It’s a funny thing, being an artist. Despite what some may assume, artists are actually entrepreneurs and business people. They have to be. Sadly they don’t teach that side of being an artist in schools, colleges, or universities, but in order to be successful, you are building a brand. That’s how you have to see yourself.
Brand building takes years of honing who and what you actually are, what you stand for, and why you add value. Once you know that, then you have to know how to market yourself, price your work, and learn how to ‘business’. When I say ‘business’, I mean how to physically do the day-to-day business stuff like tax returns, keeping accounts, employing people, using social media, and finding your audience. All these things are difficult.
You don’t come out of art school or fine art degrees and instantly know this stuff; you have to learn, and I believe that is the true core, the center of being an artist—accepting that it is a lifelong learning journey. There is no end. You must be willing to soak up knowledge from those that know better than you, seek advice from those you admire and respect, and continue to grow, evolve, and learn throughout your life.
One thing artists are very good at is vision. When they have a vision, generally that is a very good starting point to set them on a path. But what makes them different from most is that starting point is not always where they end as well. It’s a wiggly path, a flexible mindset, being able to adapt, like a chameleon.
In this day and age, times change very quickly. You can’t just stay in one place for long; you have to be able to accept change as a natural part of life. I think this is the part people find most difficult. But change is good. Without it, we don’t learn and grow.
I’ve been an artist for over 30 years. My work is markedly different from where I started, and not only that, my business, which will be 10 years old soon, has changed beyond recognition. I never saw myself teaching art when I first started my business. I was doing commissions and selling work at fairs and local events. Now, I teach multiple classes, I have a team of people that also teach art classes under my wing, and who knew I’d have a coffee house!
Adapting is part of the job. I have learned to do so many things as an artist who runs her own brand: accounts, VAT and tax returns, employment law, marketing, advertising, business strategy, social media, firing clay and ceramics, health and hygiene, stock control, how to teach, how to demonstrate with quality and value in front of an audience, how to be in charge of lots of children, safeguarding, additional needs, dementia training, management, window dressing, and more.
Probably the biggest lesson is resilience. When you’ve worked 13-hour days on the trot and weekends and you are tired but still in demand, you have to learn how to manage your time and be resilient! That goes for painting and drawing too. Resilience is usually the point where people give up. It’s too hard, takes too long, too tiring, no instant result. The painting and drawing process is littered with problems and things that need correcting, reconsidering, adjusting, and resolving. This is part of life—adapting and changing until you get it right.
Want to be an artist? Learn to run a business first, hone your skills, and spend hours, days, weeks, months honing your skills. Don’t give up; become obsessive, work your socks off. We have a team of six at Katharine Jennings Fine Art Studio. We all work hard—really hard. We give up evenings, weekends, rest time, and we are obsessive about what we do. You should see our WhatsApp group for the staff; it’s pinging all the time. That’s because we love it, we are passionate about it, and that same level of passion is what has kept this business going for nearly a decade. There is no end in sight. It’s not just learning how to draw and paint.
Last Saturday, the team and I were involved in the Rotherfield and Mark Cross Bonfire Society Carnival. A huge torchlit procession through the village. Around 40 Little Leonardos and their parents joined us in the walking parade. We spent an entire month teaching the children how to make fish lanterns out of willow, how to decorate them and what a school and shoal of fish are. It’s not just the making of it that we work on, it’s the planning how to teach it, the initial idea and the preparation of all the materials and inspiration. This involves hours. And this is just one club that we run. But, we live for it!
