Building Relationships in Art - Creating with People, Not Just For The

Building Relationships in Art — Creating With People, Not Just For Them

by Theresa Zingg — theresazingg.com

When you run an online art business, the hardest truth to accept is this:

Creating the artwork is often the easiest part.
Letting people find it — and care about it — is the real work.

For many artists, marketing feels unnatural because art begins privately. It starts as intuition, memory, emotion, or curiosity. Marketing, on the other hand, asks you to speak outwardly. To repeat yourself. To explain what was never meant to be explained.

But over time I’ve realized something important:

Marketing isn’t promotion.
It’s relationship-building.

And relationships change how you create.

Art Stops Being a Product — It Becomes a Connection

Early on, it’s tempting to make work in isolation and then present it to the world fully formed.
Post it. List it. Hope someone understands it.

But collectors don’t connect to finished objects —
they connect to stories unfolding.

When people watch a painting develop — the uncertain marks, the erased passages, the quiet decisions — the artwork stops being an object and becomes an experience they shared with you.

They remember:

where the figure first appeared
when the colors shifted
the moment it almost failed
the point it came alive

By the time the painting is finished, they’re not discovering it.

They’ve been part of it.

That is the beginning of a relationship.

Creating For Customers vs Creating Because Of Them

There is a fear artists often carry:
“If I think about buyers, I’ll lose authenticity.”

But the opposite has been true for me.

I don’t change what I want to paint.
I change what I choose to show and share.

Collectors consistently respond to:

gradual evolution
layered surfaces
emotional ambiguity
forms that suggest a presence without defining it

Not because they were told to — but because they were allowed to witness it slowly.

So the work remains intuitive.
But awareness grows around it.

You begin to notice what resonates, not to imitate it, but to understand how people emotionally enter your world.

You’re not creating to satisfy customers.
You’re creating in conversation with them.

Why Marketing Feels Difficult for Artists

Marketing is uncomfortable because it asks artists to:

repeat the same ideas
talk about unfinished work
explain things that feel instinctive
show up consistently even when nothing sells

It feels performative when what you value is sincerity.

But marketing only feels false when it becomes persuasion.

When it becomes documentation, it feels honest again.

Instead of saying:

“Buy this painting”

You say:

“Here’s what I’m exploring right now.”

And the right people stay.

The Long Timeline of Trust

Art sales rarely come from a single post.

They come from quiet familiarity.

Someone sees your work…
then again weeks later…
then watches a painting develop…
then recognizes your atmosphere…
then imagines living with it…

Months can pass before a purchase.
Sometimes years.

The relationship forms before the transaction ever exists.

That changes how success feels.

A post with no sale isn’t failure —
it’s recognition being planted.

The Real Role of an Artist Online

An online art practice isn’t only a gallery.

It’s a studio with the door open.

People don’t just want finished paintings —
they want to understand how you see.

And over time, the goal shifts:

Not to convince someone to buy
but to let the right person realize
they’ve already been living with the work in their mind.

Closing Thought

Marketing becomes difficult when we think of it as selling.

It becomes meaningful when we see it as letting others stay near the process.

The artwork is the result —
but the relationship is the reason it matters.

And often, the collector doesn’t appear at the end of the painting.

They appear somewhere in the middle of it.

Building Relationships in Art - Creating with People, Not Just For Them