Three Tips on Thinking Like an Art Buyer

So my tips for this week revolve around thinking like an art buyer to better market your work. I used to try to get into this mindset all the time when I was first starting out, but now I can really get into the art buying mindset because I'm about to be an art buyer. Yep, I'm making my first major art purchase, and I think it's going to be Oana Lauric -- I would dearly love a print of her Dal Duomo.

Anyway, the lovely and wonderful owner of Chasen Galleries (who represents me), Andrew Chasen (who brought me flowers at my book launch!!) let me into the gallery to look around after Lament's book launch party. It was like seeing it with brand new Maggie-goggles, because this time, I was looking as a buyer. It was great! Anyway, it taught me a lot . . . and made me wish I'd done it earlier.

So, here are three tips on how to think like an art buyer.

1) Visit a gallery and look around as if you had $1K in your pocket. Then $2K. Then $3K. What is going through your head when you look at the pieces? If you're like me, this is what:

• That is friggin' gorgeous. Um, but can you imagine what my neighbors would say when they came over and saw it hanging over the couch?
• Holy smokes that piece is gigantic. I'd have to build another bedroom for it.
• Why am I paying $3K for something the size of my dog?
• That much red would keep me up at night.
• If I got that tall skinny one, I'd really need another tall skinny one to match.
• I could look at that one all day long and all night long and all day long and all night and . . . that's the one.

2) Google thyself. Or rather, imagine what people would be googling if they were looking for your art. For me, my goal was to show up near the top of searches like "maggie stiefvater," "maggie steifvater" (always add the most common misspellings of your name into your website's keywords), "maggie horse portraits" (because sometimes people will meet me and not remember my last name), "jack russell terrier portraits," and "virginia colored pencil art." And make your google presence show your concentration. A year ago, the first page of my google results was art-related. I'm pretty sure now it's dominated by my writing. Make sure yours isn't dominated by some hijink you pulled off in college while wearing a chicken costume.

3) Surf your website like a buyer. Can you figure out where to get your art? How to pay? How much the pieces are? Or do you have to e-mail for every bit of information and arm-wrestle a confusing navigation menu to find out where you're from. Objectivity is a brilliant thing. Borrow or steal it when you can manage.