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Recently my friend Aaron was telling me about an artist friend of his who recently held her own stimulus art show. Instead of showing her regular art which used to fetch up to $20,000 a canvas, she held a show featuring miniature paintings --all going for $100.
She sold out. As she told Aaron,'just about everyone can afford to spend $100 on a splurge.'
Depending on your point of view she is either a survivor or a sell-out.
Throughout the country, galleries are having conversations with the artists they represent and encouraging them to create smaller pieces.
Anne Marchand who blogs at Painterly Visions is having a Small Piece Art Show in Washington , D.C.to benefit The Black Women's Agenda.
The pieces in the show are all 5"x5" or 5"x7".
The idea of small paintings began before the economy crashed. In 2004, Duane Keiser started the Painting A Day genre.At the time, he would create his painting -- about the size of a postcard and then post it on his blog and eBay. Starting bid was always $100. Today the starting bid for one of his small pieces of art is $1000.
Today, there are thousands of artists who are trying to replicate the success that Keiser has enjoyed.
One of those artists is Carol Marine who has been doing a painting a day for the past two and half years.For Marine, participating in the small art genre has completely changed how she approaches her art and it's allowing her to earn a living.
Despite the recession , Marine says sales of in her Paint A Day Genre are only down 20%.
In addition to selling art on her blog and eBay, Marine was approached to start giving workshops on how to create a business doing a Painting A Day. Now, art schools throughout the country host her workshops and she says despite the recession, these workshops always have full registration.
The workshops not only cover the techniques of how you create small paintings but Marine spends time explaining to the artists how you have to market the art which includes having a blog and selling art on eBay.
Marine says she was originally reluctant to try the small art form and that it was her husband who thought it would be a great way to market her work.At the time she was doing large pieces for galleries and not making a living at it. Originally Marine tried to duplicate the style she was using for her large works. That didn't work and so Marine started experimenting with a looser,more impressionistic style.
She says, " I had always wanted to try this style but never did because it was too big of investment in supplies and time to experiment in the large form that I was used to working in."
Marine credits the discipline of doing a Painting A Day as helping her grow more as an artist than anything else she has ever done. Today, she is also creating larger work for galleries.
Going smaller solves a key issue for artists. While the value of art has plummeted, art organizations are encouraging artists not to lower their prices.
The worst thing you can do as an artist is to reduce your rates when the economy slows. “Many artists panic and lower their prices,” says Seattle gallery owner Patricia Rovzar. “A lot of artists have been ruined by lowering their prices after their rates have already been established by the market and collectors. Our economy ebbs and flows, and we need to ride out this kind of thing.”
Easier said then done. That's where the smaller art comes in. Even if it's not as small as the 5"x5" genre, galleries throughout the country are recommending that artists create smaller more affordable pieces.
The Financial Times is reporting that the value of art has dropped nearly 50% in one year.
The annual New York May art sales, the biggest event in the art world calendar, start on Monday in a drastically shrunken form, with Sotheby’s expecting its contemporary art auction to generate less than a quarter of the sales it did a year ago.
Does this recession mark the end of art as an investment? MoneyWeek Editor-In-Chief,Merryn Somerset Webb says the Art bubble has popped.
There was never a shortage of supply, and demand was more speculative than rational – as perhaps all
