How Artists are dealing with Covid
Here are just some of the ways that artists have begun to change the way they run their art business during this time, and how you can too.
With the Coronavirus outbreak changing the way everyone in the world is working and living their daily lives, artists are learning to adapt to a “new normal” as art fairs, exhibitions and workshops are indefinitely put on hold.
COVID-19 has already rapidly changed the way that everyone—including artists and creative freelancers—will conduct business this year.
In an effort to understand how art careers are changing due to the Coronavirus, we asked artists how the outbreak has affected their careers and how they are planning to alter the way they approach their art businesses.
What we found is that there were many commonalities in how artists were responding to the shifting professional landscape around them. While all the artists we spoke with experienced a level of loss from sales, delayed workshops, and cancelled openings, they were already planning ways to innovate and move their careers online.
Here are just some of the ways that artists have begun to change the way they run their art business during this time, and how you can too.
Strengthen your online presence
In response to cancelled art shows, exhibits, conferences, workshops, and coaching sessions, artists are taking a positive approach to overcoming the challenges of the Coronavirus.
Visual artist Helen Klebesadel told us that she plans to focus more on online creativity coaching. “I will focus less on in-person teaching and creativity coaching for money, but will offer some online options,” she said in response to how she would be adjusting her art business in the face of the obstacles presented by COVID-19.
Klebesadel is already planning for a year with a more limited income, but more time for making artwork. After noticing that some of her students were feeling isolated and afraid, she set up a Facebook group called the "Cabin Fever Creative Community" to share the work that everyone was making during this time of sheltering-in-place.
“I will use this time to finally finish setting up an online watercolor workshop that I have been thinking about for five years,” she added.
Full-time artist Terrill Welch is also taking her workshops online. While she said her art business was already well-positioned to function online with a website, Artwork Archive online gallery, social media following, and newsletter subscribers, she did add one twist to her online offerings as news of workshop cancellations began to spread.
"I immediately offered 200 seats free in my introductory Independent Study Skill Building Masterclass in oil painting," she told Artwork Archive. This is to support artists and casual painters to get started painting in water-mixable or traditional oils while they are social distancing or self-isolating."
She said it's just a small way that she can support others as an artist during these unprecedented times.
Increasingly over the last ten years, artists have learned to depend on online tools to run their art business and market their artwork. Now, more than ever, it's time to harness and tap into the power of the internet to make connections and readapt your business to a changing landscape.