So do I have an Art Business Plan?

Excited One, 

8 x 8 Collage and image transfers, 

Elder piece and sold some years back...but like the pose and the green. 

Stepping back and look over all that is and contemplating the good around us.  

A long time ago, this question came up and now more recently.  A business plan, heck I'm an artist why would I want a business plan I just create and create and some day I'll.....have a show.  And that's how I operated from start. The words Business Plan is like hitting a brick wall.  To me it's a formal way, that someone approaches something that wasn't an act of self expression.  How do you do that...? 

I skirted away from the whole thing, like writing a grant or a gallery proposal.  These areas are poking around a weakness of mine.  Writing and getting thoughts to flow.  Sounds a bit crazy but it's what I saw in myself as an area I was not prepared for and would just detour anytime it came around.  And to this day I haven't touch base with it.  Note sure if will,  to formulate my thoughts to extend something in the future and to stick with it is a commitment I don't know I have in me. I do but I get jumble up about how to do it, freeze and need someone to hold my hand. 

So back to Art Business Plan...I found some stuff from Abundant Artist, that might be helpful, One-Page Art Business Plan,    or if you want to get deeper into this...you might want to look at this one, A business Plan for Artists. 

Budgets, Plans and Marketing with some Goals....kind of scares me. 

I'm the type that likes to have control but in a way that I like to be able to do it myself. The independent one. Mainly because I didn't want to show my weakness with writing, spelling and comprehension of things.  So I muddle around till I found a back door or for the life of me I was invited to be part of something, like a gallery exhibit etc. and just took it as a blessing and said "Thank You."

As I started to build up a collection of my own work, I saw other people with my work hanging in their homes.  I saw larger piece hanging in Corporate offices too. I just knew I enjoy the process of assembling papers and objects and that I had something that people were connecting to.   I would get asked, "what school did I study at?"  Self taught girl here!    

I work through a different means of a plan each year,  I work with a Vision Board, magazine and glue sticks and create area of forward movement.  I Annually ask the questions, Who am I? Why am I here? and Where am I going?  

In doing this I can narrow down the journey for the year.  Will I try outdoor shows, teach more workshops, get a one person show, teach on line etc.   Then I send it out to the something bigger then Myself...yes to the Greater Spirit and stay tuned to signs and signals to the direction to go.  Crazy?  That's been my Business/Life/Art plan for some years now.  I keep a good check in on it too and review it.  

I've gone to many art related business session to learn over the many years of doing this.   I went to the Chicago Artists Coalitions about taxes, I went and took a Course at Collage of DuPage on how to Market your Art, which was really a way to document all the records you need to keep for an artist, which during this time I meet someone and had a Van Exhibit in a parking lot and sold many piece of my art for a Gallery in Wyoming. Weird but my first experience.    Anyways I've taking many course free and paid for some, but what I gathered from them was I had to really find my way.  Find where my work fit in.  And I had to create my work so I understood what I was trying to say with it.  That is a always a tough one to figure out to this day.  But my work is recognizable.  That's a different topic.  

I've been an active artist in my own work for 26 years.   And the Art Business Plan for me has always been a dream to fill.  To be 84 years old and dropping off a piece of artwork for a show.  That plan to me means I've got to stick this out and keep going and learning for what I do, not what everyone else is doing.  

I do need to pick up things from the business side of things, like marketing these days. it's always new things going on and changing so can't help keep learning.  Rambling now.  

So the first thing is to create a Mission Statement. 

 Wow, this is big and way-out there, my first reaction I feel...But let's look at this,  The mission statement should explain the mission of you business and how you achieve it. What do you want your art to mean to the world, and how do you achieve that?  Really good questions. 

The mission of the business has evolved over time, exhibiting and selling the art that I make along with instructing others on how to create as I do but with their own creative voices. Providing an safe environment of the creative process that allows you to step back into your youthful acceptance and to expand into an inner and outer understand of self-expression. What I would like my art to mean to the world is this, Layers, like history that keep revealing a deeper connection. Because taking the bits and piece of papers and mixed media and object bring them together to show how we all are so connected it's kind of mind blowing.  So narrowing that down for sure but a really rough draft.  A step in the right direction. 

So do I have a plan...I do but it's very loose one,  and I think I have to be Open to the changes that are round me.  

Another good source for things that I visit now and then is Artwork Archives. 

I'm glad that I was asked about this, Thanks Ellie-(Beth), it's good to think about this now I have a different perspective on this then when I first heard about it some 20 years ago. The statement can keep changing as I re-evaluated it each year, like a vision board I do and it helps to have a clarity for the forward movement. 

Not Claiming to be a know-it-all but to know thyself is a journey I continue to venture on. Plus what works for one may not work for everyone, finding a path that works for your artistic career is what is really character building, some what rebellious and for sure fun.