The Attraction Model vs. The Promotional Model:
Selling One's Work in the Fine Visual Arts

By Robert Wittig

There are all sorts of high-flown theories on 'Art' (with a capital 'A') that relegate earning money to a 'non-Art' issue ... something not to be considered in the list of motivating factors, where producing work in the fine visual arts is concerned. However, unless an entry-level painter (or 'artist', if you prefer) is independently wealthy ... if they want to paint full time, then sooner than later, the issue of how they turn what they produce into cash, is going to become a matter of major importance, because of the existence of Bills. (with a capital 'B')

One can divide the means available for accomplishing this task into two general categories ... the Promotional Model, in which one promotes one's work, and the Attraction Model, in which one allows one's work to attract clients. Everyone is probably already familiar with the Promotional Model, because it is the basis for most of the free enterprise system, and the base concept for all advertising ... get the 'word' out on what you have to sell, and people will beat a path to your door.

The Attraction Model, on the other hand, while a lot of people do use it in various forms, receives for obvious reasons (heh), a lot less press. A traditional implementation of the Attraction Model, is 'word of mouth' ... where one person tells another, who then tells another, who tells another ... The method I am going to focus on explaining in this essay, is an 'Internet version' of this idea, which I am working on developing for my own use, and which, like all ideas, deserves to be shared. I am not suggesting, however, that the Attraction Model alone would be sufficient, to sell one's work. I am suggesting that the Internet is a somewhat different place than the Brick and Mortar world, with a somewhat different audience, and the best way to connect with that audience might therefore be somewhat different than the 'tried and true' promotional methods in common use, in the advertising field.

The Approach

After I had been painting for a few years, and could see that my work was (in my opinion) as good as or better than much of the stuff I saw in galleries, I decided to try selling my work. First, I tried selling at a local yearly art fair ... a lot of people liked my work, which was encouraging, but no one bought anything in the 5 shows I participated in, except for a few small sketches, and a single painting, which was purchased by my sister, who probably would have purchased from me with or without the show.

Next, I tried approaching some galleries, by both writing to them, and visiting them, to inquire if they were interested in reviewing my portfolio. Those I wrote, never replied, and those I queried in person, were not interested in reviewing my portfolio ... they all indicated that they already had more painters than they knew what to do with.

Next, I tried making cold calls at galleries, with my portfolio in hand, figuring that people who might say they were not interested when queried, might muster up enough interest to peek in a portfolio on the spur of the moment. This succeeded once, in getting a person to look ... who was then not interested. It also succeeded in getting me thrown out of a few galleries, in addition to finding out that almost no one was even the least bit curious to see my portfolio, under any circumstances.

Next, I went on-line, and discovered that galleries don't respond to email queries any better than they do written queries. I eventually got my work accepted by two on-line galleries ... the kind that do not have brick and mortar locations backing them up, but after one year, one of the galleries had closed, and no sales whatsoever had resulted from either, so I withdrew from the remaining gallery, and built my own website. I figured that I might as well begin to take matters completely into my own hands. There was nothing I could possibly do, that could result in fewer sales than I was making, trying the traditional methods of galleries and art fairs.

I did not really consider any of this as failure. I am a firm believer in the attitude expressed by Thomas Edison, after many failed attempts to make a working lightbulb ... I had succeeded in identifying a number of ways not to sell my work... putting me that much closer to finding a way that would work.

The Idea

Building a website is a form of promotion in itself, but I really did not have the kind of money that is usually required to formally promote a website after it is built, with banner ads, etc. ... the virtual versions of magazine, newspaper and TV ads. Putting a website on-line, in and of itself is a very passive form of promotion ... almost not promotion at all. If people find the website at all ... the odds of which are, in the beginning, astronomically small, given the number of websites on-line ... then the possibility exists, if those people are impressed enough with what they have found, for them to tell their friends. If this happens, then the very beginning of the 'word of mouth' phenomenon has been initiated.

Once the website was finished, it received very little traffic, and listing it manually with the major search engines made no noticeable difference. Not realising the future impact these actions would have, I did two significant things ... first, I joined a few fine arts-related email lists and newsgroups, to see what other on-line painters were doing, and second, I added my website's URL to my email signature line (the latter being a fairly passive form of promotion). It turned out that other on-line painters weren't doing much of anything, except sitting around complaining that the Internet was an even worse place for selling art than the gallery scene, and engaging in huge arguments, over which 'ism' in Art (with a capital 'A') was the one, true Religion (with a capital 'R'). Heh. Maybe I joined the wrong groups.

The thing that was significant about joining the email lists and newsgroups was not to come from group participation directly. What I did not realise at the time, was that the same webcrawlers that indexed websites, also indexed posts to many email lists, and newsgroups. Later on, all those URLs I had included in my signature lines, would act as links to my site ... accessible not only by people on the lists, but by anyone who ran a web search using terms that were included in any of my posts, or the posts in the thread I was responding to. Of course, in order for this kind of web presence to be an asset, instead of a liability ... the content one has posted must resonate well enough with future readers, to impress them positively, as opposed to impressing them negatively. Under these kind of Internet circumstances, the adage 'any publicity is good publicity' is definitely not the case ... unless one thinks that idiots can help one's cause. Gradually, over a time span of several years, I began to be recognised as an expert of sorts, in my fields (painting and fine art theory/criticism), and also fairly useful, as a person who knew his way around the Internet.

I started a newsletter on my website a few months after the site was up. Email is a powerful tool, if used well, or a terrible liability, if used poorly. I had by this time come to absolutely despise spam, and I especially detested ArtSpam, sent out by irresponsible art-related entities, and even a few artists. I decided to publish a free newsletter, that anyone could receive, just for the asking ... if you didn't ask, I wasn't going to send it to you, and if you asked to stop receiving it, I would immediately remove your name from the mailing list. The first three months, there was no one on the mailing list except myself. During that dead period, I realised it might be a fair idea to add an HTML version of each newsletter to my website, so people could sample the wares, before opting in. Very slowly my circulation began to grow.

In the spring of 2002, with only a handful of sales to my credit, the idea crossed my mind that perhaps I might be able to sell off some of my older work on eBay, where I was already bringing in a few dollars selling junk (oops, I mean collectibles, and objêts d'art) rescued from the trash, or one of the local resale shops. Once again, this is promotion, but I was careful to craft my auctions so that they adhered to the ethic that I added about the same time to my email signature line ...' A business is as honest as its advertising.' I was interested in having people buy my paintings, for certain, but not at the personal cost of compromising what I was hoping the paintings themselves expressed ... an honest take on what I see, and what I feel about what I see.

This had a very powerful effect on my sales, and on my Internet exposure. Following eBay rules, I was permitted to have a link to my website on my eBay 'About Me' page, but not on the auction pages themselves. This suited me fine, because the kind of client that I was interested in attracting to my website, was the kind of person who was interested enough in what they saw in the auction, to follow the links ... Auction ... About Me page ... Website. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the people who are not interested enough to follow the links ... far from it. They may be super people ... they are simply not interested enough in what they have seen, to follow the links. At this point, the Internet, which is providing me with the makings of a client base, is also providing me with a filter, so that only those people most inclined to become collectors of my work, make the trip to the website. Such a filter is a good idea, for potential collectors, as well as for myself. Because my paintings are not objects of mass production, there will only be ... no matter how fast I paint ... only a tiny number of paintings produced in my lifetime, as compared with the total number of potential collectors available, world 'round, for the work. It is better for everyone, if the work goes to those individuals who are the most interested in having it. I figure that every painting I produce is probably 'right' for at least one person. It makes no sense, to sell the 'right' painting, to the 'wrong' person.

I realised that what I actually wanted was not a lot of clients, but enough clients to support my work, and also, the right kind of clients ... ones who are naturally attracted to my work, and pleased to own it. This sort of arrangement, as nearly as it can be achieved, is best for both painter and collector.

At the beginning of 2003, I finally achieved something I had stopped seeking, several years before ... brick and mortar gallery representation. I did not accomplish this by trying ... I was just going about my usual business, painting and selling my work, writing articles, posting to my lists, and studying, when an art dealer who lives over half a continent away from me in the brick and mortar world, joined a list I post to, spotted my URL on one of my posts, visited my website, liked what he saw, and asked me if I would be interested in having his gallery sell my work. Heh! Naturally, I said yes.

It appears that a new breed of Brick and Mortar dealers are appearing, who use the Internet to look for work that they would like to sell. This seems to me, to be a very good idea. Not only does it benefit me ... assuming that he can actually sell my work ... but it benefits the dealers as well, because they get to approach those Internet painters whose work they can put their hearts into selling, knowing pretty well, that they are going to get a 'yes' (at least for the next few years) ... because a big part of the reason that Internet painters are on-line, is that they were not succeeding all that well in finding representation through the traditional method, of approaching galleries. Some of the fine art community appears to be adjusting to the realities that the Internet poses, and taking advantage of the opportunities that it presents.

Summation

The Internet has given the painter tools with which to attract and maintain a client base large enough to support their work ... if the work merits support, according to even a tiny percentage of the people who view it. The world Internet population is huge, and growing every day. For people like painters, who produce something that cannot be mass produced, or mass marketed, and that appeals to a significant percentage of the Internet demographic, the Internet has already 'arrived', as a replacement, or at least an important adjunct to ... the 'gallery scene'.

As the Internet continues to grow, and the hardware and software that support it become more image friendly, I would expect the 'word' to get out, through the magic of 'word of mouth', at a gradually increasing rate. 'Internet Arithmetic' will play a part in how this virtual 'word of mouth' spreads. Traditional word of mouth is spread exclusively by human beings. The Internet is much more efficient ... it never sleeps, it never gets tired, it never forgets ... the webcrawlers are out indexing billions of pages ... terabytes of information, endlessly. Word of mouth, Internet style, is epitomised by Google. According to a complicated set of constantly updated algorithms, search terms bring up results for the searcher, based not on what a single individual thinks, but on what a global demographic thinks. So far, 'the fix' is not in, on any of the major search engines. Many people try to manipulate the search results, but as soon as they find a way that works, the algorithms are updated, to defeat the new trick. It is unlikely that any large corporation or even country will have the power to 'tilt' a search engine, because the technology is international, and there are too many cooks stirring the pot, to ever agree on which 'fix' is the right one. Besides, there are many search engines, and the Internet public is fickle ... if one search engine gives better results than another ... according to what the individual wants, people will abandon the engine that doesn't work for them, for the one that does.

It is my opinion that a painter in the fine arts, working on the Internet, will find the Attraction Model to be a useful tool, when used in conjunction with some of the less offensive elements of the Promotional Model, where selling work is concerned. The Internet affords a much larger potential audience, when used properly, than a fixed-location gallery can. Also, attraction provides additional benefits to the painter, in that it requires less cost, and very little effort, and delivers a self-selected (filtered) client and dealer base, who have chosen the painter, rather than the painter having to try and guess, which demographic to target.

After-Word
January 31, 2003

The paper above was written on January 12, 2003. Within days of my posting the paper, the dealer who I had formed an association with and I, terminated out relationship. Once the fellow had my paintings in his possession, he began to use his new position to 'leverage' our relationship, for his own purposes, which seemed to have more to do with power and control, than a healthy business relationship. I decided I wanted no part of this 'new reality', and opted out of the business venture, and he returned my paintings to me, shortly thereafter.

Dealers who own brick and mortar galleries might be well advised to approach long-distance relationships with on-line, self-representing painters and artists, a little differently than they might have become accustomed to, for various reasons ... most significant, the fact that the relationship is long distance, and the painter is in all liklihood (as was my situation) sending unsecured work to someone thousands of miles away, who they have never met personally ... a financial arrangement that leaves the painter at financial risk, if the dealer turns out to be irresponsible. Also, on-line, self-representing painters are probably by nature, a more independent, and self-sufficient lot to begin with ... if they weren't, they would still be going from gallery to gallery, jumping through hoops to get their work shown.

I still believe that the possibilities exist, for dealer-painter relationships to be formed in an on-line environment. I will just make sure that I know better, who I am dealing with, before I ship them any paintings, in the future.