FAYETTEVILLE -- Social media may be as essential a resource for professional artists as any other creative tool.
"It's your street cred," said Karen Ahuja, a mixed media artist. "It's what validates you as an artist."
Ahuja, 52, runs Karen Ahuja Studio at Mount Sequoyah Center, where she creates commissioned works and paintings sold at businesses such as T.J. Maxx.
The artist describes her work as vibrant and energetic with color and contrast.
"I will throw sand and glitter and stuff in my paints," she said of the floral and pet portrait pieces she creates in bright acrylics.
Ahuja said she uses social media to direct online traffic to her website to drive sales.
"It's a different kind of sales funnel, because it's online," she said. "It's a numbers game, and I have to cultivate my audience."
The artist has developed a presence on Facebook with 1,700 followers, Pinterest with 66,000 monthly viewers and Instagram with 16,000 followers.
Social media is key for making sales for artists, according to The Art Market 2020 report by Art Basel. Surveys done by Art Basel in 2019 revealed collectors from all incomes use Instagram to buy art. Art Basel is a global platform for connecting artists, collectors and galleries.
Some 66% of art buyers use social networks to keep up with the art market and related news, according to the report.
The influence of social media isn't captured in sales statistics, according to the report. An artist's presence on social media platforms drive inquiries leading to telephone and in-person sales.
The report notes, however, platforms such as Instagram can be highly effective marketing tools.
Jim Forman, 60, of Bentonville is owner and curator of The Art Collective Gallery in Rogers. He credits social media with helping him establish the gallery.
"I found most, if not all, of the artists that I started out with on Instagram," Forman said. "These were people that I just found and looked at their work, and I fell in love with it."
The approximately 1,700-foot contemporary gallery opened in April 2019, he said, and primarily exhibits works by emerging local artists.
"There weren't a lot of art galleries in the area," Forman said. "I just felt like there was a need for a place to showcase young talent."
The gallery has about 1,600 followers on Instagram and more than 1,800 followers on Facebook.
"The followers that I have on Instagram have been growing exponentially since the opening," Forman said. "I don't know if I would have been at the place I'm in right now if it wasn't for Instagram and social media."
Reshaping the experience
The reach of social media has also reframed how art is consumed and created, according to Olivia Trimble, owner of Sleet City Signs and Murals. Trimble, 33, runs the business out of her home studio in Fayetteville and incorporates quilt patterns into many of her colorful works.
"Everyone, for the most part, has a positive association with quilts," she said. "You curl up with it when you're sick, or your mamaw made one."
Trimble uses sign painting enamel and squirrel tail brushes to create signs for businesses such as Ozark Beer Co. in Rogers. Enamel is also her go-to paint for creating murals for organizations such as Experience Fayetteville.
Sleet City Signs and Murals has more than 1,500 Facebook followers and over 4,400 followers on Instagram.
"I've never had to rely on a gallery for anything because of social media, but also because I do work that you can't stick in a gallery," Trimble said. "Instagram has pretty well carried me for eight or nine years."
Instagram is her preferred social networking platform, she said, which helps her connect with consumers and other artists.
"As a community-minded person, I want art to be something that anybody, regardless of their financial standing can consume," she said. "With social media, now you don't even have to leave your home. You can get on Instagram."
Ahuja, who has a master's degree in business administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati, said in-person sales take at least seven touch points to build interest in consumers. Social media requires artists to connect up to 15 times with viewers before they may be motivated to explore an artist's work or make a potential purchase, she said.
"You have to constantly be in there," Ahuja said of posting on social media. "A lot of people get kind of shy about that."
Those social media touch points can be anything from an Instagram photo of a completed work or a YouTube video of how a painting is created, she said.
"It's now more about telling the whole story -- showing them how I painted it and cultivating that interactive engagement," Ahuja said.
There are challenges to using social media to showcase work, though, Trimble said.
"Social media also has the downside of making everything look pretty and picture perfect, because you can curate it," she said. "There are pieces of my journey into being a sign painter that I would never post, because I don't want people to know that one time on this job site I spilled a quart of black paint on a brand new white wall. But that happens to everyone."
Mural work is manual labor, Trimble said, which forces her to be aware of how she presents herself at job sites and what photographs she uses of herself at jobs.
"I'm climbing ladders, painting out in the heat, and I'm looking gross," she said.
Georgia, Times
Trimble said the covid-19 pandemic has reduced her ability to work.
"I have two children that have been out of school since mid-March, so I've only taken a couple of small projects that I can complete in my home studio," she said. "Most of my big projects have been paused or postponed."
Ahuja said the businesses she typically creates art for have been closed and aren't considered essential during the pandemic, but she's selling more of her original art through social media.
"The increase in my online art sales has made up for any lost income," she said.
The Art Collective has been closed since the early stages of the pandemic for in-person sales, Forman said, but the gallery also has experienced a modest increase in online purchases during the closing.
"We focused our energy online, creating a virtual gallery called VG19," he said. "This virtual gallery is part of our Art Collective Gallery website that specializes in smaller and less expensive pieces by our artists, which may be more attractive to our customers during this difficult time."
Social media has helped the gallery connect with artists during the pandemic, he said.
"I think they have used this downtime to create new work and reach out to new galleries such as ours," Forman said.
The social media experiences of the creative community are similar to what many other business sectors are undergoing during the pandemic, said Barry Belford, co-owner of The Belford Group digital marketing agency in Fayetteville. He said his agency has worked to increase the social media presence of clients unable to do business in person during the pandemic.
"Now, you're kind of having to use that as a different means of networking," Belford said of social media. "It's helping people to just increase exposure."
Many businesses have begun to incorporate social media as a primary way to build awareness on what they have to offer during the pandemic, he said.
"People have pivoted their business model based on what's going on," he said. "I've seen a lot more activity by a lot of businesses than I have in the past."
Future relevance
Using social media to build awareness for customers will be especially important in the year ahead, Belford said.
"It's going to be a while before we go back to any sense of resembling what it used to be," he said.
Social media will continue to be instrumental in creating connections following the pandemic, Trimble said.
"I feel like social media will be more important now because our options to form bonds and experience art have been limited by covid," she said. "Social media allows us to connect and allows viewers to have access in ways they may not in traditional gallery settings."
Ahuja said she thinks purchases of art through social media will continue to increase because of practices developed during the pandemic.
"In the future, you will still be able to go to art shows, visit national retailers and hang out at galleries, but I think that the new normal for art buyers and lovers will be visiting artists in their social media 'shops,'" she said. "I think that I have been changed. I absolutely love standing in front of my social media and offering ways to engage with my audience. I am learning how to provide a product that meets my client's needs because I am having meaningful conversation."
Forman said he also foresees a continued increase in sales through social media and online platforms, but feels a majority of fine art purchases will preferably be done in person.
The need for some customers to touch and feel artwork as part of the buying experience will remain, Ahuja said, adding brick and mortar stores will always be able to provide a more tailored experience for customers who're willing to pay for it.
Trimble added she hopes artists will evolve on social media to put the most honest representation of themselves and their work on display.
"Eventually, we're all going to get tired of just looking at perfectly curated pictures," she said. "Maybe we're going to swing away from the highly curated and maybe swing more into who is this person? What are they doing? What are the intricacies of their job?"
Ahuja said artists will continue to increase their use of social media as they realize how it can build their following.
"More people are going to see the power of it," she said. "It's going to become more of a cost of doing business."
Part of that continued effort is understanding how Ahuja can continue to grow her following, which she said has plateaued.
"I'm just kind of working through it," she said, adding she takes classes and tries to remain aware of successful tactics used by others in the ever-changing social media environment.
"It's a tool that I can't control," Ahuja said, "but I can learn how to use."
NW News on 05/31/2020