How to Promote Your First Art Gallery Show and Reception

Self Promotional Tips for Emerging Artists

Getting established as an artist can be a hard and sometimes frustrating experience. The first step is often getting your first gallery show. Getting an art gallery show can be intimidating because there's so much to do to market your gallery opening. Here's some tips that have worked for me or for emerging artist friends promoting their first art gallery show.

1.) Post the art gallery show on your web site. You do have a web site for your artwork right? Every emerging artist needs a good basic web site. Stay away from freebies like Geocities. Get yourself a decent domain name. You can find hosting packages for as little as $3 or $4/month for a basic site. If you blog at all, post your art gallery show on your blog as well.

2.) Post your art gallery show on MySpace and other social networking sites. Social networking is a powerful medium for marketing new and emerging artists. If you use MySpace, Facebook or other similar sites, you'll already have a sizable list of friends and supporters. Make sure they know about your art gallery show. MySpace has a bulletin feature as well as an event feature where people can RSVP for your opening reception. Don't forgot to post some photos of your artwork in your photos section.

3.) Make your first art gallery show a bigger event. One artist friend of mine does this at all her art gallery shows. She'll have a music group or a poetry reader at her opening reception to make the event more notable. This also helps because the poetry reader or music group will assist with promoting the opening. You just might make some of their supporters fans of your artwork.

4.) Start a mailing list and send postcards. Use a piece of your artwork as the front of the card. Be sure to include all the details for your gallery show. One artist I know just puts his name and the title of the piece of artwork on the back of the card. He then uses labels to add the show details to the cards. This saves him from having to waste cards if he prints to many for a show. If you're on a tight budget, Vista Print (www.vistaprint.com) does some very nice color printing for a very reasonable price.