You either do it or you don’t. The tradition in art history is for an artist to work in squalor in their garret, scribbling and painting away and wiping residues of oil paint over their smock and beret, smoking and drinking themselves to death as the curse the day they ever decided they’d enter the fold. The truth is that is for the main part the age old story of failure, or the rewritten story of success, is biographically enhanced for the benefit of museums, galleries and publishers to cash in on the dead.

The most famous artists out there have made themselves famous, the most successful have for the main part took it upon themselves to create that success or at least the image of success, and the best way to begin is to get both your work and your name known, however you achieve it is up to them, but it must be done. The artists I have admired in the past and present are showmen, they do more than create, they talk, they perform, and wherever possible they self-publicise. They exploit themselves until someone else wants to do the dirty work for them. Take a look at Warhol or Duchamp as two fine examples, kick up a fuss and the public will remember you.

Every act of "selfploitation" comes from humble beginnings. The Internet is filled to the brim with experts on the subject, for the main part most of them simply want to persuade the public they are rich, if they can manage that then perhaps one by one their future followers will fall for their illusory charms and enable them to get at least a few steps closer to the image they’re attempting to project. Success in it’s multifarious forms is viral, no "star" of any field can truly do it alone, they need to utilise the belief, the budget and the actions of thousands if not millions of others before they’re even skirting the edges of their claims to fame.

Their are many people on this planet who make a good living, or rather financially rewarding one from the efforts of others and in particular from reporting their story to the rest of the known world. Most of them would say that they work in the Media, which for most of history has been a tight-knit collective of beaten and bruised egos looking to demolish the established echelons of cultural notoriety rather than create new ones. Traditionally fame costs a fortune, that is until the past decade or so where – if one takes a relative view of this cultural misnomer – it can be achieved at almost no cost whatsoever – but fame is uncontrollable – it takes on forms of its own that both the subject and purveyor may have never predicted or imagined in their wildest dreams and/or nightmares.

So where to start, start small, start microscopically, and repeat in as many ways, fields of enquiry, targeted markets, areas of interest, methodologies of promotion, through as many facilitators and harbingers of word-of-mouth and Internet folklore and  futurology and possible. Visual artists have a unique advantage over many other non-domiciles of the world of the fabulous and celebrated, they have images, and images are powerful. The celebrity, the corporation, the advertising industry, the man or woman of power and wealth craves imagery, if and only if it can enhance their standing, explain their unique position in the argument that is the fiction we call public life. Hopefully it will synchronously be attributed to either their product (even if they are the product); venture, or some solidification of a representation of their materialistic success, their positioning in the stock market of identity and personality that fuels our cheap and tawdry economy of life.

Artists reside in a unique and tenuous cultural place in society, their positioning is as crucial as any prodcut or corporate image, yet their purpose will for the main part involve commentary upon the world around them, yet as word spreads of their achievements the form of their enquiry must engage with that subtle evolution. If an artist cannot walk the tightrope of appropriated dreams they will fall by the wayside, they must both engage ideologically whilst ensure that personality and self-image do not override the integrity and purpose of their oeuvre.

Saying that if one cannot self-publicise, if one hasn’t the ability to self-promote, however pertinent or adept, beautiful or insightful one’s art, the world will never know. So let’s take a micro-step around the treacherous paths of fate’s fickle ways and begin a little selfploitation…

I have used and will continue to use the following sites to help promote my work, some more successfully than others, if you’re an artist you might find these useful or perhaps you won’t, what’s most important is that you find something, someone, somewhere to help push your art. It’s now or never people.

Flickr.com is probably the most famous image sharing community on the planet, it’s worth a try, if you join enough groups and submit enough works, although I wouldn’t keep my fingers crossed ,there’s a ton of competition too deal with here and many people are after a free experience. Even giving away large scale images isn’t a surefire guarantee for world publicity, still an essential requirement all the same.

DeviantArt.com is one of the biggest art pimps out there, no matter what you’ve heard or not, put your opinions aside and dive in, sure I haven’t utilised this site myself as much as I should but if you have no other way of printing your works and don’t mind limiting the sizes up to 36" x 36" then this is the place to start. No you don’t have to be a deviant :/ I’m in talks with local printers so I can handle the whole process myself but if I wasn’t and I worked to a smaller scale I’d be a Deviant addict. There are two similar though less popular sites if this is the way you want to go – GFXartist with around 62,000 members (more graphics orientated and apparently no prints for sale) and FoundMyself.com which offers to sell work but seems rather mainstream to me.

Some other sites I use to promote my work are:-

VanillaSeven.com is a great place to submit your art, it’s a community art blog in principle, easy to join, and once approved you can submit all the work you like. I’ve promoted Brangelina here before and even made a few sales off the back of it.

Konvulse.com is another friendly arts community I use, once approved you can submit all the work you like. A great site design and useful forum too! Very cutting edge stuff here. It’s one of my personal favourites to be honest, I’ve had a few chats with Jay who runs the site who is up for anything to help raise the profile of the site. Well worth joining this…

Artslant.com is actually an international community for artists with portals for London, New York, Berlin, Chicago, Paris, San Francisco and Worldwide. A highly respected arts showcase and forum for professionals, amateurs and fans alike.

Artween.com is a bilingual French and English speaking arts community with some amazing works on offer. Plenty of friendly artists to discuss everything under the sun, althogh mostly French so I’d brush up on my Franglais if you’re looking for indepth discussions.

Designer’s Depot isn’t just for designers! They’ve also featured a lot of great emerging art around the world, well worth a visit, and definitely worth submitting your art (if you feel your work can compete!).

N.C Lowbrow Webzine is a friendly arts and literature reviews blog run by a friend who has featured my work here – offering a wide selection of challenging and left field works by artists and writers, they cover everything from street art and graphic art to poetry, photography and short stories. Offering videos, interviews, articles and a forum this is a no-brainer if you’re interested in promoting your work.

TAD – I’ve advertised here and am listed too – a great directory for listing your art blog, site or gallery.

SlogBite.com offers something similar in their artist’s directory, they also offer a widget so each artist can advertise others on their site. Check out their Art, Artists, Art As A Business,  Art Resources, Art Marketing and Arts categories.

ArtShout.net is my new artist 125×125 pixel banner exchange and should be ready for action soon!

I’ve also managed to procure the domain Artistical.ly and am thinking about exactly what to do with it – I’d like to offer something a little different under the banner of an arts community without trekking down the usual Myspace/Facebook route – expect something special here by Summer 2009. I welcome any collaborative suggestions (if you’re a master of publicity and/or programming). We will see…

ImageKind.com is a major print-on-demand site that offers artists the chance to sell their work at up to 44" x 55" as prints or printed canvases, they also frame works (but not at this scale). This was a great starter site for me to start selling my own work quickly and easily although the commissions aren’t too great when you consider the base prices. Still a fantastic place to get your operation off the ground. A similar site I haven’t used myself but have heard good things about is Artist Rising.

A new site to me is ArtWanted.com that seems to work on the same basis offering a shop service and forum for artists.

Now of course there’s social media and bookmarking, I really don’t think I need to list them all here but a few good places to get noticed are Digg.com, Stumbleupon.com, Facebook.com and Twitter.com just for starters, still there seems to be a distinct lack of purely arts related alternatives in this sector, something to consider when you’re promoting at these kind of sites. One piece of advice – don’t submit your art at Stumbleupon or Digg or you’ll be banned – but do encourage your fans to do so with an assortment of buttons and widgets available.

Here’s some art directories to help you raise your Google PR which may help your rankings in the end, any way of getting Google to notice you is a good move.

Web Gallery of Art
Search engine / virtual museum of European artwork, including images and artists biographies.

Yahoo Arts
Enormous searchable directory from Yahoo.

ArtSource
A major resource for researching other networked resources on art and architecture. Includes selective pointers to sites online  as well as original materials submitted by librarians, artists, and art historians.

Artslynx.org
A links portal offering a variety of international arts resources including theatres, dance, music, visual arts and more.

Art and Culture
A collection of information on design, performance and visual arts. Plus it provides relevant products and shopping links.

ArtReach.com
A useful guide to contemporary art for artists, historians and art lovers. Links to related websites and up and new and up and coming events.

PostArt
A vast searchable database of contemporary artists.

Zenzibar.com
An artist’s haunt and alternative culture directory.

Redbubble – An Oz based t-shirt and prints site

Zazzle offers a chance to print tees skateboards and is even teaming up with Shepard Fairey on a few projects

If you still need help with promotion, representation or funding a good source of advice will be your local arts council, here’s a great list from Wikipedia to get you started.

I haven’t even started to consider taking this route yet but I will for the future, a Video Blog, if you have a webcam or digital camera and a Youtube account it may be a great fast track alternative to self publicity and promotion. You’ll just have to weight up the pros and cons, I mean some Youtube stars are almost celebrities in their own right, others are well respected for their tutorials, but few are famous for their art as yet. Still I will leave that one fo you to mull over.

As for me? Well I have to get back on with my primary concern, making art rather than simply promoting it! Although I will say one more thing, I am in the midst of working out how I can produce art works at a low enough budget that I can simply give some away, leave as installations for the public, free to take away and do with as they wish. I’ll probably begin something along those lines when the weather warms up. I’ll keep you all informed on my progress as to when and how I fair at a time closer to the event.

If you’ve promoted my art and I’ve not included your arts site or if you have any other essential links for arts promotion for me to consider please let me know.

This post is tagged arts marketing, marketing arts, promote artist, self promotion, selfploitation, sell your art, sell your arts, selling paintings