Making and Preparing Art

1. Use the highest quality materials you can afford. It would be humiliating for your art to start falling apart after it’s purchased.
2. Select frames that complement your work and are well made.
3. See that your mats are cut meticulously. Nothing ruins a good image like a sloppily cut mat.
4. Ensure that all 2-D art rests flat against the wall. It shouldn’t bow, droop, or buckle.
5. Sign your art. It doesn’t matter how you sign it or where, but sign it. Signing art says, “This is complete, and I made it.”

Handling Art

6. Don’t schlep your art around in supermarket bags. Use portfolios and beautiful boxes.
7. Use the right amount of packing material to ensure that the work will arrive safely.
8. Insure your work and studio appropriately. Home insurance rarely covers business mishaps.

Exhibiting Art

9. Let people see the art! Your work should be well lit wherever it is on exhibit. Look out for hot spots, glare, and shadows.
10. Create uniform wall labels that are carefully cut and stay snugly on the wall. Wonky labels that appear to be an afterthought can ruin an otherwise solid installation.
11. Use museum-quality hanging and installation devices.

Documenting Art

12. Document all of your art with high-quality photographs. They should be as good or better than the art because they represent the work and if you do your marketing right, you will sell art from JPEGs.
13. Keep your inventory database up to date, noting details such as size, specific materials, and exhibition record of each piece.
14. Maintain a price list. It’s unprofessional to make up prices on the fly.

Interpreting Art

15. Talk about your work with respect. Develop the language to speak intelligently and confidently about it.
16. Don’t ever apologize for your art or leave anyone to believe that you are less than an artist.
What else would you add to this list? Leave a comment and share your experience.

The post 16 Ways to Demonstrate Your Art Has Value appeared first on Art Biz Success.

What we desperately need to know from artists, I think, is a structure-and-instruction report which makes specific references to their intent. For example, “If that caviar falls off your work, should I restore it or just go buy fresh caviar?” [Did I mention Camilla has a sense of humor to be envied? She goes on . . . ]
Seriously, what I think would be of immense value would be a form that covers every aspect of the structure of the work. For example, on an oil painting, start with the “auxiliary support”: the stretcher, strainer, panel or board that the art is executed on. Then we would talk about the gesso or ground layer, then the paint film, the varnish, etc. It would be helpful to the artist to keep records of these things for their own future reference.
For each of these categories, the artist would list the brands or types of materials used including technical references, especially if it is an unusual material. If they would include procedural notes such as layering schemes it would be invaluable to future conservators.
Then, they could include notes on the degree to which they would have any part conserved or restored. For example, if the stretcher fails, do you approve of a conservator removing the canvas from the stretcher and replacing it?
In all of the different areas, artists could include condition notes and their thoughts about it with some general comments about their intent at the end. This might be anything from “Do anything necessary to preserve the 2-dimensional image” to “DO NOT VARNISH” to “Let the thing rot. I specifically do not want it to be preserved!”
If we had these types of guidelines from artists, it would be heaven!

Camilla used paintings in the above example–unconventional materials, to be exact–but this advice can be applied to any medium.
Future generations will have no idea what your intent was in making a piece of art or what your intent was for the future of that art. You have to spell it out if it isn’t obvious. Not everyone wants their art to be preserved forever. Some artists choose decaying materials on purpose–so that the work changes over time. But you have to make us (especially curators and conservators) aware of your intent.
Keep notes about your working materials, techniques, and intent. If you maintain, as you should, a database of your work, it’s easy to add these notes to your computerized inventory.

The post Conservation of Your Artwork: Intent and Keeping Records appeared first on Art Biz Success.