Humble Donkey Studio
Join Patrick as he interviews John Lowry, owner of Humble Donkey Studio in Round Top, Texas. In this detailed video, John provides an exclusive tour of his unique art gallery located in a renovated 1800s barn. Discover how Art Storefronts' technology has transformed his business, enabling him to sell a wide range of products from original paintings to mini-Giclees, coasters, magnets, and apparel. Learn about John's journey, his insider marketing strategies, and innovative retail tactics that have contributed to his immense success. This episode is packed with practical advice for artists looking to maximize their online and offline sales.
Podcast Transcribe
Patrick Shanahan: Patrick from Art Storefronts here, back with another customer interview. I'm absolutely thrilled to have Art Storefronts customer and friend, John Lowry of Humble Donkey Studio. John, welcome, and thanks for joining me.
John Lowry: I'm glad to be here. Just to give you a sense of the scenery, I'm in Round Top, Texas, located in a place called Henkel Square Market. People are just now getting started for the day. This is the front of our building, as you can see, it's an old pole barn. Let me show you inside.
Patrick Shanahan: Maybe just to give context, I'll start off with a little tour. Art Storefronts plays a huge role here. This main part of the studio has high ceilings. We primarily sell my art, but we also have jewelry, apparel, and home goods. Everything you see on the walls are giclées that we get through Bay Photo, of course, via Art Storefronts. John, did you sell the originals? I'm going to show you.
John Lowry: The originals are over here. These are what we call Mini G's—giclées on canvas. It's a great way to sell a smaller version. We also sell signed prints. This stuff was started when I began this venture. All of this product comes from Bay Photo. These are all fine art paper giclées. Here's an example, this one called "Dancing." We've got some that are framed and matted. I'll go upstairs later, but this is the main area.
Patrick Shanahan: This is the gallery where I display my originals. I currently only have 10 originals available. You'll see red dots on some, which means they're sold. I predominantly frame all my originals. This is quite a large one here. I have this fun back entrance that goes into another courtyard area, next to Kemosabe, a well-known barbecue joint and bar. In the entryway, I have a hybrid between an original and a giclée—this is an embellished giclée, one of my most popular pieces. You can probably see the texture where I've come in and embellished it. This is a blank wall where normally there'd be art, but I take out the lighting, and it just blends in. Same thing with this wall. We've got a seating area, and then this is an important room we added. This is giclée storage, so we have a lot of product in back storage. I'll share anything with anyone in the audience who wants to know how we do things. Let me take you upstairs. This is another product we sell—a shocking amount of coasters and magnets with my art. I can get into some of those numbers, which I've shared in the past with the Small Wins audience. Framed giclées—did you go up the stairs? This barn was built in the 1800s. It's quirky at best and a pain in the ass in other ways. I've created a lot of products. Some of these patches are based on paintings I've done, and we sell them as loose patches or on hats. I've done other graphics too. This is an Art Storefront product that comes from Gooten. We sell t-shirts with art, more general apparel, and home goods. This is pretty cool to see the view. It's a weird building, but it creates some neat shapes. This is where we predominantly have stuff for kids, but it also incorporates giclées. I've got a blank wall over there that needs filling. Anyway, that's the tour of the place.
Patrick Shanahan: Absolutely amazing. We should mention that we're starting this interview with John giving us a tour of his retail shop in Round Top, Texas. Round Top is very important—there's a Round Rock, but Round Rock is big. Round Top only has 87 people in its population. Tiny, yeah, which is absolutely amazing. One of the things I wanted to deeply unpack with you, because I'm mega fascinated by it, is this notion of the artist-owned gallery. I've never been anti-gallery or anti-revenue source, but the gallery model is a 50/50 split, and you don't know who's purchasing. I love the artist-owned gallery model, and it's becoming more prominent. You're seeing more artists do it, and the numbers are incredible. But let me tell you, it's not a bed of roses. As John will tell you, he's the only employee here today, and if someone walks through the door, he's going to have to go to work. John, how long have you had the gallery?
John Lowry: I started it in March 2016. That followed from the fact that I had a hard time getting my work into some of the galleries here in Round Top. Round Top is located between Austin and Houston, smack in the middle. My wife and I had bought land out near here, and that's how I got back into painting. I was a commercial illustrator for many years, but I had stopped painting. I was walking around Round Top and saw these little log cabins. I could take you back outside and show you the one I originally rented. I was walking by, and this one was available for 750 amonth. I had no idea if anyone would like my art at all. 750 a month—what a rate! Yeah, a great rate. That cabin was only about 400 square feet, but I was in there for about a year, and it did really well. People liked my art. Then I saw this barn come available. At that time, it was about 1,500 square feet, and they were charging around 1,500 to 1,600 a month. We've constantly remodeled since then. This was before I knew anything about Art Storefronts. Art Storefronts contacted me with a sales call. I was going to other local vendors to get giclées for the store. It was 2017 when I got the call about Art Storefronts, and we decided to go for it. We did the full package, whatever the total price was at the time, and built the website. There were a couple of reasons why it made sense. One was fulfillment for our own store. By having the interface—which I know people get confused about—we're licensing software from Art Storefronts. They've got the playbooks and all sorts of other things. The ability to create a website yourself that does what Art Storefronts does would cost you maybe $100,000 using programmers. It's very expensive to do what they've already done. They did the work.
In my other life, I own a marketing and branding firm in Houston. I started that business when I was 23, and it's going to be 34 years old this year. I have a big staff there, and they've been there for a long time. When I got into this crazy idea of wanting to be a painter, they took over. I've been in the business of building dynamic websites, so I know firsthand how much work goes into creating what Art Storefronts has done for us as artists. So I jumped on it, knowing this is brilliant.
The immediate benefit was that it made it a lot easier to use that interface to order products for our own store. I know sometimes people say it's not fair to have your own gallery. There's nothing fair about it, and there's nothing cheap about it. I started with a shoestring budget, just hoping people would like my art. But to constantly put money and invest into your business, and the fact that I'm here today instead of at home painting, you have to make sacrifices along the way.
That interface allowed us to keep products in the store. I've shared numbers—if anyone is a member of Small Wins, I publish how much I've done at the end of every year. We have a blend of what we sell in the store—people can grab and go. People are in the store, and we've set up the Art Storefronts website to be displayed here. When people come in and say, "I don't see exactly what I want," we can take them to the Art Storefronts website and show them sizes and how it could look on a wall. We create a custom order for them, paid for in the store, and then my wife, Lili, goes home and places the order with Art Storefronts. It gets shipped directly to the customer. We also sell directly online. Yesterday, I got an email—someone did a $600 order of one of my images as a canvas. That's really fun to me—someone has gone online, found the art, bought it, and I never touch it. What Art Storefronts does is just brilliant for us. We have a revenue stream, and we don't have to do much. Now, how those people found me—I do have the advantage that a lot of people come to Round Top. Believe it or not, this tiny town sees the stuff, and later they go home and decide, "Oh, I really like that guy." In fact, we created a brochure that we give to people when they come into the store. We tell them they can order online, and we have all the instructions: pick the media type, pick the size, pick the finishing—frame or no frame. We even talk about if you want other products like t-shirts or phone cases. We create this because everything is about making it easier for the customer to buy. We're now approaching $100,000 in pure online sales since we started with Art Storefronts. I've got to add it up, but I know we're well over a million dollars in giclées sold. I don't exactly know the number because this year has been busy. I could look, but I don't want to mess things up. I'm not a technology guy. We sell a lot of giclées and other art-related products like coasters and prints. Anyway, I've been babbling. I probably should take questions from you so you can help guide me.
Patrick Shanahan: I'm amazed by the whole setup—how reasonable the rent is, Round Top being a tourist stop, a fun little weekend destination. It got known for two reasons: one, they have a big music venue for chamber music, violins, etc. I don't really listen to it, but it's an incredible music venue. The other reason is the antique fair that happens twice a year, in March and October. Tents and temporary businesses are set up, and people bring in antiques to sell. In 2016, there were only a handful of year-round businesses here. There were a few galleries, all of which rejected me, and none of them are here anymore. We created something fun—we always offer free beer and wine to guests. We're year-round, and over time, we've got nine or ten restaurants, four or five great bars, and close to 50 year-round retail shops. We'd love to have more artists here. There's only one other real gallery here, and they sell multiple artists' work. It's a beautiful gallery, but it's always helpful to have more galleries. Some people think it would be competition, but when people drive an hour and a half from Houston or Austin, they want to know there are multiple places to shop. We often get accidental art buyers—they come to Round Top, don't even know why, and end up buying art. It's a great weekend place with boutique hotels. I highly recommend coming here—it's a cool place to be. We have great stars because there are no city lights near us. The closest big town is either Brenham or La Grange, both about 20-25 miles away. People come in here, and I've always said maybe only 10% of people really care about art. You can see people wander around, and a lot of them walk through the gallery and don't even look at the art. That's why we have so many other things—apparel, home goods, etc. The fun ones are the people who say, "I didn't know I was going to buy art," and they come in and buy art. The great thing about originals is that they cost more, but there are first-time buyers of originals. What's your range on your originals?
John Lowry: They usually run from $2 to $4 per square inch, depending on my mood. For example, this piece, which is sold, is 36 x 48 and sold for $4,500. To a lot of people, $4,500 might seem like a fortune, so we sell giclées of it. We just had a special order for that piece, and it's already been shipped by Bay Photo. The buyer hasn't taken it home yet because they're building a home. We sell what we call Mini G’s—smaller versions of the giclées. I sign them on the side. We sell these for $150 each, and our cost shipped is probably around $40 from Bay Photo.We probably sold close to $50,000 worth of that product last year. Last year, I did about $100,000 in originals and another $200,000 in reproductions. The act of painting and selling a painting is great, but what’s more exciting is selling reproductions. For example, this piece I did in 2018, called “Len Ear,” was a small original, 24 x 20. We have a framed giclée here, 48 x 40, priced at $1,250. The original was about $1,400, but I’ve done close to $60,000 in reproductions of that one image. Nothing beats that.
Patrick Shanahan: That's the dream. One of the critical things any artist who wants to sell giclées must do is get a good scan of your art. I'm going to show you a giclée of a multimedia piece I did of crawfish. I had cut up old books, and you can see the detail. I love crawfish boils, so I take my pieces to a place in Houston that scans them. That scan probably costs $250, but to make a great reproduction, you've got to start with something great. I hear people trying to take pictures of their work with iPhones or whatever. Here's the original of that same piece. The lighting is a bit harsh here, but all the detail, color accuracy, and texture you saw in the giclée are there in the original. When I saw that original, it's great, but the fact that I can sell an infinite number of reproductions of that piece in the future is exciting. We also sell acrylic trays, coffee mugs, and other products with my art. It's exciting. My wife runs our website, and there's new capability with showcasing that kind of product and promoting it on Instagram. Patrick, could you explain what I'm trying to say better than I can?
Patrick Shanahan: I don't even care about that because the most interesting thing is your story. You took the leap in a small town, and you're able to operate this gallery. People are going to cringe when you say this, but how many days a week are you open?
John Lowry: We're open Wednesday to Sunday. I'm usually here on Saturday. Wednesday is a short day—noon to 4 PM. In the beginning, I worked the store by myself, but as it grew, I added employees. I used to paint upstairs during the day because many days, there'd be nobody in here. Now, we have employees who can handle the store while I interact with customers. On busy days, we can have 30-40 people in here, and we need four people in the store—two at checkout and two interacting with customers. My wife and I can tell stories about the art, which people love. It's difficult to do it all by yourself, especially on busy days.
Patrick Shanahan: I'm blown away by how sophisticated your product lineup and pricing are. Being in a real-world retail merchant has forced that level of sophistication, and all of that applies online too. People come into the store and say, "I wasn't really prepared to buy," so we create a brochure and hand out business cards. We also have a sign-up for our newsletter and social media. We post on social media, and yes, it's a pain, but when you do it, you see a rise in online sales. People remember the art and want to buy it. Even in a town as small as Round Top—87 people in population—we've been a big part of promoting the town. I was the president of the chamber and have worked to promote the town as more than just the antique show. We're doing a big event on June 8th, right out my back door. It's like a wedding reception, but nobody has to get married.
We've got a band from Austin, dinner by Royers and Truth Barbecue, and drinks from Ellis Motel. We're selling tickets for $100 per person, and it’s a great deal. It helps promote the town, and when people come, they shop, dine, and drink. That’s how we’ve created an environment where people come to see and buy my art. I’m a strong advocate for Art Storefronts. I don’t own anything in Art Storefronts—I pay my money like everybody else. But I see it as an incredible tool. Without it, I wouldn’t be selling the amount of art I sell. I’ve tried self-fulfillment, and it doesn’t work the same. Art Storefronts allows me to sell online in a way I couldn’t otherwise.
I can say, “I know you can’t afford this $5,000painting, but I can sell you an identical version of it framed for a fraction of the cost." We make great money at it. I'm fortunate, but it's not like I'm a trust fund baby or picked up by a fancy gallery in New York. It's just grit. I decided to open the gallery and do it. I work hard every day, but it's fulfilling. Taking advantage of the technology Art Storefronts has invested in is key. I think people take for granted how much work is involved. I still own another business, so I'm quite busy, but I've long believed that starting any business is like marriage—failure happens when you give up. You have to keep working at it. Anyone in the arts—whether singers, band members, or writers—knows that the end of the journey isn't even success. You have to keep at it to stay successful. It won't keep coming to you. You have to keep grinding.
Patrick Shanahan: You're taking the words out of my mouth. The consistency, the grind, how hard it is, the fact that it never stops—the number one thing that kills artists and photographers from realizing their dream is that they quit doing the grinding. You won't have that feeling of satisfaction. I shared this with the Art Storefronts community: a restaurant in College Station, Texas, at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center, wanted my art in their revamped restaurant. Originally, they were considering just originals, but the ones they liked were either too small or already sold. So they did a 20,000 order.I gave them 20,000 order. I gave them 14,000 worth of art to add to the hotel, and they have a gift shop. I'm going to take some of those miniature canvases like I showed earlier and suggest they sell them in their gift shop. I bet they'll jump on it because people will sit in the restaurant, see those images, and want to buy them. I'm very lucky because they want me to put a placard with my name and business name with the artwork. It's all because I put my shingle out here, not knowing if anyone would like my art. Many people in your group have probably heard of Buc-ee's, the gas station. They came to Round Top about a year and a half ago, came into the gallery, and said they wanted to sell my art at Buc-ee's. I was like, "You mean in the bathrooms? I don't think so." But they talked me into it. Now, I'm in close to 40 Buc-ee's stores across the country. I only make 5% of those sales, so I'm not making a lot of money, but what happens is people call me and say, "I saw your work at Buc-ee's," and I direct them to my Art Storefronts website. They see all the variety I have because Buc-ee's only carries eight of my images. That's luck, but you have to have luck to be successful in business. You're going to have bad luck and good luck—it's how you take advantage of the good luck that makes all the difference.
Patrick Shanahan: People think luck is dumb luck, like winning at roulette, but there's also luck that comes from residual grinding—doing the hard work. That luck is far more impactful. I have two questions for you. First, thank you for all the compliments on Art Storefronts—we love it. But if there's one thing we can improve, what would it be?
John Lowry: That's a great question. I don't know if it's necessarily on your end, but there are some inconsistencies in shipping costs. When I order 20 canvas giclées, they group it together and send it in one package. But when I order 40 coffee mugs for the store, if they charge $5 per mug to ship, that’s $200. It makes no sense. I talked to Aaron about this. Same thing with t-shirts—they're only set up for individual orders. There should be a way to wholesale order multiples in one box without paying standard shipping costs for each item. That's one of the biggest things my wife and I complain about. We sell out of these acrylic trays as soon as we get them, but we don't want to put a gigantic price tag on them because the shipping costs eat into our profit. We've got them priced at $82, and we’re probably only making $20 on that. That's just wrong.
Patrick Shanahan: Okay, I'll go to work on that. I saw someone else post about this on Art Storefronts—a photographer who went into a gallery and got a non-stop 40% off discount coupon to order product for their own gallery in a wholesale manner. For people like you, I want to have that interaction with Art Storefronts so it's not tricking the system but finding a way to order multiples without paying individual shipping costs. I understand the system is set up for one-off orders, but we'll figure out a wholesale solution. Have you heard my rant about cell phone cases?
Patrick Shanahan: I have not. Okay, because I really need to get it on your mind. I'm very curious. I don't know if you have an iPhone or an Android, but on these things, there's a screen time report that tells you how much time you're using on various apps and how many pickups per day you average. For us, what do you think the average number of pickups is per day?
John Lowry: Gosh, a thousand? I don't know.
Patrick Shanahan: It's way off. Millennials average over 200 pickups per day. I see that and think, "Oh my gosh, that is the single best advertisement an artist or photographer can have in today's day and age." I'm going to the point now where I think cell phone cases are the most important piece of merch you can sell. You've got them already—that's our in-store point of purchase. I show you my phone now—that's a picture my wife and I took. We sell those in the store. They're not a huge money-maker for us, but it doesn't matter. They're walking around, remembering it, showing people 150 times a day. I don't think there's another piece of merch that can get that type of exposure for your art. You need to make money on it, but I would raise the price on every cell phone case in your shop. If they purchase, they leave with one because the advertising is just too powerful. They sit down, put the phone on the table, and everyone starts talking about it. Then, 200 times a day, they're reminded of the whimsical art of John Lowry. It's a big deal.
Patrick Shanahan: Wow, yeah. You're leaving so much money on the table with your digital marketing efforts. The only way we're going to get you there is by hiring someone to do it for you. You're running live art shows in here. I pulled up your socials, John—you've got 3,800 followers on Instagram, which is terrible. These are first-world problems because your business is doing so well. I don't see any social proof here. You're in a restaurant by Texas A&M, you're in Buc-ee's, which has its own cult following. I want to know about that. What you've taken as just sitting in here is essentially a live art show. Do you do these at any point?
John Lowry: Yeah, so again, this is the main part of the store. This is the original part of the building. Everything in here is very white walls. We built a gallery space back here with wood on all the sides. This is our giclée storage room. I'm sorry if the music's too loud.
Patrick Shanahan: It's good. Just keep going. It's so compelling. Just the fact that you broke up the colors between the two spaces immediately establishes the value proposition. It raises the level of what we're seeing and what you're showing. It's a fantastic space—a higher grade of product that costs more. I share stories about every painting on our website. People love a story. This piece, for example, is from a motorcycle trip to the Gage Hotel in Aspen. My wife and I went on a hike, and I used her as my model—she hates when I do that. It's called "Blowing on a Dandelion," and I tell the story behind it. People love that. I have a statement: "I am obsessed with painting and the idea of bringing something creative to the world that never existed. I present my paintings humbly with the hope that someone besides my mom will love them." That's who I am as an artist. I take my craft seriously, but I don't necessarily take myself seriously. That's why it's called Humble Donkey Studio. We've gotten some press, and I laminated those articles to show people. I also have this funny thing my mom gave me—a trophy from when I was 10 that says "Number One Artist." I made a case for it and call it my "Major Award," like in "A Christmas Story." It's just meant to be a cute, fun thing, but people get a kick out of it. I think it's so important to make that personal connection. Going to art shows is important, even if you don't do great directly at the show. It's the connection you make with people that eventually leads to sales. Any little opportunity you have to tell a story or share something about yourself is critical.
Patrick Shanahan: I loved the little door you showed me that faces out to the courtyard. You're telling me there's a barbecue joint out there where people are ordering food and boozing, and then that door's just open. They can take a break, wait for their table, and saunter right in. When we started, this was an addition—it wasn't here before. We added this entrance and the little porch. I put some banners of my artwork out here, which we sell for people to put on barns. We decided to join the party and be part of this. There's no party today because it's rainy and yucky. My association with Kemosabe, who's here behind us, has been great. They had me do a couple of art shows there, and that exposure added credibility to me as an artist. That opportunity wouldn't have happened if I hadn't decided to open a store here in Round Top on a whim. We started with a 750−a−month cabin and are now paying probably 3,000 a month for this space.
Patrick Shanahan: Can you buy the building, or have you not gotten into that?
John Lowry: That will never happen. The people who own this square own the whole thing and would never sell just this one building. If this building was owned by an individual, that could happen, but when these people sell, they'll sell the entire square. This is one of three or four squares in Round Top. We're the biggest. I can show you the cabin right there in the middle—that's the very first cabin we were in. It's just this little bitty square footage. I'm walking around here, and this is what's funny—this is Friday, and all these stores are supposed to be open. This is the pie shop, and that's another advantage we have. We're next to a pie shop that people come in for. That was here before we were. This is the front of Ellis Motel, a great bar. This shows you the full outside of our building. The banners look so good. Those are printed on outdoor vinyl material and hold up for about 2-3 years. I change them out every six months. They cost about $120 each, shipped to me, and I sell them for a reasonable price. It's great advertisement on the outside and dresses the building up. When you're walking around, you see the building and go, "What's that?" The front porch has a mural that says, "It's hard to be humble," which it really is. Speaking of humble, this is a new design I did with "Humble" inside a donkey. I put that on my sign out front and sell it on hats. Every bit of signage makes a big difference. This may be an old dowdy barn, but how we've dressed it up makes it look like a fun place. Things like that help legitimize your art.
Patrick Shanahan: Just amazing. I have to ask you—I love this whole tour, and knowing what you have available to you, there's a blue ocean of underutilized social media marketing. You're going to have to hire someone to handle that. Start thinking about that. It has to happen, and you might even need a video guy too. I think you'll be able to make it pay. I'm just showing some things as we walk around. These are cards we have with my art on them. Again, like you were talking about, when people buy cards, we make money, but it's also got my name and who we are. They're going to send that out to people, and people will ask, "Who is that? What is that?" A lot of products help further advertise and promote you. Customers—let me ask you, across the board from the low end to the high end, how many individual new customer transactions are you averaging a month? How many new customers—email addresses, people you can market to—are you acquiring?
John Lowry: Loosely, I don't know the exact number, but I would bet we acquire about 100 emails a month. As far as social media goes, in the last 2-3 months, we've added 200 or so followers. It's been pretty slow. We know there are a lot of things we could and should be doing to grow that. Part of our struggle is that we're spread too thin. I can't even keep up with painting. I used to be able to manage 20 paintings for sale in my gallery, and now I'm down to 10. It's almost like you cringe when people sell them. It's more exciting to me now when people buy giclées because I don't have to do anything. Commissions drive me crazy. I just finished a commission—I charge more for commissions, 4 per square inch. For example, I might sell a 30x40 in my gallery for 4 per square inchfor3,000 to 3,200, depending on what it is. I just did this commission, same size, for4,800. It makes it worth my time, but I still scan that image, and it'll become a giclée, so it'll make money after that.
Patrick Shanahan: John, that was absolutely as good of an ending as we could possibly get. Back to your store, and to be continued. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Anyone can reach out to me with any questions—I'm happy to chat.
Patrick Shanahan: That was absolutely hilarious. You can't stage that. All the way down to greeting customers with how he does it—man, I need to do more of these. For anyone who just watched that, how good was that? How compelling was that? I need to send a video crew out there to film his entire operation. I've got a huge to-do list. Those of you watching, thank you so much. Have an absolutely wonderful Friday, and see you again soon.
