You became an artist because you have a unique voice and want people to see the world through your eyes. You want people to change perspective, to be out of their comfort zone and be open to new experiences. The creative act requires you to dig deep and spend time in dark places. You work for days, months or years in isolation. Yours is a lonely place.
When you are creating, the rest of the world seems like a foreign country that you’ve only dreamed of visiting. Getting your art out into that world seems like an impossible journey. Being understood by gallery owners, clients and collectors is daunting because they all speak an entirely different language.
But if you are prepared, it is a language you can learn and a world you can inhabit.
Business without art leads to an empty life.
Art without business leads to an empty refrigerator.
Putting both together is what leads to a successful career.
You can create your career and your business just like you create your art. With support and guidance from a community of fellow artists and an experienced mentor and guide, you can achieve the success that you deserve.
Meet Your Mentor
My name is Gwenda Joyce and I’ve worked in the art world for over 30 years. I’ve been a gallery owner, an art consultant, a curator and an agent. I’ve helped shape the careers of dozens of artists.
I come from a very creative family. When I was growing up, my mother studied art and design. She taught me about color at an early age, and from then on I looked at the world differently. My brother is a sculptor and a photographer, and my sister is a dancer, composer and a musician. Every one of them was really talented but they made mistake after mistake after mistake and reached the depths of despair from never being recognized at the level they deserved.
My first career was as a writer. I wrote about art, architecture and design. Then in the 1980′s, armed with a great vision and a stable of cutting-edge, emerging and mid-career artists, I opened a gallery in the River North district of Chicago. It was all great — but my problem was, I really didn’t know how to sell art. I HATED selling art. I grew up in a family of artists, not sales people. We talked about art, ideas, music and dance—we never talked about money or selling. My mother, the artist, who could do the most exquisite things with one flower and one branch, couldn’t turn an admirer’s comments into a transaction. She didn’t know how to sell it. And when talking with my artists, I talked about their art, not about whether it was salable.
Does that sound familiar?
I was under the illusion that if the art was good, then people would naturally want to buy it. But I soon found out that your art may be great, but the gallery next door could also have good art on the walls, and so could the gallery across the street. There were collectors and art consultants who bought art, but there was also competition from other galleries and other artists, and it didn’t just walk out the door. A gallery has a lot of expenses. If you don’t pay your bills, you can’t sustain your gallery.
So, I had to learn how to sell artwork. And it was through that experience that I began to understand how the creators, dealers and buyers of art all needed to communicate and work together in order to build the sustaining relationship that leads to true success for the artist. And so my program for artists was born…
Get Your Art Out of the Studio in 90 Days
My 11 week program will break the overwhelming thought of taking your work public down into bite sized pieces. So instead of just turning your back on that thought and heading back to your studio to produce more work, you’ll feel guided and supported through the process and energized as you complete the small steps I’ve laid out for you.
- We’ll tackle the 7 Getting What You Want Guidelines to Greatness that will help you lay the foundation for a successful art career through our 75 minute webinars. There’ll be plenty of time for Q&A and we’ll record each session so you can go back and review the material as often as you need.
- We’ll interview a successful artist about his turning point, and through a group mastermind call you’ll understand at a deeper level how to apply those lessons to accelerate your own progress.
- We’ll demystify the world of marketing with a guest expert who’ll help you understand the importance of promotion through the web and social media and how to set yourself up for online visibility.
- You’ll hear from an art world professional on what it takes to set yourself apart so that you get their attention and understand the mindset of a professional artist.
- You’ll get a 30 minute private one-on-one coaching session with me to focus on those areas where you feel the most stuck and we’ll create an action plan to keep you moving.
- You’ll learn how to write effectively about your own work and hear from a guest expert on the best way to present yourself to the world.
- And you’ll have access to a tight-knit online community of fellow artists, to brainstorm solutions, trade advice and experience, and get personalized advice from me. No matter what’s got you stuck, the community and I are here to get you rolling again.
Gwenda gently guided me to dig deep to discover the true meaning of my work. It was an exciting and fulfilling process and a foundation for more discoveries.
–Katherine Greene www.KatherineGreeneFineArt.com
Working with Gwenda was really helpful and clarified so many things. She has great suggestions that changed my feelings about galleries and my career completely.
–M.L. Los Angeles
I graduated from a top art school and have been making art for years. Before working with Gwenda, I was making paintings on panels leftover from another artist. I traded paintings with my friends instead of selling them. Gwenda helped me focus on creating a series of paintings around one idea. I created 7 new works, we revised my resume and re-wrote my artist’s statement, then I started submitting the work for exhibition. I got a one-person show in less than 3 months. Working in a series has given me a whole new way of thinking about my work. I am making the work I want to and getting it exhibited. I just sold my first piece in this series yesterday.
–Roberta Alexander www.studio-RSA.com
Get Your Art Out of the Studio in 90 Days
will help you to understand the bigger picture of the art world
and your role in it so you can set yourself apart
and master a bigger game.
I have been involved in public art for a number of years, and now I’m getting back into my own personal work. My conversations with Gwenda have been really rich, and she has really affirmed some things for me and helped me get clear on a direction. I have started a whole new body of work and Gwenda has helped me clarify where I want to go and how to do it.
–Gerry Lang/Lang Studios
As a result of participating in the program you will…
- Identify your dream of success so you can set yourself apart and make it happen
- Decipher the marketing solutions available to you so you can choose your best options
- Write materials that speak clearly about your art, and know when to let your art speak for you
- Get clear on what collectors, galleries and clients are a good match for you
Core Program Overview
The program commences on January 18th 2012 and the core 7 weeks will cover the following topics:
Week 1 ~ Getting Started
You’ll start by getting clear about your goals for your art business. You’ll assess where you are right now and where you want to be.
Week 2 ~ Implementing Your Vision
Next you’ll take stock of all your work and begin to get it organized so that you know what you have and can tell people about it. We’ll discuss strategies for your success that will help you determine how to implement your vision. You’ll learn how to make your resume appealing to exactly the people whose attention you want to attract.
Week 3 ~ Establishing Your Presence
You’ll get an overview of the key elements of marketing your work and will identify which of those elements will work best for you.
Week 4 ~ Building on Your Foundation
We’ll introduce you to social networking and the value of developing a supportive community. You’ll build or refine your online presence and develop some simple mechanisms for keeping in touch with the wider art world.
Week 5 ~ Enhancing Your Professionalism
This week is all about presenting yourself and your art to the world. You’ll uncover the secret language of collectors, buyers and gallery owners and learn how to speak and write about what you do.
Week 6 ~ Building on Key Relationships
Now you know where to find people who may be interested in your art you’ll work on keeping them informed about what you do. You’ll learn how to make the fine distinction between galleries and other exhibitors that will work for you and your art and those that won’t. You’ll plan some field trips to gallery spaces, do online research and learn what to look for both in the space and the owner.
Week 7 ~ Stepping Out into Your Bigger Game
Finally you’ll work on getting your submissions out to the world, including how to evaluate a gallery’s business reputation, how to approach them and how to follow their guidelines.
Alternative Perspectives
The core program will be enhanced by our guest faculty who’ll teach you the finer points about marketing and presenting yourself. We’ll also be hearing from an artists and an art world professional to get some inside perspectives that you can use to help your own progress through the program.
There is plenty of time for Q&A in all of our sessions as well as our private forum where you’ll be able to share your progress with your fellow artists and give and receive support as you need.
And to really help you keep on track, you’ll have the opportunity for a private coaching session with me where I can help you get through any “stuckness” and help you determine what will be the best path for you going forward.
Gwenda and I had worked together on some charitable projects in the past, and following that she brought my work to the attention of some serious collectors who had both the interest and the money to close a deal. Later she was able to connect me to a gallery that I had sent work to on a couple of different occasions, without a response. I’m not sure what she did that I didn’t know how to do, but the gallery became very interested and ultimately took about 15 paintings for exhibition. They sold two of them right away. Gwenda is sincere, direct, and honest; very easy to work with!
– Reid Winfrey www.reidwinfrey.com
Do You Really Need This Program?
If you think you can do this yourself, you most certainly can. But the truth is that most people do better when they are seen, heard and supported. It is easy to get stuck at a seemingly insurmountable problem and then just walk away from any progress that you have made. But with a group of like minded artists who are in the exact same place as you it is easier to get the perspective you need. The program is a great place to get yourself the support you need as well as broaden your community, and make this the year to go after what you want.
As an artist you spend a lot of time in the studio on your own. This level of isolation makes it very easy to misinterpret the world outside. You think people don’t understand either you or your art. This then spirals into thoughts of rejection and drags you to an even darker place. By working through the program step-by-step, I’ll show you how to connect with the world outside in a way that is manageable for you and won’t lead to disappointment and despair because your dreams will be in sync with your abilities.
Our dreams are all different, as are our abilities. What can seem impossible to us might be “a snap” for someone else. Historically artists have thrived within some form of collective when they have been able to help one another, whether it be through artistic blocks, share leads, or get through the challenges of being an artist is an unsympathetic world. Tapping into the collective power of this program can give you exactly the impetus you need to keep pushing through something that you might have seen as crazy even just a few months ago. Support PLUS knowledge is a powerful way to work towards fulfilling your dreams.
What impressed me about Gwenda is her passion for art. Gwenda and I met when she came in to see an exhibit I had at a regional museum where I was doing a lecture and demo. We stayed in touch, and I invited her to my studio. She is so knowledgeable and thoughtful. She invited me to exhibit in a special exhibit in a public space. I was really glad to add it to my resume, and the extra exposure gave me access to a completely new audience.
– Pamela Merory Dernham www.pmdernham.com
Are You Ready to Master a Bigger Game?
It’s a big step, but I think if you’ve stayed with me and read this far then there is something about the program that intrigues you. You might even feel a resonance with the message that it’s time to engage more fully with the art world “out there” and show up so that people can finally see you, and you can start to receive the recognition you truly deserve.
The biggest benefit that you’ll see at the end of our 90 days together is that you’ll actually be ready to take your art out of the studio and hang it on gallery walls for the world to see. Your confidence in yourself will have increased dramatically and you may even begin to enjoy interacting with your public!
I invite you to join in this program starting on January 18th 2012 and make that investment in yourself that says: “I am important, and I am going to take this step and make my career happen for me”.
The investment you will make in
Get Your Art Out of the Studio in 90 Days
can be as little as$177 per month
if you spread the cost over 5 monthsYou can pay in full and save some money
or our 2 payment plans will help you
spread the cost over 3 or 5 monthsClick on the orange button below to see the options available
The Guarantee
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Because I know how difficult it is to make a decision about investing your time and money into something you have never tried, I am offering a no-questions-asked no-risk guarantee. Sign-up for the program now and join us for the first week of training that begins on January 18th 2012. If you believe that the program is really not for you, then you can request a 100% refund up until 9am PT on January 25th 2012 and you will get your money back that same week. We’ll be sad to see you go, but will support you completely in that decision. |
I do hope you’ll join me and a vibrant community of fellow artists who will share this journey with you. The business of art does not have to be hard and it becomes even easier when there are friends around to guide and support you.
Sincerely,
Gwenda Joyce
Art Ambassador and Your Guide & Mentor
The main way Gwenda Joyce has helped me as an artist is by her honest and very knowledgeable reactions to my work. I don’t think my art would have advanced as it has without her feedback. Our conversations are a great source of energy for me. More concretely, she works hard to help me find outlets for my art. Her letter of recommendation was instrumental in my recent successful application for a Pollock-Krasner Grant.
– Michael Acker www.mca-studios.com
P.S.
I have seen so many promising artists sidestep their success because they’ve not been willing to get out of their comfort zone. I trust that I have been able to convey to you that with support and guidance and a system of small steps to follow, it really is possible to engage with the business of art in a meaningful and valuable way. I am looking forward to your company and to seeing you grow in ways that will be amazing to everyone who knows you.