Revisiting my goals

I met a wonderful lady called Shannon, who used to work in an art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is an artist, painting wonderful landscapes in rich warm colours and she sells her paintings. We get to chatting and I ask her if I would be able to visit one day, have a look at her paintings and pick her brains for ideas. Shannon is completely open to the idea.

When we get together, the very first question she asks is - what do you want to achieve? I give her my "I want to be famous" line. When asked why I want to be famous, I reply "because famous people sell their paintings". To which Shannon replied, "do they?" And then words to the effect of  "Or is it when they die that their paintings sell?"

She knew of a man who sold a painting approximately 30 times in one year - various sizes etc, however it was so popular that the gallery asked him to paint it over and over. That gentleman makes a six figure income from his painting, AND he is not famous.

I am floored, she might just be right.

Really, I just want to sell my paintings, so where does that leave me? Without a plan of action so far. Hmmm, where to next?

The wonderful thing about Shannon was that she didn't just drop me off with nowhere to go. She actually provided the direction as well.

1. Decide on a style I would be; happy painting and that I enables me to produce paintings quickly

2. Get together a body of work - 20 or so paintings that represent my style and me

3. Check out galleries in the state I live in - namely Oregon, and find ones that might fit with me.

4. Send out a pamphlet with photos of my artwork, plus a letter to each of these good fit galleries, then follow up with a phone call

Ok, so that sounds easy-ish. Now I just have to do it!