Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark.

10: 263274 (2005)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.30

The marketing/creativity interface:

a case study of a visual artist
Daragh OReilly*
Leeds University Business School, UK

* This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of the marketing/creativity interface in

the visual arts at the level of the individual artist. Proceeding, broadly speaking, from a
constructivist perspective and using a qualitative case study approach, it examines a
visual artists personal construction of her creative and business work. The analysis
highlights the significance of emotional, cognitive, spiritual and physical processes for the
artists positioning, process, and products, as well as her difficulties with promotion and
pricing issues. It was seen, following Fillis (2004), that, at the level of an individual artist,
her work may be not only product-oriented but self-oriented. It therefore behoves artists
and their agents to be able to offer appropriately distinguishing promotional accounts of
the artists artistic identity, process and work based on a deep self-reflexive awareness and
understanding by the artist of her own creative practice.
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction philosophy of creativity (Bohm, 1998). There

The individual visual artist can be conceptua-
lised in a variety of ways: as a painter who
paints pictures; as a creative or cultural
worker whose job is to produce creative
works and sell them to customers; as a cultural
producer within the circuit of culture (Hall
et al., 1997), engaged in the production of
cultural artefacts or texts; or as an artrepre-
neur, an artist-marketer (Fillis, 2004), or an art
brand (OReilly and Lindley, 2000).
The general literature on creativity is highly
diverse, ranging from Koestlers attempt
(Koestler, 1964)or indeed those of Miller
(1996) or Ghiselin (1985)to deal with the
question of genius, to discourses on the
is also work which attempts to situate the
individual creative artist within a social process
of production, at least partly in an attempt to
de-emphasise the notion of genius (Becker,
1982; Wolff, 1993; Alexander, 2003; Brunet,
2004). Others analyse the creative process in
major innovations, such as the Wright Broth-
ers first manned flight (Jakab, 1990). Within
business and management, scholars and practi-
tioners are concerned with understanding how
the benefits of creativity can be opened up
both for the organisation and for the individual
manager or worker. This gives rise to a number
of issues such as what a creative manager is
(Evans and Russell, 1989); how to set up a
creative work-culture (Tanner, 2003; Smith,
2004); how the culture of a creative organisa-

tion works (Hackley, 2000); methods for

*Correspondence to: Daragh OReilly, Lecturer in Market- stimulating creativity (De Bono, 1983); the
ing, Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth
Building, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. nature of management creativity itself (Proc-
E-mail: dor@lubs.leeds.ac.uk tor, 1995; El-Murad and West, 2004); creative

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
264
cognition (Finke et al., 1996), creative process
flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2003), and so on.
Additionally, much mainstream management
writing on creative innovation deals with the
key issues of techniques for stimulating crea-
tivity and for multi-functional team-working.
The marketing literature currently seems to
have little to say on the question of creativity
and marketing at the level of the individual
artist. Certainly, for marketing managers, it is
accepted as important to be able understand
the concerns of, and to work with and along-
side, creative talent outside of the marketing
department (Hill et al., 2003). Within market-
ing, Fillis (2000; 2002a,b,c; 2004, 2004a) has
been a strong advocate of the importance of
creativity in marketing management, particu-
larly amongst small businesses, opposing it to
the step-wise processual formulae of conven-
tional textbooks, which are not suited to the
arts context. Within visual arts marketing, in a
recent book chapter (2004a), Fillis focuses
specifically on the theory and practice of visual
arts marketing, and advocates that:
research should focus on the product-
centred nature of entrepreneurial
creativity where the personality, attitudes,
beliefs and behaviour of the artist as
owner/manager are central to doing
visual arts marketing.
He also recommends that the artists biography
be researched, as a means of constructing
more actionable theory. This paper seeks to
respond to this recommendation. The starting
research question for this project was: how
does creative process relate to marketing/
business process in the life of a working artist?
Research design
This section discusses the methodological
approach to the study, the case artist, and the
data collection.
Personal construct psychology
Firstly, given the lack of actionable theory
(Fillis, 2004a) in the area of visual arts market-
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
Daragh OReilly
ing, and the nature of the research question, it
seemed sensible initially to engage in a
grounded, idiographic approach to this parti-
cular enquiry. As far as research methods in
previous creativity research is concerned,
Mayer (1999) surveys the principal methods
which have been used, including psycho-
metric, experimental and case study
approaches. This inquiry also uses a case study
approach. In this enquiry, therefore, it was not
a question of seeking to make law-like general-
isations about this field. It was rather an
attempt to identify potentially fruitful themes,
watch for emerging patterns and facilitate a
more precise problematisation of this area of
marketing enquiry. A benefit of in-depth
exposure to an individual case is the grounding
of an enquiry in a level of detail which may
facilitate richer conceptualisation of the area.
Artists talk is a clue to their construing of
their artistic and business processes, and it
seemed that allowing artists voices to speak in
their own terms about their take on art and
marketing could well be instructive. Because of
a desire to obtain an emic perspective in the
informants own language, this research was
undertaken from a broadly constructivist per-
spective. Specifically, Kellys personal con-
struct psychology (PCP) (1963) was used
to guide the interview process. Within PCP, a
construct is defined as a bipolar cognitive
differential (e.g. good/bad, strong/weak); and a
personal construct is so called because it
relates to, and emerges from, the individual
informants personal experience. PCP has been
used previously in the marketing literature to
examine issues relating to branding, personal
selling and consumer behaviour, but with a
tendency to emphasise Kellys repertory grid as
a key tool within the enquiry process (Andrews
et al., 1990; Plank and Greene, 1996; Debling,
1999; Giese and Cote, 2000; Marsden and
Littler, 2000; Palan, 2001). In this study, I felt
there was more to be gleaned by focusing
instead on a form of interview which explored
the artists bipolar construing of her work,
without tightening the constructs through the
use of a grid. Besides, it represents a more
thorough approach in a relatively new area of
The marketing/creativity interface
marketing enquiry if, before tightening the
informants constructs, one elicits the ele-
ments (phenomena) which she is construing
and explores them in some depth (Savage,
2000).
The case artist
This section introduces the informant, who, for
the purposes of this paper, is called Ruth (not
her real name). She has been painting seriously
for more than 30 years, and is in her mid-fifties.
Her work includes mainly oil paintings, water
colours and drawings. She is deeply interested
in esoteric, mythological and analytical-psy-
chological traditions, as well as in a wide
variety of art or painting genres and artists. She
contributes to the family income by part-time
art teaching. This contribution is supplemen-
ted from time to time by the sale of her art-
work, which tends to be occasional and
unpredictable. She has a degree in art from a
local university. She has considerable experi-
ence as an art educator and as a painting model,
including sitting for a leading British painter.
From time to time, she succeeds in placing a
piece of artwork in a local or regional gallery
and sells her work that way. Ruth has no formal
training or education in marketing. On other
occasions, she co-organises art exhibitions
with other members of her network, including
photographers and sculptors as well as other
painters. These exhibitions result in sales
direct to viewers. She is an avid reader of
books and other materials relating to her art
practice, and travels quite frequently to Lon-
don and other centres to see important
exhibitions. On non-teaching days, she works
in her studio as much as possible. She does not
have an agent. She operates with a very tight
budget for materials, framing, and transporta-
tion. She cannot afford to rent or own her own
separate studio space, and uses the attic of her
home as a studio. Her annual earnings from
painting are low. Ruth does not take commis-
sions from customers or patrons to produce a
piece of work to a particular specification. She
has said that she would feel herself restricted by
such a business arrangement. Ruth also has
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
265
family responsibilities which make calls on
her time.
Of course, her discursive repertoire pertain-
ing to her artwork, including its business
side, has been shaped by her experiences as
art student, exhibitor, model, educator and
artist as well as by her wider life experiences.
Her personal construct system will reflect
these influences and is something which
changes and evolves over time. It should also
be pointed out that Ruth found talking about
her process difficult and surprising, and
seemed to need to mark what she said as
provisional:
I mean its really hard, isnt it? How do you
talk about this process? . . .
I thought I was going to say completely
different things . . .
Im never sure about what I say, because
things change so much.
Data collection
Two depth interviews and numerous informal
conversations were held with the artist about
her work. Exhibitions where her work was
shown were attended. I also observed her work
in studio. As far as the depth interviews were
concerned, two video-taped interviews were
undertaken. Videography is a method of
research which uses video technology to
capture and analyse data, amongst other things.
It is located within the established traditions of
visual anthropology and visual sociology (Ham-
mersley and Atkinson, 1995; Banks, 1998;
Prosser, 1998; Marshall and Rossman, 1999).
Its advantages include its usefulness capturing
aural and visual data and holding them in
memory, exactly as they were recorded, and
in full colour (OReilly and Larsen, 2005). Its
disadvantages include the time and money
involved in training in the use of cameras and
editing technology, and editing together out-
puts (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; Ball,
1998; Fetterman, 1998; Harper, 1998). Appli-
cations of videography within marketing and
266
consumer studies are increasing (Belk et al.,
1989; Belk and Kozinets, 2003).
It is important to note that there was a time
difference of 7 years between the interviews,
the first interview having taken place as part of
an earlier similar project. This enabled a
comparison and contrast over time with core
pre-occupations of the artist (though this
longitudinal view is not the central focus of
this paper). The interviews were loosely
structured, as the purpose was to elicit both
her elements as well as her constructs. The
questioning style was to use mainly open,
reflective, summarising and occasionally prob-
ing questions. Each interview lasted about
90 minutes, and apart from being video-
recorded, was transcribed and submitted to a
coding analysis. The coding analysis was co-
ordinated with visual reviews of the videotape to
check whether the verbal and visual data
appeared consistent. Both interviews were
located in the artists studio. The researcher-
informant relationship was explicitly positioned
as a co-owned and shared enquiry process
(Mishler, 1991). The artist agreed to interviews
on the basis that they would help her to clarify
her own sense-making about what it was she was
doing and what her own particular offering
might be. The videotapes were transferred to
DVD and copies given to the artist so that she
could review her own statements.
In the first depth interview, there was an
emphasis on identifying key constructs for
discussion of her creative process. In the
second interview, greater use was made of
Ruths work-in-progress and finished work as
interview stimuli for the eliciting of elements
and constructs concerning creativity and mar-
keting issues. It also focused on a number of
points too detailed to report here, for example,
her use of the idea of movement through
space as a guiding metaphor in her accounts of
artwork and also of the movement between
artwork and other activities; the emotional
states she experienced when doing artwork;
and her use of the notions of ego and pain- In both interviews, this narrative account
body to talk about her difficulty in managing
herself during the creative process. Several of
the themes mentioned in the first interview,
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
Daragh OReilly
and discussed above, recurred spontaneously,
that is without interviewer prompting, for
example her construal of her early artwork as
a child (see below). This suggests that certain
constructs have enduring value, or are core
constructs in Kellian terms, that is they are
central to the individuals interpretation of
herself.
Analysis
This section includes a discussion of some key
issues in the informants work, both on the
creative as well as on the business or marketing
side. The quotations are extracts from the
depth interviews. The issues have been cate-
gorised to cover marketing issues, include
Ruths positioning of herself as an artist, her
sense of process, and ideas about product,
promotion and pricing.
Positioning
In this section, two aspects of Ruths position-
ing of herself as a painter are presented, namely
an account of her creative origins (creation
myth) and her sense of belonging to a tribe of
painters.
Creation Myth
Its always been there, since I was tiny. I
mean, when I was in a cot, I was scribbling
on the wall. The magic of just drawing these
circles and enjoying the pencil, and then
being interrupted and being told off, and
feeling very rebellious, you know. And
them saying, dont let her have a pencil
again. And you think secretly, oh yes I
will! And then actually having to deal with
not having a pencil again, feelings of . . . I
thought I could get what I wanted, and I
couldnt, because I did not have a pencil in
the cot.
emerged without prompting and in rather
similar terms. In the second interview, it was
formulated differently, as follows:
The marketing/creativity interface
And the other thought that just came
through, just married back to a very early
memory of being a child in my cot, so
maybe under two. Being left a pencil or
something, and then drawing on the wall
I think they were circular shapesand
being so profoundly affected by it. And then
a memory of my father saying to my brother
and sister [about me] not being given a
pencil again . . . But that initial impact of
drawing on the wall has stayed with me,
through the bars of the cot. So I escaped the
bars of the cot into this imaginative world
obviously. The instrument, the pencil did it
somehow, so magical.
In this second version of the story, she
interprets the drawing as an escape or self-
liberation from a space to which she had been
confined, a prison, into her imagination,
through the medium of her artwork.
There is also a wicked stepmother figure:
Because my stepmother took my dolls away
from me when I started school, because she
thought I was too old to play with them, I
started to use drawing as a means of
playing out, of playing and working out
my thinking, playing out dolls games. So, I
think there is that part of drawing which is
to do with my everyday life, that somebody
else may have used toys as a means of
working out, or as I used to, pencil and
toilet paper, would you believe?!
This takes up another theme pre-figured in
the parental instruction not to let her have a
pencil. Here, her playthings were taken away
by a negative authority figure. In response, her
drawing becomes a direct substitute for play
and a technology for self-development.
In these different narrations of her early
memory, which function as a kind of account of
creative origins in adversity, Ruth mobilises
metaphors of childhood, magic, profound
affect or enjoyment, deprivation, imprison-
ment and rebellion against authority through
art to position herself, to construct her own
brand identity in talk.
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
267
Tribe of Painters
It is important to note that Ruths attempt to
define herself as a painter touches also on her
social as well as on her individual identity,
invoking the metaphor of tribe:
I seem to fit into a particular tribe of artist
who is preoccupied with um certain
thoughts which are most[ly] mystical um
to do with mystery
Tribe is a concept more commonly used,
within marketing at least, to talk about
consumers than about producers (Kozinets,
1999; Cova and Cova, 2001). The use of this
term suggests that Ruth is aware of herself in
relation to certain other producers, a group to
which she feels she belongs, an imagined
community (Anderson, 1983). Here she is in-
voking a social identity, not only an individual
one. From observation, Ruth is located within a
network of people who are also engaged in
creative work, who can supply information,
contacts, creative insights, advice, help with
mounting exhibitions, emotional support and
so on. However, this is not necessarily what she
is thinking about when using the word tribe.
From observation and informal conversation, it
appears that she means by this any creative
person or tradition with whom or which she
feels an affinity. This affinity may be enduring, or
it may simply for the life of a particular creative
project, and it appears to have to do with a
perceived sharing of values, themes or symbols.
This notion of tribe functions as an inter-
pretative resource by means of which she can
construe, elaborate and discursively mark her
own similarities to and differences from other
painters or creative workers. To index Elliott
and Wattanasuwan (1998), this could be read as
not so much a case of a consumer using a brand
as a symbolic resource to construct part of her
identity, as of a producer using the notion of
tribe as a symbolic resource with which to
construct part of her own individual brand
identity as a professional painter. However,
from conversation, Ruth also does not like to be
categorised as any particular kind of painter!
268
Process
At process level, Ruths construal of her own
creative process in the first interview had four
main personal constructs (or, one might say,
semantic differentials): (1) work/play; (2)
movement/restriction; (3) receiving/being cri-
tical; (4) holding on/letting go.
Work/play
Firstly, play was an important starting point
which could lead to the realisation of some-
thing interesting, provided she remained
grounded. Good management of play led to
liberation and the realisation of something
interesting. Bad play was like magic, trick-
playing, involved feelings of being high, and
led to being stuck. Work was characterised as
holding onto, pushing, grappling, knocking
oneself out, needing to see results, frustration,
the root cause of all of which, she reflected,
could often be a fear state. In fact, the
discussion of this construct highlighted the
emotional work which is invoked in her
account.
Movement/restriction
The second construct, movement/restriction,
related to how much freedom or constraint
Ruth felt in different work-related areas, for
example, in the studio space itself, or on the
canvas or paper, or in relation to the process
itself. In this regard, it was important for Ruth
to be aware of where her body wanted to move
to, as well as the movement of her eyes.
Restricting physical movement was bad for the
creativity. In particular, mental restriction of
what the body wanted to do was seen as
negative. For Ruth, this construct was related
to intuition and creative risk-taking. Physical
embodiment, therefore is a key dimension of
her process.
Receiving/being critical
Thirdly, the receiving/being critical construct
was differentiated as follows. Receiving meant
having a positive attitude, seeing what was
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
Daragh OReilly
there on the canvas. This was an important
attitude to ensure continuity of flow. It
appeared however also to be about making an
kind of kinaesthetic evaluation of the work in
progress. Being destructive was associated
with negative emotional states and evaluating
the work from a bad place. Again, the import-
ance of the body and emotions comes through
in her account.
Holding on/letting go
Finally, holding on was associated with tensing,
grasping, being anxious, feelings of panic, a
need to prove she was all right, or could paint,
a need to make sure, to control the work. The
effect of holding on was often that it stopped
the flow. The opposite was letting go, being in
a relaxed state and working from there, not
experiencing insecurities.
What comes through clearly in relation to
her creative process is the frequent occurrence
of states of difficult emotion and the impor-
tance for Ruth of her own sense of connection
with her body.
Drawing and painting are two distinct
elements in Ruths perceptions of her process,
each fulfilling a different purpose:
So, I think, perhaps, drawing and painting
have a different . . . a slightly different
history. I mean, I use drawing more as a
means of working out my everyday
thoughts, and colour as uh as feeling,
yeah. Perhaps colour was on a deeper
level for me. I mean thats why Ive made
the decision now to work with
colour . . . When Im drawing, Im often
wanting to portray numerous aspects of
my life . . . and . . . I might work through
those on a drawing, letting them appear
and disappear and then eventually you
arrive at something . . . But . . . Im doing
that in a figurative way . . . Whereas, when
Im painting um Im not dealing with with
um figurative elements, Im more dealing
with a symbol, I suppose, or shape that
holds things that I dont necessarily know
about, but I respond to and resonate [with]
The marketing/creativity interface
in a way . . . So I think its like . . . its like a
different way of working.
In other words, drawing appears to be for
working out and dealing with the external
aspects of her life and painting is a response to
an inner, imaginal, emotionally coloured pro-
cess. The emotional dimension of her process is
significant, as it was when she was a child.
In fact, her creativity has another dimension,
which Ruth claims goes beyond the psycholo-
gical:
Q: So creativity is about facing oneself?
A: Yes, I think so . . . Creativity is linked
with my own development, spiritual
development and I mean spiritual in a
very broad sense and I mean on the basis of
spiritual being . . . and it is about how I am
in life, and it is about how I go about life
and how open and closed I am . . . As I
change my thinking, my work changes,
that is what I am trying to say.
In Ruths account, her work is positioned as
involving her emotions, her body and her
spiritual life. There is little discussion of artistic
technique as such. This helps to construct an
account of herself as a painter wholly engaged
with her artwork, and one who is keenly aware
of the inner life of the spirit and feeling.
Product
At product level, Ruths assessment of her
own finished work made use of a cluster of
terms. Terms used by her to negatively evaluate
a finished piece were more numerous. These
included poles such as cold, dry, sterile,
mechanical, neat, clean, exquisitely put
across, and packaged. Note that the last five
of these terms would be positive in the mouth
of a marketer, but in Ruths case they index an
underlying unease with work which appears
too finished. Positive terms included broken
up, done by a body, gives off a feeling. The
following paired construct poles emerged
clearly (preferred pole second): pure/using
different tones; even/having different dense-
ness; doesnt let you in/you can sink into it;
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
269
and has a sharp boundary/diffuse. These
construct poles reveal that Ruth values paint-
ings which do not look too finished, and which
in her opinion have something to give the
viewer. From informal conversation, it seems
to be the case that this is a reaction against
some art practices and discourses which were
prevalent at art college. The preferred poles
accentuate differentiation in the tones, diffuse-
ness, and the communication of an embodied
and emotional sense (reiterating the themes of
body and feeling).
Promotion
Contrast this with her response to questions
about the business side of her work, including
business development or promotion.
Im trying to be more practical and say well
Ive got to allot a certain amount of time per
week, just even to do a bit of reading about
how to apply for some money or how to
approach a gallery. I find that whole thing
really difficult, because I dont really want
to spend an enormous amount of time
doing that because any spare time, when I
have energy, I like to use it on work. . . . Im
going to take some photos and send, just
see, send it to one or two people that I know
before I think about galleries, ones I dont
really know, but Ive got a letter from. So
Ive got to find away of working with this
projecting out that is related to my life
rather than it beingI dont want it to be
too businessy. I might change my attitude
some time [when] Im feeling more positive
really about the whole thing.
Q: What does businessy mean for you?
A: I dont mind photographing the work. I
suppose businessy is sending these things
through the post. Looking at what galleries
might be interested in my work. I suppose
engaging [with] rejection which, I dont
suppose, I dont mind that much now.
Businessy. Trying to obtain money,
because I spend a lot of money on
materials, but part of me just doesnt feel
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
270
comfortable about that . . . Essentially I
think, my life is about the work rather
than . . . I would like to be successful, but the
work is more important than success, I
suppose ultimately. I know that a bit of
success would be great, because I could get
a larger workspace and obviously have
more time to work in. Because I am having
to teach a certain amount, which [ . . . ] I
have enjoyed. But I dont want it to get any
bigger than it is. I would like a larger
working space, because it is quite hard with
the framework that Im in.
There are a number of issues here. Firstly, the
question of success. From the above interview
and from other conversations, it appears that
for Ruth this would mean sufficient sales of her
paintings to mean she did not have to teach art
and also getting a bigger workspace and more
time to do artwork. Yet, as noted above, she is
currently selling few paintings. In order to sell
more, she would have to engage with the
business side of her practice more. This means
being businessy, which she associates with
practical things such as photographing the
work, looking for gallery targets, trying to
obtain money, and also with the likelihood of
having to deal with rejection when trying to sell
her work in to a gallery, all aspects of market-
ing. Her overall concern, however, is with the
work, which is more core in her construct
hierarchy than success.
She also experiences feelings of discomfort
around this question. When she talks about
projecting out (i.e. promoting her work), she
construes this as capable of being either
related to my life or businessy. The rather
stark implication of this, from an art marketing
point of view, is that businessy is not related
to her life; whereas from her answer to the
question about creativity earlier, creativity is
clearly linked to her life, in fact it is an essential
part of it. Finally, business work can be seen as a
disturbance. When talking about promoting
her work, she said:
I notice how easily I get disturbed about
things so I try to keep things very quiet.
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Daragh OReilly
Business work, on other words, risks upset-
ting her emotional equilibrium, and thereby
her creative process work as a painter, and so is
actually a threat to her work on herself and on
her art. One can see by her own account how
deep-rooted is her aversion to business.
Finally, when examples are put to her of
other painters in her locality who are promot-
ing themselves heavily, her response is to say
that that is not her thing, their work is not like
hers.
Pricing
The issue of pricing raises the vexed question
of the value of an artwork. As far as this last
issue is concerned, her paintings appear to
represent a part of her identity. Therefore,
putting a value or price on her paintings is like
placing a price on herself. From observation,
this appears to raise complex and deep-rooted
personal issues for her. Underlying these are
the construed split between her creativity
which is related to her life, and business,
which is not. In fact, talking with Ruth about
pricing specific pieces of her work tends to
catalyse in her a process of introspection
which is inconclusive. I speculate that this
introspective process is in fact akin to her
creative process, and therefore, perhaps, an
inappropriate application of her particular
approach to creativity to the business context.
There is a barrier between her inner kinaes-
thetic sense of her connection with her
paintings and any attempt to make a judgement
about the commercial values of her work. It is
as if instead of setting a price, she prefers to
imagine one, and then cannot do so.
Discussion
In this section, the analysis is summarised and
the implications for (a) marketing action (for
the case artist as well as for artists in general),
and for (b) further research are considered. The
analysis has indexed a number of themes which
are discussed in this section. The case artist
positions herself as an inwardly-oriented pain-
ter who is engaged emotionally, physically and
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
The marketing/creativity interface
spiritually with her artwork. She invokes a
narrative of childhood memory to position
herself as someone who has a sense of magic,
feeling and artistic determination in the face of
negative, unsympathetic and constraining
authority figures. Socially, she has a sense that
she belongs to a tribe of painters, but this does
not appear to be a clearly defined group of
people whose membership is fixed. She posi-
tions her identity as somehow diffuse, and
mystical or mysterious. Her account of her own
process highlights the importance of emo-
tional work and the importance for her of her
own sense of connection with her body. This
goes to support her artistic identity, or
positioning. A sense of subtle variety, of
emotion and embodiment are also important
in her evaluation of her own artwork. In fact,
she evaluates her work in relation to herself and
not to the art market. This appears to make it
difficult for her to put a price on her work. Her
time-scarcity, lack of marketing training, family
responsibilities, the crowded market, and the
potentially emotionally disruptive impact of
business activities combine to make her
reluctant to devote a lot of time to promotion.
Her promotional efforts are seen as a distrac-
tion from her precious artwork time, and are
seen by her in any case as taking place in a
crowded market which involves the possibility
of rejection.
How might one interpret this from a
marketing point of view, bearing in mind that
it is not possible to statistically generalise
from a single case study? Well, firstly, I think
this goes to support what Fillis (2004a) has
said about the need for research to focus on
the product-centred nature of entrepreneurial
creativity where the personality, attitudes,
beliefs and behaviour of the artist [ . . . ] are
central to doing visual arts marketing. One
might add, however, that, in this case, the
creative process is self-oriented as much as
product-oriented, and oriented towards a
holistic view of the self, including its emo-
tional, embodied or physical and also spiritual
aspects. This warrants the in-depth explora-
tion of individual cases, as does the practical
promotional need to develop a coherent and
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
271
attractive account of what the artist is doing
and why. Also, it is not a matter here, as it is in
arts organisations, of the marketing depart-
ment interfacing or liaising with the crea-
tive talent department. In the case of an
individual artist, the creative and marketing
selves are two aspects of the same human
being, and any interfacing must happen intra-
subjectively. How this interfacing develops
will depend on the individual artists personal
construct system, and particularly on how
core constructs impact on the artists artwork
and business/marketing thinking.
From the point of view of marketing action in
the case of this particular artist, it is easy to say
that Ruths (default) marketing strategy is not
working, at least in terms of financial rewards.
Marketing academics, other painters of a more
market-oriented disposition, or even people
who know nothing about marketing or paint-
ing, might have suggestions to make about
obvious actions she could takee.g. what is
needed is a marketing plan. However, as
mentioned previously, Ruth has had no formal
training in marketing. Also, she is working out
of her own personal construct system, which
puts the work itself before success. One can
argue whether this view is right or not in
abstract terms, but at present, and for the
purposes of this article, this is her position
now, at the time of writing.
Looking beyond this particular case to artists
in general, one needs to bear in mind the kind
of communications which artists typically use
to promote their work, for example, exhibition
catalogues, web-sites, or press articles. These
are opportunities for artists to position them-
selves in specific ways. In this regard, much of
Ruths account can be used to develop her own
positioning statement about her work. Differ-
entiation of ones brand identity for the
purposes of promotion necessarily has reco-
urse to the identification of salient and relevant
particularities of the individuals life experi-
ence, and requires the construction by the
artist and/or her agent of a coherent and
persuasive or attractive account of her indivi-
dual brand identity. If one looks for an
emerging framework to shape such accounts,
272
one could see Ruths brand identity in this case
comprising two parts: brand character and
brand story. Brand character includes two
elements, namely, her emotional and spiritual
experience of her work (psyche), as well as her
body and its involvement in the process
(physique). Ruths brand story consists of three
elements, namely, the account of her earliest
engagement with drawing through bars (one
could call this her artistic provenance, or
individual heritage); her emotional, embodied
creative process itself (process); her paintings
and drawings (products), with the particular
aesthetic qualities she is striving for, namely a
sense of diffuseness, embodiment, and letting
the viewer in; and her work mission, which
appears to require a holistic self-development
(purpose).
The ongoing academic research is taking a
number of directions. Firstly, the artist has
specifically requested to continue the enquiry,
on an exchange basisfurther interviews in
exchange for marketing consultation, opening
the way to a kind of action research. Secondly,
using snowball sampling and additional perso-
nal contacts, interviews will be conducted with
other creatives, mainly painters and writers.
Thirdly, subsequent interviews will make use
of an adapted form of PCP interview technique
known as core process interviewing (Jones,
1991). This involves having the informant
focus on particularly creative periods of his/
her life, identify elements and constructs
associated with each period, and develop the
emerging themes, with specific reference to
business and marketing issues in this enquiry, of
course. Because of artists distinctive, personal,
ways of construing their creative and business
work, particular care will have to be taken in
abstracting any common dimensions or themes
from their talk, in order, for example, to develop
a conceptual framework.
Conclusion
This paper aims to contribute to an under-
standing of the marketing/creativity interface
in the visual arts at the level of the individual
Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2005
Daragh OReilly
artist. Proceeding, broadly speaking, from a
constructivist perspective and using a qualita-
tive case study approach, it examined the
personal construction of creativity and busi-
ness work in the life of a working visual artist.
The analysis highlights the significance of
emotional, cognitive, spiritual and physical
processes for the artists positioning, process,
and products, as well as her difficulties with
promotion and pricing issues. It was seen that,
at the level of an individual artist, her work may
be not just-product-oriented but self-oriented.
Therefore, it behoves artists and their agents to
be able to offer appropriately distinguishing
accounts of the artists artistic identity, process
and work, based on a deep self-reflexive
awareness and understanding by the artist of
her creative practice.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to thank Helen Jones and
the members of the PCP Northern Research
Group, York, UK, as well as the two anon-
ymous reviewers for their constructive com-
ments.
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