Well, I’ve finally gotten up the works on paper gallery, with actual lithos and serigraphs offered for sale, mostly made in 1987, the lithos on one of our antique printing presses, the other created in silkscreen, also known as serigraphs.
The serigraphs used to sell very high, but I reduced the prices so that all the vintage prints would be at the same price, $375.00 retail.
Of course, you get a discount — a very big discount — allowing you to easily resell them at below retail, giving your customers an edge as well.
You can ask about your special discount prices when we’re in a zoom class. The prices are VERY low, to encourage your participation in the project.
So if the gallery is your social face, how do you present yourself? Does your gallery show competence? Does it indicate artistic taste? What does it FEEL like to wander through your gallery?
It has nothing to do with the pieces that are for sale. It has everything to do with the FEEL of the gallery, period. After that, everything is easy.
So how did you COMPOSE your gallery? Does it feel comfortable and competent? Do you get the idea that these pieces are so terrific that they belong in a museum?
If not, it won’t feel competent.
I’ve mentioned competence thrice now, and I intend to give it my full attention here. You have to show yourself to be a competent and successful art dealer, and you only have your gallery with which to show it.
So what DOES it feel like to be in there?
It will feel comfortable and easy, if you’ve done your job rightly.
At least that’s what happens when you’re competent, and competence only comes with experience personally experienced, which is what you’re doing with this exercise, personally experiencing what it’s like to create an art gallery, where people come to exercise their higher emotions and aesthetics.
Either that, or they’re after the latest money dodge, but we won’t get into that, because we’re not interested in dodges of any kind, even a Dart.
The pieces in this show posted above are relatively sized in order to give the impression that they’re rather small, which they are, outside of the mat and frame.
Framed up, they’ll have mat board around the print, around 3″ or more all the way around, and the frame can be anything from a simple black, white or raw wood plain frame to a richly carved gilded frame, to go along with the furniture in the room.
That’s right, a painting on the wall counts as furniture, and it is a statement of the artistic taste of the household, meaning you.
Now, larger pieces would be better if you’re building a zoom room, but if you’re living somewhat normally, you’ll appreciate the smaller size, which allows groups in various forms of arrangement on the wall.
You’ll note that a half dozen of the pieces in the gallery — those are the serigraphs — are portrayed as significantly larger, but that’s because they’re framed, and the frames don’t come with it, not at these prices, they don’t.
At first, you’ll just scrounge around the house and garage looking for something to photograph and post, but after a few exhibitions of just junk, you need to settle down and start to actually LOOK at what you’re doing.
You need to assess the artwork you’re putting up.
- Is anyone likely to buy it?
- Does it require an explanation?
- Is it good art?
- Does it present well?
- Can you determine the relative size of the thing?
- Does the picture resemble the thing enough?
- Did you give all the information about it?
- Are you ready for success?
That last item means, can you actually invoice and pack and ship that thing and make sure it got where it was supposed to go?
That’s a long way from where a rank beginner starts out, believe me. So the first thing you need to do is to get ready for success, meaning have a plan for packing & shipping.
Seems to me that you could put some zazzle things up. No need to say you’ll ship them tomorrow, because of course you won’t.
You can specify that everything in the collection is made to order, so it takes a little longer. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, if all goes well — it could arrive tomorrow, but no promises are given.
You could and should treat each and every gallery as a PORTAL, a gateway, a stargate of sorts.
It should be welcoming and yet impressive and possibly even overwhelming. There are a variety of ways to achieve this without a lot of extra expense.
I redesigned the family album gallery, and fashionista is what it became. I have made a few experiments in there worthy of note.
Speaking of extra expense, there are a few interesting gallery spaces available from their specialty department, but they run on average about 500 Euros. Ouch.
I’ll take the readymades and tack them together if i need to, but you might see a need for your business to take one of those high-priced layouts. I can show you how to avoid that extra expense just by careful planning with what you’ve already got for your $60 bucks a month.
Sure, $60.00 a month, if you’re serious, because you’re NOT just going to do this only for yourself, are you???
It’s a gift, and most folks can’t do this thing, I promise you that. This is not something for the average person — it’s way beyond their capacity to learn and far beyond their ability to stay with a project until it’s done and the next project is at hand.
In short, it’s no game for quitters.
The enemy here is boredom with repetition. Too bad, but it’s the same basic three actions over and over and over again, seemingly forever, until all the open slots are filled up with stuff.
But which stuff?
If you’re working for someone else, you have no control of the stuff, but you can help to make it sell product or services.
If you have total control, you need to exercise it carefully. Treat the virtual gallery as you would a brick-and-mortar space.
Get what it FEELS like to be in there.
I’ve completely reworked this bardo spaces gallery, and I’ll be reworking it again. This is just to serve as an example of what can be done with the virtual gallery system.
Notice that the size of the images need not be actual relative size — they could be very large, like 6 foot tall earrings, to show off detail, but that’s not necessary, because the camera can rack in really closeup.
You can check out this effect in the gallery. There’s plenty of image to see, lots of detail, when you click on the image and let it bring you right up close.
As you can easily see, there’s a bit of a learning curve in operating in the virtual gallery space, but there are a variety of controls that you can use to achieve balance and grace of movement in the virtual space.
Of course your clients won’t spend a single moment achieving anything of the sort — they’re far too busy going on to the next thing, the flashier the more likely to attract.
People really like sparkly things, things that move and things that make strange sounds — pretty much what a dog would like, a person will probably also like, although that might not go well in the food department.
Speaking of food, there’s no reason why an online bakery couldn’t show its goods in this fashion — eventually someone will figure out a way to get the smell across, but right now, it’s all about what it L@@KS like!
A real-estate company could make this work wonders, although they’ve already got all sorts of virtual simulators, even the house for sale can be emulated through a game engine.
Can you think of other uses and other presentables for future gallery installations? What if your gallery changed its exhibits every month, could you keep up with that pace?
You could put into a gallery setting all manner of things — for example:
- Books & eBooks
- LPs
- CDs
- DVDs
- Belts & Buckles
- Designer Paper Plates
- Jewelry
- Beauty Secrets
- Toys, Games & Puzzles
- Fashion
- Bath Bombs, Soaps & Candles
- Cosmetic Secrets
- T-Shirts
There’s more, plenty more, but those are the most popular.
I have on hand several dozen collections of my own art, some on paper, some on canvas, some on board, and hundreds of sculptures and ceramics.
My inkwash Bardo Guides are just one of the collections that I’m getting together and preparing to be uploaded to their virtual galleries.
- Inkwash Guides
- Acrylic on Canvas
- Cedar Bar Canvases & Prints
- Otis Charcoals
- Dutch Landscapes by ej gold
- Pilgrims Graphite Sketches
- Still Lifes
- Watercolors
There are more, much more, but those are the collections that are actually ready to go, nothing else is needed — they’re the right size files, labeled correctly, saved as .jpg files, except in the case of items that are odd-shaped and require transparent backgrounds.
You DO know how to make the background transparent, right? If not, you have a learning curve ahead of you, although it’s not overwhelmingly complex.
The thing is, most people would never take the time to stuff photos into a virtual space, nor would they give a damn if someone did it.
YOU have to make it exciting enough for them that they’ll HIRE you to do what they wouldn’t lift a finger to do — put it all together in a workable package, and hey, you don’t even need a customer list.
You can team up with someone who does websites, and arrange with them to have the virtual gallery that you made for the family go up on their family website.
If it’s a business thing, of course that will change slightly, but ever so slightly. It’ll be an uphill battle just to get the photos, and if you think they’re going be scanned in, you’re dead wrong.
Ask any accountant. Their client could save a lot of dollars if they only kept folders with their receipts filed in an orderly fashion, but no — they dump a box full of receipts on your desk and expect you to sort them all out and THEN do the accounting, and quite often, you can’t charge them for this, because you’d lose the account.
It is all so complicated.
I invite you to visit all seven of my current galleries. I think you ‘ll find them instructive and I hope you will also find them inspirational.
My intention is not to make sales or create money machines, although that is a possible outcome of any of these endevours, but to put some exercises and ideas in front of you.
I’m hoping that you can spread this idea of using the gallery as a greeting space for any website, as well as a way of showing your merchandise.
You can add to the effect by posting billboards with photos and/or information on them.
If you follow this out just a bit, you’ll find it indispensable in the production of your outreach efforts and marketing campaigns.
It’s ideal for social media, so immediately examine the many ways you can get your exhibition in front of a very large and enthusiastic audience.
Don’t depend on folks to wander by the broadcast studio — it’s not going to happen that way. They’ll discover you on a website, embedded in the homepage, and that’s the way God intended it to be.
What I mean is, that’s the way we’re gonna do it. Design your virtual gallery with the idea in mind that it’s a gateway to your website target page.
So DOES your gallery function as a gateway?
See You At The Top!!!
gorby