“How can I promote a cause and inspire action through my art?” – Joann Renner

Jessica Craddock: Welcome back to Intuitive Art Sales. I am here with Joann Renner. She got a double major in the eighties in both studio art and art history. And did a couple shows, but in her words, nothing earth shattering happened. She never really lost sight of that, but she's now just starting to get restarted after life with kids and taking care of her mom and, you know, all this stuff that comes up.

So her work is largely expressionist with oils and pastels. So right now she's working on a series called Living Earth about the small wild areas you might see on your drive to work so that she and others can reconnect to it, become healthier, more empathetic, and find better solutions for the environment.

Isn't that a lovely cause? Or a lovely theme, both, it's both. How are you doing today, Joanne?

Joann Renner: Pretty good, how are you?

Jessica Craddock: Pretty good, pretty good. Why don't you tell me a little bit about how you are trying to get restarted with this art business of yours? What's happening?

Joann Renner: Well the pandemic helped a lot in a weird kind of way.

Jessica Craddock: Isn't that cool?

Joann Renner: It was nice being an artist because we're so used to working at home and alone anyway.

Jessica Craddock: Mm hmm.

Joann Renner: And I found a lot of like minded women and women's groups, artist groups. On the internet, and I've joined a few. Seeing so many talented, women of all ages, ones that just came out of art school, some mid career, like, say, maybe in their 40s or 50s, Some were in their 70s and 80s and they were doing amazing work and everybody was being so supportive and I had never really experienced that before.

So it was kind of blowing to me, because when I grew up, it was very much, and in some ways it still is a man's world, for the art world. Thankfully a lot of things are changing, but a lot of big institutions, that when I was in college, they always pushed, oh, go for the museum shows, you know, go try to get into the big galleries in New York and that sort of thing.

That's really hard to do, especially for women artists.

Jessica Craddock: Straight out of college? Mm hmm.

[00:03:05] Take advantage of making connections on the internet.

Joann Renner: Yeah, and it's really hard to do if you don't have those connections. And without the internet at the time, there was no way to make connections unless daddy had lots of money. Those were the people who were getting, moving their careers forward, but it was always the guys.

So, I knew it was what I really, really wanted to do, and it was really like a calling. It was the only way I thought I was ever myself when I was painting so I just kind of kept that in mind for years. Then the Internet, of course, and the pandemic opened that up and I found groups like the art queens.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah, I like them.

Joann Renner: They're fantastic. They have done so much to be supportive. Groups that Jess Hughes has, those groups are, it's all women artists. And the projects everybody's willing to collaborate on, it really fuels that desire to keep painting and just to ignore, the male dominated garbage.

Jessica Craddock: I know what you're saying. I don't really see it because what I see is the online space and it feels like a very equal opportunity.

Joann Renner: Right.

Jessica Craddock: And I don't spend a whole lot of time with clients trying to get into museum shows, etc, etc, but when I think about it, looking back to museums, I do know that they are highly dominated by male artists. But I don't think with the internet, unless museum is the only way to go for you, I don't think that that matters anymore.

Joann Renner: No, it really doesn't. It's been freeing coming to that realization that I can promote my own work. I can be supportive of other artists, men and women, because I know, have some very good friends who are male artists and they're struggling too. They, they're, what they do really doesn't fit into the traditional mold, even for the guys. And it's great to see people actually starting to come into collectives now or co ops, and actually work together to put shows together.

Back in April, I was an exhibitor with a group. It was organized by Tom Moser here in Pittsburgh, and it was an exhibition. Nothing was for sale. This was purely a cause related, exhibition. And the cause was to bring awareness to Mark Fogle, who is a Pittsburgh teacher and professor. He was detained in Russia for having medical marijuana. Because he had had spine surgery and had a great deal of pain, his doctor had prescribed it. Well, in Russia, they don't care.

Jessica Craddock: Don't like that.

Joann Renner: No. So, he was detained. They're working very, very hard to get him out because he's in his 60s, and for medical reasons he should not be there.

Jessica Craddock: So, how is the, the exhibit, how is that bringing awareness to the problem? Was the art related?

Joann Renner: It was great. Yes, every artist could bring in one piece, could be any size, could be any medium, but it just had to be related to Marks situation. So some did portraits. I did 1 where it showed a dark figure and a cell with a light of hope coming in. But that there were so many obstacles around, much like when you see decrepit buildings, maybe out of World War II, Soviet Russia, that sort of thing, where things were very bleak, with no hope. You know, that happens a lot there where people usually don't even get out, even their own people. So my piece was about trying to send hope to him to keep him going and give him some strength.

Some people did very abstract pieces, but were just as powerful. Some did almost political styles. And they were incredible. Some of these pieces were huge. They were like four foot and six foot high pieces. It was wonderful because it's in a huge light filled space. You can see the skyline and the city through the windows. It was just an amazing collaboration between artists. Every single one was very different in their style and their approach, but yet everybody got the message across. The family, his family had shown up and they were just blown away by the support that all the artists were doing.

And it was just nice with not having anything for sale. It took away that commercial feel to it.

Jessica Craddock: I really like that, actually. I don't think I would have said that before, but I can see the value in this one.

Joann Renner: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: So what I'm hearing from you is that you really gravitate towards art with a cause or with a message. And also, I love the community. I love collaborating. I love being around other artists and working with other artists. Those are the two themes that I'm hearing for me this far.

Joann Renner: I really do, yes.

Jessica Craddock: Is there any other things that you want to throw in there as far as how I would love to market my art? And when I say market, I know that turns into, well, now everyone's told me I have to do all these things, but what I'm actually asking here is about your vision. How do I want to create my business, my brand, my strengths? How do I want to put all that into how I am marketing my art?

Joann Renner: Mostly right now I do have a website. I did just start a private email list. I'd say about six months ago, I finally got around to it. It's not very big yet, but I'm working on it. That's probably one of the biggest challenges, is getting people to sign up. Mm hmm. Yes. So that I can let them know what's going on.

Jessica Craddock: But, you said, I love being around other artists. I love collaborating. I love being a part of causes. Most people, when they think about growing their email list, they think, okay, how do I write the right line in my Instagram post or bio, or do I need to make a freebie or like, what are all these content based ways to grow my email list? And I'm not saying that we shouldn't do those, but...

[00:10:25] Invite the people you interact with to join your email list.

Jessica Craddock: I think what makes it really work is when you take all of these things that you love doing and then you invite them in.

Joann Renner: Oh, okay.

Jessica Craddock: I would love to stay in touch with you. Do you want to be on my newsletter? Can I be on yours? Do you have an Instagram we can connect on, et cetera, et cetera.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: These are more like habits for growing your email list or your Instagram or whatever it is, and they may be slower than what you expect your growth to look like, but they're so much stronger than some random person on the internet finding your Instagram account going, Oh, I like their work. And then they see something that says sign up for a newsletter and they're like, Oh, okay, I'll do it. Can you see how one is like crazy good quality and one might be good. It might not be good. We don't really know.

Joann Renner: Exactly.

Jessica Craddock: If you want to use sales language, the first is warm leads. And whether it's leads who are going to buy your art, leads who are going to connect you with someone else who can, you know, give you another opportunity to show your art for a cause, or lead you to a new community, or any of those types of things, are, I call it your orbit. So you have an orbit around you and some of them are buyers, and some of them are people who help you expand your orbit.

So when we're thinking about all of that, I know I kind of just went off on a tangent here. We talked about collaboration and community and causes. What's some more things that you would like to get involved with around those? Or, You mentioned a lot of places that you already are. Would you just like to go deeper and get to know more people inside of those?

Joann Renner: Yeah, very much.

Jessica Craddock: So these are all, artists who are trying to make their way in the world for the most part that you described. Is that accurate?

Joann Renner: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: Okay,

Joann Renner: Most are around here. I know, you know, in person. And then of course I have my other circle, which is people I know in my groups on the internet.

Jessica Craddock: And which one, I'm assuming it's the local in person people that got you connected with the cause for the man.

Joann Renner: Yes, Mark Fogel. 

Jessica Craddock: Mark Fogel.

Joann Renner: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: So these online communities of art, are they mostly, I want to learn how to sell my art? Or are they mostly, I want to make more art and show it to you? What are those communities look like for the most part for you?

Joann Renner: Mostly empowerment, support, encouragement, some sales, they definitely do help with marketing. But they don't do it in, you know, the typical sleazy way that corporates do.

Jessica Craddock: What does sleazy mean to you?

Joann Renner: Like a used car salesman.

Jessica Craddock: So how do they do it differently in a way that you appreciate?

Joann Renner: I'm making the connections with people and actually finding out what people really need in their lives. You know, as far as our work goes, do they need something just pretty to put on the wall?

Do they need, do they connect to causes? A lot of people, of course, are interested in climate change and the environment. That was one reason I picked this, because it really clicked with me, with my style that I originally started with. And I was looking at some of my old work, and I said, Wait a minute, I got a lot of good feedback back then.

Maybe I can take this to the next level, make it something actually important. Or something that people will actually want to connect to rather than just thinking of it as dollar signs.

Jessica Craddock: Right? Well, it's both.

Joann Renner: Dollar signs are nice. But you've bills. Okay. Right.

Jessica Craddock: Well, but if they really connect with it, they want it. They want to give you the money for it. That's still a connection. At no point in there that turn into sleazy car salesman.

Joann Renner: Right? Yeah. So it's a totally different mindset, you know, where you're not just looking to make a bucket of money by selling some clunker to some unsuspecting, uh, kid buying their first car, you know?

Jessica Craddock: Right.

Joann Renner: But rather something that's actually going to, when a person looks at it in their house or in their office, and they think, Yeah, you know what? Maybe I will go to the park today, you know, after work or after the, stuff is done at home.

Jessica Craddock: I really like that. I mean, it's a very simple, I don't know if message is the right word, but simple idea that I can relate to. We're in my head. I may or may not decide to go out for a walk. I should go out for a walk. It would be better for my mental and physical health. It would help me reconnect to nature. It would make me more empathetic. It would possibly help me find better solutions for the environment, all these things you said. But that doesn't always mean I say yes to it.

Joann Renner: Exactly.

Jessica Craddock: So, you are finding that switch for people to help them say yes to going outside.

Joann Renner: That's what I'm trying to do, to help them make that decision that, yeah, I will go for that walk.

Jessica Craddock: We're kind of doing a lot of just little exploring and solves today, but I'd like to give you really something concrete to walk away with. Based on all the things that we've talked about so far, if there was something that I could provide to you that would make you feel like I have some next steps to follow, what would you want?

Joann Renner: Oh, that would be nice because I get so much information coming in and I see everybody's newsletters that I follow. Hey, that's a great idea. That's a great idea. That's a great idea, too. that's a lot of work, trying to get everything together. And then, my problem is, I get overwhelmed, by all the choices. Usually if I have, say, like a step by step, or at least something like that, some kind of a path laid out for me.

[00:19:55] Collect ideas and save them for when the time is right to use them.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. So, step one is I want you to get a whiteboard or a large sheet of paper or a note on your phone app or whatever. From now on, every single time you see something and it says, your brain says, that's a good idea. I should do that. I want you to put it in the place.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: The reason being, most people feel like they have to execute all the ideas that they have or they're going to go away. Instead, what we're going to do is we're going to collect them for when their time to shine is right. So we're starting with a list of ideas. And then we're going to go into what's the thing I want to sell. And you said, I'm guessing this is the thing you want to sell your Living Earth collection. Is that correct?

Joann Renner: Yes.

Jessica Craddock: Sometimes those ideas come in the form of here's something I should sell. Sometimes they come in the form of, I should send that email, or that email, or write this thing, or do that thing, or whatever that is. So, we can separate your list into two. One is ideas I want to sell. One is ways I want to get them out there.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. So, we'll start with that. And then we choose one thing from the second list, which is the thing I want to sell, and then we go back and look at all of these ideas, and we say which ones are in the most alignment, and, or, do I feel the most creatively called to do? Let's just come up with a sample list really quickly.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: Name a couple of ideas spinning around in your head that you're like, I should do that, but I don't know when I'm gonna, even simple, like I want to send a newsletter with a picture instead of a, this. I don't care what it is easy.

Joann Renner: Okay. Yeah, I want to send a newsletter. See highlighting what I think might be the best ones in the collection. I also have a blog on my website.

Jessica Craddock: Okay.

Joann Renner: I would like to do more on that.

Jessica Craddock: Anything in particular around a blog or just blog in general? I'll figure it out later.

Joann Renner: In general. Yeah, it's just like, hey, this collection is live now. It's ready. Here's what's available.

Jessica Craddock: Anything else? I know I'm putting you on the spot.

Joann Renner: One thing I would like to do is maybe get a hold of, even if it's just start with local groups, maybe libraries or places like that, that might have people who are interested in climate change and the environment and maybe do a presentation or something like that. I'm not sure how to approach groups like that, or even. When you do that, do you get paid for it? Do they sell tickets or is it unpaid?

Jessica Craddock: I'm not gonna specifically answer your question because the answer is it depends. But as you are making this list, blog posts, climate change presentation. Oh, you know, I'd like to do that climate change presentation, but I'm not really sure how to do that. And then I do, I get paid and then how do I reach out? And then like all of these questions start funneling into overwhelm.

Joann Renner: Right.

Jessica Craddock: So just for this exercise, the point of it, we're not gonna go into in your thought process how or why or any of that. It's just what do I want to do? And then when we look at this list here, and we go back and we say, okay, here's here's this body of work that I'd like to sell. What feels in alignment to market it. If climate change presentation makes the top of the list, then we go figure it out.

Joann Renner: Okay. I see what you mean.

[00:23:51] Pick one idea and decide if now is the right time to implement it.

Jessica Craddock: So we're just figuring out one thing at a time instead of, I have to figure out all my ideas and then decide which one is the best. Okay. Because all of the ideas are doable and executable, and if you don't know how to do it someone else does, but also you probably have more knowledge inside of you if you just give yourself the opportunity to explore that.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: And there's always Google too.

Joann Renner: Yeah, it's a good friend.

Jessica Craddock: It is. Well, it is if you're looking for something very specific. If you're like, how do I sell my art? It's like, yeah, okay... So anything else you want to add to that list?

Joann Renner: Eventually I might like to write, maybe write a book or like a small e-book.

Jessica Craddock: Why e-book? Just out of curiosity.

Joann Renner: Keep costs down because it's so expensive to get actual hard copies made.

Jessica Craddock: I was just talking to my Harvest group about this the other day and someone brought up Chatbooks and that's something that I've actually used quite a bit but not for that purpose. It's pretty cheap.

Joann Renner: Oh, really?

Jessica Craddock: They are decent print quality, and I really like them. But I think it's like $15 to get a book printed. It's not hard copy. It's like six by six, but like you can do pictures on every page, or you can do pictures and texts, whatever. Anyway, again, I said we weren't going to go solving problems, but that popped in my head. Next, anything else?

Joann Renner: I think that should be the main

Jessica Craddock: Okay, and I assume there's probably about 50 more, but me putting you on the spot, that's what pops to the top of your head.

Joann Renner: Yes.

Jessica Craddock: We're going to think about this as a living list, right? But for the purpose of this example, we're just going to use these 4.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: All right. So now the third thing is, let's think about a timeline. What amount of time would you like to market and or really focus on the Living Earth series? And I think about this like a window display. So like if you're walking down the street, I'm sure Pittsburgh has some shops with window displays and you can see as you're walking down the sidewalk. You can see what their collection is at the moment. Does that mean they don't have anything else in the store? No. They do. But this is the thing that they're really, I don't want to use the word pushing because you said used car salesman, but this is the thing they want the world to see.

Joann Renner: And it catches people's eye. It gets them curious, and they go inside.

Jessica Craddock: So if we're thinking about this in terms of a window display, how long do you want it in your window? That determines how much time we have and what kind of activities we can execute.

Joann Renner: I would think six months or less.

Jessica Craddock: Six months. Okay, great. So in six months, you can probably do quite a bit, right? We have newsletters. You said one specifically highlighting the best one, but I'm going to add an S to the end of newsletters. You said blog posts. You said doing presentations and going back to the community and the causes, that one feels very aligned for you to me, just unsolicited feedback. And you also said writing an e book.

Joann Renner: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: So when we're looking at what we want to sell, which one, two, three, or four of those feel the most aligned to how you want to sell this work?

Joann Renner: I would say probably the third one.

Jessica Craddock: The third one? Okay. So we could say for this conversation, that is your main bread and butter marketing activity. I'm going to go find places who care about this cause, and I'm going to ask if they would be interested in collaborating with me as an artist. Maybe that looks like a presentation. Maybe that looks like, and you didn't say this. I'm putting words in your mouth, so please forgive me. But maybe they want to show my work for a couple of weeks. Maybe they want to bring in a couple of speakers around this topic, and I'm one of them. Now that we've dove deep onto one idea, we can really get creative with it.

Joann Renner: I see what you mean.

[00:28:30] Use your community for unlimited collaboration opportunities.

Jessica Craddock: Another thing that you can do is go back to your Pittsburgh artist community, your artist online communities, and see if I can even take that out of, let's go back, the Pittsburgh in person community. We can just start talking to people and saying, here's what I want to do. Do you know any places I should go to? Do you know any people I should meet? Do you have any ideas or thoughts or things you would like to see out of that? And really just having those conversations to help them help you do this marketing in a more effective way.

They're probably also a good resource for asking about, what do you think about this idea for a presentation? Or, here's my main idea. Do you connect with it? Like those types of questions, conversations as well. Then you also said artists online communities, maybe the first three months you focus on the local side of things. And the next three months you focus on seeing if you can use these online communities in the same way, but in the online space instead of in Pittsburgh.

Joann Renner: Okay, it makes sense.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. I mean, you can have a lot of fun with this. Like you can do Instagram lives with someone else who has similar ideas, do creative projects with other people. Collaboration ideas are endless. But if you have all these other ideas swirling around, you don't have a ton of time to explore them all.

So then if we were going to add one, I would probably say newsletter or blog post. Post being with a caveat that people are already reading them, or you're really paying attention to keywords and search engine optimization and all of that. That's a whole other skill level. So then, maybe instead of blog posts for a while, it's newsletters. So we're talking about these climate change collaborations, presentations, and also, highlighting things that you are doing with those inside of your newsletter. Talking about your cause. Sharing where you're going to be sharing where your art's going to be. Sharing the art that you've created, so it's almost like a digest of what you are doing.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: So then we've got marketing via email and word of mouth, essentially word of mouth, events, etc., which is my favorite kind because it works the fastest.

Joann Renner: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: And also in that. In all of those discussions, we can be saying, Hey, I'm going to start sending out newsletters about this. You want to stay in touch about it? Ah, see, we're circling everything back together, giving it an umbrella, a way to work so that everything feels jointed.

Joann Renner: Right.

Jessica Craddock: You kind of see how my brain is like, how do I connect this back to this back to that?

Joann Renner: Right. Connections.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. Here's your game plan. You have a six month game plan. Is that perfect end all I know every detail? No.

Joann Renner: Right.

Jessica Craddock: But it's the game plan. The North Star, the, the way that feels aligned for how Joann works best and what Joann wants to sell and then adding the marketing to it from there, as opposed to letting everyone else tell you, this is how you market.

Joann Renner: Yeah. I like that. That's a nice guide. That's what I need.

Jessica Craddock: So let's see if we can summarize again.

Joann Renner: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: Step one was start keeping a list of both ideas and things you want to sell. Step two was decide which one you want to sell right now and for how long. Step three was compare the thing you want to sell and the timeline to your ideas. If we could add a step four, that would be, can I make one activity feed into the other activity? So like you said, I want more newsletter subscribers. Oh, well, we're already talking to all these groups. For this climate change presentation, we can add the newsletter thing onto it.

One final thought that is just bumping in my head is at the end of the newsletter. Hey, if you know someone who cares about making sure they go outside on a daily basis, make sure to forward this to them so they can join, too, or something like that. Yeah, I know the purpose behind it all, it's a lot easier to create the marketing.

Joann Renner: Yeah. . That gives me a nice path to actually follow.

Jessica Craddock: Perfect. That's what I love to do. That's how my brain works. So I like to do it for other people. Where would you like people to join you, Joann?

Joann Renner: Okay. I do have a link tree. I do have an Instagram. I do have a website. The website is www.joannrenner.com.

Jessica Craddock: Let's spell Joanne Renner.

Joann Renner: J-O-A-N-N-R-E-N-N-E-R dot com.

Jessica Craddock: Perfect. 

Joann Renner: That that's the main website. You can sign up for the email list there. You can see the collection there, and a couple other collections I have one there as well. My Instagram is at joannrennervisualartist.

Jessica Craddock: Perfect. And I'm glad that you said newsletter because we just talked about the newsletter being the kind of another bread and butter thing coming up. Right. So if you hadn't said newsletter, I was going to tsk, tsk.

So if you want to follow Joanne's journey go join our newsletter. It'll be fun.

Joann Renner: I'd appreciate it.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. Thanks Joanne. I appreciate you taking the time and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. Okay.

Joann Renner: You too. Thank you very, very much. Bye.

Jessica Craddock: You're welcome. Bye.