Where do you find artwork to frame?

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walnutboy
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Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by walnutboy »

Hi all,

General question here - where do you go to find artwork to frame? I'm looking to expand the business from just doing friends and families pictures/posters etc and would like to start framing some local artists work alongside some graphic design works for sale to the general public. A little like a gallery, but without the actual gallery. I'm ok with advertising online as I have a facebook page, framing website, and an etsy shop, so getting out there is not too much of an issue, but can't seem to find local artists that are interested in me selling their artwork already framed. I've been in touch with a couple of artists but haven't even got to the stage of discussing money, as they just don't respond. I would have thought they would be pretty keen on getting their work noticed more and selling more items, but nothing so far.
Any tips appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Chris
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Re: Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by Justintime »

If artists are established and already with a gallery, then often the gallery will be acting as the promoter and agent and not want others selling the artists work.
If the artist is selling their own work, then your commission means that for price parity they have to raise the prices across the board to match the price you are selling their work for.
Pricing and commission charges are a minefield for many artists that I speak too. Most artists just want to produce art and not get involved in the complicated world of selling it more than they have to. If you are growing a large enough following from facebook, an art blog etc then they might see the benefit of it. It's the chicken and egg, without a proven track record it may be difficult for them to see the benefit you can offer them. Just my opinion.
Justin George GCF(APF)
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Re: Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Chris,

That's hard one! If you don't have a shop, or a gallery, but instead you are going to promote them on your own websie, or Facebook page, I'm guessing that's not really tempting enough, because they can do that themselves. Not very much necessarily happens until you have got premises to displat and promote their artworks and even then artist all too often have their own agenda and don't always like the idea that you will be wanting a cut for selling their artwork.

I've never found this to be worth all the bother. A lot of the decent artist's are aready supplying artworks to well known galleries in up market locations and the local artist's which art left, are far too often not producing anything likely to sell. As far as prints go, they are not always much of a better prospect, anything which you can buy in customers can usually get as cheap, or even cheaper on the internet and you can end up being on a hiding to nothing.

Are you in a position to look for a shop and work there full time? Even if you are, it takes quite a while until the customers start coming your way. The earlier days can be a bit of a struggle for many of us. It's fairly likely that there are going to be a few empty shops around, if things start to get tough in the next few months. Also this may not be the best time for making a big decisions just yet, as it's a bit too early to tell just yet, what the economy is likely to be doing for a little while. It's a hard one to call, but timing is often the important thing with deciding when to push the boat out.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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GeoSpectrum
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Re: Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by GeoSpectrum »

You can purchase direct form the artists and use their work to sell your frames. That’s what I do from time to time or paint something myself. I even sell a a few. :D
Alan Huntley
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Re: Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by Not your average framer »

I find it very difficult to know what is likely to sell these days. I really a bit out of touch with the modern day trends. I've got a rather same number of older "quality" Art Deco prints and some of the younger people are quite keen on nice items of this genre, which I guess is just as well, considering what I have got. I have some genuine prints from the original Art Deco era and the quality and appearance is very different to the repro's which get turned out today.

I am unsure what to do with them. I am not sure how many I still have left, but two prints have recently come to life, both need cleaning and one is a sepia engraving with a couple of easy to repair closed tears in the image area. There is no loss of detail to the print and it is well worth repairing. I am in two minds what to do about this, I could either frame and sell them, or even have the professionally scanned and printed as limited reprints. At this stage I have no idea what to do about it.

The point that I am trying to make is that there still is a market for less modern stuff, which can easily be seen as some thing of outstanding quality and you might be surprised to sometimes find that it's often the customers in their 20's and 30's, who are looking to buy stuff like this. I'm not saying that this is a massive market, but it's there none the less. Old advertising memorabilia and stuff like that if you can get the right stuff with the right connections at the right price can also be extremely good, but it was extremely had to find 20 years ago and there's so little worthwhile stuff left now, that is almost impossible to find at all.

This might still be a worthwhile market, if anything really special comes your way!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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prospero
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Re: Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by prospero »

Artists are a funny lot. :shock:

The ones that have a professional attitude are easy to deal with, but more than likely they have already got outlets.

Then there are the ones that have been selling their work for peanuts. "People won't pay any more....etc". You need to
use your experience to establish a reasonable selling price. Some (most) of this ilk will deeply resent you levying commission
on a sale. 40% is generous. To them you are being a parasite. Even worse, are the ones that let you sell their work and do back-door
deals direct to the public and effectively undercut you. This is very bad. It's important to nail them down to a rigid price structure and
if they transgress, fire them right away. :|

Very often they lose interest and stop painting soon after they start. Or ring you every week to see if you have sold anything. You can't
promote their interests if they have lost interest. :roll:

Then there are the ones that just don't do work that is commercially viable. They may do subjects that no one wants to buy.

Then there are the ones that are just plain rubbish. :lol:

I've seen this business from both sides of the fence and there is more to it than you might think. :P
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Re: Where do you find artwork to frame?

Post by Not your average framer »

The economy near me in rural Devon is not an easy one and quite a lot local artists are really short of money and they are not very easy to do business with at all. Many of them just don't understand the concept of paying commission to the gallery, or framing shop which is displaying the pictures and trying to sell it for them. I find that it's much easier to just sell my own frames in my shop windows, instead of filling the space with other peoples paintings.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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