We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jan and Rick Swanson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jan and Rick, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Janet: I sew custom quilts using t-shirts from the recipients childhood. These quilts are usually gifts from the parent, who saved the child’s t-shirts over the years. They make a great high school graduation gift, especially if the child is going off to college. As far as my painting, years ago I did a series of wall murals in the nursing home where I worked. The residents enjoyed the murals, rather than just having plain drab walls. That meant a lot to me.
Rick: I received funding to create an art photography exhibit which blended my interests in chemistry, art, and the history of science. I develop black and white film using coffee, and getting the “recipe” just right was its own experiment! The subject matter of the photographs exercised my artistic composition skills, and the images represented concepts I had studied in graduate school on the history of scientific knowledge. The other types of photography project which hold a lot of meaning for my clients are restorations of historic family photos. I enjoy cleaning up a treasured photo of a great grandparent, say, where the photo has faded or otherwise been damaged.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Janet: I’m a self-taught Rosemaling painter, which is a traditional style of folk art from Scandinavia. I have mostly Norwegian heritage, so I like to keep this craft alive. I work more in acrylic paints than oils, and I like to apply painted designs on wood, metal, or canvas. I also do small scale Rosemal-inspired designs on small objects like Christmas ornaments. Rick and I collaborate by having him photograph some of my original designs and printing them on greeting cards or as wall art.
Rick: I’m a photographer who specializes in black and white film photography; I also enjoy digital color photography, especially featuring birds, flowers, and landscapes. I am part of a community of photographers who like to use coffee to develop film, so even though I don’t drink coffee, I dunk my film in it! I also do digital photo restoration work, which has particular appeal for genealogists and other family history buffs.
Fox and Swan Arts is the collaboration of Janet (the Fox) and Rick (the Swan). Our mission: Promote the common good through art. We do this by choosing mission-oriented projects, or by promoting the work of other creatives we meet. When we can we support non-profits or charitable groups with our work.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Rick: For our business, building our audience has been a slow but steady journey. We do a regular monthly art giveaway on Facebook, and doing that has built our email subscriber list from practically zero in October of 2019 to almost 9,000 subscribers as of September, 2022. Our social media following has also increased slowly but steadily over that time. We generate more sales when we participate in an art fair than we have selling online, but I think that will change as we enter our fourth year as an online business.
Our advice: focus on building an email subscriber list even more than a social media audience, but do both. Social Media is a good way to validate your art or get quick feedback if you try something new. If you want sales long term, that will more likely come from your faithful email subscribers.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Our mission statement appears on our website: Promote the common good through art. There are several ways we try to live out that mission. First, we participate in the local arts ecosystem both as creators and as consumers. Second, we stay within our means when we give charitably, but we give, nonetheless. Examples are supporting artists on Patreon, or supporting musicians whose music we buy on CD or vinyl when we hear them play live. Third, we occasionally donate our art to other fundraisers for causes we believe in.
Rick has written a book on the topic of partnerships between small business and local nonprofit organizations. In the book, Rick outlines how small business owners (including creatives) can be philanthropic even when they don’t have large sums of cash to throw around. Following this model, our business has been able to provide support to a children’s home in Kenya, as an example. We won’t ever make headlines for the amount of money we donate, but we quietly make an impact that benefits our partners and strengthens our reputation and brand. Rick also speaks publicly on how to do this, in an effort to encourage other small businesses to find their own ways to promote the common good.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.foxswanartsgallery.com
- Instagram: @foxswanarts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foxswanarts
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/foxswanarts/
- Twitter: @FoxSwanArts
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvA5DDtiW_0RxkFuhaMbokw
- Other: http://www.rickswanson.com to book Rick as a speaker
Image Credits
All images are owned by Rick Swanson