Competing in the Mainstream Art Market

How are you supposed to be able to sell prints when you have to compete against low cost substandard sources of prints outside of your own country? I was talking to a business owner who is also an artist and hoping to retire soon. As a supplemental income source he wants to have some of his original paintings reproduced as giclee prints. He is very new to the concept of selling prints of his work and actually is new to the concept of selling his artwork altogether. He has always painted as a hobby for his friends and family but based on his talent and subject matter I told him I could easily see a market for his work. As we got to talking about prints, I defined for him what a giclee print was and some of the advantages, especially for someone trying to generate a demand. He was very interested in getting started but he did have some concerns about how easy or challenging it would be to compete with art prints mass produced in other countries, mainly China.

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Setting 3 Goals for the Year

What are your plans for 2014. With the entrance into January many people like to start their new year with resolutions. For artists I think it is a good time to set goals rather than resolutions. I like the term goals because it implies you have set a finish line that must be crossed to complete. And in many cases you might have a larger goal in mind that may consists of smaller goals. At FinerWorks we always set goals thought the year but January is especially important. The final months of the year are so busy that implementing new solutions seamlessly can be challenging but with the holiday season behind us we have a chance to evaluate ourselves and come up with ideas with the idea of becoming more capable in meeting our customers’ expectations. So what are some ideas that we can offer artists who want to set new goals for themselves? I will name a few that you can either take with you or expand on yourself.

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