The Art Coaching Club Podcast

Host Hayley White shares her Instagram strategy for artists, emphasizing that while Instagram can be a powerful tool, it's not the only path to growth. She explains why artists often gravitate to Instagram despite other effective channels like galleries, designers, and newsletters. Hayley breaks down her "Instagram playbook" into three essential content types: 40% top-of-funnel content for views (like trending audio or memes with an art spin), 40% useful content for saves and shares (teaching, solving, or resonating), and 20% "you content" (your face, voice, story) to build trust and drive sales. She stresses that you need all three types to convert views into followers and ultimately into customers. Hayley also highlights the importance of using Instagram as part of a larger funnel, primarily to grow your newsletter, which is where the vast majority of her own sales happen. Learn how to implement this strategy, track the right metrics, and push your audience to your website or email list. For more visuals and examples, subscribe to Hayley's Substack, Paper Trail, and look out for details on her upcoming Instagram workshop.

Subscribe to Paper Trail: https://hayleypricewhite.substack.com/

Follow along: @haleypricewhite and @theartcoachingclub on Instagram

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A year ago, Lucy Camp was painting before work and on weekends, quietly wondering if a full-time creative career was even an option. Now she’s full-time, fresh off her first in-person show, and prepping for a solo show with Ann Irwin Gallery this December. In this episode, Lucy walks us through what finally made her take the leap: a strong gut instinct, a viral trial reel that hit a million views, and a friend's simple question, “You know you can just be an artist, right?”

https://www.lucycampart.com/ https://www.instagram.com/lucycamp.art/ 

Subscribe to the Substack: https://hayleypricewhite.substack.com/  

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Katie Brown returns to the podcast, sharing how much has changed since our last chat! She opens up about the whirlwind of the past two years: welcoming her second child, Sadie, building a dream studio over her detached garage, and a major pivot in her creative path. Katie details the intense experience of working with five prominent art galleries simultaneously, including Well + Wonder, Campbell Collective, Shane and Greg Irby, and Gallery Orange. She candidly discusses the overwhelming pressure, battling postpartum anxiety and depression, and the realization that she was burning out trying to meet demands while raising two young children.

This episode delves into Katie's brave decision to step away from most of her gallery representation to focus on selling her creations directly and building her own audience. She recounts the pivotal moment when her first independent release sold out in just 20 minutes, confirming her path to self-representation. Katie also shares her personal journey with anxiety and how seeking medication was a game-changer, allowing her to regain control and clarity in her life and work.

We explore the pros and cons of working with art galleries versus self-representation, and why it's crucial for any artist to understand their own goals and seasons of life. Katie emphasizes the importance of creating 'margin' for creativity and avoiding the 'hamster wheel' of constant production. She reflects on how these early partnerships legitimized her work and pricing, but how her current focus is on developing her own brand, including future plans for textiles and wall coverings. This is a must-listen for any creative entrepreneur navigating growth, burnout, and the evolving landscape of their business. Follow the show and leave a review if this helped.

See her work: https://katiebrownart.com/

Follow along: https://www.instagram.com/katiebrown_art 

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Caroline and Bex have been best friends since before they were born, literally, their moms knew each other first. So when Caroline fell in love with mahjong two and a half years ago and Bex was working as a fashion illustrator in New York doing live events for brands like Jimmy Choo and Vogue, the idea for The Gilded Shuffle wasn't some calculated market gap they spotted. It was a coffee morning, a mahjong lesson, and Caroline saying out loud that she wished more artists were designing tiles.

On this episode we get into how they turned that into an actual product line: Bex's design process for translating her flower girls and dove motifs onto a functional mahjong set without losing the rules of the game, why they spent real money on branding before they had a product to sell, and what it took to find a manufacturing partner who wouldn't cut corners on something meant to feel like an heirloom. We also talk about the unglamorous parts, tariffs, supplier communication at 2am, decision paralysis when the creative options are genuinely endless, and why working with your best friend might be the opposite of the advice everyone gives you.

If you've ever wondered what it actually takes to go from "wouldn't this be cool" to a launched, beautifully branded product, this one's for you.

Find Caroline and The Gilded Shuffle at @thegildedshuffle and thegildedshuffle.com
Find Bex at @xobexstudio

New episodes of The Art Coaching Club podcast drop every week. If this one resonated, follow along and leave a review, it helps more artists find their way here.

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Elizabeth Rees started Chasing Paper because she wanted a wallpaper company that worked for her.  In this episode we talk about how she built that into a real business, and about the part of her model that makes her a genuinely interesting guest for this audience, she doesn't just sell wallpaper, she licenses other people's art onto it.

We get into what that partnership actually looks like from both sides, using her collaborations with Liz Lidgett and Meredith Kinney as real examples. We discuss growing a business, challenges that come with that, lessons learned along the way and so much more. 

Find Elizabeth and Chasing Paper @chasing paper and chasingpaper.com

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* I️ misspoke when announcing the Club - spots are open from September 16th - the 24th!  

Jennifer M. Walker is a St. Louis-based painter who's been selling her work for three and a half years, and in the last year has found real traction with botanicals, even though her heart still wanders toward abstract work and patterned framing. In this conversation, she walks through the actual trajectory of her career: painting quietly at home after leaving a corporate job, a studio that came with the house she and her husband bought, a two-year adoption journey that turned painting into an emotional outlet, and the local shop visit on a family walk that eventually led to her best sales weekend ever at a Round Top-style show.

We get into the stepping-stone nature of an art career, how relationships and "wasted" opportunities compound over time, and why Jennifer believes none of her past jobs or slow seasons were ever really wasted. She's candid about using ChatGPT to place her work in styled rooms for Instagram, despite her instinct to resist AI as someone who loves physical books, handmade work, and supporting other makers, and why she's landed on it as a tool that solves a real problem rather than something that cheapens what she does.

We also dig into her marketing engine: how she built an Instagram strategy around recurring content pillars (she compares it to a newspaper column), why she posts the same piece of art multiple times without guilt, and how a simple DM conversation starter turns into a commission. Jennifer talks honestly about the harder parts too: juggling four young kids with a growing business, the years it took to stop feeling like an imposter calling herself an artist, and how she sets financial and creative goals she can hold loosely.

She closes with what's ahead: new releases through the Scouted Studio this fall, a collaboration with Serena & Lily launching in September, and a show with Mended at Round Top in October.

Find Jennifer on Instagram at @jennifermwalkerart and at jennifermwalkerart.com and check out her new collection on thescoutedstudio.com. 

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This is the final episode in our three-part series on working with interior designers, and it covers the part almost nobody talks about: what happens after the project ships. You landed the commission, she loved the piece, everyone's happy — and then six months go by and you haven't heard a word. 

I get into why that happens (it's usually not personal, she's just busy and juggling a dozen projects) and what to do about it: building a real re-engagement strategy that lives in her inbox instead of your Instagram feed, why install photos are the best marketing lever you're not using yet, and how to stay top of mind without turning into the artist who's always pitching. I also make the case for why I think too many of us are spending four hours a week worrying about reel views instead of one hour sending three emails that would actually move the business forward. If you missed them, go back and listen to part one and part two first. 

And for the extended version of today's episode — exactly how to ask for photos, usage rights, and what a follow-up cadence should look like — that's up on Paper Trail, my Substack, this week. 

Doors to The Club close September 24 and won't open again until next year, so if you've been on the fence, this is your sign. learn more here. 

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This Friday's replay is my conversation with Katherine Corden, a fine artist in Traverse City, Michigan, known for her expressive figures and color work, who got here by easing out of a career as a physical therapist rather than leaping. She started her art Instagram the week she graduated PT school, and eight years later, that side project has become a full-time business complete with an Anthropologie partnership, gallery representation, and licensing deals.

We talk through what she learned in Emily Jeffords' first-ever mastermind cohort, why she never discounts her original paintings, and how she runs a print business with zero inventory by printing everything to order. Katherine also shares some genuinely pinch-me moments, from her work appearing in an Architectural Digest home feature to her first public mural, plus a book cover licensing deal she was keeping mostly under wraps.

Find Katherine at katherinecorden.com and on Instagram @Katherinecorden.art, and check out her Substack, The Art Table.

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Welcome back to part two of my three-part series on working with interior designers. This one picks up after the designer has already said yes, and it's all about what happens next. I start with a story from my time at Fritz Porter, the to-the-trade studio in Charleston, and what it taught me about why the same designers kept coming back again and again: because we were easy to work with. That's the whole episode. 

I get into why being easy to work with matters more than almost anything else once you've got your foot in the door, why a simple contract actually builds trust instead of scaring people off, why you should always give yourself and your client more time than you think you need, and how a real invoicing and inventory system makes you look like the professional you already are. 

If you haven't heard part one, start there. I cover how to research designers and build the portfolio you'll actually send them. 

And if you want the extended version of everything in this episode, subscribe to my Substack. It's free, with bonus content if you want to go deeper. 

Next week I'm sharing an interview with an artist, and in two weeks I'll be back with part three, where we talk about what happens after the piece is delivered: follow-up, photography, and turning one sale into the next one. Your homework this week: get your systems in place. A way to track inventory, a real invoice, a commission contract, a policy on deposits. Do it now, even if you're not working with a designer yet, so you're ready the second someone says yes.

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This Friday's replay is my conversation with Eden Flora, an artist and registered art therapist in Oxford, Mississippi, whose collection-based approach to art has grown into a business built on teaching, licensing, and a lot of hard-won reinvestment.

Eden walks through how her fabric design degree and her master's in art therapy from Pratt both shaped how she works today, how she builds a collection around an idea she's personally sitting with, and how art licensing, something she says almost nobody talks about, has quietly become a steady source of income. We also cover why she's shifted energy away from Instagram and into her email newsletter, Studio Scoop, why she hired a marketing consultant this year, and the M&M story from a high school science class that still guides how she reinvests in her business.

Find Eden at edenwflora.com and on Instagram @edenwflora. 

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