Crowdfunded Print Project Update: Picking the Artists

We had exactly 100 submissions for our print project. That was more than we were expecting, considering the tight limitations we had around the submissions and the fact that this is a new project.

Much of the art submitted was good. About 20 of the artists were truly outstanding. We are working on reaching out to those artists to finalize participation with 5 – 10 of them.

As we get ready to announce the selected artists, we will be pushing the crowdfunding campaign as a way to:

• create an art business incubator / new gallery
• discover and purchase great art
• learn more about what makes a successful crowdfunding campaign

After the artists have been finalized, we’ll be creating our crowdfunding pitch video, which will likely begin with me, saying something like this:

Imagine a world where the starving artist doesn’t exist. Being an artist is seen as just another career choice, like lawyer, doctor, or Internet technology startup-er.

Imagine a world where you are able to find art that you absolutely love, at prices that actually make sense, without feeling judged or looked down on by art snobs.

I want to introduce you to 10 artists who are helping make that happen.

Then we’ll introduce the artists selected for the project.

THE BROADER VISION

Beyond that, we wanted to share some updates about how the vision for the project has evolved.

When I first conceived of this print project, it was the answer to a question I’d been asking myself for a while: how can I create an online gallery focused on training artists how to sell through galleries?

Also, how can this gallery / art business incubator project also have the following qualities?

Educational. Despite the usual white walls, galleries have a tendency to be metaphorical black boxes. Artists somehow magically find a way to have their art shown, and either money comes out or nothing happens. We want to open up the process to show artists how the sausage is made. That won’t matter to every artist, but the ones who want to learn how to run a successful business will love it.

On the collector side, we want people to be able to appreciate the art that they like, and educate themselves as their curiosity strikes them. We want to provide context for the art so that the average potential art buyer doesn’t look at a piece of art and think, “I don’t understand why that piece costs that much?”

Community-oriented. While there’s already a community of art buyers out there, it’s largely made up of very wealthy or very in-the-know people. We want to create a community of art enthusiasts of all socioeconomic statuses, and are more concerned with the experience of discovery and sharing than limiting art access to those with large amounts of money.

Inclusive. The art world has a long-documented bias toward white men. TAA’s audience is about 75% female, and inclusive of all people, regardless of their ethnicity or sexual preference. We are seeking to create a more inclusive sales experience that reflects the diversity of contemporary society.

Curatorial & Promotional. Many online gallery websites allow an unlimited number of artists to upload their art. This is great for the gallery, because those artists promote the gallery, but the galleries frequently don’t do anything to promote any specific artists. We want to flip that model on its head by hiring curatorial staff to create collections from the art that is uploaded to the site.

Technology Savvy. As the age of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning matures, we want to use these tools to help create collections, suggest art that collectors might like, and sell more art. This involves creating a recommendation engine that helps potential collectors have an “if you like this you’ll like that” experience, similar to what Amazon and other major ecommerce sites are already doing.

So, with those goals, why did we start a print project?

Doing something as big as this gallery project requires some significant resources, which we’re still in the middle of gathering. The print project is a way of creating a minimum viable product – a test.

That’s our update for now – more to come soon!