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How to Make Your Artwork

Worth More Money

I bet you don't know you can take the finished artwork that's sitting around your studio and increase its value right now, do you? No, you don't have to change it. No, there's no trickery. These are 100% legit time-tested art market methods that experienced knowledgeable dealers, collectors, fine art professionals, and art buyers in general respond positively to and pay higher prices for. I'm now going to tell you exactly what they are and how to use them to enhance the value and desirability of your art. Ready to raise your net worth? Excellent.

Here's the basic reasoning behind the following recommendations. Take two identical artworks. One you know nothing about; the other you know a whole bunch about. Let's say they're both the same price, you like them both equally well, and you can buy either one or the other. Which one would you rather buy? Right. The one you know a whole bunch about. Why? Because the more you know about a work of art, the better and more in depth you can understand, appreciate, and connect with it, and the more meaning it holds for you on a variety of levels. With respect to the marketplace, the more information, history, documentation, and context that accompanies a work of art, the more attractive it is to buyers. Why? Because it's easier to sell (or resell) art that you can say a whole bunch about than it is to sell art you can say little or nothing about.

In other words, you add value to artwork by informing, enriching, and deepening the experiences people have when they see and learn about it. Any artist including you can add value to any work of art almost instantly, thereby increasing its perceived significance in the eyes of serious buyers and collectors, and very possibly the price they'll be willing to pay for it as well. The following straightforward procedures work every time, all the time. So grab some of your art and let's get going...

First and foremost, sign it. You can't do anything more important than sign your art legibly because without exception, the number one most common question people ask when they first see a work of art is, "Who's the artist?" And given two identical works of art, one signed and the other not, the signed one is worth more, be more desirable to buyers, and will sell for a higher price than the unsigned one. Why? When an artist applies his or her name to a work of art, that officially means it's done, "officially approved of" by the artist, and ready to be shown in public. Additionally, unsigned works by artists who normally sign can raise questions. Like whether or not the artist ever finished it, or whether the artist didn't think it was good enough to sign.

You can sign your artwork on the back, on the edge, on the top, embedded within the composition, wherever. Makes no difference. Your name doesn't have to stick out or interfere with appreciating the art, but it does have to be there and it has to be legible. If you sign with an illegible signature and you like it, fine. But add a legible one onto the art somewhere, so you can be identified. Even if everyone on the planet already knows who you are, sooner or later, people will be born who won't. And if any of them ever inherit or otherwise acquire your unsigned unidentified artwork, they won't know what to do with it because they'll have no idea who made it, who you are, or how famous you might have become, which means they just might throw it in the trash... which happens way more often than you might think with art that no one can identify.

Title it. Can you imagine a book or a film or a piece of music without a title? Of course not. Art should be no different. Given two identical works of art, one titled and the other with no title, which would you rather own? If you're like most people, you'd choose the one with the title. Why? Because the title at least gives a clue to what the art is about while you can only guess at what's behind the one with no title. If you don't like titles or you don't use titles, explain somewhere on your website or in written materials that accompany your art why you don't title it. Given two identical untitled works of art, one with an explanation of why it's untitled and the other with no explanation, most people will choose the one with the explanation over the one without. For those of you who do title your art, you might even go a step further and write that title on the back or some other location on the art. Collectors like that. PS- "Untitled" is not a title.

Date it. Some artists don't like to date their artwork because they think buyers only want the fresh new stuff, or they want to be able to quote whatever date they think buyers want to hear. So fine. If that's the case, then date it in secret, in code, hidden in the compositions, in your daily journal, or on an inventory list. When you get old and famous, those dates will come in mighty handy, like for your retrospective at MOMA. Given two identical works of art, one dated and the other not, which would you rather own? Experienced art collectors and buyers prefer knowing its age to guessing its age.

Other interesting facts about dates are that the better known or more famous you get, the more significant your earlier (seminal) artworks become in relation to your current art and total output. Savvy collectors love to say things like "Mine is earlier and more formative than yours" or "The artist made mine first, and firsts are better than seconds or thirds." If you get really famous, your significant early artworks will likely at some point begin to sell for more money than your later ones. When you're young, buyers want the fresh peppy new stuff; the better known you get and the more you advance in your career, the more they'll tend to want the older stuff, unless you're Grandma Moses, who most of you aren't. You know what else this all means? Save a percentage of your best early artwork for yourself and make it a part of your personal retirement account.

Number it. If you're a printmaker, digital artist, photographer, sculptor, or you make multiples of any kind, set the edition size, never change it, and consecutively number every piece in the edition. People who buy multiples expect to buy set edition sizes that never change. No matter how popular an edition becomes, don't ever change the edition size or decide to publish a new edition. If you do that, you violate the trust of the original buyers and at worst, can compromise the desirability or market for your art.

Also be aware that buyers equate edition sizes with value. All else being equal, the fewer there are of a given image, aka the smaller the edition, the more exclusive ownership becomes, and the more each individual piece in the edition tends to be worth when compared to multiples with larger edition sizes. Before print or edition collectors and buyers buy, they will often want to edition sizes, which numbers they're going to get if they buy, and most importantly, that their interests are protected by your promise never to make any more of those editions again.

Explain it. People want to know things like what your art is about, what it signifies or communicates or means, how it came into being, what's happening in it, what inspired it, how you came up with the idea, and on and on. You don't have to get wordy or technical or tedious here. Anywhere from a sentence or two to paragraph or two in plain ordinary everyday language is fine for the overwhelming majority of people who want to know what art they're interested in buying is about. You can either write a brief explanation for particular series or bodies of works, or for each individual piece (assuming it has it's own story). You can also provide these types of information in your statement, a gallery catalogue, an essay, on a website, in social media posts, or in articles or interviews about your art.

If you don't know what your artwork is about, write about your process, what you think about while you work, how you start, how you proceed, how you know when you're done, and so on. Anything in writing is better than nothing. Given two identical works of art, one with accompanying text and the other with none, the one with the text is going to be worth more than the one without. Similarly, artwork with text written by the artist is generally worth more than artwork with text written by third parties (although under certain circumstances, informed or famous third party commentaries can influence value as well). One caution: Be careful not to go too far by telling people what your artwork should mean to them. Make it about you instead; people really appreciate that. Tell them what it means to you, and give them the freedom to decide what it means to them. At the very least, you'll deepen their understanding of your personal connection to your work.

Place it in a larger context. When and where did you make it? What were you reading? What was going on in your life at the time? Who influenced you? Whose music were you listening to? What were you thinking about? What was happening around you? What inspired you? Were you happy, sad, frustrated or angry? Is it from your orange period? That year you spent living off the grid? Had you just came back from an amazing trip to India? Collectors who buy contemporary art want to know about you as a person as well as wanting to know about your art; they want to understand how your life's experiences impact and influence your work. Knowing something about the artist and the circumstances surrounding the creation of a work of art deepens a viewer's experience of that art (and how much they value or cherish it).

Document it. Has it been exhibited, written about, mentioned or illustrated online or in publications, included in a catalogue, received an award, selected by a jury, defaced by a crazy person, posted on a known third-party website, commented on, or critiqued in any formal circumstances? This information is extremely important, especially with the passage of time, and can substantially impact value. For example, given two identical works of art, one that was exhibited and the other not, which would you rather own? Would you be willing to pay a little extra for the one that was exhibited? Suppose the exhibit was important. Would you be willing to pay more than a little more? Seasoned collectors would, and they do-- all the time.

Keeping good records of your art and art career is a great idea no matter how you look at it. This includes titles, measurements, mediums, descriptions, photographs, videos, dates, times, selling prices or names of buyers (when possible), and any published materials-- online or in print-- like critiques, reviews, interviews, and so on that relate directly to you and your art art. Good documentation of the history and progression of your art career is invaluable not only for you, but even more importantly, for future generations, not to mention your legacy as an artist. You're not always going to remember everything, especially as you get older, and you're not always going to be around to answer people's questions about your life and art, verify which works of your art are actually by you and not by someone else, and so on. By doing this all now, you save everyone else from having try and piece your art life together later.

List the ingredients. People need to know what artwork is made out of because as it gets older, it can degrade, deteriorate, change appearance, dry out, shrink, crack, get wet, start smelling, get dirty, get dusty or damaged. Professionals known as fine art conservators who clean, repair, or restore art need to know its ingredients in order to effectively treat, maintain, and preserve it for all time. While you're at it, also include instructions for buyers on how to care for and maintain it.

A few more effortless value enhancers:

* Take a picture of yourself holding or sitting or standing next to your artwork. Not only do buyers like pictures of artists, but photographs of you with your art are a form of provenance and authentication, of conclusively proving that the art is by you.

* Make a brief video of yourself making or talking about either specific works of your art or your art in general.

* Whenever possible, keep track of who owns your artwork. When retrospective time rolls around, you'll be glad you did.

* Provide printed information with each piece of your art like your bio, resume, statement, explanation of the art, etc. and recommend that buyers keep all of these materials together in a safe place. That way, when your artwork changes ownership (and sooner or later it will), the information will get passed on as well, and all future owners will know exactly what they've got.

Always remember: You can never provide too much information about a work of art and the more you do provide, the more buyers will typically pay-- now and for all time. The best part? The deeper the connection they'll have with the work as well.

(art by Tom Bills)