We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emma Miller a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I have been so fortunate to have found a way to make art into a profitable and fulfilling career for myself. I studied fine art in college thinking maybe if I got really lucky I could get a job in my field, but most likely it would end up being just a hobby for me. After graduation I was thrilled to get a full time job teaching k-12 art and a few months into that job I launched my art business. I started out mostly painting commissions and doing the occasional wedding painting, but it formed a small portion of my income. Over the span of 5 years I was able to grow the business to the point that it is able to fully support both my husband and I. The turning point for me was in the Spring of 2020 when school was remote and I had extra time to put into my business. I started doing a painting a day and selling it each day and continued doing this for several months. This majorly built my social media following and translated to much more demand for my originals, for prints, and more visibility for my wedding painting business. A few months later wedding painting became a tiktok sensation and resulted in a huge influx in bookings. In a few months I completely filled my wedding painting calendar for the year and was able to significantly raise my prices. After these developments I was able to drop down to part time teaching for 2 years and eventually quit that job entirely. I don’t know that I could have/would have done anything differently. If I had gotten the larger following and visibility through social media on a quicker time frame I think it would have hurt my growth as an artist and I wouldn’t have been able to adequately take advantage of and maintain the audience.

Emma, 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?

I started my art business by doing commissions which turned into wedding paintings which has continued but branched off into doing a lot of my own original work. I use mostly acrylic and oil for my original paintings, but I do my wedding paintings in both watercolor and in acrylic depending on the preference of the couple. In my original work I focus mostly on landscapes with the goal of capturing and highlighting the way that the landscape interacts with light. I use warm and vibrant colors and bold brush strokes while maintaining a sense of realism. In wedding painting I have to work much quicker so my paintings often have an impressionistic look to them capturing the feeling of the day. My watercolor wedding paintings have a bit more detail to them giving them an illustrative look.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Making it big on social media involves some luck, but there are also some strategies that I found effective. Most of my audience came through 3 or 4 different reels that took off. I couldn’t tell you what it was about these reels that made the algorithm love them, but I will tell you that the followers from these reels contribute almost nothing to my business the real growth in my social media platform (when I say growth I mean measurable growth that translates to engagement and sales) came from consistently making art and consistently sharing it. The best advice I can give for an artist trying to build their following is to focus on depth vs breadth. pick a medium or subject matter or concept that you want to plumb the depths of and do it consistently sharing along the way. People will be invested. This doesn’t mean you have to do this type of art forever, but it allows you to get some traction in one area and then you can take what you learned and pick a new thing to focus on. Its finding that balance of consistency with being boring that creates and maintains a large audience.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I joined Emily Jeffords group for artist entrepreneurs and it was hugely helpful for me in understanding how to run a creative business. It was full of things I was never taught in art school. I’m no longer a part of it, but it was very formative for me and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to take their art career more seriously.

Contact Info:

• Website: emmamillerart.com
• Instagram: @emmamillerart