Visceral Reactions
I took my ex-wife to The Louvre once. She wanted to look at every painting in every Gallery, while I walked through them as if I were in a hurry to find the bathroom.
"Aren't you interested in all of these amazing paintings?, she asked.
"No," I replied. "I'm only interested in the ones that stop me dead in my tracks."
"But you're not even looking!"
"No, I'm not actually looking at any of them, but the ones that I do stop at, I will have caught out of the corner of my eye."
"How does that work?"
"It's a visceral reaction. They strike something deep in me, and I stop to really look."
Art is bought because of visceral reactions. When someone can't stop looking at a piece of art, it is because they are having one, but no matter how powerful the reaction is, most people still have to be 'sold', or as I prefer to phrase it, 'helped to make a decision.'
What is important is understanding why this is so. Human nature means we are full of self-doubt. We hesitate to make decisions because we fear making the wrong one. We are conditioned this way by our parents, and they were conditioned that way by their parents. Historically, this fear came from living in a very dangerous world. That isn't to say that we don't still live in a dangerous world, but the dangers are different. So, we ask ourselves, "Is this safe?" even when the decision we are making is innocuous, like buying a piece of art.
Understanding both visceral reactions and this fear is key to selling your art.
Diverging for a moment, have you ever wondered why some people are natural-born entrepreneurs, and why most are content with a salaried, secure job? The reason is simple. To be an entrepreneur, and I am a lifelong one, you have to be a risk-taker. I can almost guarantee you that all of the extreme athletes, those who do very dangerous sports, will all, if they live long enough, become entrepreneurs.
#artsales #motivation
That moment you described, the one where something catches you from the corner of your eye and stops you mid stride, that's not just how you move through a museum. That's how certain work reaches people. Not through obligation or careful study, but through something wordless and immediate that lands before the mind can catch up.
There's something quietly powerful about knowing that this is what art can do. Not every piece, not on demand, but sometimes, without warning, a single work reaches past every filter and finds something unguarded in the person standing in front of it. That's the kind of connection most artists are secretly hoping their own work will make someday, and it can feel almost impossible to create on purpose.
But you already know what it feels like to be on the receiving end. You know it's real. And that knowing is worth more than walking through every gallery with your eyes wide open and your chest closed.
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