Diane Clancy’s Art Blog

Sue O’Kieffe of Sacred Circle Mandalas (http://sacred-circle-mandalas.blogspot.com) recently wrote me “i am curious to know out of all the ways you sell your art, which is the most profitable for you and which is the most enjoyable?”

What a great question, Sue!!  I know some other artists sometimes read my blog – I hope everyone will chime in – this could be very helpful to us all!  There is a handful of sites that I use regularly and really enjoy.  I am really looking forward to hearing from others too!  This is mug from CafePress showcases my vibrant, colorful bubblescape painting of Violet Mist.

Violet Mist Mug © Diane Clancy

Today I am going to give an overview of the ways I sell my work offline – and what works about these ways and what doesn’t.  Tomorrow I will give an overview of the online ways I sell my art. The next day I will talk about specific sites and venues and what I like. (This post was getting too long and I know I prefer to read shortish posts). But I will probably write them all today so they hang together.

There are 4 basic ways I sell – 2 offline and 2 online.  Locally I sell to stores or have items on consignment.  This is great because there is no running to the post office to send things off.  Consignment doesn’t work as well as an outright sale of course because there is no money paid to me upfront and I may get my merchandise back with stickers and such or other damage, which gives me more work to deal with.  I love selling my work locally and having people come up to me saying they have seen my work in a specific place and they like it.  I am a big supporter of the local economy.

Of course in a rural area, there are only so many appropriate stores to sell to … and the local market is smallish – our whole county is only 70,000 people.  I have gone to a bigger distance (I have sold in 3 states) but then the mileage eats up that much more profit.  So it is a wonderful piece of the mix – but not enough to sustain my business.

The other local, offline way I sell is at art or craft fairs.  I have not found my stride in this venue yet.  My work hasn’t sold all that well at the local, inexpensive craft fairs.  Art hasn’t tended to sell as well as functional items there.  People don’t seem to be too much in the market for art at these things.  The ones that are inexpensive represent low risk financially – yet they are also the ones that I am less likely to sell art at.

The expensive ones that cost a substantial amount (hundreds of dollars and up), I am leery of for me – I have never tried them.  Some people have made these kinds of fairs a cornerstone of their art or craft business.  I am concerned about such a big investment of time, energy and money. Also, many people say that market has changed substantially … yet I am sure that many artisans are still doing quite well.

For me personally, part of what doesn’t work well at art and craft fairs is the carrying things to the fair and the needing to be there to sell.  As many of you know, I have substantial health issues, and this type of event wipes me out for a good week.  That doesn’t seem like a good trade-off.

Yet last holiday season the Artists of Franklin County put on an Art Fair and it worked quite well for us.  There was no entrance fee and we were competing with other artists.  The networking was fabulous and we made more sales than we usually have.  Part of what I think needs to happen is figuring out how to get more repeat buyers … they love my work and buy something to support me – but sometimes I think then that is that.

So it is great to potentially know my customers locally and to support the local economy.  It is wonderful to meet the store owners and customers face to face and have that personal relationship potentially.  Delivery is local.  Those are big pluses.  Tomorrow I will give an overview on online selling. Thank you for stopping by!!

Technorati Tags: Diane Clancy, vibrant colorful painting, mug, bubblescape, CafePress, Artists of Franklin County, Sacred Circle Mandalas, Sue O’Kieffe

Today was the second and last day of the Art & Craft Fair – much better (comparatively) in sales – but I am bushed.  Susan took lots of photos but I will have to share them tomorrow or the next day. We made a couple of sales … everyone sold something today.  We learned lots about what to refine next year.  We also made a couple of good trades.  I love the way artists tend to be generous with each other!!  It was delightful to be sharing the fair with other artists rather than more tag sale sellers … it had a different feel and I much prefer it!

Dance of the Spheres, Digital © Diane Clancy

I am tired and need to go to bed, but thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Art & Craft Fair

Today was the first day of the Art & Craft Fair – not much in sales – for anyone – but good networking – but I am bushed.  Susan took lots of photos but I will have to share them tomorrow or the next say.  Here is the link to the article in the local paper -  http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=5538453.

Of course, we learned a lot we will need to do better next year … and we did not set this up. It was set up between 2 guys and there were a lot of crossed wires … but we got going and everyone worked together very nicely to get over the bumps.  That was great – how we all helped each other!!  And our group, the Artists of Franklin County is expanding and more people are taking leadership.  So that is worth all of that!!

Atoms Reorganizing, Digital © Diane Clancy

I am tired and need to chill, but thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Art & Craft Fair, Artists of Franklin County

Hi everyone – some great news!! We made the front page of the Local Section of the paper today … You can read the whole article online at http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=5538453.

Here is an excerpt: “Diane Clancy and Susan Elkin, local artists whose art also hangs at Simon’s Stamps and organizers of the exhibit and art stroll, said it is the third year the Artists of Franklin County have participated in downtown events.

”This is one of our biggest projects and this year we decided to include the younger artists of our town,” said Clancy. ”We wanted to show support to our local high school and there are some pretty good artists there.”

Elkin said another reason for doing the exhibit is to beautify the downtown while supporting local businesses, artists and the town.

”We want to be part of the local economic engine and foster a creative economy in Greenfield,” said Clancy.”

Conundrum I, Digital © Diane Clancy

It is wonderful to have this article so prominent!! Just great for the publicity it gives.  I am not feeling at all well today so I am going to keep this short and also use one of the images that is in the show.  Tomorrow is the fair.  Thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

The Artists of Franklin County (AFC) have been doing this AWE Project for a couple of years now. I have been coordinating this project since the beginning and it takes a LOT of time!  In Massachusetts we have Local Cultural Councils (LCC) that give grants to artists to help support work we are doing. This year I have received a grant of $1,000 to help defray the time I have put into this.

I have also applied for a grant for the next year – but it is unclear if there is going to be any money at all for LCCs given the budget cuts that this state – like most states – are going through.  But I feel committed to working to keep this project going.  If you would like to read more about the presentation that I made about this year’s grant, the second half of this post will give you some highlights of what we have been doing and the progress we are making.

From here, a lot of my work changes.  I have done the coordinating – a lot with Susan’s help.  Several others have stepped up and are taking more responsibility. This is the direction things need to keep going to make this project successful in the long term.  It needs to continue to be claimed as the project of the whole group – and that is happening more and more. I am pretty excited to be going in this direction.

This is one of my biggest organizing tasks this next year – supporting others to take leadership rather than take the leadership myself.  In other words, work myself mostly out of a job.  It takes time to transition like this, but in the long term, I will have more time for my own work.  I have put my own work on a lower level as I have focused nurturing on growing this organization … but I am very excited to see it coming into its own more and more.

Doing this in several areas of my life (artist life) is a main focus at the moment – and that is a lot of what I mean by organizing.  Thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, fair, Susan Elkin, PSA, publicity, grant, Butterfly, organizing, Artists of Franklin County, Local Cultural Councils

Yesterday in talking about the board meeting of Fostering the Arts, I forgot to tell you about a publicity example other people mentioned that was very inspiring to me. This was an elementary school art teacher who decided to hold a display of her students work at the local food co-op.

People said she behaved as if she were showing the premier artwork in the whole world – the way she worked with the press.  (This was said with great admiration!) She created BUZZ around town about this show with the way she promoted the event. This was incredibly inspiring to me!!

This got me very excited!! The day after the meeting, I got out the publicity lists and materials and decided to make another go of it around the current and coming events.  A couple of people had written some materials and I had already pulled them together and sent them out to several news places.

Looking at them, I saw a few more corrections and decided they didn’t read as well as they could.  So I called up an artist (part of the Artists of Franklin County) and she reworked the press releases to make them tighter and clearer. Great!.

So with that in hand, I decided to tackle them all again … and to create some BUZZ!  If she could do it, so could I! Thus, I decided to tackle the local newspaper first (the Recorder) – the most important one … and I was incredibly anxious before I called – I don’t like to bother people. But I got a reasonable response – they will do what they can, but mainly a small announcement.

I had already been planning on talking with a regular reporter to see if they would write a story – besides seeing if the the Arts & Entertainment section could do a small feature on us.  They suggested which reporter woud be the most useful to speak with – and he transferred me to her.

Several things have happened since I started writing this post. Tomorrow at 1 in the afternoon, we are going to meet with the reporter and she is definitely going to do an article on us!! Yippeee!! We are in the process of creating buzz! She is going to write about the AWE (windows), the fair and also the students we are showcasign along with our own work. This is very exciting and I will share it with you when it is written – she says it is a definite!

Then I tackled the regional weekly (Valley Advocate) … they had recently had and article about art in the windows of the larger town in the lower valley. It took many tries but at last I made some contacts there and emailed the person who would be the most likely person. In the process I gave them the info again for a regular announcement. This will all be a lot less scary the next time.

Since I started this post, I have actually talked with the woman who would potentially be writing the article.  She was very nice, on deadline, but agreed to perhaps write an article. It would only be about the AWE Project since their publicity schedule is further ahead. But great!! It is a real possibility.

Talking with these people another time will be much easier.  Another good reminder – choose which things to turn over to others and which things to do yourself. I had thought the publicity was done a month ago, and then it got handed back to me, Tomorrow I will speak more about the grant, which will put things in perspective.

After dealing with the 2 main newspapers, I went on to send out the releases to another 10 or so. Then decided – hey, why not, and I called the local weekly (the Town Crier) and ended up eventually talking with the editor – she said she would try to do something small (that is all they do.)  And feeling successful, I even tackled the Boston Globe (centered about 100 miles away, that is the biggest paper in the state).  I manageed to get the email of the appropriate person and pitched the idea to him. I will folow up with another email when I am done with this post.

I have been doing the publicity for these events for the last couple of years, but this time I have definitely learned how to take things to another level. We also are doing some local access TV psa’s – (public service announcements) and some little TC spots. I now feel more ready to tackle the publicity another time.

Thanks for stopping by!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, fair, Butterfly, organizing, board meeting, Fostering the Arts, art teacher, Artists of Franklin County, buzz, publicity

Can you believe it?  You can see me again … Twice in a week and a half – can you stand it? Saturday we went up to Rowe MA to do a fair.  One of our friends was coordinating it and loves our work so she invited us to come up to the annual Old Home Days.  We had lots of looking but only a few buys – even though we dragged half our house up there! The economy is taking its toll big time on the buyers at these kind of fairs.

Rowe Fair, Photography © Susan Elkin

It was great that we went though – for a couple of reasons. One – it has been a long time since I just sat somewhere and didn’t do a lot all day (I know – you keep telling me to rest!) It felt like we had been at the beach all day.  Also, Susan now gets why I want to focus a lot on online marketing and she has gotten on board.  This will make marketing life much better!!

More pictures may be coming later.  I would LOVE to hear how you are!! Thanks for stopping by!

~ Diane Clancy

We have no phone and internet right now. Our line with mucho static apparently signaled the police last night and they came at 1 for the 911 call we didn’t make. Hard way to wake up. But I would much rather have it that way than have an emergency and they not come. We are down at the library parking lot to get our mail and for me to upload this post. Luckily I had written it already. I will catch up when I have internet again.

Two days ago I started the story of our first craft fair if you would like to read it. We worked lots and lots to get lots of prints, cards and matted images all ready to go. I made up little display tags to show the prices. We didn’t know enough to bring our own table at the point, but we did bring a card rack that we had bought from a local bookstore (who sold our cards and they did very well there) … so we dragged it all in and then had LOTS more in the car still. We took both cars to make sure we had enough to sell everyone who wanted our work.

Ah, the naive hope of the inexperienced!! We did sell some .. but it wasn’t much for all the work. Besides the hats, scarves and potholders, there was also homemade fudge for sale … did I mention we bought fudge? Many of the other sellers worked there and so had established relationships with the customers.

But it was some exposure. We watched very carefully who looked at what … doing our market research … And we met incredibly kind and generous other sellers, particularly one woman who works there. She gave us advice and let us know about other fairs. We are all still delighted to see each other – she is just a gem. The second year she also insisted on giving Susan and I each one of her scarves.

She was was one of the biggest silver linings. Also the work we donated for the raffle (do I hear a theme here?) was utterly appreciated by the residents. I will continue.
By the way, these are some of the new ornaments I put into my CafePress Shop.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: craft fair, donations, CafePress, merchandise

First an update. An ice storm prevented travel plans … so we are here. And a wonderful piece of good news!! I called the place where we had left our items on consignment for their craft fair. They had already decided to honor our reckoning of items and had put a check in the mail. I mentioned that some items were not returned the year before either … I found things missing but not until the summer. I said I understood that it was too late. He said no, no … we want to respect our artists. And he insisted on paying me for some of the items for last year!!

I had stopped counting during the summer because I was mad I had lost merchandise, but this makes me feel appreciated and values! I had brought up the merchandise loss in terms of I thought their accounting needing to be better. They had already talked about how they want to change how they work with us in the future. Because we have many similar things, like say 50 cards, next year they decided they want us to put the same item number on all 50 cards and that way they can just keep track of the numbers of items instead of individual items. I am delighted! It will make our job much easier.

If I hadn’t followed up and let them know I was disappointed in not getting credit for the missing merchandise, none of this would have happened. Let’s face it, most people want to do the right thing! So a happier ending!!

I will continue with the other craft fair tomorrow … I just wanted to share this good news with you!

By the way, you can get these and other items at my CafePress Shop. 

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: respect, accounting, craft fair, itemizing

We got started in craft fairs because Susan was photographing elders in a nursing home. She went in several times to give lectures and take some photos. The recreation department was run by a wonderful woman who loved Susan’s work. She encouraged Susan to come and be with the residents. Then she set up an opportunity for the family of the residents to hire Susan to take portraits so they would have wonderful mementos. A few people took her up on it and were delighted, but in general it seems (at least around here) there is a better market for people photographing their children and animals than photographing their elders.

Sebastian in Flowers, Digital © Diane Clancy

The recreation director wanted to make it up to Susan for spending all the time (and money) so she invited us to several craft fairs they have for residents and staff. Plus she is a gigantic fan of our work … so she wanted an easy chance to buy our work.

Susan had taken a picture of her corgi dog and I had put him in flowers and butterflies (two separate images). She was our best customer! And there was one other employee who loved our work .. so she bought 3 8 x 10″ images and framed them herself. We were delighted!!

It was a lot of work, we didn’t have an ideal location and we were competing against very inexpensive handmade pot holders, hats, scarfs and then lotion and such. It was hard selling our archival prints against the other items. People LOVED our work, would admire it … but, as Susan says, as a museum … wanting to take it home, but not wanting to buy it. More tomorrow ….

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: nursing home, craft fair, Susan, photography