Ali’s dedication to her patrons and students shines through as she shares insights from the past five years of her career.
The post The Joy in Artist Community and Paring Back Obligations with Ali Cavanaugh (ep. 190) appeared first on Art Biz Success.
]]>Some artists wait for things to happen to and for them.
Others take charge. They don’t buy into to other people’s definitions of success. (Listen to episode 165 for more on that.)
Taking charge means they figure out what they want and how to get there—taking all aspects of their life into account.
Ali Cavanaugh, my guest for this episode of The Art Biz, is in the latter group.
For some background, listen to last week’s episode (ep. 189) which is an encore of a 2019 interview I did with Ali when she was making big changes in her work life.
In this episode, Ali and I catch up with all that has transpired in the last 5 years. We discuss:
- Her booming Patreon community that gives her so much joy. [See also ep. 156 with Kimberly Santini.]
- How she has pared back on the demands for her art and the boundaries she put in place to allow her to do that.
- The recent release of the Ali Cavanaugh Portrait Colors Set from Golden Artist Colors.
- The upcoming retrospective of her work, made possible because she has withheld prized pieces from sale to keep in her private collection.
Ali is incredibly generous. As you’ll hear, she is utterly devoted to her patrons and the success of her students.
Listen
Highlights
04:01 Building a thriving artist community on Patreon
06:55 Ali’s shift towards online art education
15:01 Ali’s approach to selling art and embracing a new business model
19:53 Reflecting on gallery relationships and the future of art business
23:12 Galleries and art fairs
24:31 The cost of art fairs
25:12 Partnership with Golden Artist Colors
28:09 Royalties, brand deals, and ambassadorships
31:40 Upcoming retrospective and personal projects
36:01 Balancing art and family life
39:40 What’s coming up for Ali
Quotes
“Within the first month I was making money and had a lot of followers and I couldn’t believe it.”
“I want [my students] to have their own ideas. They have their own ideas. I want them to be able to access that.”
“My role is encouraging others a lot more and just not so much about sales.”
“I’m very inspired by the artists in our community.”
“I don’t miss giving [galleries] half my money.”
“My prices were able to really go up because my work became more collectible when I moved into the Immersed paintings.”
”Too many paintings, not enough time.”
Related Episodes
These episodes feature artists who teach.
About My Guest
Ali Cavanaugh (American, b. 1973) is an internationally collected fine artist and author of the book, Modern Fresco Paintings. She studied painting at Kendall College of Art and Design. Her work has been featured on magazine covers and countless internet articles. Her most recent project is a brand collaboration with Golden Artist Colors as they have designed her exclusive 6 color portrait set; a universal skin tone palette for all complexions. Four years ago she founded the Aligator Watercolor Community, which is an international group of watercolorists that focus on portraiture using alternative substrates.
Follow her on Instagram @_alicavanaugh_
The post The Joy in Artist Community and Paring Back Obligations with Ali Cavanaugh (ep. 190) appeared first on Art Biz Success.
]]>Something wasn't right. Ali started pulling away from galleries and reconsidering not just her business model, but the art itself.
The post Reinventing your art career with Ali Cavanaugh (189) appeared first on Art Biz Success.
]]>In 2014, Ali Cavanaugh had 11 galleries representing her work throughout the U.S. and even overseas.
It was all she could do to paint fast enough to supply these galleries with new work.
What a great problem to have, right? But something wasn’t sitting right with Ali, so she started asking the galleries to return her work.
One by one the galleries returned the few paintings that remained in their inventories.
There was no animosity. Ali greatly appreciated all the work the galleries did on her behalf, but she was no longer satisfied with the status quo.
She had begun to reconsider not just what her business model looked like, but the art itself.
Listen
In this encore episode of The Art Biz from 2019, you’ll hear about:
- Why galleries weren’t interested in work behind glass.
- How Ali took 6 months to teach herself a new watercolor technique and why it was important to do this.
- How Ali used her blog to attract press coverage and interest from galleries.
- How Ali has expanded her audience using social media.
- Ali’s philosophy of the artist’s journey and micro-evolution.
- Why it’s critical to challenge yourself as an artist.
- Why Instagram is the perfect platform for getting affirmation for your work.
- The reason Ali pulled her art from galleries and what happened to those 25 pieces.
- How Ali began raising her prices and why art fairs were the best venue for the new prices.
- Ali’s monograph that was published by Unicorn Publishing in 2019.
- Details of Ali’s intention to renovate a property in the small town of St. Genevieve, Missouri.
- Ali’s upcoming plans for Patreon.
In episode 190, I talk with Ali about how life and work have evolved since this interview.
Ali Cavanaugh Quotes
“Your art can get really boring or anything that you do can get really boring if you’re not adding those challenges and you don’t have a teacher to give you the incitement, so you have to do it some way.”
“I have deep, devout relationship with God. And that that’s what works for me—and through prayer. He just helps me all through all the stages of my work.”
“I’m not feeling it here. I’m just not challenged. I need to do something different with a watercolor.”
“My point is there that you don’t have to be in Santa Fe. You don’t have to be in New York.”
Related Episodes
These episodes feature the journeys of other self-representing artists.
About My Guest
Ali Cavanaugh studied painting at the Kendall College of Art and Design and the New York Studio Residency Program in New York City, earning a BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design in 1995.
At the age of 22, she co-founded an atelier—The New School Academy of Fine Art—in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. It was during her six years in Santa Fe that she developed her modern fresco process on kaolin clay.
Her paintings have been the subject of numerous national and international solo and group exhibitions. Cavanaugh’s paintings have been featured on book covers, countless internet features such as the Huffington Post, Fine Art Connoisseur, Artsy and in numerous print publications including The New York Times Magazine, American Art Collector, American Artist Watercolor.
She has painted portraits for TIME magazine and The New York Times. Her work is featured in more than 400 private and corporate collections throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She currently lives in St Louis, Missouri.
In 2019, the gorgeous monograph Ali Cavanaugh: Modern Fresco Paintings was published. It is now a collector’s item.
Follow Ali on Instagram: @_alicavanaugh_
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