Critique Part 2

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Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt Sect Mark. 10: 263-274 (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 O'Reilly* 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 artist's personal construction of her creative and business work. The analysis highlights the significance of emotional, cognitive, spiritual and physical processes for the artist's 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 artist's artistic identity, process and work based on a deep selfrefiexive awareness and understanding by the artist of her own creative practice.

Introduction

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' w ĥose 'job' is to produce 'creative works' and sell them to customers; as a cultural producer w îthin 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 (O'Reilly and Lindley, 2000).

The general literature on creativity is highly diverse, ranging from Koestler's attempt (Koestler, 1964) — or indeed those of Miller (1996) or Ghiselin (1985)—to deal with the question of genius, to discourses on the

•Correspondence to: Daragh O'Reilly, Lecturer in Market- ing, Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

philosophy of creativity (Bohm, 1998). There is also work which attempts to situate the individual creative artist w îthin 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 fiight (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 w^orker. 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 stimulating creativity (De Bono, 1983); the nature of management creativity itself (Proc- tor, 1995; El-Murad and West, 2004); creative

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cognition (Finke etal., 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 (HUl etal., 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 tbe 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 artist's 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-

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 la^v-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 allow^ing artists' voices to speak in their own terms about their 'take' on art and marketing could w êll be instructive. Because of a desire to obtain an emic perspective in the informant's o^vn language, this research w âs undertaken from a broadly constructivist per- spective. Specifically, Kelly's 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 informant's 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 Kelly's repertory grid as a key tool w^ithin the enquiry process (Andrews etal., 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 w^hich explored the artist's 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

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marketing enquiry if, before tightening the informant's constructs, one elicits the ele- ments (phenomena) w^hich 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 w êll as in a w îde 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 view^ers. 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

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 w îll 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 it's really hard, isn't it.''How do you talk about this process? ...

I thought I was going to say completely different things ...

I'm never sure about what I say, because things change so much.

Data collection

Tw ô depth intervie^vs 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, tw ô video-taped interviews were undertaken. Videography is a method of research v^̂ hich 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 (O'Reilly 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

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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 vvfith visual reviews of the videotape to check ^vhether the verbal and visual data appeared consistent. Both interviews were located in the artist's studio. The researcher- informant relationship ̂ vas explicitly positioned as a co-owned and shared enquiry process (Mishler, 1991). The artist agreed to interviews on the basis that they w ôuld 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 oŵ n 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 Ruth's 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 artw^ork 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- body' to talk about her difficulty in managing herself during the creative process. Several of the themes mentioned in the first interview.

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 individual's interpretation of herself.

Anatysis

This section includes a discussion of some key issues in the informant's w ôrk, 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 Ruth's positioning of herself as an artist, her sense of process, and ideas about product, promotion and pricing.

Positioning

In this section, two aspects of Ruth's 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

It's always been there, since I was tiny. I mean, when I was in a cot, I was scribbling on the wall. The magic of fust drawing these circles and enjoying the pencil, and then being interrupted and being told off, and feeling very rebellious, you know. And them saying, 'don't 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 couldn't, because I did not have a pencil in the cot.

In both interview's, this narrative account emerged without prompting and in rather similar terms. In the second interview, it was formulated differently, as follows:

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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— / think they were circular shapes—and 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'gam.es. 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.

Tribe of Painters

It is important to note that Ruth's 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 mostly] mystical um to do with mystery

Tribe is a concept more commonly used, w îthin 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 netw^ork of people ŵ ho 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 w îth w ĥom or v^hich 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. How êver, from conversation, Ruth also does not like to be categorised as any particular kind of painter!

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Process At process level, Ruth's 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 w ĥich 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 w^hich, 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 hoŵ 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 w^here her body w ânted to move to, as ŵ ell 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

there on the canvas. This was an important attitude to ensure continuity of fiow .̂ 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 ŵ as '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 Ruth's 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 that's why I've made the decision now to work with colour... When I'm drawing, I'm often wanting to portray numerous aspects of my life... and.. .1 might work through those on a drawing, letting them appear and disappear and then eventually you arrive at something... But... I'm doing that in a figurative way... Whereas, when I'm painting um I'm not dealing with with um figurative elements, I'm, more dealing with a symbol, I suppose, or shape that holds things that I don't necessarily know about, but I respond to and resonate [with]

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in a way ...Sol think it's like... it's 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 developm.ent, 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 Ruth's 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, Ruth's assessment of her oŵ n finished w ôrk 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 Ruth's 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'; 'doesn't let you in'/'you can sink into it';

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.

I'm. trying to be more practical and say well I've got to allot a certain amount of time per week, just even to do a bit of reading about how to apply for som,e money or how to approach a gallery. I find that whole thing really difficult, because I don't really want to spend an enormous amount of time doing that because any spare time, when I have energy. Hike to use it on work. ... I'm 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 don't really know, but I've got a letter from. So I've got to find away of working with this projecting out that is related to my life rather than it being—I don't want it to be too businessy. I might change my attitude some time [when] I'm. feeling more positive really about the whole thing.

Q: What does 'businessy' mean for you.''

A: I don't 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 don't suppose, I don't mind that much now. Businessy. Trying to obtain money, because I spend a lot of money on materials, but part of me just doesn't feel

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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 enfoyed. But I don't 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 I'm 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', w ĥich 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:

/ notice how easily I get disturbed about things so I try to keep things very quiet.

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 w ôrk 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 w êll as for artists in general), and for (b) further research are considered. The analysis has indexed a number of themes w ĥich are discussed in this section. The case artist positions herself as an inwardly-oriented pain- ter who is engaged emotionally, physically and

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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

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 artist's personal construct system, and particularly on how core constructs impact on the artist's 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 Ruth's (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 take — e.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 Ruth's account can be used to develop her own positioning statement about her work. Differ- entiation of one's brand identity for the purposes of promotion necessarily has reco- urse to the identification of salient and relevant particularities of the individual's 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.

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one could see Ruth's 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). Ruth's 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 view êr in; and her w ôrk 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 basis—further 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 Gones, 1991). This involves having the itiformant 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, ŵ ays 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

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 artist's 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 w ôrk 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 artist's artistic identity, process and work, based on a deep self-reflexive aw^areness 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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