art making + marketing :: an interview with jess gonacha swift

'art making + marketing' is a new interview feature for my blog!
the lovely and talented jess gonacha swift is the first artist/maker interviewee.
enjoy!

:::: working as a successful indie artist/maker is becoming easier for lots of us, thanks to the option of selling work online. in most cases, it's the behind-the-scenes tasks like marketing that contribute to success {or at least turn a hobby into a business!}. this series of interviews with artists and makers will hopefully shine a little light on stepping in and out of the varied roles required to make a living, creatively ::::


does marketing your work come naturally to you, or do you find it to be a task that is always lives dangersously at the top of your to-do list?
Marketing my work is both hard and easy at the same time. A lot of the things I do to market my work have become second nature-- updating my etsy shop regularly, adding images to my flickr page, writing about what I'm doing on my blog, etc. But advertising on other blogs/sites, participating in marketplaces, submitting new work to bloggers... I always procrastinate on these types of things. I know marketing is important, but it's definitely not my favorite part of what I do, so it's always a bit of a struggle, something I could be doing more of, better, etc. Another thing that I know is fantastic marketing is having gorgeous photographs, and this might be the biggest challenge for me. I'm not a natural photographer, so it's very difficult for me to want to style my work and spend a lot of time photographing it.

does knowing that you will be marketing affect the way you work?
I think it does affect my work somewhat. Sometimes I'll be thinking "will I be able to sell this?" right at the beginning of a piece, which is a sure-fire inspiration killer! I find I need to strike a balance between doing my work for myself while I'm creating it, but also thinking about how I can present it in an appealing way after I'm finished. It's hard to not get caught up in the selling aspect of it, but it's so important not to! Because ultimately I want to be making things that make ME happy, first and foremost.


do you have a best selling piece or series? is this piece/series your personal favourite? if not, how do you balance with working for your 'market' and holding onto your creative freedom?
I have a few pieces that have sold well over the past couple of years-- and yes, strangely enough, the ones that do well are often my favorite pieces. Or pieces that I feel more of a connection with than others. I think that energy is infused in a piece of artwork and people can feel it when they're looking at it. I just can't think of another way to explain it!
** {see pics included }


i admire your ability to work on lots of concurrent projects and to apply your work to the development of various products ~ while keeping your unique style and fingerprint. do you find it tricky to single out one piece to represent your shop/work as a whole?
Oh my goodness, Yes. I feel like I have several different styles going on and lots of different products/projects, so it's hard to see for me to see how it all fits together. I like having a lot of different things happening, because it keeps it interesting for me, but I definitely struggle with how to best represent myself. What I'm discovering within myself, though, is that there's no "right way" to do things. There's only MY way. And THAT'S what I should be focused on-- making sure I'm being true to what I want to do and how I want to put myself out there in the world. If that means changing how I represent myself regularly, then that's ok with me! I don't think there's any way that one image could represent all the things that I do, so I think I try to go for an overall FEELING. I want my work to make people happy, so if I'm conveying that, then I think it's cohesive.


what are your tips for marketing fine art?
Take good photographs (arghhhhh), connect with bloggers who write about the type of thing that you do, update your blog regularly (and if you don't have a blog, start one!!), update your shop/flickr page/other sites where you have your work as often as you can, comment on other people's blogs (with useful, thoughtful comments!)... those are the things that have worked for me so far. Having my work written about on blogs has really been the best marketing for me up to this point-- I think just being in as many places as you can be is a great way to market your work. Oh! And twitter, too-- twitter is a very powerful tool that I highly recommend. It's easy to build a community of people, get news out quickly and efficiently, and connect with people instantaneously. I love twitter.

thanks so much for sharing jess :)
:: shop
:: blog