by Beau Smith

Created on: July 17, 2008

I'll come at this from a different angle, an angle I wish more artists appreciated. First I do have to admit that I am a professional sculptor. I love to paint, but I have not managed in the past twenty years to make a living doing that. I found my niche, and it was in sculpture. So I guess that cancels me out right there, and it is ironic that I should be offering advice. I do plan, however, to use my knowledge as a professional sculptor to make it as a professional painter as well. I will say that I do have important feedback and useful information for all artists out there who are trying to sell their work.

First, you must recognize the importance of finding a niche. That niche might not give you exactly what you want. If I could have chosen my niche, I would have chosen painting, but instead, I found myself making and selling sculpture. I found that sculpture sells more easily. This might not be true for you, but it has been true for me.

I make a living sculpting human-sized copper frogs. I learned this craft many years ago from my father, who came up with the design. One thing that made this work so well for me was that I had to shed a lot of ego. Artists have a lot of ego - most of them, anyway. Very often, ego gets in the way of creating marketable art.

Ego gets in the way of a lot of things. I have heard a writer talk about how creative writing students often do well with a seemingly boring writing excersize and that this is because they don't put so much of themselves in the excersize. The excersize is just an excersize. So they end up doing well.

One of the greatest difficulties in acting is coming out with a performance that is no longer "performing". In other words, the actor is really there, no longer self-conscious. When you are full of ego, you tend to be self-conscious.

For me, making frogs is my day job - even though sometimes I do it at night because, hallelujah, I'm self-employed. Being self-employed is mainly a good thing. But sometimes it is a headache - as is of course the nine-five or whatever. We all have our greiviances.

What I'm saying: Making frogs is my unself-conscious excersize. I do it to make money. I also am happy that it's part of my art. But I do it to make money. That's the main motivation. If I didn't have to make money, I probably wouldn't make frogs. Simple as that. I would make a lot of other art.

In this discussion, my drift is this: You must focus on a product, and not just any product; what I call a "niche art product". Artist,

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