Search

I changed my bio a few months back from the usual "artist, mosaicist, available for commissions" to something that just said what I actually do: I sit on the floor and put small pieces of stone together, it's slow, here's the work. That's it. No hype, no "transforming spaces through ancient craft", no keywords. And I started getting messages that were different. Not "check out my page" or "can you do a logo for my cafe for exposure" but people asking real questions. Where do you source smalti. Do you cut your own. Can I come watch you work sometime. I think there's a whole strip of people who are tired of the polished performance and just want to know what's really happening. Nobody needs another artist who sounds like a copywriter. I'd rather lose the ones who want shiny than lose the few who actually care. The irony is my follower count dropped a bit and my enquiries went up. Make of that what you will. 🙂

So I've been full-time for eight months now which means I've been doing all the "okay so I guess I have to market myself" stuff that nobody prepares you for in art school lol. And the thing that actually worked, the thing that got me my first real gallery relationship, was the most humiliating process ever. I spent a weekend sending 40 cold emails. Like, proper ones, with images and links and a real bio. And I got one reply. ONE. And honestly for like two days I was so embarrassed I almost didn't open it because I assumed it was a no too. But it was a yes. A small gallery in a city I'd never been to, but they liked my work and wanted to talk. That one yes turned into a group show, which turned into two commission requests from people who saw the show, which turned into enough money to pay rent for three months without panic-ordering takeout. Anyway I'm not saying cold emailing is the secret sauce, mostly it's just brutal lol. But I think sometimes we hear about the one reply and not the 39 silences. So here's my question I guess: what's the thing you tried that felt stupid or embarrassing or like it wasn't working, and then it kind of... did?

Okay I have to tell someone. That same window I've painted like forty times, the one from my bio, one of them finally got into a group show at a little gallery near my old school. Not the big versions, the small study, the one I almost didn't submit because I thought it was too plain. Someone bought it last night. Like, an actual person walked in and paid money for the thing I've been staring at alone in my apartment for months. I cried on the phone to my mom about it and she cried too which is very on brand for us. She kept saying "the little window is leaving home" like it was a kid going off to college. I'm still a nervous wreck about the money month to month but this felt like a sign that maybe I'm allowed to take myself seriously. Anyway if you've got a piece sitting around that you think is too boring to show, put it in anyway. Someone else might see something in it that you can't anymore. 🙂

So I decided to actually log everything I did to promote my work in February. Not just guess, actually write it down. 27 hours. Twenty-seven hours of scrolling, posting, hashtag research, replying to comments, writing newsletter drafts I never sent, reading articles about algorithms, changing my bio three times. And you know what came from it? Two commission inquiries that both ghosted after I sent pricing. Meanwhile the one thing I actually sold last month came from someone who saw a piece in a café window where I'd left a business card months ago. Zero effort. Zero hours logged. I'm not saying marketing is useless. I'm saying I spent 27 hours doing stuff that felt productive and most of it clearly wasn't. I don't even know what to cut because it all felt important in the moment. Has anyone actually tracked this and changed what they do based on it? Or are we all just spinning plates and hoping?

tell me the real reason you started. not the tidy bio answer, the actual one. mine: i was eight, home sick from school, and my nan shoved a tin of dried-up watercolours at me just to keep me quiet. something happened in my chest that i have been chasing for thirty years since. what's yours