Artist, CEO | Ann Rea, Inc. & Founder of ArtistsWhoTHRIVE

Audio Interview of Ann Rea by Carlos Castellanos of Drawn by Success

Click here to access audio file.  Please note, it sounds like the interview has already started.  Hold on.  It really hasn’t.

Episode 04 of the Drawn By Success Creative Success Series features the very first interview post for 2011, my audio interview with the one and only, painter and business savvy artist Ann Rea. How she went from anxiety ridden, corporate cubicle dweller to becoming a high profile artist whose works have gained increasingly collectible status. And how you can apply the same strategies for your work.

Update: Since recording this interview with Ann, several Small Business Development Centers in Northern California, UC Berkley, JFK University, and the Cleveland Institute of Art have asked her to teach her Business building seminars for artists.

Your success can be measured as an average of those closest to you.

As you strive for more success you may find that some in your circle will prop you up and encourage your endeavors and some will try to bring you down.  They will do this sometimes consciously, sometimes not.

Let’s face it, most people do not possess the focus and courage required to be an entrepreneurial artist and your desires and new behavior can make them uncomfortable.

Based on my personal experience, my ambitions and successes intimidated some in my circle, made others jealous, yet inspired the rest.   Because of this I was faced with two difficult choices.  I could accept their negativity or release them.

I realized that while embarking on an ambitious life-changing goal I could not afford to be influenced by negativity.  So I fired some and I minded what I shared with others.

This is a difficult realization.  But I was more committed to my success and well being than I was committed to accepting the negativity of others.

And eventually those in my circle whom I fired were replaced by much more positive, successful, and like minded people.

As my artist clients determine their focus and experience success they are in a delicate state.  They want, and they deserve, encouragement and support.

But they find that some in their circle, friends and family, not only don’t offer this but they bring them down.

Life is short.  Accept or let go of those in your circle who do not support you and trade up.

Successful and positive people hang around with successful and positive people.

Pacific Ocean Deep, Ann Rea, oil on canvas

by Marc Acito - a regular commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered”.

“Don’t compete with rivals, make them irrelevant.”

So say W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, authors of the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, a paradigm-shifting look at building your business.

“In today’s overcrowded industries,” they write, “competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody ‘red ocean’ of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool.” Instead, the authors urge businesses to seek untested (and uncontested) “blue oceans,” “designing new products or services and linking them to what buyers really want, even if they don’t realize they want it as yet.”

At a time when it feels like you’re competing for jobs with some guy in India who’s calling himself Kevin, the concept has its appeal.

That is assuming you can understand the rest of the Blue Ocean website, which is full of multi-syllabic business school jargon that might as well be in Hindi. From what I can gather, blue ocean strategies created Cirque du Soleil, which reinvigorated a moribund circus industry by appealing to adults and corporate clients. Or iTunes, which figured out customers didn’t want to buy a whole CD to get one or two songs. Or Curves, which assessed women’s desires and gave them the health club without mirrors or men.

Or painter Ann Rea, who discovered an untapped market in painting landscapes of Northern California wineries, where “everything sells better when you have alcohol in your system.”

Rea’s story is every cubicle dweller’s dream. After working in “a variety of anxiety producing jobs” in high tech, investing, and disaster relief, an encounter with two stage IV breast cancer survivors made her realize that life is too short not to go for her goals.

But how?

“My brother was the dean of a business school and he was useless,” Rea reports. “So I sat with a friend and threw out every possible way to make a living as a painter – we wrote everything down without a filter.” Rea ranked the ideas 1 through 3 based on how profitable they were, whether she had any experience with it, and did she know anybody who could help her.” Then she scored them.

Realizing that what mattered most to her was rendering color, Rea formed a strategic partnership painting the landscapes of vineyards. Not only could she make a profit selling originals and reproductions at the wine-tastings, but she learned that oenophiles were natural collectors.

While Rea’s story provides a model for entrepreneurs, it also gives something more important: hope. Hope that there’s a way to cut through the noise of a world in which everyone is now a media personality. Hope that there are still opportunities not just for work, but meaningful work. And hope that beyond the crowded chaos of the red ocean lies a wide open blue horizon.

And that, my friends, is The Upside.

Colleen Attara

This is the first installment in The Artists Who THRIVE Profile Series.

As I mention in this recording I’m often wondering what to write about next and I’m often focused on business and marketing challenges facing artists.

So I decided to switch my focus, and my medium, to a recorded interview with a thriving artist who I coached, Colleen Attara. Colleen deserves all the credit for her success.  I was only there for a relatively short time to help her build a road map towards her goal and to teach her ways to avoid some of my very expensive lessons.

Colleen is a full time artist with a new scenic studio that she’s always dreamed of, six galleries represent her, and she regularly receives private commissions.  Colleen’s current focus is a significant large-scale commission for 90 foot wall in an innovative new hospital.

Listen to Colleen’s focus and confidence.  She’s developed this by taking planned action.

The panel was composed of a successful print maker, a painter, a tenured UC Berkeley art professor of painting, me, and someone else.  When the moderator came to the professor to ask his esteemed opinion on the matter of making a living as a fine artist, his general very long-winded response was to “just make art and do not worry about money.”

To my delight, my print making co-panelist dropped an f-bomb and said “F*! that, people are buying art”.  “You said it sister!” I replied.  And easy for you to say Mr. Tenured professor, who’ll never be fired, even though his instruction is completely irresponsible garbage.  “Don’t worry about it?!” So should they not worry about food or shelter either? Good grief!  The ones who seem to be less concerned with money are usually the ones who have plenty of it or who know that ultimately they have a financial back up. Go figure.

I heard this strange disdain for the commerce of art just last week.  I was interviewing marketing consultants to help me craft a new marketing piece and I was met with “you seem to be much more interested in the marketing of art than the making of art.”  “Ah, nooo. I’m very interested in the making of art, but if I want to keep doing that I have to market it.  And ah, aren’t you a marketing consultant?”  I didn’t hire him.

What the heck is this twisted and hypocritical conflict about money and art?  Musicians seem to suffer less from this. Why is that?

Please! Making art and well-being requires money. So let’s make more money!

San Francisco based Artist and CEO Ann Rea

Listen to Artist Ann Rea’s Interview

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About Artist and CEO Ann Rea

by Melissa Dinwiddie

Ann went to art school, but abandoned her art career and didn’t paint or draw for over seven years while working a variety of jobs in tech, investing and disaster relief. An encounter with two stage IV breast cancer survivors finally made her realize that life is too short to avoid pursuing her dream.

In late 2004 Ann moved to San Francisco to paint full time, and within one year she’d created a profitable business from her art. (So much for the “starving artist” myth.) A profile in Fortune Magazine refers to Ann as “the practical painter,” and Jonathan Fields writes about her blue ocean business strategy in his book, Career Renegade.

As her art career flourished, other artists started asking Ann for coaching. She now has an artist business coaching and consulting practice and works one-on-one with a a select number of artists in all media across the globe. She started an online community, ArtistsWhoTHRIVE, in order to reach a broader audience and attract other thriving artists to possibly profile in a future book.

Ann’s intention with ArtistsWhoTHRIVE is to cultivate a positive and productive online global community of thriving artists and to provide guidance through a series of Q&A posts. (Yes, your questions are welcome, but be advised, ArtistsWhoTHRIVE is a whining-free zone!)

Here is Ann’s first draft of The Artists Who Thrive manifesto:

• We believe that we have shaped our artistic voice and that we have something to say.
• We believe we offer creative expression that adds value to the world and therefore the marketplace.
• We believe that we are creating and growing a business.
• We articulate our unique selling proposition to our defined market.
• We believe that we will not be discovered but our value can if we promote it.
• We believe that the traditional model of artist representation is too often broken so we represent ourselves using effective strategic marketing.
• We believe in getting a nice piece of the pie in the art market.
• We are confident and optimistic that we are in control of our destiny.
• We know that in the new economy “the right brainers will rule the world.”*

* “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink

Frankly, a few artists approach me for coaching and consulting and they just don’t have it.  But taste and style is very personal so it’s not for me alone to judge. And they never follow through on consultations and coaching.

What I emphasize to my artist clients is that the truth will set you free.  Come on, be very honest with yourself about how your work stacks up in your category in the art market.

If you’re overly critical and lacking confidence then you are not performing a clear headed evaluation.  If you haven’t had formal training, you must access credible guidance.

By the way, I don’t offer art critiques.  I’m in the business of selling art,  my own, and part time helping select artists sell theirs.  I assume that you’ve passed the talent test and I won’t comment on the quality of your work.

And don’t let one person’s opinion shoot you down.  Look for a pattern in others observations.  I had a design professor in art school that I interned for when I was 20 years old.  He owned a firm that did hand drawn architectural renderings. I respected him and wanted to be like him.  But then he started to say, repeatedly in class and at work, that men could draw better than women.  I was the only woman at the firm and a minority in my art school’s department.  How do you think his sexist comments made me feel?  Do you think it helped me gain confidence and skill?  It absolutely interfered with a very expensive private art education.

Looking back, this was one of several experiences that led to my abandoning my creative career for over one and a half decades. But many of us have experienced serious challenges so I’m less interested in your horror stories and more interested in how you too have overcome them.  Hence the title of this community: ArtistsWhoTHRIVE.    I invite you too share how you discovered your own talent, voice, and confidence.

Once I’ve worked with an artist for six months I like to ask them what they’ve learned.  Obviously, it helps me help other artists, it lets us both know what progress they’ve made, and it helps reinforce what they have learned.

So I asked Colleen Attara, a Mixed media eco-artist from Philadelphia, to share at least ten things that she’s learned in the last six months or insights that she has gained.  I suggested that she not labor over this exercise but simply rattle off what popped into her head.

I asked for ten, she gave me sixteen, quoted below.  Colleen agreed to share what she learned so that other artists in this community could also benefit from her experience.

1. Know what unique value you bring to the seller.
2. You run your own show.
3. Talk size, not price.
4. Never discount your work; it is unfair to your collectors.  Instead offer value; i.e.:  shipping, cards etc.
5. Your website design should not overpower your art.
6. Write down your policies and how you do business; this will allow more time to create and sell.
7. Write your bio in 3rd person; let others speak highly for you.
8. Write down six things you are going to accomplish before going to bed.
9. It is hard to control time, but you can control your priorities.
10. *Positive energy sells art.
11. *See what you want to be as an artist.  Have that vision, put it on paper……and watch what happens.
12. Protect your art and your images.
13. Make the buying process as easy as possible.  Wine and credit cards are very good.
14. Position yourself as an authority. Talk to groups of people.
15. Contact interested buyers and past buyers once a month.
16. Showing art and selling art are two different things.

* knew this; needed the reminder

Do you think that these insights have helped Colleen’s business and increased her sales?  You bet!  So if your ready to invest in your career, applying for coaching, click here.

Should I license my images?

Only if you really understand licensing and your client really understands licensing.

If the licensing opportunity is appropriate, meaning that it elevates your brand to the right audience, the compensation is agreeable, and you have a clear written contract with an experienced and reputable licensee, then it can be very lucrative.

Learn from my tribulations.  Two out of the three times that I have licensed my images have been complete disasters because I had two ignorant clients.  They had an attitude of entitlement that I believe came from their misguided notion that they where doing me a great favor by helping me gain “exposure.”  In fact, I did them a great favor, as friends of friends, by mistakenly offering below market rates.  And that is where it went to hell despite my solid contract.

The first and the last wine label I designed included an image of one of my contemporary still life paintings.  I crafted a very clear licensing agreement from the most current samples in the annual edition of the “Graphic Design Guild’s Pricing and Ethical Guidelines“, an excellent resource.  I discussed the fact that I reserve my rights to any and all reproduction of my images and my clients nodded enthusiastically.  Because they both nodded and each signed the contract, I thought we had communicated.

The scope of this limited “single use” license could not have been made any clearer.  The license allowed reproduction of a single image on x number of wine labels to be printed in a given year, only on wine labels applied only to wine bottles, and distributed within a specified geographic region.  The contract further stated that other uses where excluded, including, but not limited to, electronic reproduction.  And because the image is my property that is my prerogative.

The winemaker and his wife actually purchased the original oil painting, again with a clear second notice that I reserved all rights to reproduction. By owning the original oil painting they do not somehow own the rights to reproduce it.  Those rights are my sole intellectual property.  For example, if you purchased the original transcripts of Harry Potter, you don’t get to make copies and distribute them.  Why?  You don’t own the rights, JK Rowling does.  That’s why she is the only one who can sell the movie rights to Warner Brothers.

Anyway, the wine was a hit! And this was a new brand that we made up at the kitchen table.  That’s saying something in the over saturated market of wine.  But now my clients wanted to broaden the scope of the licensing agreement and place the image on soaps and tea shirts.  That would be fine, if the money was right and it elevated my emerging brand. But I don’t believe that anything that goes in the dishwasher or the laundry is going to elevate my fine art brand.

When I didn’t immediately agree to sell all of my rights the winemaker became  furious.  And he actually threatened to squash my emerging reputation in the close-knit wine community.

It doesn’t end there.  I’ll be in small claims court this Friday enforcing the second judgment I’ve won against the other wine label client for breach of contract, specifically copyright infringement.

Again, licensing can be a very lucrative and a very nice passive form of income.  But that’s only if you have a solid agreement, mutual respect, and experience.  Most clients and most artists do not understand licensing.

If you ever want to build your brand and build your wealth you must understand your intellectual property rights.  Start with the US Copyright Office website.  If you create the image you own the copyright but if you don’t register it with the Library of Congress the damages that you can recover will be limited.

I’ve decided since my very first wine label helped move that much wine, the next wine label that I design will be for my wine.