The Business of Art

I'm taking a bold step for me and setting up an Etsy account to sell my art. Let me just say I'm the absolute worst at selling things, especially my own things. (the Girl Scouts would have literally kicked me out). I give a lot of things away. Oh you like that? Here take it. It's Christmas? Here, have some art. (friends, I do it gladly) And then every year at tax time I add up all the money I spent on art supplies, and framing, and entry fees to shows, and then add up my profits and.....hey, wait a minute! And do you know how many organizations ask you to donate art for fundraisers.....and then charge you to come to the fundraiser event?

One of my yearly horrors while teaching high school was, of course, the dreaded fund raiser. You would think that a school that was all about the arts would......oh but I digress into bitterness. Don't get me started about sports and pom squads. Needless to say I had about 200 teenagers in dance classes issued giant cartons of assorted candy bars and told to sell them. What could possibly go wrong? Surely they wouldn't leave them in the trunk of a car in the hot sun. Surely their ravenous relatives wouldn't eat them all and thank them for the freebies. Surely they wouldn't leave them in a classroom only to come back and discover them gone. Surely they wouldn't lock them in a locker and then just forget about them. And surely they would happily reimburse you for any candy lost, eaten, destroyed, unsold, or stolen. I was lucky just to break even with the candy company let alone raise that projected $1000.00, to split between 200 kids to purchase costumes for a dance concert. Let's see, two hundred goes into 1000........oh, $5.00 per student, eh? That'll buy a nice headband. OK, let's all bring a T-shirt kids, and we'll dye them and cut fringe at the bottom. It'll be cute. Trust me.

So....Etsy. Now for a catchy name for my online shop. Valya? Taken. Valeria? Taken. Valerina? Taken. Artemesia? Taken. Krasivaya? (Russian for Beautiful) Taken. Valociraptor's Art Attack? Surprisingly, not taken, but still.......maybe I'll just stick with my temporary name artbyValya.

 Oh God, I'll have to handle transactions. I'll have to mail people things and hope they're pleased. I'll have to market myself. Oh God.....did I mention dealing with people? I need a business manager. I need a website specialist. Where's my business manager? My webmaster? Oh that's right. She moved to San Francisco.