Studio location?
 

Does anyone have any advice about the location of one's studio/home as far as a city location vs a countryside location?

In other words, is it possible to lose potential clients if you live too far from a busy area (an hour outside of a major city)? Or would living in a busier, more "cultured" part of town actually bring an artist more business?

What other factors regarding the studio location actually help or hinder an artist's exposure/growth, or does is it matter? Is "image" important? I would think that "good taste" goes along with good art, although I don't believe one has to live in an upscale neighborhood to portray a certain level of artistic proficiency. What do you all think!?

Sometimes my husband and I dream about a home in the country with a barn/studio, but wonder if clients would mind driving an hour to visit us. Another question is, do those of you who work full-time and have nice, big studios, do your clients walk through your home to get to your studio or do you have a separate entrance? Is this important to your business success?

Thanks for any imput on this subject!

Melinda Roeleveld
St. Louis, Missouri

Imagine the two extremes. One, you live and work in the most remote corner of Africa or Oklahoma. Or B, you live and work in Loveart, USA, a large city with only one street, and your studio is on both sides of that street. The city is populated by educated affluent people who must pass by your studio every day.

If you are trying to develop a reputation you'll do better living and working in downtown Loveart. If your reputation is already made you can live and work anywhere.

There are probably people succeeding and failing from all points in between. My guess is that they will mind the drive, unless you are really good, then they will knock on your door in the middle of the night.

Melinda, we live in a very rural area on twenty acres and my studio is a remodeled cottage, by the river, which was once the only dwelling on our property. It's just across the driveway from our home. I've lost some potential commissions from people who found me on the web and assumed that I lived in northern NJ near them. Although I offered to meet with them regardless they didn't pursue it. In other cases I've traveled short distances to meet with clients for photo sessions and then carried out much of the remainder of the interactions via phone or internet. It's so easy to send a jpeg these days that distance needn't be a real issue. And I suspect that advantages to living in a more urban area might be counteracted by the extra competition you'd find there. Admittedly I'm not extremely busy, but I think it's lack of marketing - and time - rather than inaccessibility.

Clients never have to enter my home; business is transacted in the studio and I like the separation. It also lends a more professional air to the encounter; having a building dedicated to art and set up like a gallery/working space seems to impress people.

Thanks Mike and Leslie for your thoughts on this. We currently live in a subdivision (suburb of St. Louis) with the closest business section about a mile away. Our area isn't known for its culture. There is an area closer to downtown with galleries and sidewalk cafes, but for our family, it would be quite expensive to live there.

Hopefully, my work will speak for itself and people will not mind walking through our kitchen and past my 20 year old's messy room to finally reach my (very small) studio in the basement of our home. My work is picking up, so it would be nice to some day either move, or add an addition onto the back of our home where clients could come directly into my studio. In the meantime, it's "work hard"! If anyone has any other thoughts on this or stories to tell, I'd love to hear them! Thanks.

Melinda Roeleveld

Are the steps to the basement very close to the back door (assuming the back door enters into the kitchen). If so, you could hang a professionally done sign outside your back door and have people go to the back and directly into the basement.

I rarely invite clients to my studio, which is in my home. I go to them, with portfolio (and sometimes an original painting or two) in hand. It doesn't seem to pose much of a problem.

Most of the people I deal with have little to no experience with artists, so they have no expectations about how the experience of commissioning a work will be framed ;) However the artist wants to approach it will be doubtless be fine with them, so Michele's technique would work well. I have had people ask to visit my studio so that they can see a range of my work, though, and I've also had people comment that photos of my paintings really don't do them justice, so I'm happy to have that option. But normally they view my work on the web or have heard about me from word of mouth so it's not necessary. On the other hand, I always bring the client to the studio at least once during the process to make sure there are no surprises at the end, and I'm not sure how I'd handle that otherwise.