Do you want to sell your art because it’s fun and you want to share it with others? Or, is selling your art justification for making time and spending money on this activity you enjoy?
Hi, my name is Carrie Brummer and here on Artist Strong I help creatives like you build your skill and develop your unique artist voice. Today I want to talk about the many reasons NOT to sell your art.
Let’s start with ten great reasons NOT to sell your art:
1 Because someone told you you should.
2 Because someone told you you shouldn’t.
Let’s be clear here: Since when do we rebel creatives listen to anyone anyway? It’s important to trust our own heart when it comes to our art.
3 You need to justify expenses on materials.
If a partner, or family member, or friend asks you how you can spend so much money on art supplies, ask them how they can spend so much money on subscriptions like Netflix and Hulu and Hbo Plus when it doesn’t make them any money. Or, how about that latest golf club purchase? Don’t let other people put their baggage on you.
4 To justify your time.
I’ve caught myself doing this: feeling guilty for making time for my art.
5 Do you need to monetize everything?
Do you even like marketing or are you willing to put in the time? Selling your art requires you to be a marketer and be willing to spend half of your time managing this business you now have, because selling your art is a business.
6 To prove your Art is good enough. For what? For who?
7 It isn’t a natural next step just because you have a lot of work stored in your home.
Do you have work you want to clear out?
- Give it to charity
- Paint over it
- Give away to special people in your life
- Abandon it – I’ve linked the Abandoned art project below so you can learn more about it.
8 There is no quick win for easy money.
Don’t think selling your art is going to be some fast way to pay the bills or add to your family income. It takes patience, consistency and perseverance. All of those overnight successes you imagine had ten years of work you didn’t see.
9 Because you enjoy it for fun and selling somehow takes that away.
Making art is good for both our physical and mental health, not to mention it IS fun. There is absolutely no shame in having and enjoying a hobby.
10 Because you’re still learning and refining your unique voice.
We want to sell OUR art, not copies or studies that we used to help learn techniques and develop our voice. Too many creatives start selling too soon and they aren’t ready and their work is still derivative.
Derivative art means you can look at it and see heavy influence from the creatives who inspired the work. While there is some grey area to this definition it’s the idea that you see more of the original artist in the work than new ideas from the person influenced by them. Painting in the style of van Gogh for example, without adding anything to his techniques that makes it uniquely yours.
And our bonus reason not to sell your art:
11 Because you don’t want to!
I enjoy marketing. I geek out on marketing podcasts and enjoy sharing my work with the intention of exhibiting or selling my art. This is why it’s incorporated into my artist practice. That doesn’t mean you have to, too.
Art is important because you want to make it.
Don’t let society, culture, media, or me tell you what you should be doing with your art.
You do you.
There’s no better reason to make art.
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Now it’s your turn: do you ever feel like you have to sell your art to justify creating it? How about investing in supplies? How have you overcome these challenges to still show up for your art? Tell me more in the comments below.
This happened to me. I was convinced selling my art was the right thing to do. But it was too early for me. I did sell some commissions but then that all dried up. And it harmed my artist mojo. I completely lost myself after lockdown in 2021 and I have had difficulty finding my voice again. But now I’m in a different mindspace and trying to get back to Me!
oh Amanda, how horrible to hear. Thank you for sharing to normalize the experience and I’m really happy to hear you are in a different headspace. I hope you continue to feel more aligned in your creative journey <3 <3 <3
To sell or not to sell. Quite the dilemma. In the beginning, there is just the desire to create. Some go on to academic training. Others just keep on “arting”. The downside to focusing on sales is real. Somehow, the art of pleasing another is quite different from the art of pleasing yourself. I can remember selling in Jackson Square in New Orleans. From my view, it was not “art”, it was more like quickly produced images that tourists would purchase. Once you had a system down, creative content ceased to be a part of the equation. Much later in life, I was asked to create the artwork to promote one of the triple crown races. Temporary elation. Commercial art is far from it. Battles with ego erupt. In the same week, I failed to be juried in a local art show. The following year, the same pattern occurred. I stopped painting for five years. Then the muse broke through and I began just painting. I still sell. I still paint to communicate. I just accept that if I like what I am doing, that is good enough.
I make art I want to make. Then I sell it. Selling doesn’t have to color or influence your artistic choices, it’s unfortunate but we tend to let it especially when we don’t think through motivations or goals for the work.
Thanks for sharing!
I love looking at my art, my progress and even my weak pieces. They are connected to memories, experiences, people and my life. Maybe someday I will sell some but fo now love giving them to special people, and donating them to organizations. I have always thought I was an idiot but do know that when I am told I should be selling them it brings out the defiant part of me.
Pamala you should do what YOU want to do with your art <3 <3
I have never wanted to commercialize. I’d be a terrible business person (there is a reason that I will not go into here.) But it does pile up. Where I used to live I was able to give my art away to people I knew or to charity. Since I have moved to the Pacific NW I have yet to find a way of donating my art to charity. There is a huge market here for museum quality art by recognized artists, especially those who have historic contexts. These are what is offered in charitable auctions here. I do not qualify in these regards and I am just not into that sort of auction anyway. When I was living in the Southwest I finally met an artist from El Paso who gave all his art to charity, so I am not alone, as you mention here. So I guess that unless I find a charity that will accept my art here, it will go to my family when I pass on. Am I even an artist? A question with which I have struggled for years.
I have exhibited once or twice – even won a third place in a local art show years ago. Your commentary gives me some hope as did my associates in the Southern Branch of the New Mexico Watercolor Society, where I was a member of the Board of Directors for a year. To give you some context I was a field biologist as a profession and so my art tends toward natural history.
David, thank you so much for sharing. The BIG question: Am I even an artist? But what does being an artist mean to you? How do you define it? What cultural norms do you hold yourself to with this definition that may not even be your own values/opinion? People start to believe they are an artist when they start living out the practices, behaviors, actions that they personally believe are things “artists” do.
You are an artist, and it sounds like you have been for quite some time. What will help you start believing it?
Your last question is valid. Because of past history (my father was a certified narcissist who was always in his view best in whatever task he tried), I have always questioned my legitimate membership in any group. I always feel like a phoney, a pretender, and that has always been a struggle. Yet in our art exchanges in the watercolor society (we had an annual trade of works to each other) nobody ever refused my contribution and in fact seemed quite pleased with it. But am I an artist if I never sell my work, except at charity auctions? And if I cannot even find that outlet for my work?
Hi David, I’m so glad you’ve found community where people accept you as you are and SEE you as you are.
Van Gogh actively tried to sell his art during his lifetime and had the help of his brother who acted as a sales person so he could focus on painting. He sold one artwork while he was alive. Is he not an artist?
Vivian Dorothy Maier was a photographer who hid her art from the world. We discovered 150,000 photographs of her work after her death and now people are enjoying her art and story today. Is she not an artist?
There are many ways to deal with clearing out our studios if we choose not to sell.
You could do a fundraiser yourself only selling art to fundraise for a charity you care about.
Google the Abandoned art project, where artists leave their art out in public with a note encouraging others to take it and keep it.
You can paint over old works you no longer connect with…
perhaps there is a path you haven’t yet discovered to sharing your art that will better suit you and your art. Be open to that possibility? But most importantly: if you enjoy creating, keep making that art. <3
Thanks, you have clarified my thoughts on this subject. I will continue to make art just for its own sake and if I find a way to share it with others, than so much the better. Several of my paintings are hanging in various places in my former place of employment, so I cannot say that I have had no success as an artist.
Yes David! I’m so happy to hear it. Happy creating 🙂
Hi Carrie,
Thank you for discussing this topic, one that I’ve been struggling with for a while. For many years I enjoyed a career with my own business as a graphic designer and also painted.. Now I spend much of my day creating art for my own enjoyment (artists never retire.) In the years before the pandemic I sold some pieces and had some solo and group shows locally. These days I don’t try to show or sell it at all. But sometimes a little voice in the back of my head makes me feel like my art isn’t “ good enough”:if I’m not showing it and someone isn’t at least occasionally buying it, and I feel a tinge of envy when a friend has a show or sells things. I really, really don’t enjoy marketing, I did that when I had my business. Sometimes I’ll enter group shows and like David, have even one some prizes…and then I’m happy, but when I don’t get juried into a show it bums me out! The negative self-talk surrounding my self worth related to not being in a gallery, not showing, not selling is burdensome, and sometimes takes away from the joy I find in artistic self expression. creating art is the time I’m truly happiest!! I think I need to print out your list keep it on the wall of my studio.
Barbara, I could have written this comment. Thank you SO much for sharing. I hope having these honest conversations helps us really identify what’s important to us about showing up and making art and helps us find the permission to make art entirely on our terms, whatever that looks like <3
I have for several years struggled with this, but instead of being an artist or graphic designer, I was a biologist. I retired in 2011. I did sell some art for charity, but never for myself. I now am doing it for myself and my daughters and friends. I just don’t want the complications involved in running a business
Good for you! Love it David. And thanks for popping back on to contribute.
It’s very helpful to hear how you’re approaching your life as an artist. I love this whole discussion—
Thanks again, Carrie, for your refreshing point of view. There are so many myths surrounding who is considered a “real” artist, plus the stories we tell ourselves. This discussion helps clarify what’s important for each of us in the limited amount of time we all have here on earth.