We recently connected with Dexter Komakaru and have shared our conversation below.

Dexter, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

As a professional artist and illustrator, there never really is a solid framework on how to go about making money from your art, let alone making a successful living or business from what one is able to create. So when it comes to scaling and growing one’s art business, for a lot of other artists I’ve talked to including myself, it mostly is a game of trial and error. This lack of access to genuinely helpful and actionable tactics to grow ones creative business is one of the main reasons that as a freelance artist I’ve dedicated my creative practice as a whole to the tenets of “art, activism, access”.

Why art, activism, and access? Art allows for social consciousness and empathy to develop and for storytelling to take deeper roots in our minds and bodies through visual media, but unfortunately has been made inaccessible or viewed as a luxury due to commodification. Due to this, access to art and creativity is more limited to those who are unable to afford access to local museums or art shows, or education on art history and how art is a fundamental part of all human culture.

Activism is another form of storytelling and creative work that allows for increased social consciousness and social change on small and large scales. Combining the creative forces of art and activism, I do the work that I do to share my art and calls for change with the world, while also working to make my work and art education as a whole more accessible for others.

Not just that, but I also work to create educational resources, tutorials, skill-shares, mentorship opportunities and presentations to help assist other artists and creatives in growing their creative consciousness and skillsets, as well as learning how to create a career doing what they love and create their own future with the work they do. By making my story and what I’ve learned to get this far accessible to others, I hope it inspires and shows them their own power and the power of creation.

With that being said, if you’re a creative looking for actionable tips and tricks to learn how you can scale up your creative or freelance business as an artist, look no further. I’ve gathered a few helpful strategies that I’ve learned or acquired over the years that I’d love to share with you.

1. FIND YOUR PEOPLE

If you’ve already established your creative business or have started making money from commissions or art sales, you might already have this one down, but it’s always good to continuously look at your current work and goals for your business and re-assess this question time and time again to make sure you’re staying on course.
Who are your people? Your friends, your family, your community, your ideal customer or dream client? Anyone who would support, share, invest in or purchase your work, you can consider them your people. Think about where your people usually spend their time, whether it is in-person or online. And then go to those spaces yourself.

Whether it is a networking event, a coffee shop, a Discord or Facebook group, or a niche online community, I promise you that there are people out there ready and waiting to see your work and support your business, you just need to find and make your work accessible to them!

2. GO DEEP, NOT WIDE
One of the best ways to scale your art business is not to obsess over the numbers game and continuously look to get more eyes on your work, but to invest further into providing value to those who already support you. Focus on your work and sharing what provides the most value to those who already support you, and just through their engagement, enjoyment of community with your work, and word-of-mouth, you’ll continue to grow your audience and customer base.

If you haven’t already, I would absolutely recommend checking out the essay by Kevin Kelly called “1,000 True Fans”. In his essay, he asserts that all you need to be a successful creator isn’t millions of likes or followers, but just 1,000 true fans. In these times of Instagram and TikTok, that’s not that hard of a feat. A “true-fan” in his essay is someone who would buy and support anything you do, who eagerly waits for your next post or release, who is waiting to see the next thing you create. Once you’ve acquired 1,000 true fans, all it takes is each of them buying a $10 product or painting you release to make $10k. And if they’re willing to spend $100 on what you create? You just made $100k. It’s a really good read I’d recommend to anyone looking to scale and shift their perspective on their audience!

3. SELL IT TO YOURSELF
This one is pretty easy. To put it simply, when you create a piece you’re looking to sell or make a new product, ask yourself “would I buy this?”. Generally we become better judges of whether or not a product would sell when we put ourselves in the place of the person spending money on it. In my own experiences, some of my bestselling paintings, illustrations and stickers have been the designs that I’ve resonated most with or that are designs I made for myself.

4. GO LOCAL
Lastly, one of the best decisions I made in terms of scaling my business and growing my community around my creativity has been going local. For the first half of my art business, I stuck solely to being an online creator. It was my comfort zone and a space I felt like I could use to tailor my image. I didn’t really interact with my local creative community until a few years into being a freelancer around the age of 21, when I finally started putting myself out there in my hometown of Central Ohio. First it started with going to local art markets and selling my artwork and paintings to those locally, which was a huge positive when it came to scaling my business. My first year doing art markets, I made hundreds for every good market I had, and grew my Instagram following to 2000+ followers just from those I had met in person or gave my business card to.

From there, I began putting myself out there more and more, and from markets, I was making a name for myself. I’d network and be in community with other local artists and vendors which was great, and also allowed for their audience to be exposed to my work and vice versa, growing my following even more. Eventually, I was able to connect with people who had more connections in my local arts community, whether they were locally renowned artists, creative small business owners, or the funders and curators of my local art galleries. With these new connections, I was able to get my work into my first ever solo-exhibition gallery show, as well as work with a local brewing company to release a limited release beer for Pride Month with my artwork on the label, putting my work even farther out into my community.

Not just that, but so many of my current highest-paying commission clients are organizations and businesses that I networked with years and years ago, not even with the intention of working with them, but through volunteering and doing community organizing and activist work with them. As a young community organizer and youth activist, I was able to meet a wide variety of local and nationwide non-profit organizations and businesses who share my same values, and through the work I did in organizing with them, they came to know me as their community creative. Whenever they needed someone to work on a job or create a design for them, I was at the top of their mind, and so ever since then, I’ve been able to have the amazing opportunity to work with a wide-variety of awesome commission clients and grow my creative career even more.

Hopefully some of these strategies I’ve used can help inspire you in ways that you can scale your business, whether it is a creative career or your own freelance passion, I believe in you. Everything I know I learned through community or taught myself, and you can too.

Dexter, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

DXTROSE is the one-man creative media and design studio of Dexter Komakaru. Based in Central OH, he operates his freelance creative business from his home studio situated on the ancestral and contemporary territory of the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Delaware, Miami, Peoria, Seneca, Wyandotte, Ojibwe, and Cherokee peoples. As DXTROSE, he creates stunning visual artwork that centers around his lived experiences and storytelling as a second-generation immigrant, a Queer, Trans, Northern Native American, and Mexican person.

With over five years of experience in the industry, DXTROSE is committed to using his art and creativity to promote ART, ACTIVISM, and ACCESS. He aims to share his knowledge and insights on art and starting a creative career by making resources and information accessible to others. His multidisciplinary creative background allows him to create artwork inspired by his experiences working as a youth activist in intersectional activism, restorative justice, and community organizing.

DXTROSE’s goal is to inspire others to disrupt systemic cycles of harm and navigate a creative practice from an abolitionist lens. His work resonates with those who have experienced similar struggles and hardships, and he hopes to inspire aspiring artists to pursue their passion for art, showing them that it is possible to create their future.

Over the years, DXTROSE has collaborated with various clients, organizations, and companies on different projects and endeavors. He offers a range of services, including private sales, art licensing, and business-to-business/client work. His online store features prints and originals of his artwork that are available for purchase, and he regularly posts his most recent work on Instagram.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

LEAD GENERATION. Seriously! Just those two words alone have done wonders for my creative business and commissions as an artist. Unfortunately, even when artists shell out tens of thousands of dollars for art school, even modern art schools struggle with teaching their students the basics of how to market themselves and acquire new clients. Thankfully, I’ve been teaching most of the business side of running a creative business to myself, so one day as I was reading up on a blogpost on how to acquire new clients as a business, I ran across this phrase.

“Lead generation” is exactly what it sounds like. You’re generating leads for your business, a lead being anyone who could be a potential client or buyer of your work. It can look like joining Facebook groups or other niche communities specific to the audience of your clientele, or Googling or Instagram searching clients that businesses similar to yours are working with and creating a list of ones you might potentially want to work with. From there, once you have a list of potential businesses or clients you think you could work with, draft up a cold-email.

A cold-email is basically you reaching out to a business or client for the first time, introducing yourself and how you found them or know them, what you do, and letting them know how you can provide value to their business with your work. There are plenty of examples of cold emails you can look up to see what I’m talking about, but once you figure it out, draft up a template for cold emails for you, and start emailing those businesses or potential clients on your list!

With this tip, it is quantity over quality to an extent. You can’t expect that because you sent out 5 emails that you’ll even get 5 responses back, let alone every person wanting to hire or buy something from you. But for every 50 or 100 or so e-mails I send out to perspective clients, I’ll get 5 or so replies back, and a handful of which actually are interested in my work or working with me in the future. This technique actually works and has actually led to me being able to work with many of the clients I still work with to this day! Seriously, try it out. It’ll change your freelance life.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As a person of indigenous Northern Native American lineage, we operate our lives from a multi-generational perspective. With this in mind, the mission that is the driving force behind my creative journey and lifelong creative practice is my devotion to my ancestors and to my descendants. From the day I first decided to dedicate my life and career to creating and storytelling, it was with the love of my future children and family in mind.

Coming from a background of poverty, incarceration, deportation, inherited illness and addiction, and generational trauma, all that I’ve ever wanted to do is to be in a position to one day grow and be able to take care of my family and descendants. Every time that I’ve considered giving up, I remind myself that it is for my future self and for them that I have to keep on going and keep creating.

I don’t just owe it to those to come, but I owe it to those who have already gone as well. With such a complex and rich lineage and ancestry, I have so many stories I need to tell. Just at the age of 22, I already know that my time here is limited and already feel as if I won’t have enough time to tell all the stories I need to tell, so I better keep moving forward and get to work.

Not just my own stories, my creation story and how I got here, what I’ve survived, etc. but the stories of those who didn’t live to tell them, the stories of those victimized by nationalist and colonialist violence, and the stories of those who aren’t here to tell them for themselves.

Indigenous people worldwide, but specifically those indigenous to Turtle Island or the Americas, are deemed as some sort of mythical legend to the contemporary world, but we are still here. We are still fighting and still believe that one day we will get our nations and sovereignty back. We are still carrying our languages and stories on so they can continue to be passed along and not forgotten. And it’s my mission with my lifelong creative practice that I do my part in carrying these things on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dxtrose.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DXTROSE
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dexterkomakaru/
• Other: SHOP: https://www.dxtrose.com/shop

Image Credits
B+W Self Portrait image photo credit to Emma Parker Photography