The Artist as Entrepreneur
Getting Down to Business

Lesson Description

In this lesson, students begin to develop their business plan. This task will take place over several lessons. The students will learn that the business plan provides a road map that will ultimately help them achieve the goals they established in an earlier lesson. The first step will be to develop a business description. For the artist, this contains not only a description of the business but also a description of the artist’s work.

Concept

business plan description

Related Subject Area

business

Objectives

Students will:

form an initial description of their work from their own point of view
analyze art that is produced by others and similar to their own

Materials

The Artist as Entrepreneur notebooks containing their goal statements
art magazines and web sites

Procedure

  1. Explain that a business plan is a road map. It provides the artist, or any business owner, a direction. The business plan should begin with a description of your business. This statement should answer the question, “What business am I in?” The answer should include your product, your market, and in what ways your product is different from others.

  2. Instruct students to begin by considering their goal statements. Their statements reflect the type of work they wish to produce. Instruct students to use their first goal statement as a tool in describing the type of product they will offer in their business. This could include graphic design work, such as web page design, commercial art, or greeting cards. Other students may engage in fine art, one-of-a-kind works or works with a limited number of prints. Instruct students to write their product description on a piece of paper.

  3. Explain that the next step is to define their work as distinctive from the work produced by other artists. Explain that this may be difficult for high school students who have not yet developed a body of work. However, instruct students to consider the characteristics of their work to-date that are unique. This will require an honest evaluation and some help from others.

  4. For homework, instruct students to locate websites or art magazines that contain art that is similar in nature to their own. Have them critically analyze the work they find. Instruct them to seek other artists’ statements and reviews of the work. This will provide additional insight into student evaluations of their own work.

  5. Instruct students to write brief phrases that describe the subject or theme of their work in preparation for their business descriptions.

Closure

Explain that as a start to developing a business plan, students have begun to organize their business descriptions. To complete the description, they will further evaluate their work and consider how their work will be presented, such as completed pieces or works created only when commissioned. They will consider the audience for their work. Finally, they will evaluate in what ways their business will be successful in a competitive marketplace.