Messages of Effusion: Challenging Answers for Perplexing Career Situations Artists Encounter

By Jack White

Messages of Effusion is a pick-me-up, you can do it book full of inspiration. In the world of art there seems to be an "Artist Doldrums" where all the wind dissipates from their sails. Like having a GPS in your car, Messages of Effusion provides instant assistance to help you get out of a jam when you are lost. Designed to keep your attitude on a positive plane, this is a manual of encouragement with useful information sprinkled throughout, answering questions you never thought to ask.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257357123

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Messages of Effusion

Challenging Answers for Perplexing Career Situations Artists Encounter

Jack White

Copyright 2005, 2010 by Senkarik Publishing

All rights reserved by Senkarik Publishing. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems.

9781257357123

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

Chapter One - Marketing

Chapter Two - What IF?

Chapter Three - Copying

Chapter Four - Advertising

Chapter Five - Teaching

Chapter Six - Clutter

Chapter Seven - Passion

Chapter Eight - Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda

Chapter Nine - In a Rut

Chapter Ten - Catastrophic Events

Chapter Eleven - Conflict, Compromise and Cooperation

Chapter Twelve - Tabletop Book

Chapter Thirteen - Out of the Box

Chapter Fourteen - Be Backs

Chapter Fifteen - Selling

Chapter Sixteen - WWW

Chapter Seventeen - Getting Seen

Chapter Eighteen - Inspiration and Motivation

Chapter Nineteen - Destroying Myths

Chapter Twenty - Finding Our Way

Chapter Twenty-One - Voice

Chapter Twenty-Two - Exposure and Success

Chapter Twenty-Three - Building Blocks

Chapter Twenty-Four - A Day of Remembrance

Chapter Twenty-Five - Failure

Chapter Twenty-Six - Questions and Answers

Messages of Effusion Conclusion

Introduction

I vowed to never write another art marketing book. Like so many self-pledges, this one lasted only a few months. I keep getting emails seeking additional information. About a dozen times a month I get an email encouraging me to become a paid art consultant. They mostly say, Why don’t you set up a phone consulting service? You could charge $100 to $150 an hour. If you ever do, please sign me up. Others ask, How much would you charge to look at my Website? Or What is your fee to make suggestions on how to improve my art? This message is repeated over and over in one form or another each month. As flattering as the thought is that people would pay to listen to my advice, I have never been tempted to extract money from a group of people who, in many cases, work below the poverty line. Most artists earn less than the minimum wage and yet those so called art-experts are willing to extract money from my Nation of Artists.

For several years I earned a living as a consultant to the home-building industry with clients from coast to coast. Unlike artists, builders for the most part, have money. It never caused me any unrest to be paid handsomely by them but I would never be able to sleep knowing I was making some fellow traveler max out their credit card to ask me questions. My joy comes when one of you lets me know how much reading the material I labor to write has changed your life. Money cannot buy the emotions I feel when I learn of a success story.

These stories need not be earthshaking. I recall a young Japanese artist who was struggling to decide on how to sign her work. Her last name was a tongue twister and about two yards long and she had struggled for several years unsure of what name to work under. In reading The Mystery of Making IT, it occurred to her to work under the name Twing; her friends called her Twing and her boss knew her as Twing. She emailed and asked if I thought she could use Twing.com as her URL. She said she learned it from my suggestion in that book that she could use her common name on the front and sign the back of the painting using her two-yards long name. It was a small victory in my mind but Mount Rushmore to her. Her victory was my victory.

I selected the title Messages of Effusion because effusion is an unrestrained outpouring of expression. I have so much encouragement and information built up inside me, I cannot restrain the words in my heart. I must share with my fellow travelers the hidden secrets of our industry and shoo each of you along as a mother hen does her chicks…in the direction of success.

This book is a combination of pep talks and small tidbits of advice. All of the answers are in response to questions I have been asked by artists. I have found if one artist has a question, many artists have the same one nagging away at them.

I end up being an unpaid art consultant to dozens of artists who come to me for advice. They email images, bios, business cards to check out, and questions that I assumed everyone knew the answers to. I respond to all emails and frankly some days I’m up at 4 a.m. in order to write longer answers; the reward is I am forced to work through the myths and mysteries, resolve problems and then share the answers with many in printed form. Some of the materials contained within these pages are an expansion from my other books. Some things I felt needed more attention. Some information is reworked and approached from a different point of view. The basis of my writing is to lift your spirits and let you know that it is possible to earn a nice living making and selling your art.

In the past two years I have scores of success stories from those who have followed the Jack White marketing plan. In this book I will share some of those successes with you. Like all successful coaches, I am a cheerleader when a fellow traveler follows my advice and succeeds. I scream and yell when you stray and offer support when you falter. When you have doubts, I refuse to allow such negative thoughts to jump into your head. This book will be a source you can return to when the days get gray and your career is stalled, when it has been raining for days and you need a shot of light. I know how discouraging failures can be. We all have failed.

Whiteism: Failure comes when we don’t get back up and try again.

Mildred came to us seeking advice after another artist suggested she purchase my books. She was reluctant to buy them because she had read others and had seen no results. I told her that was her choice but if she did and was not 100% happy, we would refund her money and she could keep the books. Mildred had lost a daughter a few years earlier when the child was five, and had battled depression. Her work was all over the board. She painted very large tropical watercolor pieces. After reading my first book, The Mystery of Making IT, she switched mediums and took the challenge to try oils. Then she started making smaller pieces. Mildred eventually changed her outlook and started to realize her daughter would want her to be successful; her success would pay homage to her deceased daughter.

Three small changes made a world of difference in Mildred’s art career:

Painting in oils because they are easier to sell and most people perceive more value when they buy oils. Framing is more gallery-friendly. There is no glass breakage and oils can be framed in a traditional frame. Canvas is cheap and oils can be corrected much easier than watercolor.

Painting smaller things. Most people don’t have huge blank walls. Many only have one or two spots for large showstoppers.

Attitude: Attitude is essential. If you think you cannot make it then your prophecy will be fulfilled. A positive attitude is everything.

I also want to share one of the many emails I have received from the many, many artists I’m in contact with. This one validates my position that art is sold:

Jack:

Well I have just returned from the Loveland Colorado Sculpture Invitational Show. I did great. I sold 5 bronzes. I know it was 90% thanks to your writings. The sculptors on both sides of me and in the 3 booths across from me did not make a single sale. I saw everything you said not to do in a booth being done by those sculptors: talking on cell phones, sitting low, friends in the booths… everything I read in your book not to do at shows. I tried to sell and did. The work around me in the other booths was as good, and better than mine. I re-read some of your instructions just before the show and it paid off big time!

Thank You Again.

Your friend, Jim www.jamesmarsico.com

This book is designed to keep your attitude on a positive plane.

Will this be my last art-marketing book? I hope so. I want to get back to writing my murder mysteries. Does this book answer all of the questions the other three books don’t address? It covers a lot of new ground and reworks some of the previous information. There can never be enough books to answer all of your questions. What I try to do is give you the tools to figure out some of the answers yourself. I know if I can find the success trail on my own, with the instructions you will get from my four books, you will be head and hands above where I started.

Unlike the other three books this one is not a continuous story. In other words, you don’t have to start at the front and work your way to the back. You can skip around because this is the bible of encouragement with information sprinkled in like I did with Mildred’s story in this introduction.

Whiteism: How are you going to know you have arrived unless you know where you are going?

If you have not read my first book The Mystery of Making IT, then stop and get it before you proceed much further in this book. All four are like a set of history books. To understand the history of America, you need to start with volume one and proceed to volume four. Without reading the earlier books, this one will not have the same meaning. You need the others to understand where I’m coming from. You cannot read book three of The Lord of Rings and fully grasp the story line.

Just after I completed this introduction, Pat Jeffers an artist from Las Vegas, New Mexico emailed me the following story. It summarizes my thinking and my goals in writing this fourth book; this book is like the broken pot in the following story. I have seen the flowers growing from the seeds planted in my first three editions; this book will offer further nourishment to make those artists careers bloom. Pat, thank you for sharing this neat story and allowing me to pass it on to many, many others in the decades to come:

A water bearer in China had two large pots hanging on each end of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of water to her house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. The bearer said to the pot, Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.

Some might call me a crackpot; however, I don’t think that is all bad in the light of this moving story, do you? Actually most don’t say I’m nuts, they say I’m a little full of my own importance or, he thinks he is the answer man, loud-mouthed Texan, full of hot air; that is until they gamble and try my teachings. Some float around the word genius. This is why I wrote Chapter Twenty Three. I wanted to debunk the idea I’m a genius. Flip to Chapter Twenty Three if you happen to be one who believes I think my breath doesn’t smell in the morning. Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

Unlike the other three books, this one has no general theme. This book is like the new twenty-five screen movies; walk to the window and pick what you want to see. Go to the chapter that jumps out at you. Effusions is more than a how-to, it’s a reason-for-doing book.

In fact, you might want to skip to the back and read the chapter of questions and answers. That chapter is written in response to the emails and letters I’ve received after contacting everyone who read two or more of my books. I asked them to tell me what I didn’t cover in the previous books. To be honest, this was a challenge for me because some of their brilliant questions made me dig deeper and push harder than I expected. Thank you for taking your valuable time to help me share with our Nation of Artists the answers to your powerful, sometimes whimsical but always interesting questions.

Whiteism: I wish you success and more than that, I wish you health and happiness because if you have those, you are successful.

It is impossible for me to give you all the information you need to succeed in just one book. What I want to do is give you the tools to figure out some of the answers yourself. I know if I can find the success trail on my own, with the instructions you will get from my books you will be head and hands above where I started. That is why I’ve written a total of six art marketing books to lead you on the path to great attitude, health, happiness and success.

Mystery of Making IT

Magic of Selling Art

Mastery of Self Promotion

Methods of Success

Messages of Effusion

Malady of Art: FEAR

Chapter One

Marketing

The most frequent question I’m asked by artists is: How do I market my art?

The most frequent MYTH I hear is: "That Jack White is a marketing genius."

I want to address the last myth because I need to dispel the notion that I’m some smart guy. Let me set the record straight: I am no marketing genius. Later on, I’ll tell you a story of a group who had the will and marketing determination that few people know about. I will tell you about the Florida Highwaymen. They were what marketing art is all about. But first, let me give you some background on how I sold my mate, and the foundation of the myth about how I’m this smart guy about marketing art.

Mikki and I visited Hawaii for six weeks back in 1989. At the end of our stay, after traveling to all six of the islands tourists are permitted to visit, I asked her to spend the rest of our lives together traveling and living in places where folks go on summer vacation. I also asked her to allow me to teach her to paint and introduce her to the super-rich and famous. The teaching was the easy part. It only took her about five months to get better than her teacher. The traveling and living in the interesting places of the country became the larger challenge. Meeting the rich and famous seemed to just fall into place as we went forward with the other two.

I waited until the last day of our trip to take her to the backside of Maui just past Hana on one of those roads the maps suggest you not even think about going on. I stopped by some bluffs where you can see the Big Island and asked her to consider the above proposal. Look, I’m a salesman at heart, so when I got ready to close the sale, I didn’t want her to have any wiggle room. I presented her so many benefits it would have been difficult for her to say no. Okay, so I’m a romantic…the backside of Maui just seemed like a place where lovers go. The name of the bluff we were standing near when I proposed was called Lovers Leap. I guess she thought if she didn’t say yes, I’d jump off the cliffs with her in my arms. The reason for me mentioning this now will come into play shortly.

At the time we met, I had a wonderful six thousand square foot artist’s loft with eighteen-foot ceilings and hardwood floors. It even had great north light windows. If we were going to keep my promise of living at all these great places, I no longer needed my dream studio. So we gave away all of our stuff—leather couches, televisions, refrigerator, washer-dryer, and even my great crank up easel. We kept scaling back until all we owned fit in or on top of our 1990 Ford Explorer. We gave our friends and family hugs, and vanished into the darkness like a black cat at midnight. For several years we moved every six months, exploring every nook and cranny in each new locale. At the end of six months, we packed up and moved again. We wore out SUVs more often than sometimes our bank account was pleased with. We put 240,000 miles on the first Ford Explorer, 175,000 miles on the next one. By the time we stopped moving, we had moved up to a huge Escalade. We are on our second one. Our first stop was Carefree Arizona, then off to Maui, and back to Myrtle Beach. Next we were jumping to Carlsbad by the Sea, down to Las Vegas and then across the country to Cocoa Beach. We crisscrossed the country back over to Morro Bay, skipped over to Honolulu and then flew to the mainland again landing at Gulfport/Biloxi in time to spend a few days at Mardi Gras. We found an artist loft on Galveston Island, and then an oceanside property in Pebble Beach. We made our third trip to Hawaii, stopping on the Big Island. We even tried Albuquerque, Tucson and Midland, Texas. Las Vegas and Carefree each grabbed us two times and Longboat Key captured us for three years. We have been on eighteen cruises. We’ve visited the majority of the Caribbean Islands and so many Ports-O-Call, I cannot begin to name them all.

So you see I am a man of my word. I did teach her to paint and we lived at most of the summer vacation spots in the United States.

The first important person that I introduced her to was my best buddy, Grant Teaff, the Hall of Fame Football Coach, and CEO of the College Football Coaches Association. The first thing he said to Mikki after hello was: Mikki, this guy is a marketing genius. He will make you a super star.

Shortly after that I took her to meet another very dear friend, Senior Captain Bill Wilson of the Texas Rangers. Senior Captain means he is the top man of the Texas Rangers. One of the very first things he told her was: You are one lucky young lady to have this guy teaching you to paint and marketing your work. He is a genius at marketing art.

Last year in New York City I introduced her to Bobby Joe Red McCombs, the previous owner of the San Antonio Spurs and current owner of the Minnesota Vikings and Clear Channel Broadcasting. I can’t help myself; I just have to drop in a little sports trivia: Red was raised in the small west Texas town of Spur. When he purchased the team and moved it from Dallas to San Antonio, he changed the name for his hometown. Thus, the San Antonio Spurs. Anyway, after some small talk, Red took Mikki by the arm and whispered, You are in good hands. This guy knows how to market art. I don’t know anyone better.

I don’t know if she was impressed but I sure was. I thought a genius was one of those legless images that rise from a brass pot you find on the beach that grants you three wishes when you rub it. Over the years we have had dozens of my friends tell her what a great marketing man I was. If I didn’t know any better, I would start believing those elevated praises of my expertise in marketing. I learned long ago never to take much stock in what is said about you, good or bad. I’ve had articles written that blistered me, making it sound as if I were a charlatan, and I’ve been featured on the cover of another magazine that made me sound like the next coming of Dale Carnegie.

We have a saying in Texas, He thinks the sun came up to hear him crow. It’s important that I don’t come off sounding like I have an elevated opinion of myself. I’m just a plain old west Texas cowboy who happens to like people and over the years learned if you want to get, you must learn to give. We also have another saying, Just because a chicken has wings doesn’t mean it can fly. Texas translation: Appearances can be deceptive. My friends may think I’m a genius at marketing but they are mistaken by appearances. I might look and act like I can leap tall buildings with a single bound but as a matter of fact, I’m no different than you. I’m not smarter or more privileged to know some deep dark secrets; I have just learned along the way to connect the dots.

Simone de Beauvoir said: One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius. In my case, my friends bequeathed me with the mantel. I have never been accused or convicted of having intellect or being an intellectual. I think talent is overrated. When perfect practice is mixed with persistence, talent follows. I have found the harder I work, the smarter and more talented I seem to appear. I do have a profound amount of natural curiosity, and always want to know more and try different ideas. I attribute the expertise I have acquired about marketing to my willingness to keep throwing mud against the wall. When I throw a batch against the wall and it sticks, then I go with it. The Jack White method of art marketing is when you find mud that works, keep using it and do your best to make improvements. Don’t try new mud just because you can. I love the sports euphemism: You miss all the shots you don’t take. This does not mean changing the basic foundation you have found works just for the sake of being different.

You can put your boots in the oven but that doesn’t make them biscuits. You can say whatever you want about something, but it doesn’t change what it is. You can write in your bio that you are a Nationally Known Artist, but that does not make it true. The first building block in marketing is to tell the TRUTH in the best light you can. A friend of ours recently divorced and has joined divorcedandseeking.com or some such online mate-matching site. He asked me to look at his profile. He semi told the truth about himself but had he not told me where to find his profile, I would have never guessed he was the man described in his bio. His photo was about fifteen years old and his implied importance just a tad more than he could live up to. I suggested he let me write some copy and for him to get a more current photo for the site. The results were amazing. Most of the comments were: You sound real… Your face has character… You look and sound like an interesting gentleman. The ladies who communicated with him were appreciative of his honest approach. When he found a lady online, she was not disappointed because he looked like the photo he had on his site. This is not a genius at work; it is simply Marketing 101. Tell the unvarnished truth in the best light possible.

Be honest about what you have to offer. When I sold Mikki on spending the rest of her life with me, I told her honestly what I had to offer. Our relationship has worked because I didn’t promise more than I could deliver. I was honest with her but I presented the truth in the best light possible. Offer what you have to sell in locations that give you the best opportunity to close the deal. How could I have found a better spot to propose to Mikki than the backside of Maui, standing at Lovers Leap? I set the stage, showing her the most exciting six weeks of her life and promised our next sixty years together would be just as glorious as those six weeks of island hopping.

If you want to sell your art, you must put it in front of people who will buy and present it in the best possible light. This is not genius thinking. It is just plain common sense. You would be amazed at how few artists understand this one basic principle. Hanging your art in the local café might get a lot of people glancing up in between bites of pasta but they are not in a café to buy art, but to eat.

Whiteism: If you want to sell art, you must let people who like art have an opportunity to purchase what you make.

I promised to tell you about the Florida Highwaymen. They were the real pioneers of marketing art. They took their art to the people. I would love to one day write at length on these determined and innovative artists. I want to thank Mona Vivar for making me aware of their story.

The Florida Highwaymen, as they have come to be known, were a group of black artists who traveled up and down the East Coast of Florida. Floyd Pike named them The Florida Highwaymen because as they traveled, they painted what they saw, and then sold their paintings out of the trunks of their cars. They would carry the paintings into local Florida businesses or just set up along side of the highway. They sold their work for an average of $10 to $20. The movement started around 1955 and some of the original Florida Highwaymen are still painting today, though their prices are no longer $10. One of the original Highwaymen was honored at the White House in 2002. Several more have Websites. The movie Catch Me If You Can with Tom Hanks has a Highwaymen’s painting on the walls of one of the scenes.

Depending on whom you ask, there were less than twenty and as many as twenty-five Highwaymen Artists. Mary Ann Carroll has the distinction of being the only female Highwaymen Artist. I think she is still painting at the age of about seventy. The Highwaymen used whatever supplies they had on hand to complete their artwork, sometimes using house paint. Some even rolled cheap paper towels into a brush and used it to paint with. Their signature art is framed in a white frame made of house molding with a gold whitewash applied. They painted mostly on Upson Board (what we call Masonite) and scratched their signature into their work with the handle of their brushes.

Demand and appreciation for their stunning realistic Florida landscapes has increased and locating an older painting is quite a treasure hunt. They are credited for starting the Indian River Movement. I suggest you go to yahoo.com or Google.com and do a search on Florida Highwaymen. I’m getting ready to order a book written by Geoff Cook on these geniuses of marketing.

With names like, Bean Backus, Robert Butler, Alfred Hair, James Gibson, Johnny Daniels, Lewis McDaniels, Sam Newton, Isaac Knight, W. C. Reagan, Hezekiah Baker, Curtis Arnett and others, they took what they made and put in front of people who were interested in what they were making. This is marketing art. They painted what connected to tourists traveling through Florida—the palm trees and sleepy lagoons, sunsets and swampland with the native birds of the Indian River area. I tip my hat to the Florida Highwaymen. Their strong determination to sell what they made has earned them a place in the history of art marketing.

I’m not recommending you start the Highwaywomen of Virginia, but you can do many other things to market your work. We have around three hundred million people in the United States. Only 5% have ever set foot in an art gallery. That does not sound like we have much of a pool to draw from. But do the math. I think that leaves roughly fifteen million prospects. Not all people who purchase art visit art galleries. None of the 50,000 originals those Highwaymen painted were sold through galleries. I suspect the greater percentage of the people I sold art to had never visited an art gallery. So before you start getting your head down, please stop and think of other places you can toss some mud.

Let’s look at your career. Answer these questions:

Where am I trying to sell my work?

Are you on the backside of Maui or the local Greyhound Bus Depot? Examine where you are marketing your work. Toss some mud at a different wall and see if it sticks. Maybe there are different venues you can choose…Maybe there is a better way or location…Maybe there is a better gallery in the next town or down the street.

Case in point: We had been in one of the top galleries in Carmel for eight years. They gave us their best effort. We were given the prime location in the gallery but their ability to close sales was not strong enough. In the past five years they have sold less art for us than any other of our Team Galleries. The galleries’ job is to sell art and they were not reaching the quota we had set for them. Last year, we went with a gallery in Rancho Mirage (Palm Springs area). That gallery sold four times as much art as Carmel; same state, similar clientele and they presented the art equally in importance. The difference? Rancho knew how to sell art and Carmel didn’t. Did making the choice to switch galleries make me a marketing genius? Of course not. The decision was just common sense. Numbers don’t lie. It was not genius but the personal courage to make the change that mattered.

Is where I sell my art