Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to San Diego Art Directory. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, San Diego Art Directory thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
The San Diego Art Directory was born out of necessity that, I think, has been in the air for quite some time. Being an artist myself and having the privilege of 20+ years of corporate marketing experience, I very quickly realized how little information about arts is circulating in San Diego County. This realization grew as I was interviewing artists and art professionals on my podcast, In The Art Scene. I couldn’t help but see the enormous amount of talent and cultural treasures we have and marvel at how few people, even in the art community, know about it.
Being able to see a greater picture of our local arts and its potential for our community gave me the idea to create a listing portal where anyone could share anything they know about related to our local art scene. The SanDiegoArtDirectory.com was launched on September 12, 2023, as an online hub that gathers and promotes information about cultural places, art events, opportunities and resources for artists, art education, and more.
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?
An artist at heart, I spent my childhood and adolescence with a pencil in my hand, writing poetry and drawing. Trying to make a compromise between creative endeavors and a “real-life career,” I received a degree in fashion design but very quickly realized that this industry wasn’t for me. By mere chance, being noticed by the management of the clothing company where I worked in the design department, I was invited to try myself at marketing – and this is how my career in marketing began.
I spent almost 2 decades in corporate marketing, learning its ins and outs, working for big international brands and medium local businesses. Art was always in a hobby zone until 2018 when I decided to try and show my art at a small local gallery in Encinitas. The rest is history…
I left my corporate job at the end of 2019 and took a few month’s break to focus on my art practice. The pandemic took away my first opportunity for a private show in March 2020. In 2021, I launched In The Art Scene podcast and got back to marketing work as an independent consultant.
Most of my clients are small businesses and entrepreneurs trying to navigate the confusing world of marketing. I helped many of my clients to make sense of it and create an easy-to-follow framework that helped them grow their businesses. I noticed that artists are facing mostly the same challenges with one significant exception: the market for art in San Diego is not ripe.
It didn’t make much sense to me at first. How could it be? We have such a wide and diverse art community, and we have residents who are capable and interested in supporting the arts. I found the disconnect in a lack of communication flow across the county. Most residents and artists are exposed to what is available in their immediate community and in a few places around the county they frequent. But no one has the full picture. The San Diego Art Directory is filling that gap.
We are constantly networking and promoting the platform, encouraging people to share information about the art scene; we promote this information through our own channels, including newsletters, social media, and Google ads.
Knowing how hard it is for local artists to be seen, one of my goals was to make this service free. Thus, the San Diego Art Directory became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our promise is to grow an audience, which we are doing successfully. Our hope is to reshape the local art industry and make San Diego a true cultural destination – for the sake of our vibrant art community, our economy, and our residents.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
The San Diego Art Directory platform has a huge potential to be monetized. And I was considering it at first. What stopped me was my own experience as an artist. The art market in San Diego sells mostly to artists… what I mean is the art community is large and hungry for opportunities, desperate for marketing services, and competing for available spaces. All of that became a successful value proposition for galleries, rental studios, marketing agencies, and such. And though there’s nothing wrong with these services, knowing the bigger issues with the state of a local art market, I now understand that it’s all backward! You can advertise till the cows come home, but if there’s no viable market, there’s no ROI.
Knowing this, I didn’t want to take advantage of our artists’ desperate situation. The decision to form a 501(c)(3) was largely informed by this realization. Instead, I see it as an opportunity to collaborate with a cultural community at large to reshape the market and carve a place for the art industry it deserves. After all, we already know the significant positive economic impact our arts and culture make on the county level. Now, we need to stand as a unified front to declare arts as a significant contributor to the local economy, and artists as small business owners entitled to the same support as other businesses.
Ambitious? Yes, you can say that. But it is also doable if we come together.
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
One of the advantages of having vast marketing experience under my belt is that I didn’t need a big capital to start. A few hundred dollars for hosting, domain name and necessary plugins, and dozens of hours of work to put the website together — all I needed to get set my idea live.
Now that the San Diego Art Directory has become an ever-growing marketing machine for local arts and culture, it takes many hands on deck and a lot of effort to make sure every listing gets promoted properly and more eyes are set on our local art scene.
We rely immensely on the support from our community and individual donors since most grants at this time are designed for things like events, classes, and venues. Charitable marketing is a tough business to run, haha!
We have a few options for the revenue generation we are testing out. Hopefully, it will be sufficient to afford continuous growth of our services. One thing I can promise – we are here to stay.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sandiegoartdirectory.com/ https://sandiegoartistnetwork.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandiegoartdirectory/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandiegoartdirectory/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/san-diego-art-directory/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@intheartscene
