Translate Social Media to Sales

The Thriving Artist

Gregg Chadwick is a Santa Monica–based artist who has been painting for three decades, and his work has been exhibited in national and international galleries, art fairs, and museums. He’s given many lectures on the arts, including speaking engagements at UCLA and Categorically Not—a forum that examines the intersection of art and science. Gregg is also a Fellow in The Clark Hulings Fund’s 2017 Business Accelerator Program.

Art and social justice:

• “All art has a political stance whether it’s on the surface or boiling underneath.”
• “Every day something new happens in the world and art is really primed to look at those global changes and shifts.”
• “The history of oil paintings is so deep that it allows artists to address issues with a very subtle touch.”

Developing a virtual network:

• “If you’re in your studio by yourself, people aren’t going to come looking for you. If you’re on social media, you’re communicating globally, and there are things that can only happen in that forum.”
• “I’ve had a number of people contact me over the years looking for particular paintings that I’ve shown online, even if they were previous works on older platforms like Flickr.”

Social media translates to sales:

• “Art dealers are on Twitter, and I like to create subject matter that, when it’s Googled, my name comes up.”
• “Social media allows you to sow the seeds of your work and who you are. People want to get to know you a little bit, who the artist is—it’s not just a product.”
• “The collectors who want to be connected to the artists are able to do that. That community and camaraderie is there. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something significant, and it drives me to keep going, to keep my audience happy.”

CHF’s Accelerator and artist forums:

• “The difficult thing is putting thoughts into numbers, having an organized system that you’re continually using to propel your business from one level to another.”
• “The encouragement and enthusiasm from the [Accelerator] program and other Fellows has led us to have bigger dreams and bigger ideas that we now know can come to fruition.”
• “This is a group of like-minded individuals in which we can talk about our work and challenges together.”