Promoting Yourself

Every artist who wants to sell their art needs to make an effort at promotion. This can be very difficult as many artists prefer hiding in their studios painting to getting out in the world.

In the rural area where I live, it is doubly difficult. The majority of our  population is retired: people who are more likely to be down-sizing than buying art, and we no longer have a professional gallery in the area. Some artists display their paintings in local restaurants or book stores and some of us have small home-based galleries. Many of us display our art at the Creston Public Library and at the Chamber of Commerce as these venues offer 2 month long shows all year. Various groups put on annual Art Shows and we have a moderate influx of tourists from the late spring through to the end of September.

The problem remains! How do we get people in the door and buying? This year a number of us are trying something new. We are going to put together a directory: Artists and Artisans of the Creston Valley. The directory will be available at the Creston Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Centre for visitors to look through. Hopefully, it will encourage visits to our galleries and more sales of art.

I have spent the last few days working on my information sheet for the directory and after three versions I think I have one that will work.

front

back

The Artists and Artisans of the Creston Valley directory will be a simple binder with information sheets about a number of the artists in the area - lets hope it will be effective.

Thank you to my Google+ friends: Sheila Delgado  and Sea Dean
http://www.sheiladelgado.com/ - http://paintamasterpiece.blogspot.ca/
for introducing me to http://www.picmonkey.com/ so I could make the collage on the back page of my information sheet.