Q: I'm a visual artist networking and marketing my own work. I'm looking for resources and references. I paint mainly contemporary abstracts on panel and canvas, medium to large in size. I would like to find a rep or gallery to show and sell my work. Please visit my website and have a look at my art, and if you have a moment, I could use feedback. Thanks for your time.

A: If you're taking shots in the dark like this, you need professional help. Hire an art consultant, artist agent, or perhaps even an art dealer, and pay them for an hour or two of their time. Perhaps this is not what you want to hear, but if it's any consolation, plenty of other artists need the exact same thing. Rather than get help, though, they continue to make arbitrary random attempts to call attention to themselves and their art, attempts that almost always fail.

Take your attempt, for example. I don't know how many people you've sent this email to; I'm sure I'm not the only one. So I'll try to give you a generic answer, typical of one that any art business professional would give you. Of course, most simply won't respond, but what you're about to read is similar to what they'll be thinking as they read your request....

You say in your opening sentence that you're marketing your own work, but you're not really. You're asking me to help market it for you. You want me to give you references and resources. You want me to help you find a rep or gallery. You want me to look at your art and give you feedback. Maybe you even want me to rep you myself.

Here are my questions for you: Am I supposed to take an hour or two or three of my time to study and critique your work, put my thoughts into writing, and email them to you? Am I supposed to go through my contact list and give you a bunch of names so that you can ask them the same questions you're asking me? Am I supposed to offer whatever additional help I can to advance your art career?

Assuming I am supposed to do any or all of these things, what's in it for me? Am I supposed to do it for free? You don't say anything about how you intend to compensate me for my time.

Not to belabor the point, but let's say I look at your art for free and email you my thoughts. Would that mean anything? You're getting them for nothing. You'll read the email, save it if you like it, and delete it if you don't. If you really like it, and you're not familiar with copyright laws, you might even publish it or use it to sell your art without asking my permission.

But enough about what you want for you without making clear what you'll do for me in return. Convincing someone to show and sell your art involves more than asking them to look at it on a computer screen and give you feedback. No one is going to visit your website, see your art, and become so taken with it that they decide to represent you right then and there. They have no idea who you are, how you are to work with, what your capabilities are, or anything else about you. You're a total stranger approaching them from out of nowhere.

For the sake of argument, however, let's suppose someone does like your art enough to email you back. Can you demonstrate that your art is salable or explain what about it or what about you will make it sell? Can you provide information about art you've sold, where it's sold, for how much, and under what circumstances? Can you present yourself in such a way as to convince this person to represent you or give you a show at their gallery? Would you know what to say if they called you on the phone, or met with you in person?

Do you know anything about them or their business or how they are to work with? Have you visited their gallery or office? Are you sure they're reputable? Have you spoken with other artists who they represent? Are those artists satisfied with how they've been represented?

If you're feeling a tad queasy at this point, then we're right back where we started. Get professional help and pay for it or trade art for it or make clear in some other way that you are prepared to compensate those who help you. An experienced art consultant or any other art business professional can show you how to present your art effectively, maximize your chances for results, minimize problems, and enter into mutually beneficial business relationships. And here's the good news: You don't have to compromise your artistic integrity or change the look of your art in the process; you learn how to present yourself in ways and in places that are more likely to result in sales of your art.

Art galleries, agents, and artist reps sell art for a living. If they can't make their livings selling art, then they have to get real jobs like the rest of us. In order to avoid such a fate, they carefully evaluate every artist who presents them with art, and decide to work only with those who demonstrate, one way or another, that their art is not only salable, but that it will sell. Before you can get representation or a show, you have to understand how people who sell art for a living think, what they need, and how you can give it to them.

Just so you don't think you're getting dumped on here, it's not all your fault. Art school does not teach you how to how to sell your art in the real world. You may learn how to put together a portfolio, but that's not selling art. At worst, you graduate thinking that all you have to do is get yourself a studio and start cranking out art like you're printing money. That's not the way it works.

Oops. I got a little off the subject. Anyway, you've got to pick up a little art business expertise somewhere along the way in order to know what to do with your art once it's ready to leave your studio, and how to present your portfolio once it's together. As for paying to learn how to do this, you've already paid tens of thousands of dollars to go to art school; now pay another couple hundred bucks for a quick dose of reality.