Jump Start Your Art Career with Jane Dávila

I’m beyond excited to announce the first of my online classes!

I’m a really odd duck because I enjoy the parts of having an art career that other artists dislike – things like marketing and promotion. I know, I know, you’re thinking “ugh” but I think a light-hearted but consistent approach to tackling these dreaded tasks can do a lot for you.

I meet with a group of about 40 women in my area and we cover a lot of these business-related topics at each month’s meetings. I wanted to reach more people since I know that so many struggle with the business side of being an artist and the internet is the perfect venue, so Jump Start Your Art Career was born!

Creating art can be so joyful and fulfilling but if you have goals beyond simply creating art (like getting it out of your studio so you can make more or sharing your techniques in workshops or books) then you have to think about how to spread the word about how wonderful you and your work are. And you are, but it won’t do you any good if you’re the only one who knows it! Marketing doesn’t have to be painful and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time or money, but like creating a piece of art, it needs to be approached thoughtfully.

I’ve been a professional fine artist (starting with printmaking before moving to art quilting) since I was in my 20s, so I’ve seen the art market evolve and change and grow in the last 20 odd years. My mom and I had a quilt shop for nearly 19 years (we closed our brick and mortar last March and are online and at shows solely now) and I have really loved the marketing and promotional aspects of the business. Weird, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore spending time in my studio experimenting with new techniques and materials or working on one of my ongoing series of fabric collages, but puzzling out a new marketing approach feeds my creative side almost as much. Of course, if I won the lottery tomorrow and didn’t need to worry about earning a living I might be perfectly content to spend ALL of my time in the studio, but since that’s unlikely to happen, I might as well enjoy the parts of my career that enable me to continue doing what I love.

If you’d like more information about the workshop (and you’d like to lose the pain in your art career!) check out this page on my blog.