Artist Brit Reed

In this episode of the Art Marketing Podcast, Patrick sits down with multi-talented Choctaw artist Brit Reed, who shares her journey as a beadwork, digital, and watercolor artist. Brit discusses the evolution of her marketing strategies, the impact of social media on her sales, and the importance of storytelling in art. She also reflects on her experiences with Art Storefronts and how it has helped her grow her business. Tune in for valuable insights on navigating the art world and the challenges artists face in marketing their work.

Podcast Transcribe

Brit Reed: Marketing-wise, there's not as much thought being put into how people photograph things or present them on Facebook. At least, it hadn't been before. It might just be on a table with a little crappy picture, and they're like, "Here's my beadwork or whatever," and they put it on there. Who wants to buy it? But once things moved to Instagram, I noticed over time people started putting thought into how they wanted to present things visually. What kind of words and story do they want to put around it? I think that's elevated it. For me, that pushed me to work more on that because if I didn't do that, then it wasn't going to sell. It's so hard to stay consistent. It's so hard. I look at my own procrastination that I have in my personal life, and I'm running a marketing department here, responsible for all these various different things that are going out—content and this and that and the other. I know when I procrastinate because it's a lot to get done, and you're busy, and you get burnt out, and all the various different things. Then I look at what you artists do in terms of procrastination, and my God, you want to talk about overthinking marketing? You all do that all the time, and then what happens? Nothing goes out. The best fisherman is not the one that has the best techniques and tactics, i.e., the best-written email or the reel that you spent so much time and money and energy and effort on. It's the one who's on the water the most, right? Who's constantly down at the water and constantly has a line in the water. You never know. I wish I had Art Storefronts at that time where I knew about the podcast. There's a lot of free material out here—there's the podcast, there's lots of free blog posts and things like that.

Patrick Shanahan: Coming up on today's edition of the Art Marketing Podcast, I'm back for another customer interview, and this is going to be a great one. I've got—you're going to have to tell your story on what kind of artist exactly you are because it is clearly not clear—multi-talented, multifaceted Brit Reed, who I'm very enthused to interview just because she's so positive on all of my live broadcasts and in my social media comments. So I have to give her a huge thank you for that. But Brit Reed, introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Where are you from? Give us the high level.

Brit Reed: Yeah, so hello, my name is Brit Reed. I guess I would specifically say, for this purpose, an unenrolled Choctaw artist, and I'm from Dallas. I'm currently in Chicago right now visiting. I do a number of things. I'm a chef, so I always laugh when Patrick tries to give his analogies to chef stuff. "Oh, you have to, you have to, you have to." And then also, I'm a digital artist as well as doing illustration and then also a beadwork artist. And I'm now getting into doing watercolor and some in-real-life kind of art because of some of the Art Storefronts direction. Actually amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: Amazing. So we have plenty to unpack there. You should probably tell people what Choctaw means for the uninitiated that don't know.

Brit Reed: Yes, and I'll specifically say because there's like literal laws around this, but I'm unenrolled, so that means I can't actually legally say that my artwork is officially Choctaw or Native American. It's like a whole other story. So Choctaws are a tribe originally from the Mississippi, Alabama parts of Northern Florida, and I guess I could say Louisiana Territory or area as well. And a lot of people—not that it's like a cool flex at all—but a lot of people give Cherokees the full representation of the Trail of Tears, but we were the first ones on there. But we originally came from mound-building cities that went from like the Gulf all the way up to say St. Louis. Like Cahokia was like the biggest one, used to be bigger than London at one point. And so that's a lot of the iconography from that time is a lot where I draw for my artwork, especially. I should also say too that in addition to those things, I work on a project called Inola, which helps to revitalize Southeastern digital or traditional tattoos. And so I do a lot of research into that time period as well for that purpose and do a podcast too. Multi-threat, multi-talented woman here. You have a lot going on.

Patrick Shanahan: I'm gonna pull up your Instagram profile so I can scroll it, and people can get an idea of the width and breadth of things that you do. And you're the perfect example. If I asked you a pointed question, "Do you have a niche?" what would you say?

Brit Reed: Yeah, definitely have like at least a niche, if not multiple niches, considering what the—if you take the course that Art Storefronts has, a niche could be different for every single piece you do. But yeah, a lot of it's definitely Choctaw, Southeastern iconography, and Choctaw stuff.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, yeah. It's cool. It's totally unique and consistent. You have a consistent style through everything that you do. In terms of traction thus far in your business, what would you say has done the best for you out of the gates, just in terms of sales and notoriety, activity in that?

Brit Reed: It depends, definitely overall. I think just because I think I'm a little bit different from a lot of the customer base that Art Storefronts has. I'm younger, even though I am 36, of the customer base. But also—sorry, there's a siren going on in Chicago. Chicago, that's just normal. But I've also been selling online for about 10 years with my beadwork, so I have like 10 or 11 years worth of now of customer base that know me for my beadwork. And so I think that one consistently sells a lot more because I built that up. And then also because it wasn't until I joined ASF that I had the ability to have someone that could do my prints that I trusted was quality. And so for that reason, I'm a little bit behind on being able to drive my sales with prints more strongly than I do with beadwork, but it's getting up there.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, and I think that in terms of the digital illustration, I've noticed on the website, I think some of the more floral stuff weirdly does better. But I think that's primarily because maybe that's a little bit easier to put on a wall at home than say something that looks like it comes from like a cartoon or something.

Brit Reed: For sure.

Patrick Shanahan: And do you notice with the Native American stuff, do you feel like it primarily applies to a Native American audience, or does everybody like collecting it equally?

Brit Reed: I think it depends across the board. Speaking for my own stuff, I think just because I've built relationships within my community, that there's a lot of people that because of those relationships, they want to support me in what I do as well as overall in the representation of Native people. If you're familiar with that scene, you'll see a lot more Southwestern stuff because of like the Navajos and stuff and the Indian Art Market that happens up there. I might see more like for mine, stuff with Coast Salish people and Alaskan Natives or even maybe like Great Lakes stuff. And so in general, maybe it's because of our removal out of the South to Oklahoma, there was less like Southeastern representation. But I think because of that and there's like a Renaissance going on with a lot of different artists in our circle, that I think there's people that are like finally seeing themselves represented in that work that are from those tribes from that area. And so I think for that reason too, there's a lot more people that are attracted to my work than say like general Southwestern stuff. But overall, I would say the other stuff is where the larger market is drawn to just because of that long-standing history.

Patrick Shanahan: You're the perfect example of you've got a creative vibe, you create what you create, and you put it out there, and you see what works, right? Like you don't necessarily have to have a defined niche or you know, specialize in one individual thing. I wonder, so even with the last what, like a year, two years, something like that? I think coming up on a year actually.

Brit Reed: Yeah, I think I joined in February or March last year, something like that.

Patrick Shanahan: February. Find out how you discovered us, but I'd be curious like in the call it the 10 or just call it 10 years before that, what did you do primarily to get the word out and to generate sales and get your name out there?

Brit Reed: Yeah, initially, it's really interesting. I would be curious if anyone actually did some research or like history around selling artwork online over the last 10 plus years. But before Instagram, I think the majority of the market was in Facebook groups before Facebook caught on to people were using that as a platform to sell. And so that's where I sold initially. And then when Instagram came around for me, it's really interesting. I think that their marketing-wise, there's not as much thought being put into how people photograph things or present them on Facebook, at least it hadn't been before. It's kind of might be on a table, and there's a little crappy picture, and they're like, "Here's my beadwork or whatever," and put it on there. Who wants to buy it? But once things moved on to Instagram, I noticed over time people started putting thought into, "Okay, like how do I want to present this visually? What kind of words and story do I want to put around this?" And I think that's elevated it. And so I know for me, that pushed me to work more on that because if I didn't do that, then it wasn't going to sell. So thankfully, I had experience as a photographer before I went to school here in Chicago for photography. And so I use my skill set around some studio photography that I learned to do product photography. I'm always learning to get better, but yeah, I think that with Instagram pushing all artists to have to present their work better definitely helped me out. And that's, I think for me, that's why maybe it sells a little bit better than people who are on Facebook because there's that visual quality there. I don't know if that answered the question, but—

Patrick Shanahan: No, it does. It helps guide me. It's interesting. One thing I want to drill right into is, okay, you went to art school. What was the college?

Brit Reed: Columbia College Chicago.

Patrick Shanahan: Did they have any classes at all teaching you how to market your art?

Brit Reed: Sure didn't. Not one. Not at all. Not one. Never.

Patrick Shanahan: Is there an actual class that teaches talented artists how to make a dime off of their creations? And it infuriates me. We need to fix that. And it's so expensive. Like, I went to the cheaper one out of here. I think I paid—I want to know how much we paid, but it was much cheaper than going to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, for example, which was like $100,000 a year or something like that, which is just ridiculous. It's like paying for culinary school also where you're going to go into a job maybe paying minimum wage.

Brit Reed: Yeah, two thankless professions.

Patrick Shanahan: Funny you say that because both of them follow the power law, right? And what do I mean by that? The top 1% make all the money, right? Everyone thinks like the celebrity chefs and how sexy looking that is and then how much money they're making versus everybody else, right? Which is sweating in a kitchen. Or the weird unique perspective as well is like sometimes notoriety doesn't equal money. I have been in Bon Appétit, I've been in Vogue, I've up until recently been a member of the American Culinary Corps, which had the ability to cook for the president or the vice president, the ambassadors, and stuff. But even sitting within that room of these people that are involved with James Beard or have Michelin stars, very tough business. Maybe they may have paid themselves, maybe they've not. So yeah, one of those other thankless jobs that maybe if someone got on Food Network, maybe they got money, but in no one's making money. You've got two of them stacked up. What drew you to Art Storefronts? How did you find us originally out of curiosity?

Brit Reed: I think honestly, it was having sold in 2020, which was a really interesting time because, one, everybody was online 'cause what else were you going to do to be a responsible adult? You don't go outside. You will play Animal Crossing for 600 hours, and you're responsible, which is weird. But to sell during that time, I know like we've talked about it, you've mentioned it on other ones, the drop became very like a very popular tactic among beadwork artists in particular. And because people knew that, "Hey, you can sit there and make up 10, 15 pairs of earrings or whatever it is, like a collection, and then be like, 'Okay, everybody, set your time. Like, it's not on me if you're not prepared. Set your alarm clock, make sure that all of your payment options are in order because I'm going to release it on this day at this time.'" And things would sell out within seconds. It was incredible. So suddenly, you get several hundred dollars or more all at once. It was that was an amazing time to be online and knowing how to sell online because there were a lot that weren't and did not realize when we were all locked inside, what do you think everyone was doing?

Patrick Shanahan: It's easy to think, it's easy to reflect back on it now, and I'm you and your story is just reminding me of like how crazy it was. Yeah, turn the camera on, do a live broadcast, and all of a sudden, there's 500 people watching because everyone's locked in their house. I turn the camera on now to do that, and there's 50 people watching. Right? Magnitude. I wish I had Art Storefronts at that time where I knew about the podcast, but I definitely found it years later. And I think part of that was because even though that's what it was in like 2020 and part of 2021, quickly thereafter, everyone began to scramble. I remember having a lot of conversations with a lot of beadwork artists because, you know, we went from this time being like, "Wow, what a time when like you can be a beadwork artist and participate in your culture and actually make a living and raise your kids doing that," to being like, "I don't understand why the algorithm is like pushing my stuff down. It's not getting to all of my followers. Yeah, I'm not making sales because of this like the algorithm." And that kind of left a lot of people hopeless. And I was just like, "There's got to be some other way around this somehow. I don't know. I don't know what it is. We didn't have the tactics to you need to be posting every day or doing these kinds of things." And Instagram changes over time. But I know like I also to answer your other question too, I moved from selling directly through my inbox to getting a Ko-fi account also because I just like had guilt that if someone said they wanted something, but then their payment wasn't going through, and somebody else said they wanted it, I was like, "What do I do?" And I just wanted to be like, "If it doesn't work, then whoever pays first." So I moved to a website with Ko-fi at that point. But yeah, I think it was mostly just wanting to learn the tactics of getting through the algorithm. And somehow, I think y'all came up whether either through friends of mine that are artists that maybe got the advertisements on their stuff because we always share postings and sometimes I'm that like our advice too, but it started showing up on my feed. And I'll admit, I'm totally a sucker that if something gets shown to me lots and lots of times, like I might end up just buying it.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, it seemed like sound advice and stacking up against what I had experienced online over all those years, especially since 2020, I was like, "That actually seems like sound advice, and like I'm going to start." I knew it. I was curious. I'm sure a lot of people that might have been interested in Art Storefronts had the same experience like, "Okay, let me go to the website to see about like how much money it's going to be," and then get into the Zoom talks with you, and then you can finally get a price. But for me, it was quite a bit of money, which I don't think is—I think that might be the case for a lot of people. I went to that information session, and then I was like, "I can't afford that now." But there's a lot of free material out here. There's the podcast, there's lots of free blog posts and things like that. So I was like, "I'll start implementing some of the recommendations now until I can save up for that." And then when I could, I was like, "All right, I'm going to move on it now and then actually join Art Storefronts." And that was immediately helpful. And yeah, like I again, I had a website, but it wasn't really one that was really good for getting emails and stuff. So I was like, "I can do a giveaway, and this is something that we've done a lot in the bead community." But just starting even to post every day about the giveaway, I think that I was going more so for follows rather than emails, and I think I probably got at least like 150 follows or something like that and like tons and tons of people reposting, so spreading that further out than just my little social network. And even if you can't afford Art Storefronts right now, just engage in the free stuff until see how it goes, see if it's for you, which I think I would recommend it.

Patrick Shanahan: You have no idea how much how happy that makes me because that's the whole plan. That's the whole plan. Give out as much of your best stuff as possible, right? And put it to work. And most people don't. Most people don't. You can give away the store because it doesn't matter. Everyone just listens to it and goes, "Yeah, okay, back to my busy life," rather than actually putting it to task. I'd be curious, so coming up on one year, talk to me about your level-ups this year. Where do you feel like you've really been kicking butt, and where do you feel like you're still struggling, and what have you learned that's been most impactful year one?

Brit Reed: I think in terms of where I'm struggling right now is the email. I did finally at some point was able to—because there's like different levels of ASF—so I was finally able to buy into a package twice actually, rig the system, which I'm not sorry about. Rig the system. I think there was a thing for six months of—God, what is it called right now? I don't know why it's—yeah, of Co-Pilot, which is one of the things I wanted from the beginning, six months of Co-Pilot, and then I think maybe three months or something like that of Audience Growth. And I was like, "I got a coupon. Can I like double buy this and apply it for a year?" And so they were really gracious and let me have that. I think right now, Co-Pilot is doing the heavy lifting that I should also be helping on in terms of sending out emails because there's a difference between my personal voice and what's sent out that's marketing. But I personally just let it go 'cause some things speak to some people, some things speak to the others. But I really got to get up on my email saying that out. So I've been trying. It's so hard to stay consistent. It's so hard. And I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I'll say it anyway. I look at my own procrastination that I have in my own personal life, right? And I'm running a marketing department here and responsible for all of these various different things that are going out—content and this and that and the other. And I know when I procrastinate because it's a lot to get done, and you're busy, and you get burnt out, and all the various different things. And then I look at what you artists do in terms of procrastination, and my God, you want to talk about overthinking marketing? You all do that all of the time, and then what happens? Nothing goes out. It's going to go to the fishing analogy because it works. The best fisherman is not the one that has the best techniques and tactics, i.e., the best-written email or the reel that you spent so much time and money and energy and effort on. It's the one who's on the water the most, right? Who's constantly down at the water and constantly has a line in the water. You never know. And it's consistency like anything else. So I love that you're able to say that, and like letting go is hard, right? Regardless of you were traveling today, did something go out?

Brit Reed: Yeah, something went out because it was scheduled, and you couldn't get in the way of it, right? Like having—I feel like having that pressure is so important. And it—I always go back to the analogies of like how art shows in the real world. This is the funny disconnect for me. It doesn't matter who the artist is, they don't ever spend even a second worrying about what the gallerist says to people that come walk into the gallery about the artist. They don't care. And why do they not care? Because like my gallerist is just taking care of it. You need to think about your marketing that way sometimes. If somebody comes walking into the gallery, what are you going to do? Ignore them because you couldn't send an email that day or you couldn't do a social post? No, somebody goes and talks to them. You don't care what the gallerist says. They're in there doing their job, right? And I feel—hate the word marketing automation, but Co-Pilot, it does that, right? It's going out no matter what. And that's such an important thing. Such an important thing. So you struggle with email. You got email going on. How have you leveled up in your marketing other areas?

Brit Reed: Yeah, I think that with Instagram, it's gone a lot better even without the Co-Pilot. I definitely do appreciate it 'cause like you said, if I'm traveling—I was on a cruise—I'm not paying $200 for internet. So thankfully during that time—and that was during Q4, right in the beginning of December, where I can't afford not to have things going out—that posted for me. I was able again because I already built up my audience there, so some people did come and buy, which is really great. But I'm still trying to—because, again, I recognize that Co-Pilot is a co-pilot, that doesn't make it the main pilot. So that means that it's helping me, but I still have to do it, which is something that people don't get sometimes. Yeah, so I still try and find ways to post things I was doing before Co-Pilot, trying to do them every single day, and then because of Patrick's recommendations and also just the way that reels work, I was trying to do more reels, which for me was really good, right? Because, like, I was just talking to some young beaders today where, you know, they're underselling themselves and don't know how to find an audience that would buy at the price they want. And a lot of that is being able to showcase like, "This takes a long time. Yeah, like, this is not a fast craft at all." And so being able to do videos to showcase either sped up or in real-time being like, "You see how I only just put down maybe like four beads in the 90 seconds that we were here? Like, how much longer do you think it's going to take for me to make this? Of course, you should be paying at minimum like $60 for this, if not three, four, $500 for this." And I think that might be able to do those reels so that people can see that, putting that value into it and that story in addition to the action. And if I'm going to be sitting there working on stuff anyway, like, I might as well just turn on the camera and then film that even if it's just like a couple seconds here, a couple seconds there, so it's not in my way the entire time, and I can just splice it together and then put out a reel real quick. So I've definitely gotten better at the reels. I got to get better at doing lives again. Yeah, and I need to get better at not feeling awkward about videotaping myself, but I know it's one of those things like the more you do it, the less you feel awkward.

Patrick Shanahan: I hate it, but I hate it. Okay, okay. Half my face works. I don't care. I just do it because, you know what? The work gets done. You end up reaching people. You end up having conversations. You learn. You can laugh at yourself. How you blow it a bunch of times, but it doesn't matter. You got to just do it. And I know you follow marketing. Do you follow Gary Vaynerchuk at all?

Brit Reed: Gary Vee? No, I don't think so.

Patrick Shanahan: I'm sure you've seen some of his content anyway. He's like a, you know, big business owner and a cutting-edge marketer guy, and he's been banging the drum on live streaming so hard now for such a long time because it's so big in Asia, right? Like yeah, you see all these trends happening over there, and everyone's like, "When is it coming here? When is it coming here? When is it coming here?" Yeah, what's interesting is like, and I'm sure this is for you in Texas same as is for me in California, like a lot of big box stores are going out of business. Yeah, a lot like shopping malls are in like big trouble. And his position, which I think is accurate, is look, you can't be tied just to your local market. You need a wider audience, a wider market. So start grabbing some of those things that you've got and start going online and doing your Home Shopping Network thing because it feels like that's the future, right? It's also funny too 'cause I've got my kids are like super into Pokémon. One of them anyway, he just knows it all. That's his jam. And there's this place that has like really good Poké burrito. By the way, I'm thinking about it now. It's so good. Anyway, there's a shop right next to it, like a little storefront right next to it, and it's Pokémon cards, right? But the storefront is like just for show. The guy doesn't even care whether he sells anything. In the back is his entire lighting setup, his cameras, and he's just on there online selling Pokémon cards all day every day. Like my son walks in there, and he's like, "Oh, we actually got some flip trays," and he's amazed by it. But it's just boom, it's just in there. It's selling. And I feel like if more artists got more enterprising with it, you could bring more artists into your operation and even have your own gallery that's just streaming live. Yeah, like I told this other story where I live is a ritzy town, and there's this lady. She's European, and she has—she buys used women's handbags, okay? But like the expensive ones, all the names that I don't know that you would know. She has this like amazing room inside there where all the handbags are on shelves, right? And oh, this one's had six weeks and seven wears and looks great, da da da da. And she's doing the same thing, and she's streaming every single solitary day on Instagram, and boom, you just see in the comments, "I'll buy it. I'll buy it. I'll buy it. I'll buy it." So it's the future, one way or the other. So my roundabout long story just to encourage you, get going on this, Brit. Get going.

Brit Reed: Yeah, I did enjoy the lives when I was doing it, and I think I was talking to another friend of mine too that does both like physical painting and also digital, but I think AI a little bit has given people who don't do art the false impression that even if it's digital, it's like a click of a button. And I was like, "We know it's not. I know it takes just as long to work on something digital as it does with actual paint and stuff like that." But again, by like sitting on live and then having the camera over my iPad, they can see it's taking me forever to do this thing. And I think the last one I did that with was a little over a year ago with a piece called "Transition," and I think that one is one of my higher-selling ones. I don't know if for sure if it's because I was working on that while I was on the live or it's just vibes with people.

Patrick Shanahan: Is it in your Instagram somewhere so we could show it off? Website maybe if Co-Pilot has done it again?

Brit Reed: Yeah, it's definitely on my website. It probably be faster to find on my website.

Patrick Shanahan: I want to see it. Let's pull it in. So when you say AI, you did it—it's AI-created art, or you just did the whole thing digitally?

Brit Reed: No, like I think about—and I know for sure like AI-created art actually isn't as easy as people think it is. It's probably in that one there with the—oh, the pair of earrings with the human hands, yeah, in that gallery. But I think because of that really clean—by the way, yeah, it's probably because of John or somebody from ASF, but where is it? But anyway, I think from that time period when AI came—oh yeah, that one right there on the Texas—no, next one over at the "Transition." Yeah, I think when people were on Facebook, and there was that time period where people could just put in a picture and then it replicated a bunch of different art styles, it's people's main interaction I think with AI. And so I think because of that and how they could just click a button, they think that digital artists can just click a button. And so that's definitely not the truth even when there is like shortcuts and Procreate like dragging and dropping color. So I was like, "Just get your camera and then just show working on your iPad or Wacom tablet or whatever so people can see that process and that it takes just as much time." Yeah, and like I said, I think that's one of my better-selling pieces, and that's I think the last one that I did live around this time last year, which is amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: Can I ask, have you contemplated or played around with combining into packages, you know, the art with the beads?

Brit Reed: No, not yet. Separate things, and then but there's also the thing where it's a blessing and a curse where over a year ago, I do these gorgeous pieces which is a particular style of necklace that originally comes both from the mound-building time but also when the French and the British came over to our territory, and they used to be part of the armor, I believe, to like protect the neck. But people in the tribes down the South, you still will wear them. And so I started doing beaded full bead gorgets—probably one coming up at some point here. Co-Pilot posts a lot for me, so have to scroll down further than I normally would without it. But those actually on a whim 'cause I got tired of doing commissions for beadwork, it just completely killed it for me. So what I asked people—not thinking anyone was going to actually respond—was like, "If I just make these and have a—you could sign up for the waitlist up until midnight on this day, and you just call dibs. Like, you don't get to choose what the content of it is or the color unless I specifically ask you, would you be interested in buying?" I didn't think anyone was going to sign up for that. I got 36 people, had to cut it off, and I have enough work that it's already taken me over a year to get to 11 of them.

Patrick Shanahan: Oh man, that is not sustainable.

Brit Reed: Yeah, no, yeah. So I'm still working through those. I think in the future, I'm going to have a much shorter waitlist. I'm also going to raise the price at least double if not triple the price on this.

Patrick Shanahan: Oh yeah, you have to. Like, how long just out of curiosity, like how long does it take you to make these earrings?

Brit Reed: Those earrings? That'll take a solid day for sure. One solid day.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, yeah. Got it. Diligently. The gorgets will take anywhere between four to seven days depending on whether I can sit down and just focus on doing it and then also depending on the size of the bead. If it's a smaller bead, then that's going to take longer.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, amazing. It's so wild, right? Because it's completely different and yet it's the same thing at the end of the day. You're using your hands to create a product that's unique, right? But I do think knowing as long as those take, I feel like combining—I don't know if I would position the—is it a gorget? Is that how you say it?

Brit Reed: I think so. Is it a gorget? Gor-get? I know, whatever it is, the G thing.

Patrick Shanahan: And I'll pull one up so we can all look at it. If these take that long, like this, I would probably lead with this and then include a piece that looks like it and get up to a solid thousand price point, maybe a couple thousand price point.

Brit Reed: Yeah, definitely. They start those and Procreate actually a lot of those designs, and so instead of it just being in that shape, maybe for a calendar or something, and also just for prints too, able to turn that into actual illustrated piece so that all the folks that can't get that because clearly that's that's what I have right now for an original piece essentially that people can at least take that image home in some form or fashion.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, because I plus too like the vibes like this like if it was similar, the one that they wear was in—that's an awesome package. That's an awesome package. And each one is totally completely unique. And I think I think you got something there. I love the style on these pieces. I think it's super unique.

Brit Reed: Yeah, it's been really cool too because at least finding that need, those gorgets at least has allowed me now to gain a wider audience over this last year honestly. I think that those reels that I have those on are my better-performing ones. Yeah, and then it's led me to opportunities. I was able to get hired to teach at Chickasaw Arts Academy this past year, which was really great, which led me to a network better because they have some incredible artists that have like their work in the Smithsonian and international collections as teachers. So that's really cool. And then also to have my work get put in—like right now, I don't know if it's open yet or not, but two of my pieces—they're one of the panther bag that I have up that unfortunately I wish we could pin more than just three posts at the top—that and then a gorget that I recently did are now going to the museum at Moundville in Alabama. And then after that, depending on how this country goes, the bag might be going onto a museum in Atlanta as well. But if I hadn't had those gorgets and if they hadn't have gained in popularity, I don't think I would have had those same opportunities. But that's also with learning how to do those, the marketing through Art Storefronts, and of course, it can always improve, but that's helped to get that wider audience to also add value to the pieces because again, I probably would have just did like I did before Art Storefronts where it's just like, "All right, I'm done. Like, here's the piece," and not necessarily shown, "Okay, what is all going into making this? What is—" I've always been down to tell the stories just because I'm—I don't know, like one, one jokes that I'm like the chat warrior, but if I have something to say, I'm just saying it. So I'm just like, "Okay, here's all my thoughts." And I think that also contradicts what people say about the captions. I think that if you are telling the story about what it's about and you're adding in that artist statement, people love that. But I think their audience has to actually sit there and read it all.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, it's so important now. What do you think of AI so far? Are you using it? How are you using it? Do you feel like it's making you faster? Curious.

Brit Reed: I feel complicated about it in general. Not complicated—conflicted is what you meant.

Patrick Shanahan: There's that.

Brit Reed: Yeah, I have, but I will say like in terms of—I was really thankful to be a part of the beta—the—oh wow, I really can't talk—the beta testing on the Art Helper. And for me, because going through one of the lunch and learns—sorry, hopefully they don't blow up my stuff here—Artist Up. Yeah, I got a couple of like—we're both ruined in this thing. Yeah, I guess that's just life. But yeah, having an artist statement is really important, right? And I really appreciated that there was at least one lunch and learn some years back about the short, medium, and long format of a description, right? And how to write that. And I know that was something that—one thing I really appreciate about Art Storefronts is that they give, "Here's the best practice, right?" And then if the people can't meet that in a real-world practice, "Okay, like how can we figure out a way to make it even easier?" And so instead of being like, "All right, you guys didn't write your artist statement like that's going to hurt your bottom line anyway," like, "All right, let's make this tool so that way you have even less an excuse to not do it so you actually populate your website and all these things." And so at least it's not just like letting people hang by a thread. So I was trying to—which I still need to do—I need to see if I can still get in there but finished out writing out the—or putting in the rest of my stuff for my artist description because I can definitely speak really like florally about what all the ideas were that went into that, but I may not have the nuts and bolts of all of the latest and greatest marketing speech. So I like that that incorporates that into it because at the end of the day, like this is my job, yes, and this is the way that I'm getting an income to supplement as I'm doing these other projects. And so I have to—that's my attitude towards it. Is it uncomfortable with some of the things I suggested? Yeah, it's not my favorite, but do I want to get paid more than that? Yeah, I do. So I'm going to do these things instead of being like super duper resistant about it because what works is what works, and it's just trying to find your flair around it. Like to use the cooking analogy, serve the dish. Yeah, okay, you can get better at it and take another couple cracks at it, but put the ingredients together, get it out there, and it does. It's never going to be perfect.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, so much stuff does not get shipped as a result of just not being perfect, and it infuriates me. Independent of all that, and I know you had a big travel day today, so I will let you go early, but one thing that we could really improve at Art Storefronts that Brit Reed would love to see.

Brit Reed: I think you guys are already working on that because Ginger and them already asked, which was—I see and understand why there's so many of these artist interviews that are happening, which I think is great 'cause I think there was some criticism that had come at some point about, "Who are these people that are buying it? Who's doing it? How is it actually helping?" So this is answering that question, right? But I really loved again because they didn't teach any marketing or anything in art school. I can you know tell you what colors are in a piece of swatch of paint, but I can't. And so I really appreciated listening—like I went when I started or before ASF, went all the way back like to 2020, and it's been going on since I think before 2020—listening to those episodes so I like I really want to understand like these ideas around marketing and what to do. And so I really loved having the deeper dives because I think I—and I go to a lot of the meetings throughout the weeks, but because a lot of artists dip in and out of it, you might get a lot of the same questions over and over again, which is good so people can retain it, but I like having the outlet of being able to have deeper dives in the marketing. But y'all just did one—a series of them I think a week or two ago with Ginger, so I'm like, "You guys are already working on it." I think also I had recommended to have maybe an Inktober-like contest both so people can see like how to do consistency and work on some new niches, and then that's a good way to do like a case study for y'all and show, "Be like, see, look, you did it." Yeah, but then they started doing that in January within Small Wins. So I think right now, all my improve or things I have to say is done. Amazing. We need to keep working at it.

Patrick Shanahan: All right, everybody, you guys got to go follow Brit—oh hoyo on Instagram. And we're knocking on that $10,000 or that 10,000 mark, which is a big deal. You get some unlocks at 10,000.

Brit Reed: Yeah, and that's improved since joining up with y'all. So yeah, just need to go unfollow people now.

Patrick Shanahan: No, don't. You don't need to.

Brit Reed: Yeah, well, fair, fair. We need to see some more live broadcasts on here, some more posts, but you're doing great, Brit. And I'm—there's not many artists that come on and take the marketing so seriously and really work on the marketing. And I know how much of a grind it is, and I know how frustrating it can be and unrewarding, especially in the short term. But I'm confident if you stay at it with this style, you're going to have a big business. You got to just suffer the pain in the meantime. We all do.

Brit Reed: Yeah, I mean, looking forward to working on my second year at ASF here. So amazing. Thanks so much for the time, and we'll see you on the socials. And everybody, go send Brit a message and say, "When are you doing a live?"

Patrick Shanahan: All right, thanks, Brit. Have a great day, everybody. Bye.