How To Set Up Your Art Inventory & Overview Document (+Template!)

[@ArtBSP]

Thank you so much for all your videos! They are incredibly helpful 😊

[@contemporaryartissue]

The pleasure is all mine! Thank you for watching 🙌🙏

[@parimahavani]

Wonderful! thanks so much! Would be very amazing if in future you make a video how an artist value a good and fine artwork of herself among many! criteria which help artists to know their betterment works from another!

[@contemporaryartissue]

Great idea! Will do 🙌Thank you for tuning in and wishing you all the best

[@parimahavani]

Thanks s much I again and again watch it and its gratefully helpful and with your videos and doing what you indicate I found my career and opportunities better and better, now I am very pleased if you doo also a video and advice when artist have a visit inn her studi, how should present works? should show Las this catalogue? or will be amazing how should set up very professional artist studio! Thanks so much

[@loriwakefield1]

Thanks!

[@contemporaryartissue]

You are the best Lori 🙏❤

[@acceptingWhatIS]

the absolute - B E S T - thnk you!!!!

[@karinverbru]

Thank you!

[@jamesg2382]

I disagree on the word or excel recommendation. I started with an excel document. This is okay for a while but becomes a clumsy document in time. I now spend about $150/yr for a database and get very good value out of it. Everything is in one place, including photos, this is impossible with excel. A database can then be leveraged for generating art availability or consignment documents, that can be generated in minutes. I wouldn’t discount the usefulness of a database, especially as your Oeuvre body of work increases.

[@contemporaryartissue]

Of course, a $150/yr subscription will be more powerful in comparison with a one-time €2,50 purchase. However, in my honest opinion, the price difference is, generally speaking, in most cases, not worth it. Including images and having everything in one place is possible with our templates, and the table of the Word file is compatible with our template for the consignment agreement as well. So it does the job perfectly. If you need a more advanced database solution, for instance, when you are gallery with various artists or an artist estate with a lot of projects, institutional exhibitions, loans, gallery collaborations, et cetera, then, a database software such as Amy or ArtLogic is indeed most useful. Nevertheless, thank you for tuning in and sharing your thoughts and experiences-I appreciate your contribution!

[@cchemmes-seeseeart3948]

I've given this some thought, & realized there are ways to use Word + Windows + Adobe Bridge (which is free, if you simply create a creative cloud account), to get a result with some of the benefits of a database. It is simply how you use file & folder structure (as well as how you go about consistent naming/ labeling between documents/ folders, etc), (& I use Windows pc's). The search function of pc's, as well as setting up links & something like libraries (although not sure where windows is going with libraries), can help make info more searchable, so that windows search becomes your database resource. Adobe Bridge is also a good resource, for connecting many types of files into one place to have a degree of database function, & works with all different file extensions in one place. You can get database features through 2 levels of metadata entry, links, smart collections for searches of your art files, & setting up folders of your art data, in one master folder, that will work well in adobe bridge, since it is assisted by a memory function of previously searched folders, etc, etc. I believe there is a happy medium. I'm still figuring this out myself. (I can say though, I've been having some problems with my windows search, as a factor; but I will try to reinstall windows). Many tasks can be done manually as well, with simple copy/ paste, without much need for more than that for simple single artist records of their works. For example, you can keep a list of contacts/ collectors info, & then, when adding that info to an artwork info, you copy/ paste it. Then, in a windows search, both documents would pop up... You can even keep a 'dump' file, of all current file update info, as it comes in, & then once per week or month, make all those updates listed in your dump file, etc. etc.

[@YasmeenKhan]

What about data protection? The gallery that sells my work wouldn't be able to tell me who's bought it because of GDPR.

[@contemporaryartissue]

With permission, we can share contact details. Galleries are often reluctant to share the details of their clients so the artists won't go behind their backs. However, for your records and catalog raisonné, they can make an exception. Of course, in this case the gallery needs to ask permission from the collector as well. When granted, all is well. It can also be beneficial for the collector, for instance, when the artwork they have acquired is on display at a retrospective or institutional show for the value and exhibition history of the artwork.

[@vjhreeves]

So, are we supposed to be collecting the personal and contact info of buyers who purchase our work in art festivals?

[@beverlysnow9315]

Assuming you receive payment via check, you have the contact info.

[@vjhreeves]

@@beverlysnow9315 realistically, how many people are paying by check these days? The majority of art sales are with credit card.