5 artists on the weirdest things they’ve done to sell art
Nobody tells you this part when you start making art. They talk about the craft. The practice. The creative process and the building of a body of work and the importance of showing up consistently.
Every course, every mentor, every piece of advice you’ve ever received has been about the making. And the making matters. Of course it does. But there’s a whole other world that exists on the other side of it that nobody really prepares you for. The part that happens after the work is made.
The pitching and the posting and the following up and the pricing and the quiet panic of watching something you poured yourself into sit unsold for longer than feels comfortable. And then the completely undignified, occasionally hilarious, sometimes mortifying things that happen when an artist a genuinely creative, resourceful, slightly chaotic human being decides they are going to make this sale happen no matter what.
Because here’s what we know after years of being in this community. The creativity doesn’t stay in the studio. It spills out into emails and DMs and market stalls and conversations with strangers and decisions that seemed completely reasonable at the time and make for excellent stories now. Artists find ways. Weird ways. Wonderful ways. Ways that would never appear in any business course but somehow work anyway.
So we asked our Arts to Hearts community a very interesting question this time
What came back was funnier and more honest than we could have hoped for.
Follow me and I’ll paint you the offer that changed everything
There is something really special about an idea that makes people feel personally included. Not just as buyers or followers but as actual participants like they are part of the thing being made, not just watching it from the outside. And we think that’s the difference between a gimmick and something that genuinely works. The best creative sales strategies don’t feel like strategies at all. They feel like an invitation.
Mariana Picasso @marianapicasso.art offered her followers something most brands never think to offer a place inside the work itself. Follow her and she would paint you. Choose your colour. Become part of something. She set a goal of 20k and got there in under three weeks. Which really tells you everything about what happens when creativity and community thinking come together at exactly the right moment.
She bought her own art. Etsy did the rest
We are not going to pretend we haven’t thought about this. Because this is so clever and so specific and so completely understandable that we think a lot of artists reading this are going to feel very seen right now. The little “someone has this in their cart” notification on Etsy is one of the most powerful things in online retail. It creates urgency. It creates the feeling that someone else wants this and if you don’t move now you’re going to lose it. And Meriun figured out how to make it work for her. We respect it entirely.
Meriun Bautista @cactibrush understood something that most marketing courses don’t teach that people don’t just buy what they love, they buy what they’re afraid to lose. And she used the tools available to her in the most creative way possible. Is it weird? Maybe. Does it work? Clearly. And honestly, we think that’s the whole point of this conversation
You couldn’t see it. You couldn’t preview it. People bid anyway.
This one is fascinating to us. Because it completely flips the logic of how art is usually sold. Normally you see it, you love it, you buy it. Arpi removed the first step entirely. No preview. No idea what you’re getting. Just the trust that whatever arrives will be worth it. And the fact that people bid anyway says something really interesting not just about her audience, but about the kind of relationship she’s built with them. You don’t bid blind on someone’s work unless you already believe in them completely.
Arpi @arpiart_de turned the unknown into the selling point. And it worked so well that she’s planning another one this time with ACEO cards only. Which we think is genuinely one of the most creative approaches to selling art we’ve come across. It makes the sale an experience in itself. And that trust she’s built? That doesn’t happen by accident.
He went viral talking about his suffering as an artist. Then the sales came
There’s a version of the artist’s life that looks beautiful from the outside. The finished work, the clean studio shot, the caption that sounds effortless. And then there’s the version that actually lives inside it the doubt, the slow months, the making things and not knowing if anyone will ever care. Most artists keep that part private. They tuck it away and show only the good stuff.
And we completely understand why. But every now and then someone is brave enough to say out loud this is hard. This is really hard. And something shifts. Because people don’t just buy art. They buy from people they feel connected to. People they recognise something of themselves in.
Marwan Gamal @marwan_the_artist made reels about his suffering as an artist with a laughing emoji that made it land just right and found that the most human thing he could do was also the most effective. Not a strategy. Not a funnel. Just honesty. And people bought from him because of it.
His wife doesn’t find it funny. We absolutely do
We saved this one for last. And honestly there was never any question about that. Because this is the answer that made us put our phones down, look at each other, and just laugh. Because the image of an artist getting fully dressed up like an art collector, walking through their own front door, and pretending to be interested in their own work that is so specific and so completely unhinged and so deeply, recognisably human that we don’t even know where to begin. The commitment. The costume. The fact that he never actually buys anything. The wife who has seen this happen and is not impressed.
Gregory Evans @__gregory_evans__ has found a coping mechanism that is part performance art, part therapy, part something we genuinely cannot explain. And while it may not be making sales, it is making us feel a lot better about every slightly questionable thing we have ever done in the name of creative survival. His wife doesn’t find it funny. We absolutely do.
And we think that’s the perfect note to end on because sometimes the weirdest thing you’ve ever done isn’t about the sale at all. It’s just about staying sane while you wait for it.
Reading through every single response to this question we kept laughing. And then we kept stopping. Because underneath every funny story there was something that said a lot more about what it means to be an artist trying to sell their work than any business course, any marketing guide, any piece of advice you’ve ever been given ever could.
The painting made of followers. The fake cart. The blind auction. The suffering reels. The man in a suit walking through his own front door pretending to be someone else. Every single one of these is ridiculous. And every single one of them is also completely, unmistakably human. Because this is what artists actually do when they care. When the work matters and the world needs convincing. They get creative. They get weird. They figure it out.
If you want to read every single response to this question we’ve linked the original post below. There were so many good ones that didn’t make it here and every single one is worth reading.
Thank you to every artist who showed up and answered so honestly. This community never does anything halfway and every single time we ask a question like this we all end up learning something we really needed to hear even when that something comes wrapped in a laughing emoji.
We’re always here asking questions about your process, your wins, your struggles, your creative blocks, everything happening behind the scenes of making art and selling it. Drop your thoughts in the comments the next time you see one of our questions. You never know who needs to hear exactly what you have to say.
And who knows maybe next time it’ll be you we’re featuring.
