Art Print Issues

Wired Art Marketing Idea

About a year ago, Wired, a leading tech publication, offered its readers, anyone actually, the chance to create their own personalized cover, like the one pictured here, in a promotion sponsored by Xerox.

Good Ideas Never Go Away

Then as now, I thought it was a great idea. But, I put it away in lieu of other blog post concepts. It's stayed with me and I present it to you today as a way to stimulate your own thoughts on how you might think of creative ways to interact with your collectors and prospects.

The promotion was done as a creative way to show off the Xerox XMPie™ product line, which it had acquired in 2006. Specifically, it allows users to implement its Image Personalization tool to create the personalized headline and illustrate the versatility and ease-of-use of the program. I'm not sure what the price is for the program. It doesn't say on the product's Website. For those of you who own Adobe Creative Suite 2 or 3, you can download a free 30 day trial.

Employ Creative Borrowing to Invent Your Personalized Promotion Ideas

What's more important than the technology to readers of this blog is the concept behind the use of the technology. That is, borrowing on the concept to help you use whatever means, technology or otherwise, available to you, get in gear to think how to personalize your art for your collectors is what is important.

Giclées Are Just One Way to Personalize

The giclée process with its variable size capabilities is just one way you can personalize art for your collectors. I think this alone is underutilized as a way to truly serve customers' specific needs. Substrates are another way to personalize your work. New products are frequently being announced. These are but two examples of how technology can be used to personalize art. Can you imagine collectors willing to pay a nice premium for something personalized for them? I can.

Personalizing on a Small Scale Is an Advantage

If you are able to use the XMPie program to let your collectors and prospects have fun with your art and create a personalized printable product like the one pictured here, wouldn't that be way cool? How much good will, promotion and publcity you can generate with an ideal like this? In the right hands, the possibilities offer great promise on multiple levels.

Dont' Sweat the Small Stuff

Don't stress if you lack the tools or budget to use this program. The idea behind how to reach and influence your customers is the important thing. With a bit of creativity, you can come up with your own unique ways to get personal with those important to your career.

Drawing the Line on Reproductions

Technology for better and worse...sometimes a little of both

For as long as the ability to reproduce art has been available, there have been those who have sought to use it for legitimate purposes, and unfortunately also for ill-gotten gain. There were numerous reports last month about a ring of crooks busted for selling $7 million in fake Picasso, Miro, Dali and Chagall prints, including a post here. These details come nearly on the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the conviction of Kristine Eubanks and her husband, Gerald Sullivan. That pair had been charged with selling $20 million in bogus art prints, many of which were made in their own professional giclée printmaker studio.

(This content is republished from the April 3, 2008 Absolute Arts blog where I am a guest blogger and where you will find an interesting running commentary on it.)

Personally, I quite enjoy that visual artists can reproduce their work and thus create a secondary cash flow from it. It gives them another price point and allows them to introduce their work to many more collectors as well. Seeing cases of fraud, as mentioned above, concerns me visual artists creating legitimate reproductions can sometimes find themselves under unwanted unnecessary scrutiny. As if making a go of it for most artists was not already difficult enough.

What Is Art?

Part of the romantic allure of the art business – yes folks, it is a business – is it is kind of Wild West when it comes to what one wants to do and what one wants to call it. By golly, the debate over “What is art?” rages on and has never really been satisfied. Surely, the folks at the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) can attest from regularly coming under siege for funding controversial works can tell you there is a wide range of sentiment regarding the question of “What is art?”

So, if we can’t decide on what is art, is there any chance we can decide on what is a print? The short and correct answer is no. The mixed use of terms in the business creates confusion that leads to anxiety and distrust.

What Is Investment Art? Can Giclées Be Considered Investment Art?

For many, buying art is more intriguing because one can also hope it may appreciate in time. Ask any of those folks taking part in the $200 million dollar class action suit against the Park West Galleries for its cruise ship art auction tactics. You can bet all bought with the idea of getting a great deal. Unfortunately for them it was only after being shorn did they realize they overpaid for art. It is the same mentality and likely the same herd, only on terra firma, that were taken in by the aforementioned couple of Eubanks and Sullivan who foisted their fraudulent works on their “Fine Art Treasures” cable TV show. In fairness, savvy buyers through the centuries have capitalized on buying undervalued art...and still do today. Tennis great, John McEnroe, says he's made more money in the art market than on the court.

We Should Rethink Limiting Digital Prints

I have for years championed the idea of abandoning limited editions for giclées. In fact, I blogged nearly three years ago on Absolute Arts with a post titled “Limiting Success” about it as well as on my own Art Print Issues blog. It just doesn't’t make sense to me for a variety of reasons; including it begs the question of why limit that which can endlessly be reproduced perfectly or as improvements come along all the better.

Limited editions also nicely lend themselves to some of the schemes mentioned here. I contend if the art is good enough, people will pay a fair price for it knowing it is in unlimited supply, which might help thwart some phony print schemes. Do I care if a recording artist sells millions of copies? Why should I care how many a visual artist will sell? If I want truly intrinsic value from a limited supply, I will pony up for an original, which is why many galleries have left the print/giclée market. They are tired of romancing the artist to a prospective collector only to lose the sale via the Internet when the buyer shops it. Selling originals avoids this problem, but it puts a kink in an artist's ability to leverage his or her work in the print market, which creates just another problem.

Regardless of what I have had to say, the fine art digital reproduction limited edition business remains strong, if not as vibrant as in its glory days. But then, you can say that about all kinds of businesses these days struggling to figure out how to survive in challenging changing times. Today, you can find many artists raking in big bucks selling limited editions in all manner of limited edition configurations. And, their galleries and they are not about to abandon a successful situation. Who can blame them? I merely argue they are leaving money on the table in the long haul by limiting editions.

How much did Greenwich Workshop & Bev Doolittle leave on the table?

Bev Doolittle's first giclées sold out nearly 4,000 pieces in a short time. Could she have sold more and still be selling them if they were merely numbered, but not limited? I contend yes. The early low numbers would ultimately have collectible value if the art is truly appreciable and not being Ponzied up by a limited edition marketing scheme. In Doolittle's case, I think the art would stand up to being open and sell well for years making he and her publisher more money with more happy collectors in the program as well.

A great image might sell well for years just as the back catalog of recording artists do. These steady streams of income could make a striking financial difference for popular artists and their families. Some, like the gifted watercolor artist, Steve Hanks, have retired huge editions on paper and are now releasing the images on canvas. I think Hanks would have never had to quit selling his work if the editions were they open and sequentially numbered because the work is enormously popular, timeless, compelling, representational and surreal at once. Instead, he’s had to resort to putting his watercolor work on canvas, which hardly reproduces as faithfully as his editions on paper.

Someone commented on my blog recently that giclées cannot be considered limited editions unless they are all produced at one time. The contention is they are a limited series instead. Once again, an interesting arguable take that further muddies the waters and heightens the desire for a ruling body to take hold.

Dead Artist's Estates Are Still Cranking Out Editions - So Are the Crooks - Who is Gary Arseneau?

To further stir the pot, there are many dead artists whose estates continue to print reproductions of their work. This, of course has been going on for years with the big names like Dali, Picasso, Miro and Chagall. While long gone, these artists remain in the news for the sale of both legitimate and fake reproductions of their work. Now along comes Gary Arseneau, he is a self-styled independent scholar, an artist, printmaker of original lithographs and a blogger. He is also the self-published author of books such as The Monument to the Victor Hugo Deception.

We ought to be asking, “Who is Gary Arseneau?” Is he a gadfly, or a crusader tilting in the wind trying to stem the tide of fake reproductions? You can only decide by spending time on his blog where he outlines in great detail his argument that the works of Rodin, Degas, Matisse, Duchamp and even Dr. Seuss that are being reproduced by their estates and heirs are fakes. He makes a heck of an interesting argument. Certainly, if you care about reproductions, buy them, produce or market them, you owe it to yourself to study his findings, read his arguments and come up with your own conclusions.

Is Having a Set of Enforcable Understandable Standards Too Much to Hope For?

Regardless of your personal opinion, the can of worms opened by Mr. Arseneau hastens the idea that establishing and enforcing true standards in the art world would be helpful. It is a crazy notion, I agree, but until a line is drawn on reproductions, the visual arts community will carry the burden of proving itself beyond reproach each time art of any value goes to market.

Artists Who Establish Authenticity and Transparency in Their Business Practices Will Win

As the world shrinks due to instant information and communication, being authentic and transparent becomes imperative. For those artists who find a way to embrace authenticity and transparency in how they create multiples or reproductions of their popular work and manage and market their business, there is ample reward awaiting them and their rightful heirs.

Advice on Working with Giclées & Giclée Printers

Congratulations! You've decided to create giclées of your work. Here are some important things to know. These items are by no means all you need to consider, but should help inform your decision on how to best proceed and succeed with adding giclées to your portfolio. The savvy suggestions provided here come courtesy of Barry Glustoff, master giclée printer and owner of Digital Arts Studio in Atlanta, GA. with a select few comments by me.

Tips for Great Results with Giclée Printing

Image Capture

Quality is essential to effectively compete in today's print marketplace

• The best result for your final output starts with your initial step, which is your image capture
• Quite simply, the most critical part of producing the highest quality finished work begins with a obtaining the highest caliber digitized file of your work available
• The adage, "garbage in equals garbage out" is an inarguable proven fact here
• Creating the best possible digital file of your work requires a professional's skills, equipment and expertise
• Although technological advances have brought costs down, professional grade digital scanners and cameras used for fine art reproduction still cost tens of thousands of dollars
• Equally important is the specialized filtered lighting needed to properly illuminate artwork, capture its subtle textures and details, and to eliminate glare from canvas varnishes and glossy paints
• The best latest 10-15 megapixels digital cameras using flash or outdoor lighting are still incapable of creating highest quality image capture

Selecting a Giclée Printmaker

Finding the right printer is more important than finding the closest printer

• When shopping for a giclée printmaker, look for those that do their own digital capture and printing
• Prices for this service range from $75 to $300 per image for color corrected, and proofed files ready for print
• Some printers companies waive this fee with a minimum print purchase causing you to weigh the pros and cons of paying a set up cost versus ordering more inventory than you need
• A first-hand recommendation or warning from someone else's experience might be the best criteria for finding your ideal giclée printmaker
• Make every attempt to contact other artists who have or currently use a printmaker you are considering
• Some printers, especially those only that operate exclusively online might appear to be full service or less expensive than others, but they may not be able to provide the attention needed to "get it right".  Or may be shipping work offshore without your knowledge

Tips for Working with Your Giclée Printer

They may be the experts, but you need to maintain control

• Your printer should strive to establish a cooperative, working collaboration with you, understanding your needs and goals, and able to easily communicate with you in "non-technical" language
• It is highly suggeted to maintain an actual print in your portfolio of each substrate you print on as a reference sample
• Don't let any printer hold your artistic property "hostage" in case you're not satisfied with their print quality
• It is critical you archive your own backup copies of your digital files for safekeeping
• Whenever possible, get actual printed proof copies of your work, printed on the canvas and/or paper type you intend to use. Don't be "fooled" by companies who refuse to provide this option
• Every giclée printer attempts to accurately match your work, but depending on equipment, types of inks, papers and skill, it is not always possible to get 100% accuracy. This is often the case when attempting to reproduce one media with another, such as printing a copy of an oil painting with water-based, pigmented inks
• The color range of the pigmented inks used in giclée printmaking is not always equal to the colors achievable with solid, pigmented oil or acrylic paint
• Seldom, if ever, will the original and the reproduction be displayed side by side. That said, a competent giclée printmaker will have a great understanding of color control and correction techniques and should attempt to make any corrections as directed by the artist, until satisfied

The Giclée Advantage

Print-on-demand has forever changed how fine art print reproductions are created and marketed

• Avoiding the costs associated with inventory. You don’t pay to print until you have orders.
• Creates a saleable replica from your original that is a faithful representation of your work
• Print on a wide variety of substrates, including paper, canvas, metal, Mylar, wood and more
• The color gamut range is higher than with traditional offset printing
• Multiple sizes are easily made within equipment and aspect ratio capabilities
• Custom projects for collectors are easily and affordably fulfilled

Art Print Crooks Case Cracked - Will They Ever Learn?

It seems like there is an unending interest in prints by Dali, Picasso, Chagall, Miro and Warhol. So much so, that folks flock like sheep to slaughter to keep buying phony copies of them. And, if they are not buying outright fakes, many are getting duped on cruise ship auctions and overpaying for art that is not collectible. At least not at the inflated prices the auctions charge if you side with those in the $200 million class action suit filed on behalf of art buyers on cruise lines.

New Arrests Shed Light on the Shady Business of Fake Fine Art Prints

In the past week, there has been a slew of news reports of a newly cracked caper of crooks peddling fake prints. I have to ask, did no one learn anything from last year's sensational reports on the $20 million fraud, forgery and income tax evasion case of Kristine Eubanks and Gerald Sullivan?  These now convicted felons managed to sell fakes for years over a cable television program they managed, called Fine Art Treasures. Their source for making the fakes was one of the first full-time and most heavily advertised professional giclee printing studios in the industry; an operation they founded.

Here is part of a typical news item on the latest round of crooks being caught from Bloomberg:

U.S. Indicts Seven for Selling Fake Picassos, Warhols

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Andy Warhol were among artists whose works were counterfeited by seven people indicted for two art-fraud schemes that reaped a combined $5 million.

Those charged include three Europeans and residents of New York, Florida and Illinois, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said today in a statement. They sold thousands of fake prints in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe, he alleged.

Is it Time to Stop Limiting Giclées?

This latest barrage of news about con men duping honest folks in yet another ongoing art swindle leads me back to a long held premise, i.e., let's stop limiting giclees. I had several posts on this subject last year, including The Double Entendre of the Artist Selling Out and Is Giclée Passé?  There are plenty of other arguments for this decision besides the facts that limited editions can be easily be manipulated by crooks using signed and numbered pieces to jack up prices of fake copies. Read some of the links to get those thoughts. Feel free to chime in with your own on the comments section below.

How to Pronounce Giclée

Despite increasing awareness, widespread use and ubiquitous display at shows such as ArtExpo New York and ArtExpo Las Vegas, there is still confusion about how to pronounce Giclée. Here is an easy way to learn. Click on the word to hear how Giclée sounds and is used in a sentence. Apologies to any French speakers who find my American accent foreign to their ears. It's nevertheless a far improvement from "gick lee" and "gee clay" and other abominations that are excruciatingly foreign to just about anybody's ears with exception of those who mangle the pronounciation.

The following is taken from the Wikipedia entry for Giclée:

Giclée (from French), commonly pronounced "zhee-clay," is an invented term for the process of making fine art prints from a digitial source using ink-jet printing.

Much of the nomenclature for art prints are related to the French language, which is not surprising since the art form evolved in France. For instance, artist's proofs are often denoted as Épreuve d'Artiste or E.A.; a Pochoir is a print made using a stencil; a Bon à Tirer proof translates to "good to print"; and Hors Commerce meaning "before the sale" are print impressions annotated H.C. which are supposedly “not for sale.” While using foreign language terms, especially French ones, adds an elegance and hint of romance to the use for many Americans, the terms in their native French are merely serviceable words used to accurately describe various aspects of fine art printing business.

The early pioneers of digital printing therefore naturally gravitated to the use of a French word to help describe what might otherwise have been called a digital print or computer-generated print or other distinctly non-romantic techie term. Digital artist and digital art are more commonly accepted as fine art these days. These, however, were not terms one wanted to describe a new fine art printing technique in the early '90s before Windows 95, AOL, the Mosaic browser and other transforming technologies became common place along with the rise of the World Wide Web. If you want the full and best story on what a Giclée is and the real story of the genesis of the term, read my previous blog posts, What is a Giclée. It has links to the most accurate and succinct information on the subject.

ArtExpo Las Vegas & Decor Expo Atlanta Shows Mirror the Market - Part Two

The New Millennium Brings Change and New Challenges to the Industry

The early years of the 21st century set the stage for major changes within the industry. For example, against a trend of declining trade magazine ad pages, the industry witnessed the largest shows ever. There was the demise of the PPFA (Professional Picture Framers Association) shows as stand alone entities, and the rise and success of the industry’s only regional framing and art show in the form of the West Coast Art & Frame show. 1999 brought the sale of the Commerce Publishing Company's ABC (Art Buyer's Caravan), Galeria and Frame-o-rama show and DECOR magazine to Pfingsten Publishing LLC.

The Commerce Publishing Company sale to Pfingsten Publishing LLC led to its acquisition of Advanstar Communications' ArtExpo shows, Art Business News magazine and other related media and show properties. The Pfingsten's ownership also brought the end of CPC’s regional art & framing tradeshows. Deemed marginally profitable and contracting in size, the new investment firm owner cancelled shows in California, Orlando, Dallas, Louisville and rotating shows elsewhere. The closing of these shows was an early indication of both changing market conditions and different management philosophy.

Rarity - My clickback response on Painter's Keys

If you are an artist, writer, creative, dealer or collector, you would be well advised, if you already have not, to put in for your free subscription to Robert Genn's Twice-Weekly Letter. It's a component of his Painter's Keys Web site. Robert is a prolific professional artist and a sage commentator as you will quickly discover perusing his work and clickback archives on the site. Here's what he has to say about Painter's Keys:

I sincerely hope you get something out of it. By subscribing you have joined a world-wide community of creative people. We are mostly painters, but there are also a large number of sculptors, writers, photographers, and to a lesser degree collectors and art dealers and others who are just interested. Many subscribers are art students--often encouraged to subscribe by their instructors.

Break at South Point Scotty's Lake of the Woods
Acrylic - 30 x 34 Inches

The September 7 article was titled, Rarity. Here are the opening paragraphs, go to the site to read the full post:

Audio Added for Your Listening and Downloading Pleasure

I added a new widget to the Art Print Issues blog today. Odiogo allows blogger to "Voice Your Content" by digitizing the blog text and creating an audio file read in some bloke's pleasant computer voice. You can also choose to download it as an mp3 and listen to it on your iPod or other audio players. I think it is a cool service some will appreciate having. It will be interesting to get your feedback. Click the icon to start listening.

As with all new technologies, Odiogo comes with some features that are less than perfect. One is it sometimes rambles from one sentence to the next without a natural pause making casual listening difficult in those instances. Another is it doesn't read the list numbers as in my previous "Thirteen Sure-Fire Rules..." post. Lastly, its attempts to pronounce giclee are downright humorous. Given giclee is a French word, it's easy to see how this could happen. It sounds very much like the way many people I've heard try to say it when they first encounter the word. I've heard it as "jie klee" and as "gick lee" but all in all it's pretty impressive. I'm sure as the service gets older it will improve, the model is advertising free now, but it intends to monetize the free service by adding that as a feature sometime in the future.

Odiogo has a blog; its Deploying the Odiogo service on a blog: Why and How is a good read. The Daily Cup of Tech blog recently had a very good post about Odiogo, Now with Audio Goodness, offers some additional insight. If you are a techie type, check it out for its other posts as well. If you want to add it to your Blog or mainstream media Web site, simply go to www.odiogo.com and sign up for the free service.

Thirteen Sure-Fire Rules to Create Success for the Emerging Artist - Part One

1. Don't paint or photograph with the preconceived view of becoming known for a look or style when you have so much to offer on a wide platform of personal interests.
2. Don't have any concerns whether galleries or collectors will have a clue as to what to expect from you when you jump from painting portraits to ponies. With your abundant talent, it doesn't matter because it's only time before the whole world is beckoning to it.
3. Don't submit to any of the multitude of regularly available columns, features, special sections and other FREE publicity opportunities. After all, why go for the filler copy when the cover stories are just around the corner?
4. Don't go out of your way to have any valuable contact with the media when you just know they will be courting you once you are rich and famous.
5. Don't ask any reps, whether they be advertising, tradeshow, framing, paper, printer or art reps, who call on you to tell you what is happening in the business; you wouldn't want to benefit from someone who sees the business from 30,000 feet when you can stay grounded in your studio.
6. Don't bother investing extra money to get the best digital scan possible for your reproductions. If less than the best is acceptable for you, by golly it ought to be good enough for your collectors and would be collectors.
7. Don't ever access the wealth of great information so freely shared by Alyson Stanfield, Robert Genn, Paul Dorrell, Dan's Empty Easel, Charley Parker, Katherine Tyrrell, Clint Watson, Dick Harrison and Barney Davey to name just a few because you suppose you can't trust anyone who is not another starving artist. Surely, they are a bunch of self-serving types just angling to retire once they glom on to a huge chunk of your awesome marketing budget.
8. Don't go to art tradeshows such as ArtExpo or Decor Expo when you can't afford to exhibit. Why would you waste your time seeing how your competitors are doing when none of it matches the masterpieces coming from your easel?
9. Don't waste your time reading a trade magazine like Art World News, Art Business News or Decor. You can't afford to have your creativity be informed by what the most successful artists and publishers in the business are doing.
10. Don't participate in artist discussion boards such as Wet Canvas, Digital Painting Forum, Art Scuttlebutt and Online Visual Artists when you could be watching reruns of Desperate Housewives instead. What could you possibly learn there you don't already know?
11. Don't use the Internet to market yourself and your business. Why would you spend your time with a Web site or one of those trendy Blog things? For heaven's sake, don't even think of whiling away precious hours starting a Squidoo lens or figuring out how the likes of Boing Boing might help jumpstart your career.
12. Don't succumb to the siren song of shameless self-promotion. Stay humble and know that hope alone will bring you all the sales, notice, fame and glory you surely deserve. Let the money grubbers have their time now, your lasting fame and legacy after you are long gone will be the best revenge.
13. Don't go to the extra expense of using a professional printer, or at least carefully follow all the procedures they employ to create lasting art, when you can bang out almost archival reproductions right on your desktop. After all, a giclee is a giclee is a giclee; right?.

BONUS POINTS

1. Don't take the snarky tongue-in-cheek comments personally and keep in mind that controversy sparks more interest than milquetoast commentary.
2. Keep in mind the timeless advice to Wear Sunscreen, which is the common name of a column titled Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune on June, 1 1997. The most popular and well-known form of the essay is the successful music single released in 1999, accredited to Baz Luhrmann.
   

The Secondary Art Market - Bev Doolittle's Beyond Negotiations Sold Out & The Lunacy of Limited Edition Giclees

Brad Greek, a longtime supporter of my book, consulting and blog recently notified me Bev Doolittle's latest limited edition piece, Beyond Negotiations, was sold out at Greenwich Workshop, her publisher of many years. No surprise in that news really. When I blogged about the work last month, the larger canvas giclee 350 piece edition was already taken. It was only a matter of time before the smaller canvas edition of 3,750 would also be no longer available at the publisher level. Together, the two editions represent $4 million in retail sales for unframed work. (Erratum, the edition of 3,750 was identified on my previous post as being on paper. That is incorrect, it is also a giclee on canvas.)

There may be other artists selling out large editions like Doolittle's, but I doubt any are doing it as quickly as we've seen with Beyond Negotiations, which is her first limited edition published in eight years. Obviously, her fans, collectors and speculators remain enthusiastic about her work. The new piece is already active on the secondary market. The secondary art market and unlimiting giclees are the subject of this post.