THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Gary Levine:
Hi, this is Gary Levine of Roaring Brook Art Licensing and you’re listening to The Inspiration Place Podcast with Miriam Schulman.
It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to The Inspiration Place Podcast, an art world inside a podcast, for artists, by an artist where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
This is episode 10 of The Inspiration Place podcast and today I have art agent and owner of Roaring Brook Art Licensing, Gary Levine. The reason I invited you Gary is because we’re going to dig deep into what art agents are looking for, whether you work in multiple styles, if you’re ever wondered how much money you can make as a licensed artist, all that is covered in this episode. Gary is passionate about art and has spent the better part of his career working and selling to mass market retail. Roaring Brook Art Licensing puts together his passion and knowledge, marketing and licensing commercial designs to wholesalers and retailers, both brick and mortar as well as e-commerce. Roaring Brook’s focus and relationships include contracts with manufacturers in the home decor, gift, housewares and stationary industries in such products as dinnerware, bath accessories, kitchen textiles, wall decor, outdoor entertaining, paper and party products, storage boxes and bedding. So Gary, thank you so much for coming on today. I’m so excited to talk to you.
Gary Levine:
It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me. I’m new to you.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I know. I should give you actually a little more context about me as well. So I am a professional artist and my audience are not so professional, but with the podcast that might change, there’s a lot of artists wannabes that I serve. But there’s also of course professional artists who follow me as well. And I teach online art classes. That’s really my bread and butter as well as sell my art online and in Westchester and also online across, not just Westchester, but wherever online takes me. So that’s my background.
Gary Levine:
I had no idea when we met that that was the case. That’s very cool. So this podcast was kind of born out of people probably asking you about what you do and where your art goes and I guess, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Well, it’s been more of a passion project for me. I started writing for Professional Artist Magazine and I was having a lot of fun interviewing people and I love the access that being a member of the press gave me. So I knew that podcasting would basically take that to the next level.
Gary Levine:
Okay nice.
Miriam Schulman:
So yeah, so I’m doing this also to serve my audience, but I’m also following my curiosity with this podcast.
Gary Levine:
Very cool. I applaud you for that. That’s very interesting and that’s awesome. Good for you.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I also call it my empty nest project.
Gary Levine:
Right. Yeah. Okay. There’s that too. You never know where it leads to and, if nothing else, if you’re satisfying some passion or desire or whatever, then that’s great. It’s filling a need and you’re probably happier as a result.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. So you’re episode number 10 and it’s going to launch next month.
Gary Levine:
Okay, excellent. And then by the way, there’s some editing that I think is that what happens? You do some editing after or it just pretty much follows along and it is what it is.
Miriam Schulman:
I can tease you and say everything you just said can and will be used. But no, it is edited. So that’s why I like to start recording basically in order, but if there’s anything that we’ve said in the beginning that I feel it’s kind of is good human interest, I’ll use that as well. Well to relax you, if you flub up it will be edited. Put it that way.
Gary Levine:
Okay. Yeah. It is what it is, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Gary Levine:
Okay.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes, we will make you sound very, very good though. All right, so I have a lot of questions today pulled from artists from all walks of life, many of whom want to break into art licensing. But before we get to those questions, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your business. Is that okay?
Gary Levine:
Yeah, sure.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. All right. So, first of all, that’s a lot of different industries. Who would you say are your top clients?
Gary Levine:
So if I have to encapsulate and summarize, it’s really the home decor industry is who we service and the products that you named are really fall under that umbrella. So we really primarily work with and target our accounts that are in tabletop, in stationary, housewares, the textile industry and all those companies that then sell and manufacture and sell home decor products.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So if I were to walk into Bed Bath and Beyond, so are they your client or do you serve as vendors who then sell to Bed Bath and Beyond?
Gary Levine:
So good question. We primarily work with and contract with the manufacturers, otherwise known as the licensees, who then license our designs, put it on their products and they then sell to, in this case, Bed Bath and Beyond for your example.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. All right. So then could you just explain this workflow from concept to product without getting too detailed just to, like the cocktail explanation of what happens.
Gary Levine:
Sure. Yeah. Okay. So we really work from two different sides of the equation. One is that we work with the artists, we engage in dialogue and we give them direction and we talk about what we would like to see developed in terms of themes and colors and designs. On the other side of it, we do get input and requests for designs that are from the manufacturers. In fact, oftentimes those would be directives from the retailers themselves. So it’s really a conversation that’s happening on two sides of the table and Roaring Brook is really in the center of that. So if an artist would like to submit designs to us, really what they’re imagining and what they’re creating and what’s in their head, we welcome that and there is a lot that sold from that. And then at the same hand, the other side of it is that we’ll get input specifically for certain projects. We would then pose to the artist and have them create based on those specs.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So which is the more likely scenario? Is it that somebody who’s a napkin producer forget like Casper or whoever, do they come to you and say, “We really want a party napkin with giraffes on it”? Or is it the other way around where you see an artist, in their portfolio, that they have party giraffes and you say, “Oh, this would be perfect for that napkin manufacturer.”
Gary Levine:
So it works both ways. It really does depend on who the account is, who the manufacturer is. It can often be the case where we would have the portfolio from the artist and this is what they’ve worked on and perhaps Roaring Brook has given the artists some direction based on what they’ve shown us and there’s that dialogue without even presenting that to the account. And then we would, at a trade show or a sales meeting, we would present to, in your case, the napkin company, all of the designs that the artist has created. And this would be our spring line, for example.
Gary Levine:
So another company might then look at or even that napkin company might even say, “Well we like these designs. How about we focus a little bit on some fall colors?” Because that’s really the buying season that we’re in right now. Even though it’s spring, the buyers are looking to stock their shelves with items that are going to be in the fall. So we need items that have fall colors. So we might’ve presented a portfolio that had predominantly, let’s say spring colors, pastels or lighter, brighter colors. So that input then might come from the manufacturer and then we’d have to… So again, you could begin to appreciate the dialogue, the back and forth.
Miriam Schulman:
And then how far in advance are manufacturers designing collections? Six months, a year? I was told like Christmas, it’s a full year in advance that they are planning their holiday collections. Is that true?
Gary Levine:
Yes. Christmas is probably one of the most planned programs for any retailer. That’s an excellent example of a very significant lead time. In fact, it’s even a little longer than a year. We’re currently, this is a July, we have a Christmas portfolio. The artists have made their submissions and we’re now out on the road selling the Christmas designs for Christmas 2019. But to understand though, that’s in the stores late September, early October, so you have to work backwards and imagine them, okay, this is July. Then the manufacturers need to put their samples together, incorporating the designs. They then have their meetings, their trade shows and so on. And buyers are really making their decisions probably more like in the January timeframe, they might be putting their buys to bed for the following Christmas season. So that’s a rough timeframe.
Gary Levine:
Other examples may not work that far in advance. There are many times where we’re presented with an opportunity for a promotion and that promotion might be a last minute open to buy. When I say last minute, it might only be three months out and that could be a very quick, “We need the designs today.” Turn it around, product gets in the store shipped in three months.
Miriam Schulman:
And where would you say the balance is in terms of the taste maker? Do you feel like that’s more you or the retailer? Like who gets the most influence in what ends up being a trend in the store?
Gary Levine:
Well the retailers like to drive a lot of that. They prepare trend reports. They’re quite often vocal about what they view as what they want. They give that directive. On the other hand, I spend a lot of time out at trade shows, shopping with quotes on that and for example, last week I was at the Atlanta Gift Show and besides meeting with my clients, I was looking at what the buyers were looking at in the showrooms. What were the trends and what are we seeing colors, designs, what are the metals that are showing, what are the fabrics that are on the products? And so I came back with pages and pages of notes that then I share with my artists and we have that dialogue in an art review session and they then will decide with us what they would like to create. So based on the trends that we saw.
Gary Levine:
So again, it really works from different angles. And for the same matter, the other day I had an artist come to me and said, “Hey, I was just out shopping at the store and I saw there was cotton ball and farmhouse, it was everywhere. And do you want me to create something to…” They have ideas too of what they’re seeing or they might be walking with me at a trade show and so they have their ideas as well. So again, there is no one place where the trend comes from.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s going to lead to now some of these other questions that I told you that people who are aspiring to be licensed artists have been asking. And they want to know like here… Okay, we’ll start with the first one, the first artist wanted to know, and I don’t know the gender of any of these, I didn’t write down who they were from, but someone wants to know how to develop a distinctive color palette while still being able to design on trend. So I’m assuming this person is trying to develop their own style and color palette and yet is thinking about pleasing what manufacturers are looking for. What would you say to that?
Gary Levine:
So I will say that art is visual. Okay. And I’ve been doing this a long time. Roaring Brook is, by the way, we’re having our 15th anniversary next week.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh wow. Congratulations.
Gary Levine:
Thank you. Prior to that, I’d been in the industry for a number of years before that. And one thing I can tell you related to the question is that I really would have to see it to understand what’s the aesthetic, what’s the style, what’s the hand, to really know then, “Oh, that would be a great look for” to use your example before, “on napkins” or “Oh wow, this is a really great hand. This artist has some skill with repeats. They might be good for textiles or for bedding, for shower curtains.” To that another artist might just be more free flow, free hand and they might have a certain aesthetic that might lend itself for wall decor, large over the sofa big canvases. It really does depend on the style and from there… And that is the benefit of working with an agent and someone that’s been working placing designs in the industry is that myself and my team who are also experienced have a sense of what the designs are by looking at the hand and where that might best be placed.
Miriam Schulman:
So this brings me to another question that I hear from people a lot. They want to know if as an agent, when you’re presented with a portfolio, is it a good thing or a bad thing if an artist works in multiple styles?
Gary Levine:
So it actually ultimately can be a very good thing that they work in multiple styles. The asterisk or the footnote, if you will, is that if they’re working in multiple styles at the onset and they’re just throwing spaghetti on the wall so to speak, that can be very frustrating.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay.
Gary Levine:
So I have found that, it’s really right down the middle that I’ve been interested in an artist who has a very specific hand and a very specific look and not multiple styles. And then I’ve also been drawn to artists who have multiple looks. And really from there we get into a conversation and we try to focus the multiple look artist to focus on one look and kind of run with that.
Gary Levine:
And similarly, I’ve taken the artist with one look and we’ve run with that and we’ve had placement and it works and then surprisingly we discover, including the artists that there’s a new style that’s born and they may have been experimenting, they may have taken your class, they might have something. There’s another part of them that in the process of working and doing this kind of work, they discover, “Wow, well, okay. You know, I’ve only worked with acrylics, I’m going to try pen and ink now. This is like a new thing for me and wow, this is fun.” And now suddenly that one hand artist now is onto something else. So again, there’s really no one right path. It often does help to really focus on one look and then really move on to the next one.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. And then here is a good, I feel like that this is a good question. When seeking out an agent, artists are going to look for someone who they feel their art fits in with the other artists. But then that begs the question, if they already have that kind of art, do they really need your art?
Gary Levine:
Very good question. We often get artists coming to us who have looked at the Roaring Brook website. Some of them have said to us, those who have actually made submissions or have reached out to contact us, we’ve had discussions initially and they say, “Well it looks like you’re covered with this. So I actually was a little reluctant to make a submission or contact you.” Again it’s a visual business, what they might perceive as, “Oh, you’ve got it covered.” Might, in my team’s opinion, be so far from the truth with that, that we might look at something and say, “Wow, okay, well sure they can paint shells and flowers and light houses. Like we’ve got that, but look at the richness of these colors and look at the sweeping strokes that they use with their painterly style. And this is just so unique and this is just really different and like nothing we have.” So it is a conversation.
Miriam Schulman:
Interesting. Okay. And another question. Okay. So here’s a great question. What turns you off when viewing someone’s portfolio?
Gary Levine:
Well, I do appreciate when artists look at the Roaring Brook website first and understand what our business is. With that said, I would say a turnoff is when there’s political art or art that’s just so abstract. And I don’t mean… We like abstracts, but I’m saying so abstract to what the core Roaring Brook business is that there’s almost a lack of connection really to at all, “Oh, I thought I’d show you this.” And it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” It’s like dark and scary and that can be a turnoff.
Miriam Schulman:
You would never put it on a napkin.
Gary Levine:
Not on a napkin, no.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. When artists do have more than one style, would you prefer them to submit multiple pieces in each collection? I would assume that if they are working in more than one style they need to present to you as a collection that style and another collection. How many pieces are you looking for when artists submit to you? Can you dive in a little bit deeper into what the submission process is? That might answer a lot of these questions.
Gary Levine:
Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, great.
Gary Levine:
I will say very proudly, Roaring Brooks’ website has a wonderful contact us button, roaringbrookart.com, go on the tab and there’s a button that says contact and then the drop down, there’s an artist submission tab and you walk through it with your name and contact details. And it gives you the opportunity to upload whatever you’d like, a PDF, JPEG, TIFFs, whatever. And you can upload one file, you can upload a dozen files, one file might have 50 images on it. So that’s a really great way to get the artist’s work in front of us and my product review team, because we get submissions daily, multiple submissions daily and we do look at them. We don’t necessarily look at them that day, but we’d look at everything and we do make decisions regarding that.
Gary Levine:
But just regarding the actual submission, we do like to look at the breadth of the artist’s work. If there are multiple styles, show them to us. We want to see it all. And yet for that matter there might be a case of an artist has done just some beautiful decorative work and then similarly to the question before about what turns you off they might also have this other kind of strange dark collection that has nothing to do with the Roaring Brook genre of what we might be looking for. But they show it to us anyway. And in that case it’s there, we’ll-
Miriam Schulman:
You won’t hold it against them?
Gary Levine:
We won’t hold it against them. Right. But generally speaking, I would say that artists who have multiple styles, they would say, “Oh, well here’s my pastel work.” For example and then there might be a half a dozen images in that group. This is all in the submission process, they might say, “Well, but we’ve been doing work with acrylics for many, many more years.” So there might actually be more of those. There might be 50 examples of acrylics in different genres, landscapes and florals, things in nature, et cetera. So yeah, we want to see the different mediums. We want to see the different styles. Some artists also are really surface pattern designers and they’re not necessarily fine art artists, but they would consider them more like surface designers. So they show us collections of things that they’ve done for companies that they might have licensed to on their own or that they’ve taken lessons and they’ve gotten into learning how to do repeats. “And so what do you think Roaring Brook, would you consider this?” So multiple genres that we look at and that we do consider.
Miriam Schulman:
And then how many artists do you represent at a time?
Gary Levine:
So if you were to go on the website, you would see that we have quite a few artists that are on our artists tab. I will tell you that it’s probably just natural for any business to work like this, that there are certain artists of the entire group, there’s really anywhere from 6 to 10 of them that are going to rise to the surface. Imagine as our bestselling artists and best-selling in that they’ve become bestselling over time. They’ve had a formula, whether that be the dialogue with Roaring Brook or that the retailer has had a success with sell throughs. So there’s all different ways that people kind of rise to the surface. But ultimately there’s a core group and I just would like to say to the listeners too, that it is not out of the question for any one person to rise to the surface.
Miriam Schulman:
So it’s kind of like the Yankees, they have their A-team and then you’re in the dugout so?
Gary Levine:
Well, yeah, yeah. But you know, to use that example, it isn’t to say though that someone in the dugout isn’t going to work hard and have the right connections and just put their mind to the game, in your example, and really then emerge as a superstar. I don’t want to leave the impression that if you’re in the dugout, well then you’re part of the B-team.
Miriam Schulman:
Right. Well you still get some playing time just-
Gary Levine:
Absolutely. And maybe you’re only going to play a half an inning right now, but you might be a full time nine inning player ultimately maybe next year as we build a portfolio and we start getting placement.
Miriam Schulman:
Now for your stars, are you able to share some sort of income numbers that somebody could expect to get if they are an active art licensed artist?
Gary Levine:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
Great.
Gary Levine:
Yes, absolutely. Happy to share. So I want to first say that it’s a process, okay. That the artists who are the superstars and some of them do take home a very nice six figure income for the end of the year, annually. They didn’t start out day one with a six figure income. Okay. It’s a process that, as I said before, that they started with maybe their first quarter they might have earned $200. And by the way, that’s also not unimportant to mention about the time and the timing. I have artists that have been on board with me for over a year and they’re just now starting to earn royalty revenue. So they’re-
Miriam Schulman:
Because of what we talked about how long it might take for a design once a manufacturer commits to it and then that Santa ends up in the store.
Gary Levine:
Exactly. Yeah. That’s a perfect example of if you, the artist, worked on the Santa in last January and then it’s first getting to the Roaring Brook portfolio because we found each other in June and then we’re first turning it around in July and August and hitting the road and showing it to all of our clients. They’re then deciding and picking and if that Santa makes in the final leg and it’s selected, then the samples are made and then they’re first then shown to the buyers. So from the time that that Santa was created to the time that the buyers are actually seeing it, that might be a whole year right there. And then of course, once the product is actually shipped, say sometime made six to eight months later and then we would first see the royalty the following quarter. So you do the math on that Santa from the time it’s created to the time that the royalty’s actually collected could actually, in that particular example, it could be close to 18 months when we’re seeing the revenue start to come in.
Gary Levine:
So anyway, it is a process. And I have artists, again, they’re making in the six figure range that they didn’t start that way, but some of them have been with me for 10, 12 years and they’ve just over time have built up their revenue.
Miriam Schulman:
And do you mean low six figures? Is that what we’re talking about?
Gary Levine:
So I would say when you say low six figures, so some of them are making, yeah, anywhere from 125, 150 so like the mid 100s, low to mid 100s.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. All right. Terrific. All right Gary. So this was definitely an interesting conversation. I really can’t wait to share it with my podcast listeners. Is there anything else that you want to share with them before we wrap up?
Gary Levine:
So yeah, thank you by the way, this has been a great conversation and some excellent questions I might add. So I would say to add that we love art and as you articulated in the opening that I’m passionate and my team is very passionate about what we do. We love seeing creativity, it’s just part of our DNA. And for all the listeners I would say keep at what you do and really refine your talent and just keep creating and submit it and show us what that’s all about. We want to see you. We want to see you as an artist. And to that, I’ll say that trends are changing. We certainly know that the retail marketplace is changing a lot of movement to online sales. While there may not exactly be a place for a particular piece of art or a specific portfolio, we do hold onto our submissions and I would say keep putting it in front of us. And as I said the market continues to evolve and turn into something new tomorrow that it wasn’t yesterday and that just calls for new and different art needs as well.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s great. So where should people come to find you? Should they look for you on your website?
Gary Levine:
Yep, you can certainly read about us. The most information is on the Roaring Brook website, which is roaringbrookart.com. You can find us on Instagram, @roaringbrookart, and again look for us on Facebook, Roaring Brook Art. And we are on Twitter as well, @RoaringBrookArt.
Miriam Schulman:
Awesome.
Gary Levine:
So we’re well circulated, our social media program is building and even more relevant today than ever. So yeah, we’d love to meet any and all artists who are happy to submit.
Miriam Schulman:
I’ll make sure I’ll put all those links in our show notes and that will be schulmanart.com/10, because this is episode number 10, so anything that we talked about today, there’ll be links to that there. So thanks again so much for your time, Gary. I really appreciate it.
Gary Levine:
My pleasure. This was great. Thank you.
Miriam Schulman:
Well there you have it. If you ever thought about getting into art licensing, that definitely gives you an overview of how to get started. If you enjoyed the show, I would love to hear from you. Leave a review on iTunes. I would love to hear an honest five star review and your comment. You can also subscribe in iTunes, The Inspiration Place and you can also drop me an email. I would love to hear from you, miriam@schulmanart.com. So that’s it for now and I’ll see you next time.
Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram, @schulmanart, and of course on schulmanart.com.
Miriam Schulman:
You can do more than one take, also.
Gary Levine:
Hi, this is Gary Levine, and… Take two. I forgot to name where I’m from.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s okay.
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