Museum Stores Can Be Financial Heaven for a Certain Kind of Artist.
Are you one of them?
by Thea Fiore-Bloom, Ph.D.
I have a confession to make to you about museum stores: I’m one of those people who visit museums alone.
I don’t go by myself because I’m deep. If I’m honest I would tell you I don’t go alone to brood among the bronzes.
The truth is, my museum trips never begin in those big hushed galleries.
They start with an embarrassingly long gander at everything in the museum store.
Ever ask yourself, who are the artists who sell their work in these lush settings?
Do they make a good living?
And how did they get their handmade work in the door?
“Museum store buyers know that the upper-end product, the handmade art, is integral to the impression and impact a store makes,” said museum store consultant Andrew Andoniadis.
Museum Stores Need You
So museum stores need handmade work.
But apparently, you’ll need the help of the secret service to even get the name of a museum store buyer at museums like the Getty.
“Everyone who’s a decision-maker in those big shops is trying to protect themselves from getting flogged by PR people, so they must have gatekeepers,” said Carolyn Edlund, sales and events director at The Clark Hulings Fund for Visual Artists.
“Museum shops like the Smithsonian, who I used to sell to, get thousands of solicitations per day.”
So skip the Smithsonian.
(For great info on exactly how to approach museum store managers, see this Charmed Studio post.
Meanwhile, small museum stores hold oceans of opportunity for the right kind of artist.
Small Museum Stores Are Waiting For You With Open Arms
Kathy DiGenova, the buyer at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles, told me something stunning last year.
“Surprisingly, I hardly get approached by artists at all. I can’t remember the last time someone asked for an appointment. I usually have to go online and out to area art fairs to find local work to carry in the shop.”
— Manager/Buyer at The Fowler Museum Store
Several other small and mid-size museum shop buyers I spoke to in California said the same. It’s an open niche — but how do you sell there?
For Museum Stores; Consignment Bad, Wholesale Good
Most artists who sell to galleries or retail stores usually work under a consignment business model.
When it comes to museum shops, Edlund champions wholesaling as opposed to consigning.
Because consignment involves getting paid by the retailer after your art is sold — “If your art sells, that is, and providing it hasn’t been damaged, lost or stolen,” Edlund said.
Wholesale is usually defined as the act of selling goods to someone other than a retail customer.
Wholesale = A Way For Artists To Prosper
But Edlund defines wholesaling as: “[a] way for an artist to make an actual living.”
The whole point behind wholesaling to museum shops is you, as an artist, establish a relationship with your customers [museum shop buyers], so you get reliable, repeat orders that are presold or set at a firm net 30 [which gives the retailer 30 days after receipt of goods to pay in full].”
“Did you know a 10 to a 15-year relationship with a museum store is not uncommon for artists?”
— Carolyn Edlund
But Are You Right For Wholesale?
Almost any kind of reproducible art in any medium (except huge or fragile work) could be a contender for the right museum store, providing the art falls within the store’s price and product range.
But almost any kind of artist may not be a contender for wholesale.
So if you only love to make intricate one-of-a-kind pieces, stay with galleries.
On the other hand, if you want a production studio and are willing to partner with a museum shop buyer to create income for yourself and the shop, wholesaling may be perfect for you.
Museum Stores Could Be How You Start Making an Actual Living From Your Art
Metalsmith Evelyn Pelati saw her art sales expand and stabilize when she gradually cut down on consigning and retailing her jewelry and taught herself how to wholesale to midsize museum stores.
Pelati vends her Arts and Crafts-period-inspired line of earrings and necklaces for both women and men to museum shops like:
The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Museum Shop in Oak Park, Illinois, The National Building Museum Shop in Washington, D.C., Taliesin Preservation in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Anneliese’s Bookstore at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.
How Well Can You Do Wholesaling to Museum Stores? Very Well.
One of Pelati’s largest museum accounts currently buys 60 or so pieces of jewelry from her every month.
That’s just one, of her dozen or so accounts.
Give that woman an Amen.
Now I want to emphasize that making a living selling to museum stores is no cakewalk.
Pelati is a hard-working artist who has put years into learning the museum store business.
So if you’re on board with working hard, how do you begin the transition from retail to wholesale?
Use Your Years Selling Retail To Make it In Museum Stores
“When I was retailing my jewelry to stores and at shows,” Pelati said, “I noticed over time there were certain pieces people repeatedly gravitated to.”
Her popular pieces had an archetypal quality that attracted clients who, like Pelati herself, loved the history of architecture and identified with work from the 1920s and 1930s.
Like many of us, she found out her customers loved the very pieces she loved.
“I had an idea to take these favorite pieces, create a collection around them and move them into the wholesale world where my business could branch out,” Pelati said.
“While I was mulling this over, my jeweler friend let me help her set up her wholesale booth at the 2014 Buyers Market of American Crafts in Philadelphia,” Pelati said.
When Was the Last Time You Went to A Trade Show?
“I learned a lot just hanging around. She suggested I go to an ABI workshop going on there where artists put out a sampling of their work for buyers to look at and anonymously comment on.”
When Pelati received her assessment from buyers, several of them said museum shops would be a good place for her work.
“I learned that I needed to set up a list of potential stores, and in researching that list, I did find a lot of museum shops. I just started contacting them along with shops and galleries and everybody I could think of,” Pelati said.
Ten museum stores later, Pelati’s wholesaling dream has now come into full flower.
Now let’s look at seven tips to help you begin your journey into museum stores:
1. Don’t Calculate — Be Yourself For Museum Stores
Don’t make art for a museum.
Make your art first and then find your museum match.
“I think it’s important that artists do what they love, what speaks to them.
It shouldn’t be a calculated effort as in: ‘OK, I’m going to target this market and I’m going to create this work for that place.’
That doesn’t come through sincerely. People buy something because they know how much you loved making it,” Pelati said.
This next tip from Pelati could be a game-changing one for you.
2. Get Your Past Life On in The Right Museum Store
“I always joke — and it’s really only half a joke— that I’ve been reincarnated from another era because all my life I’ve identified so much with the houses, the design style, the clothing, and the jewelry of the Arts and Crafts and Deco periods,” Pelati said.
So which country in what era does your art celebrate?
There’s a museum for that.
There are as many styles of work as there are markets to place the work in.
If your art celebrates the Wild West consider researching Cowboy and Cowgirl museums in the US and abroad.
Here are a few other examples.
“If you like the sea, and your art celebrates that, your market could be aquarium shops.
Like flowers? It could be botanical gardens.
Do you make things for kids? It could be children’s museums,” Pelati said.
Check out this Charmed Studio article for help finding your ideal museum store: How Visiting Famous Artists’ Home Museums Unleashes Wild Magic For Creatives.
“Don’t worry if you have never seen anything like your potential line in a museum store. That may be a plus if your pieces enhance the museum’s mission.”
— Evelyn Pelati
3. Your Mission Is To Understand the Museum Store’s Mission
“Always ask yourself: ‘Why should they buy my work?’” Edlund said.
If you want to sell to museum stores, visit local favorites and look at the price ranges. Before you investigate a store in person or online, find the museum’s mission statement on its website.
Look at the objects the store carries and see how each connects to the store’s mission.
Mission matters because museum buyers usually won’t buy if it doesn’t meet their mission, for fear of violating Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) laws.
“In other words, UBIT is a part of the federal tax code that allows institutions to not pay sales tax on products that are related to either an exhibitor or the mission of the museum,” said Andoniadis.
4. Partner With Your Museum Store’s Buyer
Research your dream museum’s permanent collection, ongoing programs, as well as their upcoming special exhibitions.
If your work coordinates with a future exhibit, prepare a targeted pitch well in advance.
In addition, you can also help the store educate museum-goers by including appropriate explanatory material with your art.
“If you’re talking to a Civil War Museum in Texas and you have these great Civil War-inspired mugs they want to sell,” Edlund said, “you can custom-print hangtags that highlight the connection to a battlefield or building, specifically on their property. Then you’re going above and beyond. Buyers appreciate that. This also helps sell your work in a store.”
5. Remember Your P’s and Q’s: Price and Quantity
“To succeed in wholesale you need to create in quantity.
Your work will be handmade, each piece slightly different — therein lies its beauty — yet similar enough to be consistent and meet the needs of the shop,” Edlund said.
“It also really helps me if an artist has different pieces of work in a range of prices,” DiGenova said.
“The least expensive item I carry is $1, and the most expensive item I have is $2,200. There’s my range for the store.”
6. Experience a Trade Show
Visit a trade show. “If you get in touch with the promoter and say, ‘I’m interested in being an exhibitor and would like to walk the show first,’ you will probably be allowed in as a guest,” Edlund said.
Edlund suggests New York Now’s wholesale section or The American Craft Council Show on wholesale days.
She also suggests considering membership in the American Alliance of Museums and The Museum Store Association.
7. Get Help Tackling the Learning Curve for Museum Stores
However, keep in mind that museum stores have a steep learning curve.
“Don’t take initial rejection personally; it comes with the territory,” Pelati said.
With trial and error, you’ll figure out who you need to market what to and when.
“Most museum store buyers think artists are wonderful, but museum stores also have bottom lines, so for artists to succeed here, they need to understand things like competitive, fair, pricing for value,” Andoniadis said.
How To Wholesale
If you want to learn how to best price your work, convert your studio into a production studio or get up to speed on billing options, consider taking a course, such as Sell Your Products to Retailers by Megan Auman.
For more info on this course and many fabulous free resources for artists, visit The Charmed Studio’s Mostly Free Resource list For Artists.
If you need some professional support writing and polishing your pitch to a museum store pop on over to The Charmed Studio’s coaching for artists page. Also, check out the Museum Store Association.
Finally, It’s About More Than The Money
To end I want to add that the benefits of wholesaling to museum stores extend go way beyond money.
For example, “A woman once purchased a necklace of mine from Taliesin West,” Pelati said.
“My jewelry comes with a care card that tells a story about how the piece was made. No contact information — stores don’t like that.
But somehow this woman tracked me down and emailed me to tell me how much she loved it.
That moved me.
Obviously, she went and took in a place that spoke to her — she was so happy there. She was able to bring home something that reminds her of what she felt when she was there.
She can put that little necklace on when she wants to feel that feeling again.
For me — that’s what it’s all about.”
Want an Additional Leg Up Selling To Museum Stores?
Are you excited to start making money and living the dream of having your art in museum stores?
Then you will want to pop over here and discover just what to put in your museum store submission package.
How To Put Together Your Museum Store Pitch Package
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How to Submit You Art to a Museum Store: Insider Tips from a Top Museum Shop Manager
Want to get better at selling your art with the help of your writing? Check out our post 5 Secrets To Improve How You Write About Your Art.
You may also like one of these other Charmed Studio art biz related posts:
- How To Put an Email Sign Up Form On Your Site in Under 10 Minutes,
- 3 Podcasts To Elevate Your Art Business,
- Etsy For Fine Artists: Succeed Without Marketing?
- How To Write a Press Release For Your Art,
- 6 DIY Videos You Can Make on Your Smartphone To Market Your Art
- O’Keeffe on Business: 6 Invaluable Hacks To Help Your Art Biz Bloom from the life of Georgia O’Keeffe
- or SEO for Artists: How SEO Can Boost Your Sales and How to Start
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What’s your favorite museum store?
One of mine is the thimble-sized shop tucked in the entrance of the inscrutable Museum of Jurassic Technology.
Any museum store would you love to see your work in?
Let me know in the comments below. 🙂
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A version of this article appeared in the Sept. 2016 Issue of Professional Artist Magazine.
Banner photo by A. Adoniadis.
Thank you. What a thorough, informative article and verbal explanation. I so appreciated it. I am representing my aunt, an artist, in trying to get her artwork into museums (and perhaps into museum stores, eventually, in the form of merchandise with her artwork on it). We are just on the beginning of our journey. Thank you for all of the resources and links you included here. – Linda Stone (www.demerahsart.com)
You’re very welcome Linda. I hope you check out the follow-up article to this for more help.It is over here:
How to Approach a Museum Store: 5 Surprising Dos and Don’ts for Artists. Wishing you and your art a happy breakthru into a museum or museum store soon.
For over 10 years, I developed sort of a tradition. Whenever I travel around the world, I always visit a local arts museum and buy my sister a pair of ear rings. There’s just something special about getting a piece of art from local artists from a museum. I always knew that what I am getting has been curated with local experts, that these artists are highly professional and the reputation a museum has is “carried over” to the art that it sells. Its clout extends to the art pieces sold there.
So my sister has earrings from Buenos Aires and Rejkyavik, from Kathmandu and Yerevan, from Santiago and Paris. What a great article and a great idea. You just nailed it
Max, what a lucky sister you have. How kind and thoughtful and creative a gesture.Museums are magic aren’t they? Time stands still in the best of them. Have you ever been to Orham Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul?
Thank you. Museums are magic indeed. They are temples in a way and I make it a point to visit them anywhere I go.
I unfortunately yet to visit Istanbul, but heard it is a must see city. Definitely on my top 10 list of places to visit, and can’t wait to start travelling again.
Thank you, Thea for useful info!
For me so far – the favorite museum is The Morgan Library in NYC. There is something about the store that says “quality, elegance, early 20th century”. I like their books and notebooks. I definitely can go there if I find a printing company for my ‘ideal notebooks’. As for handmade things (not printed), I am not sure if they sell any.
You are so welcome, glad I could help. Have you looked at the American Writers Museum in Chicago or maybe have a peek at this article on the 9 Best Museum in the world for book lovers..https://www.bustle.com/articles/102195-9-best-museums-in-the-world-for-book-lovers-because-theres-nothing-like-an-original-manuscript.
🙂
I know I am a bit late to the party with seeing this article, but I think it’s great and filled with useful info!
I sell some of my handmade seashell sailors valentine jewelry at a museum in Cape Cod, but because they approached me.
Would like to find another museum that would be a good fit for me, to grow my business…. this article is a little boost of confidence.
I love working with my current museum and hope the next one will be equally as pleasurable of an experience.
Thank you!,
Melissa
Congratulations on being scouted!! Isn’t that cool? I can see why, your art is stunning and highly original. I would look into maybe targeting museums with dollhouses or museums of miniatures, or anything with a British appropriate tie in. Also a cool option since your work is so cerebral is The Museum of Jurrasic Technology or if you go big and develop a wholesale line, I would shoot for the V and A in London, why not? Life is short!
Great article. We seem to have almost accidentally stumbled into this market. We have our work in 4 museum stores and they seem to be a good fit.
Thanks for sharing this information!
Louise how kind of you to take the time to comment. I am planning on doing a followup to this piece next year and would love to know if you have questions you would want answered that might help you in your new adventure in museum store land? Let me know here okay. I would love to ask you two questions today: What has been surprisingly easy about getting into a museum store? And what if anything are you finding a bit difficult? Thank you, wishing you continued creativity and success Thea 🙂
Hi Thea, I was just thrilled to see your post because it was on target and informative. There used to be a website specifically for selling work to museum stores. I believe that may be gone, but there is still the Museum Store Association. I think it has been fairly easy for us because we have an unusual line of work. We make dining and serving pieces in copper and silver. We can be in a show with 800 other artists and we will be the only ones doing what we do, we do have jewelry in 2 shops. They just kind of fell into our laps. We used to make jewelry and we keep one line current but only for them. I am putting together a line sheet now and making a package to send to the shops to establish communication. I would be interested in what to include in the package. The other things I would be curious about is the time of year to approach for seasons – Christmas, wedding, etc. This is an order we shipped to a museum today. https://www.instagram.com/kingfisherdesigns/p/BwnF5rKh8vK/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=12k8c3j96mn0p
Those are two great questions Louise. Let me put my thinking cap on see who it would be best to interview about that.Thanks so much. You and your husband’s work is wonderful, and unique — I can see why doors are flying open for Kingfisher Designs. 🙂
Thank you! We have years on the show circuit behind us and a major change from jewelry to dining and serving pieces. We appreciate your great information.
My pleasure. Thanks for those additional questions you sent by email. Good ones. Our “trained technicians” will get right on it for a late summer “Next Steps-Museums Stores” type of article to help you and other artists get a few more feet in a few more doors.
Wow that’s so cool there are still museum shops (even if small ones) that DONT get bombarded with submissions! I feel like the whole world is so saturated with artists…maybe I’m wrong.
I think it’s a great place to get your art into cause I’m always in the buying mood when I go to museums. Part of it is the shop is like a break from the art so you are kind of relaxed and also want to be “arty” but also it’s like buying a souvenir at the same time. My university classmates and I would always buy something, sometimes for each other as well – 😀
Story time: Once I went to the Design museum in London with my class and professor, and of course we also ended up in the shop. I picked up a few things and one of them was a porcelain(?) made white plastic style cup that was sort of crumpled looking. So it looked like a cheap plastic cup but it wasn’t. I thought it was cool of course – my professor saw me buy and and told me that her classmate designed it! She said she was upset (jokingly) that she hadn’t thought of it because her friend makes a lot from that simple design as it sells all over the museum scene 😀
Yes! I was so shocked when Kathy at the Fowler told me she has to go out to find product. Crazy. Her shop is wonderful btw, The Fowler is a museum of art and culture on the UCLA campus in L.A. Great, reasonably priced objects and jewelry to drool for. I loved story time! Thanks so much. Now I want to see a photo of that cup! Do you still have it?? I’ve never been to a design museum in London, sounds amazing.
I have to look for it but I think I have a picture somewhere…I’ll send it to you if I find it:D
It’s called “The Design Museum” – it is my favorite! but I just checked their website and they’ve moved or changed the buliding 🙁 sad…
I don’t see anything like that here in California. Maybe NYC? London has the most thrilling museums. Hope The Design Museum still exists there.
This is priceless information for artists. . I’m not an artist myself but this article was so interesting tio me because I never knew or thought about what a great resource museum stores could be for artists. I just know I love the museum stores and the wonderful things they always have in them. I am going to definitely pass this information onto some artist friends of mine. You did it again with a wonderful, informative blog.
How nice are you? To read my damn 2000 word blog for visual artists even though you are an actor! Bless you Denise. I knew it wouldn’t be a best read post but I thought if it helped or wasthe perfect info one or two artists it would be worth it. 🙂 Hey what is your favorite museum or museum you’ve ever been in so far in your life and why?
Wow this is a really hard question and I’m gonna have to take some time to think about this. There’s been so many.
Take your time. I change my mind every day. Was thinking about the great tiny “museum shop” in the middle of the rose garden for the Lake Shrine in Malibu Ca is. You can get a gold toe ring or Krishna comic book, and then I remember another museum shop like the cool one at Watts Towers…. The weirdest gift shop was the one for The Funeral History Museum . I found the place on a road trip through Texas.Great museum btw,not ghoulish, I learned a lot.
One of my favorite was Magritte at LACMA. I love LACMA. But there’s just been so many. I love the Annenberg Space for Photography. I’ve seen their last two shows. I love Vivian Maier and Chihuly.
Yes LACMA is under sung in my opinion. I love Vivian Maier!!! I’ve never been to the Annanberg Space for Photography, thanks for the suggestion.
Monterey Bay Aquarium. Bought a wedding set of glass salad bowls that had an ocean theme. Still love them and my guy 23 years later. :-)))
That is fabulous. What a good memory for you. I can picture those bowls in my mind’s eye. I love me a good aquarium museum store. The Field Museum in Chicago has a great museum shop. And I get really excited when I find a good planetarium museum store, those are harder to come by. Some of the science based museum shops don’t have as much great handmade art as they used to, many seem to have devolved into over priced trinket souvenir shops I think.
You know, your smaller pieces might work really well in a gorgeous museum store. Have you ever considered researching museum shops like the one at Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens? They just rebuilt and re-stocked the whole shop, breath taking in my opinion.
Your article is actually the first I had even thought of this type of revenue stream. Wonder if they might enjoy little bags or scarves with my art? Will definitely look into. Thanks!
Yes, a production line of more easily reproducible pieces might be just the ticket. I think your nature-related work would be a good fit for big botanical garden stores East Coast, or in England and Australia perhaps… anywhere where gardening is a kind of religion. Maybe check out the gift shops of home museums of gardening goddesses like Beatrix Potter whose historic house is lovely, it’s called Hilltop.
Here is a link to that shop. https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/
Or have a look at Sissinghurst, the castle/home/ museum of one of my favorite garden author’s Vita Sackville West.(She was the best friend of Virginia Woolf.)
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden/features/spring-ranges-in-sissinghurst-castle-gardens-shop-
Thank you for the suggestions and extra insights. 🙂
Thank you, Thea, for this informative and detailed article! I am so appreciative of your featuring my work and story. ~ Evelyn
You’re very welcome. I’m your fan.
I would love to know though what your favorite museum shop ever is?
My favorite is right here in Hartford, CT– it’s the Wadsworth Atheneum gift shop. I love it! I always buy something when I go there. It’s a great little shop, so full of interesting things.
Just looked it up, what an amazing museum. It’s like the Victoria and Albert Museum. I will put it on my bucket list. And I will start with that gift shop. Thanks.