How do I overcome my resistance to doing marketing when I just want to create art?

First, understand that every successful artist you know went through this same pain—they all had to figure out marketing and put themselves out there. There’s no shortcut around it. The reality is you have a marketing problem, not a creating problem. You’re very good at making things; you’re not good at getting eyeballs on those things. Here’s the key: if you go through the pain of learning marketing, you start banking gains and building momentum, and the forward trajectory of your business fundamentally changes. Another year will pass regardless—the question is whether you’ll be in the same place or have made progress. The artists getting attention are the ones driving their own attention through consistent marketing. Once you build that momentum, other opportunities follow—galleries, agents, and features come to artists who are already successfully marketing themselves, because those entities want to work with artists who’ve proven they can build an audience. Accept the pain is necessary, put your head down, do the work, and the trajectory changes.

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Asked by an artist who wants to focus on creating rather than marketing · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-06-08