Julie T. Chapman - ArtBlog

As promised: negotiating the deal and first sketches.

The deal: I made a written proposal to the oil exec regarding number of paintings, approximate size, and price per each.  The proposal also spelled out my commission process:

• charcoal sketches
• sketch review and approval or changes
• 50% deposit before start of painting
• remaining 50% paid before shipment of painting

He then called me and we talked through it. I have found that occasionally, people who are price insensitive don’t necessarily care about the price being paid - they want to bargain for some sort of discount. I suspect there’s some sort of satisfaction in knowing they didn’t have to pay full price. Live and learn, and make your initial price proposals accordingly.

Another aspect of this concerns the gallery and its split on the deal. Since the collector found me through one of my galleries, I feel it is necessary to give the gallery its normal commission split. Collectors who are working directly with the artist may try to find out what this commission split is, and then ask for that much of a discount “since the gallery isn’t in on the deal”. It’s happened to me before and will no doubt happen again; but I will not cut deals behind the gallery’s back, nor will I fail to give the gallery its split. My gallery dealers are my business partners.

We are now in the stage of initial sketches for one of the paintings. I created several different compositions (different horses, angles, action - one is shown above) and the family has made requests for minor changes to compare versions of the sketches. We’ll see where it goes from here!

Well, I’m home and starting to catch up on sleep from Fall Arts Festival in Jackson Hole. This is my mega-networking-socializing blowout each year - boozing, schmoozing, and precious little sleep.

The economic downturn does seem to be affecting gallery sales a bit, but it’s uneven. The crowd, and bidding, at the Quickdraw were large and enthusiastic, and many things went for above retail (including mine, whew). The JH Art Auction, which took place on Saturday afternoon and included a lot of deceased art, did fairly well (from the one update I heard mid-afternoon), with the biggies going for big prices (eg, Howard Terpning’s piece selling for $750K). However, the Western Visions show at the museum didn’t sell as many pieces as usual (again, hearsay).

Fall Arts is an invaluable opportunity to yak with other artists about business - I encourage anyone who is working in western/wildlife representational, and serious about her career, to come to JH at this time of year to hang out with the many well-known artists and ask questions.

OK, enough about “I brushed my teeth last week” and on to the Big Commission (B.C.).

Last winter, an oil exec saw my work in Legacy Gallery (thank you, Legacy!) and contacted me about a commission of his barrel-racing daughters. I followed up, didn’t hear from him, forgot about it. He called me again in June to ask about dates when I could come visit, I followed up, didn’t hear from him, forgot about it. (There’s a lesson I could stand to learn here about being persistent in my follow-up…a true salesperson would probably cringe at my lack of follow-through!).

He called again in late August and wanted me to come visit within a week due to the departure of one of the daughters for college; fortunately, my calendar could be cleared, so after he sent an airline ticket I headed off to his beautiful ranch in the northern Rockies (useful tip: always have a valid passport on hand!). Movies have been filmed at his ranch, and in fact a movie crew was setting up while I was there. I spent several days photographing the daughters on their horses, both at the spectacular ranch and at a high-school rodeo, and came home with 800 or so photos to work from. The daughters were all slender and gorgeous and looked great on their horses.

While at his ranch, I had the entire top floor of a breathtakingly remodeled barn to myself - bar, kitchen with acres of granite, sauna, hot tub, etc. And a limo driver who chauffeured me to and from the ranch/airport (60 miles each way). Sometimes, you gotta suffer for your art.

Next installment: negotiating the deal and first sketches.

OK kids, not much of a blog post this week - I apologize for the “this morning I brushed my teeth” nature of it. I’m off to Jackson, WY for the Fall Arts Festival first thing tomorrow. It’s the usual ridiculously jam-packed schedule, since the National Museum of Wildlife Art schedules the Western Visions artists for Thursday night, Friday morning, and Friday night … and my Jackson gallery, Legacy, is having its “Legacy of Nature” show Friday afternoon … and there’s the Quickdraw breakfast and Quickdraw itself on Saturday morning…

It’s all exhausting beyond belief but also LOADS of fun - lots of drinking and schmoozing with people who like one’s work (good for my fragile ego), as well as incredibly invaluable networking with nationally- and internationally-known artists. Plus it’s damn nice to get out of the studio and stop contemplating my navel.

Somewhere in the few free hours I have in Jackson I try to sneak off for some photography - horses, swans (generally reliable on Flat Creek north of town), bison, moose (I watched a couple bull moose deliberately tear apart a rail fence at Gros Ventre campground one year - most entertaining), and all the spectacular scenery around the Tetons. And in the spare minutes left over I always check out as many of the other galleries in town as I can (and there are rather a few), particularly the ones with a contemporary bent.

In other news: I’m doing more catching up on art history, this time with a library book on Post-Modernism. Since it’s 100% figurative, I’m underwhelmed. I mean, our species is already ludicrously self-centered - an entire generation of artists devoted to anthropocentrism? Yuck.

And in still other news: I have just received my largest commission to date (very exciting), and if there is interest I’ll chronicle what that’s all about as I work my way through it.

Several of you have asked for my take on that weighty and intimidating subject, “How to Approach a Gallery”. So here goes:

1. Have a name like Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keefe, or Howard Terpning.
   Most of the 6 billion of us (give or take) on this planet don’t, so: what distinguishes your art? what sets it apart? craft, technique, subject? What is your 30-second “elevator pitch” about your work? (mine is “painting today’s Wild West - wildlife, horses, rodeo - with a contemporary flair”)
2. Have a professional set of business materials
   …including website (required!), bio, business cards, email address (skip the “cutekatz@hotmail.com” sort of thing), and a portfolio (see next)
3. Have a deep portfolio
   …meaning, at least 10 to 20 images that are outstanding and representative of your work and style. These can be on your website, but must be well-presented (professionally photographed, cropped, and edited) and ready to email or print out. I use Photoshop day in and day out to prepare my images for web, emailing, CD/exhibition, and print. I also have a setup to photograph my paintings myself (a subject for another blog post!), and I take them to a pro when I want super high-res (eg, 100 MB) photos shot with a large-format digital back. (These are necessary for licensing use, and high-res digital backs cost thou$and$).
4. Have a ‘gallery attack plan’
   Which galleries are you going to submit to? Why?
   Have you visited them?
   Will your work (a) fit and (b) complement what is already there? Can you articulate this?
   Have you called to ask for their submission protocol?
5. Consider ‘networking’ into a gallery
   Do you know artists who already show there?
   Do you have collectors who patronize the gallery who can speak on your behalf?

OK, so this is an incredibly superficial look at approaching a gallery. There are plenty of books that deal with this in necessary depth (Cay Lang’s “Taking the Leap” comes to mind) and I heartily recommend you utilize those.

For those who wanted to know how I go about doing it…it’s confession time: all the galleries I’m in called me first. My dealers saw my work in magazines or at exhibitions and followed up. I owe a lot of this to the exposure I received from being in the Arts for the Parks Top 100 four times, and I admit to sadness that AFTP is no more - it was a great venue for unknown artists (yours truly).

Once you get into a gallery or two, it becomes easier to approach other galleries: you have credibility (hopefully) from having dealt with your existing galleries in a professional manner and with integrity. (Hot tip: never, EVER do an end-run around a gallery. In my workshops, I tell stories I’ve heard from dealers about this. They find out).

My most recent gallery switch came when the gallery I was with in a certain town clearly was not enamored of the direction my work was going. I considered my other options in that town - a location I wanted very much to remain in - and decided Gallery A might be a good fit. I know artists who show there, talked to them about joining Gallery A, and one of those artists (a well-known and superb painter) even ‘greased the skids’ with Gallery A’s dealer for me. Before I approached Gallery A, however, I called up a collector of mine who had also done a dynamite job selling my work in a short stint with a Whitefish gallery, and asked for his recommendations on approaching Gallery A. He listened to my story, gave me excellent advice, then asked me to hold off on approaching Gallery A.

Two weeks later he called to offer me a chance to show with Gallery B - a gallery I’d dreamed of being with for years! This collector of mine was the new manager at Gallery B and wanted me there (but couldn’t tell me until it was announced publicly…though I had an inkling). So I ended up not going with Gallery A…but would recommend a similar approach to any gallery.

And finally (kudos if you’ve actually read this far!) … not everyone’s work / style fits the ‘gallery model’. Be honest about yours. Would it do better if you sold it yourself at art fairs and festivals? or if you licensed or self-licensed it on clothing or cards? or via direct sales from a website, friends, family? The digital age offers us far more opportunities to sell our work than existed even 10 years ago - use them!

Any of you ever find yourself in a place where you have loads of painting ideas, but the quantity of them almost paralyzes you? I have tons of good material, lots of sketches for paintings, yet I’m getting into this self-critical mode in which nothing is quite right, or perhaps I worry that it won’t turn out as well as the idea. (NO painting ever quite measures up to the idea, BTW - but some transcend it, which is always a joyful occasion).

And speaking of ideas…I’m in a pensive mood at the moment (no doubt due to the above) and, while I have topics to blog about, none of ‘em is floatin’ my boat right now.

SO - this is your chance, dear readers, to tell me what you’d like to see me post about. It’s wide open - go for it.