Spotlight on ArtManagerPro

As a professional artist, creating new works is likely only part of what's on your pretty hefty plate. As anyone who's involved in the creative industries knows, art is work and that work also involves things that sit outside the creative realm, like tracking inventory, pricing work, logging sales and expenses, managing exhibitions and on it goes.

If you're not careful, tasks can pile up, details can get lost, and things can quickly go from manageable to overwhelming and before you know it, you're trading precious studio/creative time for admin work.

What if there was a better way to organize all your tasks so that you can spend more time doing what you truly love?

One local artist and entrepreneur is making that vision a reality.

Built By an Artist, For Artists

A management consultant and entrepreneur at Genesis (an innovation hub that supports technology start-ups in the province), and an oil painter, arts lover and secretary/member of the Art Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, James Greey's latest project brings together his tech and arts background to help make life easier for fellow visual artists.

James Greey

James was in the process of building Vifta, a platform that aims to promote ethical dog breeding and ownership, when he realized some of the platform's features and functions could be adapted to help artists better organize and manage their creative careers.

"So from there, I kind of built it out and transferred it over and made it specific. Because for me, for my own purposes as well, I want to be able to track what the size of an artwork was and if I have something exhibited for sale, I want to know what I had it listed for...and there's also artwork that you don't necessarily want to share on Instagram or anything, that you just want to consume for your own purposes; maybe you want to create a collection or something for a sketchbook that you have, so that way you always have a digital reference to it," he says.

All Your Artwork in One Place

ArtManagerPro helps visual artists catalogue and organize their work and supports the administrative aspects of their career. It includes tools for determining pricing; tracking expenses, sales and locations of artworks (which also helps in worst-case scenarios—such as loss, theft, or damage—by providing documentation of what existed and where it was last placed); building portfolios; establishing a digital presence; managing contacts; tracking clients and what artworks they've purchased; and more. The platform also offers a way for people to get in touch with artists without artists having to share their personal email address or phone number.

The platform helps make it easier for visual artists to manage and organize their work, including several bulk-upload options.

"The whole idea with this was to make it very easy for someone to be able to update it themselves and maintain it," James says.

Spreadsheets can be cumbersome, he adds, and some platforms are expensive and not specifically geared to artists. Built by an artist with artists in mind, the main goal of ArtManagerPro is to make it easy for artists to organize their work so that they can focus on creating art.

"So it's like, focus on your palette and not the Excel sheets," James laughs.

The platform also includes a way for artists to track their revenue and expenses.

Seeking Feedback

It was also important, James says, to keep the pricing for ArtManagerPro simple and affordable, making it accessible to artists at any stage of their career.

Currently, James is working on some new features for the platform that he hopes will be available  in the near future, including an app that gently encourages users to paint/draw more, a monthly competition that encourages users to create art, printable art labels and an ability for artists to accept money directly through the platform.

James launched ArtManagerPro in January and is now seeking artists to take it for a test spin and provide feedback to help improve it.

"I just want to make other people's lives easier, because these are frustrations that I've had," he says.

"But I know other artists have different issues too. So more feedback is better."

If you're a visual artist who would like to try ArtManagerPro or offer feedback, click here to drop James a line via the platform or email: support@artmanagerpro.com