If you’re an artist that’s focused mainly on feelings like the joy of creativity or the need for expression, the furthest thing from your mind is probably making a sale.
But if you’re hoping to make a life and living in the arts community, then selling your work is a skill you’ll likely need to learn, even if it feels out of your depth or even counter to your own purist principles of separating art from commerce.
Luckily, now painters and visual artists of all kinds can learn all about the art of the sale from another Oklahoman that’s already put in the work to navigate and map many of the paths to the elusive financial rewards that seem out of reach to so many artists with the new “Little Black Book of Selling Art” from Lauren Kelly.
A Norman-based Pottawattamie painter and artist advocate known for her strikingly colorful and expressionistic depictions of folklore-forged feminine figures, Kelly found her first foray into book authoring with 2025’s “From Canvas to Career,” a guide for those aspiring to lift themselves into the often daunting world of professional arts.
But while that book was all about the tools and the bigger-picture concepts for making a career in the arts, the new one is entirely about making the sale.
Lauren Kelly: It's basically the gaps that I didn't get to fill in the last one.
The last one that I put out was kind of a smattering of all the things that I wish I knew when I was first getting started those things that I know you're not going to get in art school, so basics of organizing, of branding, of bookkeeping, of all of those things that artists don't think about because they're focused on making the art.
But this one is more sales heavy, so it is direct-selling tactics, it's not going to be dancing around all the other business stuff, it's actually giving you the word tracks, the protocols, the processes to sell, and it's suitable for both artists and art sellers, so that'll be gallerists and art dealers who also often don't get that sales education.
Brett Fieldcamp: That’s an education that Kelly is intimately familiar with, though, from her previous, pre-professional artist life in the world of car sales, where she cut her teeth on high-dollar products and understanding buyer needs.
But though many of her selling skills grew out of that job, she’s clear that she doesn’t ever want to treat art as a commodity or teach artists to view their work as something commercial or purely financial.
Instead, it’s become her lifelong crusade to teach artists how to value their work, how to build real relationships with buyers, fans, and art patrons, and most importantly, how to believe that a life and career in art is possible for anyone.
Lauren Kelly: There's a lot about relationship-building that goes into good sales.
But I guess whenever you're selling something as emotionally significant as art, something that is as intrinsically human as art, you can't rely on the utility of it.
The utility of it is that it exists and that it makes you feel something.
Brett Fieldcamp: These are heady ideas, but they aren’t abstract concepts to Kelly, who has turned her own success into a regular stream of consultations, partnerships, and yes, sales, all grown for her own uncompromising style and independent outlook.
But it’s also nothing new for her to spread her skills and share her knowledge of how to break through the noise as a visual artist.
Lauren Kelly: This is stuff that I would just talk to people about all day, every day, because I love doing that.
I love seeing that light bulb come on, and I love that, as artists, we are mouthpieces for whatever you want to call it, forces far greater than ourselves, and so I believe that creating that freedom for that art to just flow freely is critical.
So, for me, it was just a question of strategy. It was a question of how do I then get money flowing based on that? Not a question of engineering it the opposite way, which is now, “how do I go sell this? How do I make them want to buy it?”
I don't make them want to buy anything. All I do is put it out there in such a way that those that do want it can find it.
Brett Fieldcamp: Ultimately, that’s always Kelly’s goal, not only with the tactics and philosophies that she offers as advice, but with her own sales and relationships as well. It’s never about the exchange of money, she says, but always about finding and fostering the connection between a creative spirit and an appreciative audience.
A good sale can lift the confidence and courage of a working artist, but a great sale can help to extend the whole community of arts and artists in the scene.
Lauren Kelly: The thing is, you know, Georgia O'Keeffe said to live a life, to build a life in the arts takes courage.
It really takes courage and tenacity, because you can't just sit back and wait for inspiration to strike. If I did that, I wouldn't be able to pay my bills.
But when you need it the way that you need to breathe, you figure it out. You make it happen. You start diversifying yourself. You go “okay, what can I reasonably fit within my scope of skills? What can I reasonably develop?”
So there's always a way to make it happen in such a way that everybody is fed, in such a way that it feels good to your spirits.
Brett Fieldcamp: “The Little Black Book of Selling Art” is available now at laurenkelly.art, and is expected to hit local retailers soon.
For more, follow @laurenkelly.art on Instagram.
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