Is it possible to make a decent living as an Fine artist/textile to make a sucessful living selling and how?

Question

I majored in fine art 17yrs ago, and loads of experience in textiles and fashion, due to paying of bills i have done a variety of jobs from dressmaker, to currently secondary school teacher, which i have had enougth, i just want to go back to being creative again, any suggestions how?

Answer 1

I am an interior designer and twice a year all the fabric, wallpaper, and carpet companies bring out new collections of designs. (Surely fashion works the same way, but with a faster turn around.)
I really have no idea what kind of money these designers make, but the good news is that these companies are all over the country. Working for a corporation would mean regular hours, regular money and benefits.
The company deals with government required business reporting, manufacturing, advertising, distribution and selling. You get to do what you like best--designing.
Or if you want to be a little more mobile, you can work for these sorts of people freelance. There are design studios who produce designs for collections as well.
If you work alone designing fabrics, you have to do the record keeping, the manufacturing, and the selling. All the business stuff means you spend very little time doing the creative stuff. Then there is the issue of who would BUY your designs and fabric. Are you selling to people who will reproduce your designs or do you want to sell to end users? Do you spend every weekend hauling bolts to craft and art fairs all over the country? Ugh.
You need to do some research as this is a fairly specialized career. Check with the reference librarian at the closest city or college library in the business section. They can point you toward reference directories that list these sorts of businesses. You can start by calling the creative directors of these companies and studios to find out what sort of people they are looking for, (your qualifications sound solid to me.) Too, find out if there is some sort of professional organization for fabric/product designers and see if they have a newsletter you can access. Perhaps you will want to join the orgainization for the opportunity to network with people already doing what you want to do.
It might be worth taking some vacation time from your present job to volunteer working with a current designer to see if you like the work. In the meantime, it would make sense to start working on a collection of your own designs, you are bound to be asked for a portfolio. Good luck. You really can design your own life.

Answer 2

Get your folio together and don't leave anything out. You never know what will interest buyers, and even if a piece isn't production-ready there's a chance you'll get a commission to develop it. Find a decent agent who will take a percentage of what you sell and let them do the selling while you get on with designing. Point yourself in the direction of the USA - they're the only people in my (15 years') experience who have any respect for designers and their work, and consequently the only people who will pay a decent fee. I'm in London and get shafted regularly.

Answer 3

i do not imagine so, until eventually you tutor your artwork in truly cool commercial galleries and promote a lot. yet that hardly ever ever takes position. i'm a painter, and that i can not make a residing promoting my artwork. notwithstanding, one among my studio artwork acquaintances sells out each exhibition she has and lives very fairly on her earnings. Her stuff is deemed warm and mine isn't! :(