If you're an artist who markets online, an online gallery owner, or an avid online art collector, you may have heard by now that the Boundless Gallery will soon be closing.
 
This is, unfortunately, a sign of the times, and a loss to artists and collectors (and to the gallery's owner and employees). Hopefully everybody involved - artists, collectors, employees, and owner - will find ways to learn from the experience and move on to even better things.
 
In some ways, this will be just a 'blip on the screen' of the artworld. Many people won't notice or care, and it won't bring the art world to a screeching halt. But, this closing represents a loss of several years worth of personal work and an unknown amount of financial investment to the owner, a loss of employment to some employees, and a loss of income to some member artists.
 
And, though most of us artists and gallery owners won't hear directly from the collectors, it's a loss to them as well - either they were quite happy with the site and will miss it, or the model wasn't working well enough for them to find what they needed and so it represents another 'failure of the system'
 
I know that this has happened to many other galleries online and offline, and to many other industries, on small and large scales, and it's inevitable in some form. But, let's use it as a learning opportunity.
 
On the surface, Boundless Gallery, like many other galleries, looks reasonably promising. A wide variety of artists provides a large selection - some of the art is great, some not so much, but there's something for most tastes and price ranges. The pricing model seems reasonable, with a couple options for artists to choose from and a combination of fixed fees and commissions. I don't know about their traffic levels, but since many people I know have at least heard of them, they must be receiving some traffic. And, they've been online since 2003, according to their 'about' page, so they must have been doing something right.
 
But, obviously something was not working well. So, I think that anytime we see another gallery closing, it's a good time to take a look at the basic business models and roles of the galleries and the artists, and the needs of collectors, to figure out how to make things work better.  Though I don't know any of the principal people involved, I think that this is another failing of the 'traditional art business model', and another indication that we need to get serious and find a way to create more effective models that work well in our evolving world.
 
Here are my thoughts from experiences so far with my first/current online gallery, www.dailypainters.com, and other studies and observations of successful businesses and individuals (and some unsuccessful ones). I will be incorporating many of these ideas into a new gallery that I'm working on, and if they prove to be effective then hopefully they'll expand and improve even more. I'll be trying quite a few new ideas in my new gallery - some may work well, and some may not, but most importantly we'll be trying to answer some key questions and learning from the process.
 
Health of 'Art' as an industry
 
The art business is very hard - both for artists and for galleries. This means a couple things on a practical level:
 
a) any artist or gallery who is really 'making it' - i.e. earning a comfortable profit without completely burning themselves out in the process or just slowly burning through a large initial investment - has my utmost respect :-)
 
b) there is something wrong with the ways we conduct our business, in terms of practical business strategies. Of course not all artists or galleries will succeed, but our overall success rate seems to be lower than most types of businesses and many of our methods seem outdated and ineffective. We just accept this as reality, but I think we need to find more ways to grow and innovate.
 
The arts industry as a whole is struggling. There are many shining examples of wonderful art in any form - music, video, film, dance, theater, visual arts - but most of the people producing art, and the institutions and companies that support them, are struggling.
 
And, the process of finding the arts is still pretty tricky - it's not as easy as it should be to find a really great piece of art in any media.
 
Nobody is going to fix this but the artists and the fans/collectors, so we'll just keep on plodding stubbornly forward until we find better ways to work.
 
Gallery Financial Models:
 
The financial models for art galleries aren't promising - we either need enough upfront cash flow to do some heavy marketing until we can generate enough sales to support our artists and ourselves, or we need to rely on some type of upfront payments from our member artists, who are also struggling. So, we need to come up with pricing models that give the galleries the cash flow and predictability they need to do their job, while also being 100% fair and manageable for the artists.
 
A 100% commission based model is not realistic for an online gallery - there are many benefits to the online exposure that aren't immediately measurable from direct immediate sales. And, the commission from those artists who sell would have to be too high to cover the cost of supporting those who don't sell. But, a flat fee can also be a burden to artists, and is always either too low or too high - there is no one price that truly fits all members. Given the same set of tools and promotions, some member artists will do better than others, and the pricing model should reflect this.
 
So, what we need, in my opinion, is a financial model that sits somewhere between those two - maybe a flexible monthly fee based on each member artist's perceived value from their membership and their level of usage.
 
Artist Financial Models:
 
Most artists underprice their work - when you think of the personal energy that goes into making even a very simple painting, we should be charging more. But, we all know that's easier said than done - if we're not reaching the right customers who are willing and able to pay us what we're worth, we have to price our paintings as commodities. And, even if we can command top dollar from an elite collector group, it would still be nice to have some products that some more 'average' collectors can afford.
 
Artists need to find ways to diversify their product range and income streams -  take more advantage of prints, books, merchandise, and digital offerings. More income streams per image = more long term income and more ways to reach your customers, and more chance of building a lasting business. Offer a variety of products and price ranges, without having to underprice your original paintings. Some artists do this well, but most don't do it well enough. Galleries need to make this easier to do - artists should be able to sell their work in more ways without jumping through too many hoops. Then, we can focus more effort on creating outstanding images and pricing the originals accordingly
 
What Do Galleries Do?
 
Part of the problem with online galleries is that we're often stuck between two different roles / business models. The traditional role of an art gallery is simple (not easy, just uncomplicated): provide some nice wall space in a prime location, select some wonderful artists, and then spend a ton of time and money cultivating a collector base. The role of an online art gallery is all of this, plus providing a suite of technical tools to allow artists to manage their online business and promote themselves, and possibly some type of community building.
 
This dual role of online galleries is proving to be problematic. For instance, with my weekly work hours and budget (for dailypainters.com) I could either tirelessly promote a small handful of artists to a specific collector base, or I can work on maintaining and improving our technical platform. But, in reality, neither side of the business gets my full attention, and so quality must suffer in some way. I try to strike a reasonable compromise between marketing, group leadership, and technical support, but if I narrowed my job description down to just one of these roles I would be much more effective at that particular role.
 
So, for any online gallery to be really successful, they need to pick ONE of the above roles, and do it extremely well.
 
For instance, I could provide a technical platform that allows artists to communicate, interact, and sell more effectively, for a modest fee - but with no expectation of promotion, just of understanding your needs and building the best tool set for the job. For instance, facebook, twitter, google, etc - they don't do anything to promote individual people or websites, but those who figure out how to use these tools effectively have done very well for themselves, and even those who use them a little but not as well still derive some benefit from them. No existing online galleries do this well enough.
 
Or, I could use freely available tools like blogger, facebook, and twitter, and just tirelessly promote a few artists - learning as much as I can about these artists and cultivating a very specific base of collectors. For example, any number of highly successful bloggers (not art related, just in general) - nothing fancy, just good quality content and relationships on freely available platforms. No online galleries do this well enough either.
 
Trying to do both of these at once is a compromise at best, but that's what many galleries do, and what many artists expect of the galleries, and in many cases it doesn't work out too well.
 
My new gallery will be focused more squarely in the first department: a better technical platform that allows more ways to communicate and build relationships, and more ways to sell, while trying to learn as much as possible about what our member artists and collectors want and exploring new ideas. BUT, we'll also be building tools and incentives to support those people who want to focus on the second department: collectors and artists will have some tools and incentive to support and promote each other.
 
What do artists do?
 
Just as online galleries are trying to take on too many roles, artists are having to do this but even more so. Creating really good art is difficult. Maintaining truly high quality personal relationships with a collector base is difficult. But, these are the two absolutely most important things that an artist must do, and do well.
 
All of the technical and marketing work we have to do on top of this takes away from these primary roles, but we can't just ignore these aspects and not do them. So, we need to find ways to 'outsource' these roles effectively - better, more easy to use, flexible, and effective, technical platforms, and more cost effective and collaborative marketing efforts. There are many ways that a better technical platform can support this process. But, until the perfect system comes along, every artist should be thinking about ways to simplify and/or effectively outsource this part of their business to focus more on their key responsibilities.
 
Gallery Size:
 
Gallery size - the number of member artists that an online gallery has -  is a perpetual conflict. More artists means more money for the gallery and more chance of staying afloat. And, more artists means more selection for buyers. But, more artists also means more competition for each member artist. Most artists will not be happy to be thrown into a site that is overcrowded with too many other artists - they feel that they will be 'lost in the crowd' and won't get enough exposure. But, these same artists also can't afford to pay proportionately higher fees for this exclusivity.
 
And, then there's the question of 'who gets in' - allow every artist in, and the overall quality suffers. Some great artists will emerge, but there will also be a lot of junk. But, once we start to impose any sort of restrictions, that opens a whole new can of worms. There are merits to both models - an elite, exclusive gallery, or a wide-open gallery, but it's a tricky business. It's especially tricky when you factor in that both the gallery owner and the member artists are expecting to earn some money in this relationship.
 
I think the answer lies in the same things I said above about gallery roles. A gallery must either be very small or very large. Either promote a VERY selective group of artists to a VERY specific group of collectors (and collect a very large commission on very high priced paintings), or let many artists join BUT give the artists and collectors tools and incentives to organize and filter themselves into effective sub-groups, to separate the wheat from the chaff and to find other members with similar interests, and charge a modest fee. Anything in between these two models leads to too much compromise and difficulty trying to strike the perfect balance, and distracting from the gallery's primary responsibilities.
 
The Artist / Collector Relationship
 
We all talk about creating relationships with our collectors, but mostly we're still stuck in a traditional 'push' model of communication. I create something, you either buy it or not, or maybe you send me some comments or questions. Or, maybe once you've become a fan then you ask me to create something specific. You can either find me on my personal website, or you can go to a gallery and browse their selection. Either way, it's still pretty difficult for many casual art buyers to find exactly what they want, when they want it, at a price that meets their expectations, and even more seasoned collectors would appreciate having more options.
 
Instead, we need to work on asking our collectors what they really want, without waiting for them to contact us. For instance, what if we had a way for them to say - to nobody in particular - 'this is what I need', and then anybody else (i.e. another artist or collector, or gallery owner, etc) could answer back - i.e. 'I have what you need', 'I can make what you need', or 'This artist might be able to help you'. Or, another collector could say 'HEY - I need this too!'.
 
The artist / artist relationship
 
We need more tools and incentives to work together. There are some artists who tirelessly work to help promote other artists, by creating groups, galleries, shows, etc, or just by providing advice and connections. And, most of us artists at least help some other artist occasionally with some feedback, advice, or promotion. So, there should be some way to encourage more of this type of cooperation, and to compensate those who do it well.
 
And, while we're at it we should also have a way to encourage other art lovers and collectors to promote their favorite artists a bit more - and earn a few bucks in the process so they can add to their art collection :-)That's all I have for now - the key issues that I think we need to address as artists and galleries, but I'm sure there are more issues and more ways to approach these problems. Let's keep striving for ways to solve some of these issues so we can all thrive.
 
Feedback welcome . . .