{"id":2901,"date":"2013-03-14T09:52:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T14:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=2901"},"modified":"2017-11-19T19:30:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T00:30:18","slug":"collectors-buying-art-blind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=2901","title":{"rendered":"Collectors buying art blind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art collecting is an expensive and time-consuming hobby, so few customers will buy art that they\u2019ve never seen. An Ottawa company challenges that notion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cArt Delivered is catered to people who are slightly more adventurous in their art because they\u2019re not seeing the painting beforehand,\u201d says Catherine Gutsche, owner and curator for Art Delivered.<\/p>\n

Gutsche\u2019s customers aren\u2019t necessarily looking for the next \u201cGirl with a Pearl Earring\u201d or \u201cMona Lisa,\u201d but rather the excitement and joy that comes with opening a mystery present.<\/p>\n

Members of Art Delivered buy a one-year or two-year subscription, and over the course of a year, subscribers are mailed four pieces of work from local artists, one each in January, April, July and October.<\/p>\n

Art collecting is an expensive hobby and occupies a very niche market in retail. Few buyers walk into a gallery committed to buying a painting, and even fewer will buy a painting they\u2019ve never seen. Not only is Art Delivered going after a specific demographic, they\u2019re going after a demographic within that demographic.<\/p>\n

Art Delivered was launched last year and not only has the business survived its first year of existence, a hump most entrepreneurs can\u2019t get past, it\u2019s been successful.\u00a0 \u201cIt surpassed my expectations,\u201d says Gutsche. \u201cIt certainly is a lot of work to get people to know about it, to get the word out and get the customers coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

INTERNATIONAL CLIENTE<\/p>\n

All that work is paying off because the customers are coming in, both locally and overseas, including one customer who lives in Abu Dhabi. Gutsche gets four paintings from each of eight artists she keeps on her rotating roster. \u201cEach of the artists in the program have sold almost all of the paintings they\u2019ve brought to me,\u201d says Gutsche. Art Delivered declined to quote specific numbers, but of the paintings Gutsche curated last January, she estimates 90 per cent of them were sold.<\/p>\n

Art Delivered is an online store rather than an online listing service like eBay. With increases in rent and online shopping, many stores with are making their stores digital, especially ones that don\u2019t have a particularly large amount of foot traffic, like vintage music or clothing stores. Traditionally, artists would sell most of their work through galleries, fairs or group shows.<\/p>\n

But over the past couple of years, at least three prominent galleries in Ottawa have closed, including the Dale Smith Gallery in New Edinburgh, the Artguise Gallery and the Snapdragon Gallery in the Glebe. Snapdragon was in business for 30 years before closing its doors in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge change, in terms of marketing yourself,\u201d says Sue Marsden, an independent artist who runs her own online studio and shop, Dragonhead Studio. In previous years, Marsden, who works as a comic book artist, painter and writer, would have to package portfolios and manuscripts to potential publishers and often wait 6 months before a reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get yourself out there in a much faster method and ultimately, you don\u2019t have to share profits with a third party,\u201d says Marsden. \u201cThe [Dragonhead Studio] website itself was put together to host a physical comic book. It was, like, 400 bucks for a print run. It was crippling trying to make money off a black and white comic. With digital, you can have a smaller print run and still have a nice contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

MARKETING ARTISTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

The preference is for artists to buy their own website for a more professional look, but those who don\u2019t can still market themselves on free blogging websites like WordPress. Marsden is one of the few success stories of independent comic artists moving from print to digital. Getting a comic strip published is still tough, and while digital and online galleries save time and money, most artists still prefer having a physical copy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not really based out of necessity,\u201d says Gutsche about starting up Art Delivered. \u201cBut in terms of exposure, the longevity of selling online is a bonus.\u201d Unlike stores and galleries on the streets, online stores are open 24\/7\/365. There\u2019s no time limit either, as galleries often exhibit new paintings every month. That\u2019s not mentioning the unlimited amount of virtual space for listings, pictures and captions, compared to the inflexibility of having four walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cA show is also exhausting,\u201d adds Gutsche. \u201cYou\u2019re lugging [the paintings] in and out and doing the travelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

ONE-YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Gutsche first offered subscriptions, paintings came only in 6×6 inch square canvases. Most of Art Delivered\u2019s customers are on a one-year subscription, which costs $200 for four works of art. A two-year subscription costs $390 for eight works of art while individual works cost $60 apiece. A two-year subscription is available, but it doesn\u2019t offer a lot of savings. It works out to just $1.25 in savings per painting when compared to the one-year subscription.<\/p>\n

Art Delivered\u2019s website was also re-launched in January and offered two new subscriptions, an 8×8 inch option and a 10×10 inch option. The new options are more expensive, but offer bigger paintings and better savings per painting.<\/p>\n

A one-year subscription to the 8×8 inch option works out to $90 per painting and $87.50 per painting for the two-year subscription, saving $2.50 on each painting. Buyers who have enough wall space for a 10×10 inch painting save the most if they go for the two-year option, which comes out to $125 per painting, $15 cheaper per painting than the one-year option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art collecting is an expensive and time-consuming hobby, so few customers will buy art that they\u2019ve never seen. An Ottawa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[191,190,192,189,72],"class_list":["post-2901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-art-delivered","tag-buying-art","tag-catherine-gutsche","tag-dragonhead-studio","tag-jason-chen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2901"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4484,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901\/revisions\/4484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}