Customer Reviews

A Gallery Without Walls: Selling Art in Alternative Venues

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Margaret Danielak is an outstanding example of what happens when lineage, education and experience are aligned and focused in one artist representative. Danielak has the appropriate lineage to inspire artists to think about the rich possibilities of showing in alternative venues to get more exposure to sell their work. The daughter of an artist, armed with a film career and an uncanny instinct for authentic promotion, she has proven her suggestions in the marketplace with consistent sales. Short of standing in line to be represented by Margaret, and regardless of reputation or representation, artists who want to thrive would do well to invest their time trying on some of these ideas. A GALLERY WITHOUT WALLS exceeds its promises of providing artists with a first edition map of the territory for selling art in alternative venues. As part of the guided tour, you are treated to succinct reviews of many basic promotional tools that no self-respecting artist should be without at any stage of their career - even with gallery representation.
Aletta de Wal, Director & Artist Advisor, Artist Career Training
P.S. Our mantra is `Exposure = Success" so book qualifies for our Artist Career Training Recommended Publication list.

Ask an artist how they sell their work and a typical answer is, "I love to create art but I don't know how to sell it." This book solves that problem. Written by someone who has "been there, done that" the author tells the reader how to price art, create presentation materials, how to do promotions how to handle financials, how to create 'themed events', - it is a "how to" book on selling art written in an easy-to-follow and succeed style. - Murray Raphel, Raphel Marketing

Danielak's book is useful as a guide to an aspiring artist or even someone who wants to be an art gallery owner. She looks at the practical aspects of promoting your artworks. Something that artists might simply have no background in doing. The traditional thing is for artists to try to hook up with an established gallery. The problem is that such galleries have a surfeit of new artists to choose to exhibit. Plus a gallery's commission might be 40-50%. That is the price you, the artist, pay for your new name and your inexperience.

The book offers informal methods to improve your exposure to a buying public, and hence your bargaining power with a gallery. Essentially, these are ways for you to directly market yourself. Some should now be axiomatic. Like having your own website, when fans can contact you directly. It is surprisingly cheap to run a minimal website, and the costs keep falling each year. Yes, you can have a MySpace page. Plus pages on other prominent social networking sites. But you really should also have your own domain, where you have total control over the layout and content.

Plus, you should build an email list through as many avenues as possible. The cheapest way to do outreach. So that when you do have exhibitions, you can call out your fans. Hopefully, some of these will turn into buyers.

Margaret Danielak's "A Gallery Without Walls" gives artists clear, valuable and down-to-earth insights on how to market their art. Margaret gained practical experience while representing the paintings of her father, Robert G. Stevens, a talented artist of the plein air school. Realizing the need especially for up and coming artists to be able to successfully launch and market their work led to her own business, Danielak Art and this great guide for artists. She now represents a growing collection of artists in diverse medias from her "Gallery without walls" in Pasedena, California. Highly recommended.