happy medium is. If you spend $50 in paint/materials, selling at $100 is great. Yeah, you might get not that much money for your time, but we're talking about those early steps of getting out there, start establishing prices and figuring out what it costs you to make it and what the collector will pay for it.

For me, my work is really expensive to make and it's very time consuming. So in the beginning when I was charging not very much, maybe $80 for an 18 x 24" original, I was losing money or barely breaking even. But I was able to sell a lot of pieces, gain experience from practicing sales, and getting exposure. I was also getting feedback from collectors, I was able to keep the art business moving forward, even though I was making very little profit. But the knowledge I gained from that time and confidence i got was priceless.

(R) Retail: cost of art online, in galleries, at art markets and festivals

(W) Wholesale: The amount of money the gallery will give you for your art.

(M) Manufacturing Material Cost: How much it costs to make art, cost of materials, studio space, etc

(L) Labor in Hours Making art: How many hours to paint your artwork

(CL) Cost of Labor: Up to you but be real and start as low as possible.

(S) Selling Labor: How much time do you spend on selling your work, art festivals, galleries, online, instagram 

(P) How Much you would like to profit. Its ok to not profit for a little bit while you grow your business. Don't quite your day job

R = W x 2

W = (2M +10%) + (L x CL) + S + P

Use this equation or one like it (I'm not a math expert) to figure out your prices. You will see your retail goes up real quick the more you cost per hour gets as well as when you start having to wholesale to the art galleries.

HOW MUCH EXPOSURE YOU HAVE CREATED

Another thing to consider is how much exposure you've received. If you've gotten articles written about you, if you've done a lot of art shows, if you're showing your artwork in galleries, art festivals, coffee shops etc, all these things help contribute to how much you can sell your art for.

It always goes up in slow steps. So don't think that you got one article you can triple your prices, you really want to inch your way up. How much exposure you have does play in to how much you can charge for your art, but at the end of the day, if you're not selling, your art is bad and or your prices are too high. Slow and steady wins the race. Exposure is great but also be careful. If someone asks you to do a project for free, but the "Exposure will be great for you" I would say that is often not the case. Exposure for you is only good if it can result in sales, traffic to your website, or get new collectors emails.

HOW MANY ART PIECES YOU MAKE AND SHOW

How many pieces do you make?  if you only make one or two pieces a year because you're kind of just a hobbyist, you're going to have a hard time raising your prices, or getting the prices you think you deserve. People want to collect from an artist who is committed to the art game.

The more art pieces you make, the more you're going to be able to show, get feedback on them, sell them. All of this is going to help you raise your prices. If you only make ten pieces total, it can be really hard to charge a lot for them. Make more art. Get more experience. Show more art. Slowly raise your prices.

If you're making hundreds and hundreds of art pieces, it becomes easier to charge higher prices for them. And a lot of it just comes from confidence of having experience, being written up in magazines, doing art shows, selling art, and doing all the stuff that helps give you the confidence to raise your prices. You get more the more you make. The more you make the better you get at it. The better you get at it the more you can charge, the more you charge the more you can spend on making better art. It fuels itself.

YOUR AUDIENCE DETERMINES YOUR PRICES

It's not just how much your artwork cost to make, it's if collectors are buying it. Your audience and the people collecting your work determine how much your artwork is worth. You may think it's worth $10,000 and your mom does too, but that's not what people are willing to spend on your art, at least not yet. The collectors determine how much your art is. If you start selling your artwork at a price point where no one's buying it, then your cost is probably too high. The audience really gives you the feedback of what you're able to charge. That is why you need to get out there and start showing and selling your work. Start low, start humble. Slowly raise your prices when you can t keep your art in stock. Selling out means that you're doing something right. Don't raise your prices the second you sell out. Be busy, stay busy, get over whelmed with too much demand. Be back ordered for 6 months to a year. Then raise your prices 10% then stay busy for 6 months then raise them again 10%. Slow and steady if you are busy.

RAISE YOUR PRICES EVERY YEAR

I generally raise my prices every year. Every six months we kind of increment our way up to higher prices. Now you don't have to double or triple your artwork price every time. Doing small increments along the way can help you get confidence and raising prices your prices at a steady rate like 5% or 10% is a safe number that wont discourage collectors. Try 10$, try 25$ a little bit can make all the difference. Now you can buy that expensive brush, or buy 2 canvases for everyone you sell. Every penny helps move the needle forward.

YOU CAN ALWAYS RAISE PRICES BUT NEVER LOWER PRICES

You always can raise your prices, but it's really difficult to lower your prices. Spend a year not making much money on your artwork, but able to grow from there, versus trying to come in hot and being like, "This piece is $700", but no one buys it. Then next time you're at a show, you're like, "This is $600" and then no one buys it or the people that are looking at your work and having interest but your prices going down. This is not a good sign in my opinion.

I think you should start low, sell your artwork, get it moving, get practice selling it, get practice with the collector, closing the sale, doing all that and then you can raise your prices. People often overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in ten years. So don't think of this as a short term thing. If you want to be a professional artist, you're going to be doing this the rest of your life.

OK TO BE A STARVING ARTIST... FOR A LITTLE BIT

It's okay to spend a year in that sort of starving artist situation, but remember, that's just a phase of being an artist, and it's usually in the very beginning when you're figuring out how much to sell your artwork and you might not be making very much money or just breaking even. But you can grow from there. The more artwork you do, the more shows you do, the better you're going to get at it. Don't let the starving artist persona define you. People want to see their favorite up and coming artist succeed. They will be happy for your success because it will confirm what they believed. That you are a talented artist and they made the right choice in rooting for you.

SHOW YOUR COLLECTORS WHY YOUR PRICES ARE GOING UP

It's going to be hard for collectors to see the value in new higher prices if you don't improve. Always be improving your work, getting better at it, making a better product for collectors and the art galleries. If your art is improving, getting better, quality is going up, more exposure, better art booths, your confidence is growing, you are becoming a better all around artist, the collectors who have been watching you will take notice and see the value in your art prices increasing.

PRICE YOUR ART TO BE ABLE TO BE IN AN ART GALLERY

Art galleries generally take around 50% of the total sale. So if you get into an art gallery, you will want to raise your prices up. And you also don't want to compete with the gallery, you don't want to go to an art festival or art market and sell your prices at wholesale, or less than the art gallery is selling them for. If you do, you're going to burn that bridge real quick with the art gallery and probably not get into any other art galleries in that area, why? because all the art galleries talk to each other. It's a small art community, so play it safe. be cool, the only person who is going to get short changed is you.

You'll have to sell all you artwork at. the same retail price as the art gallery, no matter where your art is, even online. Getting into galleries is a good way to help you raise your prices and help you gain more confidence when you're selling at those higher prices.

Now, you won't be making the retail price of  $300 out of the gallery, you'll be making $150 from the gallery. So it' might be a little pay cut from what you're used to making at the art markets, but you're in a good position to grow and start raising your prices. Now more people will see your art and getting more collectors interested in your work.

ITS NOT YOUR MONEY 

When you are pricing your artwork, it's important to price your artwork in a way that it doesn't deter people from buying it. Remember that it's your not your money that's being spent. Often when you're starting out as an artist, you're often pretty broke. So $500 can seem like a fortune to you. But for someone else who owns their home and has a steady income and they want it, art makes them happy and they love looking at it on the wall. $500 isn't that much. Remember it's not your money that is being spent on your artwork. Collectors have a different relationship with money than you do. 

A good way to price artwork is going to Art Fair and look around and see what other artists are charging. If you're going to go do an art festival, it's great to have seen that art festival before. Find out the prices of other people. Try to figure out where you sit in as a new artist. It's it's really good to have an understanding of what people are selling around you. It's going to give you a really good baseline of where you should start out. It's okay to go to your first show and sell your artwork for rock bottom prices and sell out your work. You're going to be so stoked.

Yeah, you might just break even, but when you're a beginning artist it is a huge win. It is going to give you confidence and motivation to keep going and to get better at it and work on it and make more artwork.

ADDING PRINTS AND REPRODUCTIONS

Adding reproductions to your your line of artwork is a great way to increase how much money you're making. Start raising your prices is when you have another product to come in behind it and help support those lower, more affordable price points. If you start selling matted prints, you can raise you original prices. If you add aluminum or canvas giclee, you can raise your originals. It’s great to have artwork in all the price points for collectors to become fans no matter what their budget is.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you dedicate yourself and work your butt off and get out there and start showing your work, start low, work your way up, you'll be as surprised of what you can achieve. And it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in a year. It takes a couple of years to get to a point where you're starting to be confident in your shows. But you have to start somewhere. Start now, find out the closest and cheapest art craft fair, art market you can get into and sign up. You’d be amazed how quickly you can go from your first art fair to making $50,000 a year selling your artwork. 

If you dedicate yourself and have a lot of discipline in how you approach your shows, your artwork and just learning about the business in general, you're going to find that it goes really quick. Be prepared for that. It's super fun and I wish you the most of luck.

For more information about becoming a professional artist check out my website  Welzie Art

What its Like Being an Artist on Maui

What Its Like to be an Artist on Maui

Maui is a magical place where artist from all over the world come to visit and absorb the inspirational and creative energy. The Valley Isle offers everything a creative person needs to express theirselves through art. You will find every type of fine artist here on Maui from painters of all mediums, like myself, ceramics, glass, muralists, wood, traditional Hawaiian mediums, sculpture, photographers, reclaimed art, and so much more. 

I want to dive into what its like to be an artist here on Maui and why so many artists choose Maui as their place of creativity and refuge. For myself, being an artist here on Maui is a relatively new experience. I spent all of my professional art career on Oahu, Hawaii, where I went to UH Manoa, started out in the art markets and developed my career with other amazing Oahu artists. In 2010 I had my first experience showing my work here on Maui and got a little glimpse into the Maui Art world. Read more about that experience here. 

In June of 2019 we opened our first Maui art gallery at the Andaz Resort Wailea, The Welzie Art Gallery. This was a giant step for me as an artist and changed the course of my art career. After 3 months of being here on Maui, my wife and I fell in love with the slower pace and the bustling art scene. Running our gallery from Oahu just didn’t seem like the way to go. Once we found a warehouse space to create my studio, We were ready to make the move to an outer island.

Its been 4 years since making the transition to Maui and I have come to realize Maui is an amazing place to be an artist. 

Here are my 5 Reasons Why Being an Artist on Maui is Amazing

Reason 1

 The pace of Maui is slow, which makes everything not stressful, but at the same time it is not so slow that time seems to stand still. For me, I need a little tempo to life and Maui Has the perfect balance. Its so convenient to be able to get to all the art stores, hardware stores, galleries and everything you need all within a short 20 min drive. With no traffic. The mellow pace of the island just reinforces a mellow and happy artist, which is exactly what I need to create my happy art.

Reason 2

There are so many galleries on the island with so many towns being little creative hot spots. This is great for any artist because it allows them to show their work in multiple areas close to home. 

Hana, which is out on the east side of the island is very secluded and lush, where you will find the artists who need to get away from it all and create in their own little jungle world.

Paia is the small surf town on Maui’s north shore where you will find the surfing artist from all over the world who balance their creativity with their passion for riding waves in the world class surf surrounding the area. Yogis and hippies help contribute to the art scene in Paia, giving the area a very rootsy vibe.

Wailuku is getting brighter and brighter everyday as the small town nestled around Iao valley has created Small Town Big Art, an organized effort to seeing the community grow through art installations and outreach. STBA brings artist from around the islands and around the world to show their work and inspire the local community.

South Maui, where my studio and art gallery are, seems to be quickly becoming a major arts center on the island. In Kihei near my studio you will find artist, photographers, framers and creators starting to gather. There are now over 5 art galleries in South Maui, as well as a 3rd Friday event which shows artist works. The Four Seasons has artists showing their work daily in the lobby, The Andaz Wailea has created the Artist in Residence Program where I am the resident artist (I don’t live on site) It’s safe to say South Maui is definitely becoming another strong art hub in the Maui art community.

Makawow/Upcountry

In this upcountry town you will find a handfull of galleries with a country vibe. Nestled on the slopes of Haleakala, you can look out over the island while wearing a jacket and cowboy boots. You will find beautiful landscape painters such as Jordanne Gallery and others. It's such a different vibe up on the mountain and is a great example of the diversity in culture on Maui.

Lahaina,

The art Mecca of the Hawaiian islands, The gathering place for all Hawaii artists. With so many galleries and art culture in Lahaina, its hard to say there is a more artsy town than Lahaina. As Lahaina rebuilds I think and hope that all of us Maui artists know how important it will be to make sure the art scene of Lahaina town comes back and shows more local artists than ever before.

Reason 3

Like all the Hawaiian islands Maui is absolutely beautiful. If you’re an artist that gets a recharge from nature and getting away from it all, then Maui is like a constant reset button. Jumping into the clear, warm blue waters or looking out over the edge of a massive cliff on a hike, Maui can recharge your soul every single day. For myself as a creator, the ocean has always been a big source of inspiration. A good surf, snorkel or ocean swim would always get me in the right head space to create something happy and fun in the art studio.

Reason 4

Now this may be a controversial topic but one of the reasons why Maui is great to be an artist isa because so many people come to visit Maui every year and Maui is known for its art culture. As an artist you always want more people to see your artwork, and having new people come and visit every week allows for the artist to spend more time creating artwork and less time having to travel around showing their work. It is more like a “If you build it they will come” mentality. We as Maui artist get to make what we want to make then have the ability to show it to lots of new people right on our door step.

Reason 5

Maui has so many programs embedded into the Maui community to help facilitate the Arts. For example the Maui Arts and Cultural Center that shows artwork, theater and music. The Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center in Makawow which has art programs and gallery space. Maui Open Studios which organizes Maui artist to open their studios for art collectors to visit their creative space. Small Town Big Art, which I have mentioned before that brings artists of all kinds from all over the world to help bring creativity and inspiration to the Wailuku area. Maui truly is truly an art island paradise.

There are so many reason why Maui is an amazing place to be an artist. For myself, anywhere in the Hawaiian islands is an amazing place to be an artist. Hawaii breaths energy and mana and for someone who needs some creative energy, Hawaii is the place to thrive. Any artist in Hawaii with the ability to make a living here is truly fortunate. I am so fortunate to call Maui my home and to be a part of this Maui Art Community.

Aloha,

Welzie