Artists Sunday™ is a national shopping holiday, the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, promoting the purchase of original, creative arts and crafts from individual artists and artisans. Taking place during the largest shopping weekend of the year, Artists Sunday follows Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, the day before Cyber Monday, over the Thanksgiving weekend.
So how does it work? We have four areas of focus: 1) Artists, 2) Non-profit communities that support artists, 2) The media and 4) Sponsors
Together, we are uniting individual artists and communities across the country in a singular effort, creating a strong, vocal voice of 1,000’s across the country, all promoting the giving of artist-created gifts during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.
Artists
These are the individual artisans and craftsmen creating original, physical works of art for sale to the public. Artists Sunday participation is free for artists. They are our primary focus: Empowering individual creative artists to sell more art. We do this by providing artists a comprehensive marketing Artists Sunday Toolkit, a digital packet which includes everything from marketing strategy ideas to email templates to a press release template, that Artists can use to promote their participation in Artists Sunday to consumers and their local media outlets.
Non-profit communities that support artists
This includes a wide variety of organizations, including artists groups, art councils, churches, chambers of commerce, associations, municipalities and more. We call these participants the Artists Sunday Partners. They are groups that champion artists either locally, on a state level or nationally. Artists Sunday participation is free for Partner members, who have to be non-profits.
Similar to how we work with artists, we provide Artists Sunday Partner members a marketing toolkit, a digital packet which includes everything from marketing strategy guide to email templates to a press release template that they can use to promote their participation in Artists Sunday to artists, consumers and to their local media.
The Media
In the fall, as we move into the holiday season, Artists Sunday will launch a national media campaign, discussing Artists Sunday, highlighting participants, creating buzz with the media and consumers. This national campaign will be augmented with social media and supported on the local level by Artists Sunday member artists and Artists Sunday Partner members. Our goal is an innovative campaign that resonates with the media and consumers, goes viral, and becomes self-perpetuating.
Sponsors
Our work is funded through the support of our sponsors. These range from local to international companies catering to artists specifically or small businesses generally. Potential sponsors include retailers, galleries, shipping companies, payment processors, merchant services, ecommerce solutions, web site hosting, and other business infrastructure vendors. Based upon the amount spent, sponsors will be integrated into our campaign and branding, and/or provided a license to use our trademark.
Why it matters
In the US, a full three quarters of artists made $10,000 or less per year from their art and 48.7 percent made no more than $5,000, according to a report commissioned by Artfinder in 2017. Nearly half of the artists surveyed (47 percent) said their artistic practice accounted for less than 25 percent of their total income, according to the Artfinder report.
Almost 60 percent of visual artists said that they make less than $30,000 per year. Nearly half said they earn less than 10% of their income from their art. – The Creative Independent, “A Study on the Financial State of Visual Artists Today,” 2018.
We want more artists fed and happy – it’s that simple.
