We often get asked this question by both customers and artists. Well, we find artists in a couple of ways: we discover them, and they discover us.

Before we opened art251, Kim and I spend about 4 months looking for artists. We visited galleries, artist studios and art shows. We read art magazines. We looked at artists’ websites. We listened to friends. We used the great tubes of the internet, we used the Google.

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So, here’s a quick summary of the process.

  1. Search for local artists in local galleries, local artist directories and event / listings services.
  2. Search online, search online, and search online.
  3. Collect detailed information (no snooping in artist’s trash) about all artists and their art.
  4. Categorize by media type.
  5. Group in order of priority (based on our top secret art251 formula).
  6. Invite first, then next, group of artists.
  7. Go back to #1, and repeat.

Our searching lead us to around 400-500 local artists. We were, and continue to be, amazed at the breadth and depth of local artistic talent.

Recently, and now that the art251 doors have opened, artists have begun to find us. They find us through friends and other artists. They find us via other galleries. They find us through the vastness of cyberspace and, of course, the Google

So, if you’re an artist, especially an emerging one and have yet to expose your work to the world, or the neighborhood for that matter, here’s what to do. Follow our artist submission guidelines, and then take the next step towards finding us and letting others discover you and your art.