Alex Farkas, Artist & Gallery Director: The Genesis & Journey of UGallery
Welcome to The Truth in His Heart, your go to podcast for engaging with the creative world. I am your host, Rob Lee. And today, I am thrilled to introduce a co founder and the visionary gallery director of U Gallery. Since 2006, he has been revolutionizing the way that artists discovered and collected, making it accessible beyond the traditional gallery scene. His commitment to emerging artists and exclusive curated selections has set U Gallery apart in the digital art marketplace.
Rob Lee:Please welcome Alex Farkas. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Great to be here. Thank you for coming on.
Rob Lee:Thank you for making the time, and, it's always a privilege to, 1, chat with someone before we we get into, you know, the actual, like, pod because, you know, sometimes it has that vibe of, alright, content, make it, but also being able to talk to another bespectacled person. I always have to point that out. When people are wearing glasses, it's good to have that conversation. I like your shades too. They're cool.
Rob Lee:Much appreciated. So before we dive into, like, the deeper questions about You Gallery and, like, your journey into sort of the art world creativity, I'd love for you and I'd and I'd like to give the space to have you introduce yourself. I I think there's a lot there. I'm gonna go off of the, you know, what was shared with me, sort of the online stuff, but I think there are pieces that we leave out that might be very important. There are pieces that, this is professional sounding one, but I want to get the essence of you from you.
Alex Farkas:Okay. Sounds good. Where should we start?
Rob Lee:Give give us your introduction. How would you introduce yourself?
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Absolutely. So, from the way back, I grew up in, Jerome, Arizona. It's a small, former mine town turned ghost town turned artist community. My mom was a hippie and a potter, so I grew up in her studio and also her little gallery space and kind of watched that business grow.
Alex Farkas:It's, really a fascinating place. It's perched up on the side of a mountain, a bunch of artists, trying to make a living and do something a little different. So I think, from the time I was born, really, I was kind of already being immersed in the art world and more or less just people trying to be creative and do something different. And so that was with me for, all my childhood. And then later on, I went to the University of Arizona where I studied art history and entrepreneurship.
Alex Farkas:There is this really fantastic program in the school where over the course of a year, they help you write a business plan. They teach you how to pitch it. And then if they like it, they send you to some case competitions. And so I had this idea with my classmates that we could create an online gallery space that we'd help promote, emerging and student artists. People who I was seeing in my art history classes and sculpture classes at the UofA, who are making really fantastic work, but having this difficulty leaping into the professional space.
Alex Farkas:So we came up with the idea for U Gallery. The school really liked it, and they sent us to a couple of these case competitions. We We went to one that was kind of the premier national competition here in the US and an international one in Canada, and they had cast prizes. We happened to win both of them, and that was 2006. So we launched u Gallery, and I've been doing that ever since.
Alex Farkas:It's pretty much been my whole career and the only real job I've had. So, I've been doing the online art space for quite some time now.
Rob Lee:Well, shout out to you. We're definitely gonna dive a little bit further in there, but that is that's good. It's good to get back because it's like we're inextricably connected. It's me and You Gallery. Ghost Town Art, You Gallery.
Rob Lee:And, Yeah. Because I was looking at it and I think a lot of times, you know, where we're from plays a role in kind of how we approach what we do creatively. Like, I'm from Baltimore and there is definitely this DIY scene and just figuring it out, a sort of blue collar energy, a blue collar vibe, and also this this underdog, this unappreciated thing, and all of those things, I think, in part, how I approach what I do. It's like, I'm gonna figure this out. I don't have the means all the time, but I'm gonna figure it out and get good stuff from that.
Rob Lee:So speak a bit about sort of maybe your sensibilities and, you know, sort of like the the laying the foundation in the framework of You Gallery and how sort of your upbringing has has an impact and has bearing on that.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. I think that's fascinating. Definitely, I think growing up with my mom, single mom, she was a potter, and then she really transitioned from making her own pottery to selling other artists' work so she could kind of grow her business. And that was my whole childhood, basically. And really, a lot of my kind of foundational beliefs about business come from her.
Alex Farkas:She was super hardworking. I remember waking up sometimes late at night and she would be downstairs working in her studio, outside making things that she could sell in her store. There were all these times where I think she really pushed herself to grow her business, and she was totally self funded and everything else. So anytime she wanted to make a change in her life, it was all done by her. And so that has been really influential, I think, in the way I think about You Gallery.
Alex Farkas:And we we did have our cash prizes when we started the company, and we pooled our earnings. But from there, we really thought right from the very early days, how can we make the most out of every cent we have in the bank account to grow the business? And I think that's one of the reasons why we succeeded. In the early days, we were able to get the company off the ground and then why we still function today because, we're very conscious of what each of our efforts means to the business and how really every dollar in the business counts. I think about all these kind of early moments where we had success, and a lot of it was because we were really good at hustling.
Alex Farkas:And I definitely believe that comes from my mom. And she still helps with the business today after all these years. She's been one of the people who's helped me curate U Gallery because we're a curated online art gallery. So all the artists we represent and all the pieces we show are chosen by us. And really from the very first days, she kind of showed me what that means to do that since she had all those years of experience.
Alex Farkas:And so it's really you know, you can't get away from where you grow up. And I even think to the extent there was a time before U Gallery where my mom wanted me to take her business. And, I was really resistant. I just didn't wanna do that business. And it was funny how it came back around to me.
Alex Farkas:And I do love it, but we just we somehow can't get away from where we start.
Rob Lee:Right. And definitely, the the family dynamic definitely plays a role in it. And, again, how you approach things, like, I was one of those, you know, as always, education was a big thing. Figuring out your own lane was a big thing. And, with with, you know, and with my parents, mainly my dad.
Rob Lee:And it also would be sort of this he didn't say it, but his action because he would show us, like, this is how I work. This is how I go about what I do. It was, like, absolutely work smarter, not harder. And the convergence is, like, both for me. It's, like, I'm still the same guy that in 4 years have done 700 plus interviews.
Rob Lee:And Yeah. The day job with all the other responsibilities in real life, but sort of the working smarter thing comes in of, like, alright. What can I offload? You know, like, can I get an assistant? And so the DIY component, the Baltimore thing I mentioned earlier of.
Rob Lee:All right. Every cent as you were touching on, every cent that comes in, I have to account for it and figure out how it's going to be used with the most impact that I can get from it.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, funny you say that. I think I learned how to work really hard, but it took me a long time to figure out how to work smarter too, which is good because I did get there over time. But, that is a great lesson to have as well so that you don't kill yourself at your business.
Alex Farkas:Look.
Rob Lee:You're you're not wrong about that. I mean, I had this sort of end of year conversation a couple years ago through, creative mornings, and, few of the the guests that were there to listen to me share my story. They they, you know, asking questions at the end. So, Rob, when are you taking a break? I was like, oh, right.
Rob Lee:Self care, sleep. I don't do that well. And, having to, in this sort of public way, confront that internally because, you know, when people are asking you questions, like, I'm the interviewer. You know what I mean?
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Yeah. I totally know that. When we first started u gallery, I I launched it with my, friend partner from school, and we rented a little house in Phoenix. And, it was a 3 bedroom house.
Alex Farkas:He and I lived there. We had a 3rd friend come live there to help offset the cost, so we could, make rent. And then we worked in the room next door, and it was just 24 hours a day of get up early, just go right from bedroom to the desk, sit down, start working, take a short break for lunch. We used to drive down the street. There was a Costco about a mile down the road.
Alex Farkas:We'd go there to get a hotdog, because that was the cheapest thing we could find to eat at the time. And then just go back, and we'd work, you know, till midnight or after, and then go back to bed, and that was it. And we just, you know, rinse and repeat. It's a very fascinating time. But then, like I said, we we eventually got a little bit more savvy about how to balance the life and, made it sustainable, obviously, because I've been doing it for 18 years now.
Alex Farkas:So, you kind of have to find some balance. Otherwise, that won't that won't last.
Rob Lee:You You you almost gotta give yourself, like, the the extra allowance. It's like, yeah. I've been doing this nearly 2 decades, which sounds either sexier. Because, I mean, 18 years is a That
Alex Farkas:sounds pretty good. I like that. Yeah. Off the off the keep that.
Rob Lee:So talk a bit about well, one, I I want to get sort of the mission that you did touch on it, but I want that to be out there a bit more, but also sort of like that early vision to where we're at now, nearly 2 decades in because, you know, you're touching on some of those humble earlier beginnings, those hard and long hours. So talk a bit about sort of the the mission and sort of the vision and how maybe that vision has has evolved over time.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. It's really interesting because I think, there are some similarities, a lot of similarities from the beginning, but the business has changed a lot as the space has changed too. When we first started the company, we really thought we're going to focus on student artists and recent graduates. That's who we want to represent. I think that's because who we were at the time too.
Alex Farkas:And we kind of, made the mistake of thinking we were our customer. But we learned a few things along the way. Certainly, we saw from the 1st year and a half or so. I traveled around. I visited art schools all over the country to recruit artists.
Alex Farkas:And when I was doing that, we were finding some really talented people. But after about a year and a half, we really kind of owned what we thought was the student art space. And at the same time, we were realizing student artists and recent graduates are kind of a tough bet for marketing because they haven't necessarily decided what they're gonna do, for 1, if they're gonna continue being artists long term or even what their style was gonna look like. And
Rob Lee:at
Alex Farkas:the same time, we were getting a lot of demand from artists who are much more established mid career artists who really wanted something like You Gallery to promote themselves. And so we kind of pivoted at that point about a year and a half in that we were gonna work with more emerging and established artists as well as student artists, but we weren't gonna focus all of our attention on that. And that really kind of unlocked the business for us in terms of what our aesthetic was. I still work with some of the same artists from back in 2,007, 2008, which is so cool. I mean, I think that speaks to the longevity of the business.
Alex Farkas:And really, we see ourselves much like a physical gallery, but with the benefit of being able to use the Internet to reach more people, both artists and customers. And so I think that is something so cool about what this space has blossomed into. When we first launched the business, people would say to us most often, is anyone actually gonna buy art on the Internet? And then I remember this was 2006, so people weren't buying stakes online. They weren't buying cars online, and art was really a final frontier.
Alex Farkas:How could you even possibly imagine buying something like a one of a kind piece of art from just looking at pictures? But so much changed in the space too, like camera phones. The iPhone hadn't even come out yet, so people didn't have easy ways to take pictures of of their artwork. And so all of that kind of development caught up with what we were doing in such a cool way. It really was good timing.
Alex Farkas:I think we were pretty early on, but right at the cusp of what was needed to make the business be successful. And then our mission has always really been to promote emerging artists and spread the joy of collecting original art, and that's really still the mission. I think we've added in some bits as well. Certainly, we see this marriage of technology and what we call old school charm. So that's a lot of acting like a physical gallery in the sense of really representing artists, really choosing the art that we show.
Alex Farkas:There's a lot of art marketplaces that exist online, but they're very impersonal. They don't do much for artists other than give them a place to show their work, give them a page. And there's not a lot of interaction for customers. And we really feel like the point of View Gallery is to keep the human connection going with the art, but just reach more people. And I think that's really been, something that's evolved for us over time and also better understanding our customers in that space to be able to do that.
Rob Lee:So and and thank you. Because, I think the human element is is really important, and I've I've been playing with this even today. Like, you know, you get into what you do. And I was touching on a little bit earlier about, you know, before we got started, sort of my process and all of that different stuff. And I found that I go into these and all of that different stuff.
Rob Lee:And I found that I go into these conversations with the, aspiration to connect. You know, people are sharing sort of their work, their process, their babies, and, you know, we're all sensitive about what we do. And, you know, I I I was finding things felt like they were lacking. I'm like, there's a lack of personal connection that's there sometimes. And, you know, someone's telling you about, you know, this is, you know, from my late this this is this is inspired by my late grandparent or something along those lines, and then you're just rifling off questions, but you're not taking a moment.
Rob Lee:And I'm like, alright. How do I get back to that? Because something was lost along the way. And always kind of checking in, and it's it is that human element. And I think, you know, when that's missing because we live online, because all of these things are online and we're as we're recording this, coming up on, what, 4 years since since COVID, you know, that whole beginning of that that whole lockdown in that phase.
Rob Lee:And and I'll share this. It's kinda related to my point that, you know, one it was one day where and this is when this podcast kinda took off, I'll say, in 2020. This one day, just some random dude hit me on Instagram from Spain. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah.
Rob Lee:Let's go live. I was like, I don't know who you are. And he kept just just doing it. And see, I got on, and we were chopping it up, and he's like, you look like one of my friends. How's things going in the US?
Rob Lee:How's things going in the States? And it was just a human connection which felt so foreign. And, you know, there's a lot of weird things on online, but I think there's opportunities to have cool moments too to connect with people on a personal level. And something like art, which I enjoy, I appreciate, and I appreciate people being able to be creative, I think that that's a piece of it.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Totally. Well, I mean, I think that's always been the reason why I was interested in this business. Obviously, growing up in a small arts community, I was just living among, you know, my friends and family and, you know, neighbors, and I was just around art all the time. And so it was very natural, to talk about it, to be with artists.
Alex Farkas:And so there was really not a lot of barrier there for me, which I think can be the case with a lot of people getting to know art. There's kind of a barrier to feeling comfortable about it. And so that was in the very beginning stages. My thesis was we would create this company to help young people like myself feel more comfortable with owning original art. I thought, this is gonna be a platform where my friends, they're gonna be able to graduate from college and have their first original art instead of posters.
Alex Farkas:And certainly, what we learned over time was that wasn't our customer at all. Turns out there's kind of a joke even in the art world. Maybe you've heard this, but people say, that people start buying art after their last kid graduates from college, but before they buy their first sports car. And so I think that really plays true with who our customers we've, you know, learned over time that this person is older and more affluent. They've furnished their house.
Alex Farkas:They my friends needed to buy couches and dishware before they were able to buy art, and that was fine. But I think that that idea from the very beginning that I wanted to help people kind of connect with artists and feel more comfortable with original art, that's always still carried through. And we view ourselves, especially now, I think, 1st and foremost, as marketers who promote artists and artwork more than anything else. And part of that is being storytellers. Yeah.
Alex Farkas:Really a lot of what we do at the company is developing interesting stories about the artists that we work with, very specific pieces. We have kind of changed the format of a lot of the things we do, like our emails. For example, we send a couple emails a week to our clients, and they're written from me. And it's always just one story about one thing and really diving into who this one artist is or even just what the one artwork is about. Instead of trying to do this thing where we show a bunch of images and say, click on all these collections.
Alex Farkas:To me, that's really the nature of connecting people is telling a good story about it. So they feel comfortable talking about the artist or the artwork, which gets them more interested in owning it. And then again, having it in their home, having friends over and feeling good about saying, let me tell you about the art that I have in my house. And so that's that kind of cycle where connecting this really important ephemeral aspect of making art in the studio toiling away all the way to the point where it's in someone's house and being enjoyed. And that's the commercial side of it.
Alex Farkas:But they have to be linked, obviously, for this to be a business and for it to work. It's it's really it's very interesting.
Rob Lee:Thank you. You you you touched on earlier, you know, and even before we got started, like, visiting visiting here at the the local school with Bipmika and just some of the other schools that you've you've gone to, other art schools. Can you talk about, sort of, other means in which you've gone about discovering new artists and sort of measures that that come into play, you know, as far as being successful in today's market because I'd imagine it's changing all the time and having to be up to date. For instance, you know, for online. Right?
Rob Lee:You know, you were you were talking about sort of the iPhone and all of that earlier and sort of that being a boom for the visual component of here's good pictures, not just pictures, but good pictures of of your stuff on, like, Instagram. And then at a point, Instagram is like, we want video and I would imagine that was a shift. So talk a bit about the process of discovering, like, new artists and sort of, like, what measures are you taking with U gallery to to, you know, ensure success in today's market?
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Well, I think that's really interesting. It has changed over time. When we first launched U Gallery, we really came up with this, issue, chicken and the egg. We realized, well, we're trying to get customers, but we need artists in order to have something to sell.
Alex Farkas:And for the 1st year, we were offering artists $100 if they would simply just post 5 artworks on our website. That's how much we needed people to be part of the gallery. And then this whole process has changed over time. As we started to have more of a reputation, it was easier to invite people to come show their work. We were one of the early online galleries, so I think that helped.
Alex Farkas:And I from my perspective, at least, I think we've always kind of maintained a nice simple aesthetic. So that was important in getting people to be involved because it's really a two way street. We've always needed artists, but we need to provide a nice space for them in a nice working environment so they feel good about the artists and, the artwork that they're showing next to, and even that the website makes sense to them. So we kind of evolved over time. I did hit the road a lot in the early days.
Alex Farkas:Lots of art schools and shows, which I still like to go to. And then over time, we found that we could recruit more people online. It was a little bit more effective for our business because these people were already on the Internet, which means they had, one, the ability to photograph their work, which turns out to be probably the number one most important thing for our business that we can get good quality pictures. And we're really, you know, into helping coach people if we like the work, but they don't quite know how to do it. We'll give them the assistance to be able to shoot pictures.
Alex Farkas:But finding people online, that kind of broke that barrier down because we could see, oh, they're already taking good pictures of their work. And then I think as of the last few years, one of the most impactful things has been referrals from the other artists that we work with because we find that people are really happy with their experience with UGallery, and they kind of share a like minded aesthetic often or are of a similar caliber. So it's really kind of self fulfilling at this point. And I do still spend time searching online, still going to shows. I mentioned to you, I moved to Amsterdam this last year from California.
Alex Farkas:And so it's been kind of fun to revisit that process of when I had first landed in San Francisco, starting to go around, see the artist studios and galleries, and start to get a feel for the local work and invite people that way. But, really, I think at this point, because the gallery has matured, we have a reputation now, and that's probably been the best way to find new artists. And we also have a call for art. So we receive probably 50 to a 100 applications a week from people all over the world, which is so cool. It's been really interesting to watch that process change.
Rob Lee:Thank you. It's it's good to have that that trajectory that sort of, like, this is what it was, and we're always, like, tweaking, like, and always trying to figure out, like, sort of what's it gonna be? Like, you know, I I look at this, and this is in some ways a platform for folks to share their story the way that they would like to share it without being encumbered by, well, you can't say this in this way and, you know, just so you could tell when the person's not interested. I I don't know. And Yeah.
Rob Lee:So so I wanna get I wanna get this from you, because I'm very curious. Now some folks say, oh, there's no such thing as typical. You don't have this question. It's a new one. What's a typical day or even week look like for you?
Rob Lee:Like, especially these days. You're you're in Amsterdam now. So talk about that a little bit.
Alex Farkas:Well, one thing that's a big change for me, I started ViewGeller with my partner. And then in 2018, he was ready to make some life changes. He was starting a family, and he wanted to do some different business. He was, 1st and foremost, a finance guy. So he wanna start a finance company, which he did.
Alex Farkas:And so I had the opportunity to, buy out him and our other partner, and I took the business over with my wife. And so in some ways, it was a big shift because it became more of a family company overnight. And then two and a half years ago, we had a son, so that also changed my life, kind of, for the much better and very different for being a business person. And so I think even my typical days now are very different than they were a couple of years ago. We typically for the week, we spend time my wife and I spend time coming up with, strategy for the week and then also larger goal planning.
Alex Farkas:We kind of always evaluate where we're at with our monthly and yearly goals. And so that's a big part of what I do. And now I have a team. I have people working in a couple of different places. And so it's a lot about directing to them the operational tasks and marketing tasks that we're gonna do for the week and the month.
Alex Farkas:And I I work a lot less than I did. We were talking about working hard versus smart. Yeah. Really in the early days, you know, it was 60 hours a week was the basics. That's, like, what we were doing, you know.
Alex Farkas:But now I work much less than that. I'm probably working 20 to 30 hours a week now. And it's a lot on the marketing side of the business. That's really where I think we have the most opportunity to expand and grow what we're doing. This last year, we just completely redesigned U gallery.
Alex Farkas:We have been using the same website since when we launched in 2006, modernizing it, but it was still the base code. And so we spent over a year completely rewriting U gallery, redesigning it, logo, colors, fonts, everything. And so that was a big part of what I'd spent this last year doing. But really my goal on a weekly basis is to be reviewing our marketing efforts, thinking event again about the storytelling we're doing, planning for how we can create better content through our site and also getting it out there, like being on your podcast for 1. And, and so, you know, mostly I'm doing a lot of reading and writing.
Alex Farkas:That's where I spend my time. And that's very different than the early days when I was doing a lot of the doing. It's, it's a much better place to be.
Rob Lee:Yes. Because, Alex, I don't know if you know, but once you start getting into your thirties and your mid thirties, you're like, time is at a premium. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Rob Lee:You know, and, you know, with with doing this, like, I'm like, I I I do this, I do the day job, and I'm teaching at an art school currently. Yeah. So it's like, I you know, so really taking it down from just, what, 2 years ago, 3 years ago at this point, I did almost a podcast a day, releasing almost a podcast a day. So you can imagine, recording a batch. You're doing a lot in a given day with all of the other obligations.
Rob Lee:And as I, you know, was saying earlier, you know, having that that moment where it's almost the someone literally telling you, slow down, you know, when it comes to doing this because you don't want it to suffer. You want it to be more intentional. You want it to be, you know, just done well. Then and I like that you you you were touching on sort of a lot of the marketing stuff is happening, a lot of the storytelling is happening, and that aligns with what you were touching on earlier. Sort of like it's or, well, I'll paraphrase.
Rob Lee:It's almost the, you know, the person to person connection with it, that sort of connection, because, you you know, people are making decisions, you know, when you're having, you know, art at your home for sake of argument. You like, I'm very selective of what I bring in my house. Like, there are because of nature of what I do, you know, folks will reach out. Hey. Can I send you some prints?
Rob Lee:Appreciate it. Nah. And it's So I just don't keep a lot of stuff in the house anymore, but I appreciate the sentiment. And if it's something that isn't here, it's it's a connection to it. It's me and the person we we really vibe, we really connected, or I'm really feeling the peace or or something along those lines.
Rob Lee:That's the sort of that the the way that that formula goes for me. But it's not just everything and everywhere all at once that is a movie.
Alex Farkas:I can I can absolutely relate to that? It was really fascinating. I've certainly been careful about the art we've brought into the house over the years because, obviously, I'm around it all the time. When we moved last year, we shipped our belongings, and we moved into a house that was empty. And so for the 1st almost month, we just lived on, like, nothing, a mattress on the floor and a couple of things while we waited for our belongings to arrive and blank walls.
Alex Farkas:And then as we unpacked, we unpacked the things we needed first, like the furniture and the kitchen stuff. And the walls stayed blank for a while to the point where I at first, I thought, wow. I actually really like this. It was very interesting to have white walls. It was stark, but kind of refreshing.
Alex Farkas:And then after really, I if I'm being honest, 2 to 3 months when we really started unpacking the artwork, the things that came out of the boxes were the pieces that I was really missing. And that I was telling my wife, Leah, that as well, that I really wanted these pieces to be back in the house. And I could really feel that I was having a connection. I was missing the connection to those artworks. But as usual, some things didn't come back out of the boxes.
Alex Farkas:And that was a nice refresher to remind myself. But seeing the things that did go back up, they were all the works that had some kind of personal connection from the artists where we had a relationship, or they were things that represented a time and place, why why they ended up in our possession in the 1st place. And so it's a really fascinating thing to consider because I I mean, obviously, because of what I do, I was going to people's houses and I'm always looking at their walls, not judging, but just seeing what they put on their walls. And I think it's a very similar thing for most people that it's, things that are important to them, regardless of value or what they look like, it's they have some sort of really sentimental reason. And I see that a lot with the clients that we work with too.
Alex Farkas:People buy things that have special resonance for maybe where they live. They want art to remind them of that or especially they've moved away from a place or really, you know, particular styles, colors. People are very attracted to colors in an emotional way. It's fascinating to see that. If you can look at someone's kind of collection history and go, wow.
Alex Farkas:Okay. This this blue color really meant a lot to them. So it's always interesting to hear that from people though, because I don't think that gets talked about as much why we have the art in our home. You know, it's not just there because.
Rob Lee:You're you're right. It's, you know, I'm looking in where I'm recording it from my home studio. I'm looking at the pieces that I decided to put up and, you know, I'm like, oh, I have a few of my own pieces, and, you know, because I I used to paint, and I kinda just stopped, and I'm looking around. I'm like, oh, right. This is the stuff, and this is sort of the the the the room where we think weather magic where all of this creative stuff is just concentrated in this one room, and there are a few paintings in other parts of my house, but the majority of my cool stuff, the ones that are even more important, they're in the they're in a sacred room, the the studio space.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. I love that. That's really nice.
Rob Lee:So I I wanna get I wanna get this. You you were talking about sort of how much time you're you're spending on the marketing, and I'm curious, I have a background in entrepreneurship. I have a business degree though and, you know, so sort of this convergence of, entrepreneurship, art history, and just technology is there. I heard a little code talk, you know, coming out earlier. So, talk about sort of, like, some of those those challenges.
Rob Lee:You you were mentioning, you know, maybe, artists that weren't the most, you know, tech savvy or having the best sort of way to position their stuff online. Speak on the importance of of marketing because I even encountered that in doing this like it may be great interviews and so on, but somehow it might not meet the folks that it's supposed to meet. But then other times, it somehow gets me connected to you, and I'm like, oh, wow. How did that happen? So so speak a bit about that.
Alex Farkas:Well, I think for us, some of the major milestones in marketing were, 1, really finally understanding our customer. We've profiled her. She's a lady named Mary. She she has a whole sheet, where she lives, what she does for a living, about her kids and her family. And that really was very clarifying for us.
Alex Farkas:We went from saying we're an online gallery for everyone to actually, we're an online gallery for Mary, and, we speak to her in everything we do. All of our internal communications, all of the things that we blast out to customers, all of the paid advertising we do, that was a big deal because it totally shaped how we reach people. Because then we also could say, well, where does Mary hang out? It wasn't just, you know, guessing about that. So I think that was the first breakthrough.
Alex Farkas:And then once we kind of figured that out, we also really got very serious about saying we're only gonna invest marketing efforts in places that we can actually measure them. We had done a lot of things over the years. As you can imagine, being in business almost 2 decades, there was things we tried, like magazine advertising and, you know, doing a pop up show in a mall in Chicago, stuff like that, where it was maybe creative and looked good, but there was no way to actually gauge what we were getting back from it. And so I think those two events really converged to change and mature our marketing effort so that we can spend the vast majority of our time doing things that we can come back in a month or 3 months and say, how did it work for us? What can we make small tweaks to or big tweaks to and keep evolving forward?
Alex Farkas:And so I think for for us, you know, at this point now, it's really a lot about creating good content and finding ways to get it out there. I have been thinking a lot about what our next project should be. And I've been talking about this prior to us doing our website, but it got pushed off as, I I really wanna write a book for you, gallery, because I wanna create a lot more content, something that can be used as a way to really develop our kind of expertise in the space. Being published authors is a big deal, and I feel like that's another way that we can really use what we know, share it with people, and also use all the little pieces of what we write to put out there in the world for our lead magnets, for emails, and for, little snippets for, you know, talking to people and everything else. It's it's really, I think, for us at this point about just using our knowledge to to share that with people.
Rob Lee:Thank you. That's that's great. I mean, I'm I'm I'm picking it up. My background was in marketing early on, so I'm like, okay, I hear you. I say I hear a few things that sound familiar, and, and I and I like it, where when you're you're trying things, I call it, like, sort of, you mess around and you find out, sometimes there are things out there that, yeah, this is creative, this is interesting, I can say, I can check that off, I tried that in this way, I've done a few magazine things, I've done sort of billboards.
Rob Lee:I've done a few different things to help get this out there, but, you know, sort of having that persona of who the person is, who the listener is, who the ideal person, an audience of 1, some might say. And once you really have that refined, you're able to be laser focused and and I feel so business he's saying that, but be laser focused in who you're speaking to, how you're you're speaking to them and meeting them where they're at. So in doing this, sure, I can have the visual component, and I was very apprehensive of having the the video out there, but I don't really you know, I'm an audio guy, but there's not really an audio way of getting a full interview to an audience via, let's say, Instagram, for instance. So it's like, let's rethink that. Maybe let's start putting snippets of these interviews up there on Instagram or on the different platforms.
Rob Lee:And I've found that some people kinda encounter it that way. But the main thing is meeting the folks that I'm trying to target where they're at, and if I'm trying to target people who are listening, listening first, as to go through a listening platform. So Apple, I'm spending some time there. Spotify, I'm spending some time there and really targeting those efforts. And Yeah.
Rob Lee:Yeah. I think that's how you gotta go.
Alex Farkas:I think it relates to I mean, we're talking about artists too. It's funny, but all this relates to making art as well. I don't really, encourage artists to get too overly focused on how they make their art to speak to one person because I think you can't interfere too much with the creative process and still come out with a good result. But I do think there is an element of this with artists, having to spend time on their marketing and think about why they're making the things they do, at least at kind of a macro level. That's, you know, like the business term side of it, but thinking where do they want this art to end up broadly speaking.
Alex Farkas:One example I use often is if you're trying to make art to go in a museum, the one thing we know about museum art is it's all really big. So if you're making small paintings, you're not gonna end up in a museum at the end of the day probably. So thinking about, largely speaking, what is your end goal for how you're creating what you're creating really is very clarifying. Even that, kind of idea, the the kind of tired artist statement that artists don't like writing is really important because it is it's the mission statement of the artist, and it does change over time. So, you know, I really encourage people to sit and think about that stuff.
Alex Farkas:Even understanding that if you're a painter, you probably chose painting because that's your most successful way of communicating. Or if you chose making sculpture, you're a better sculptor than maybe you are a writer. But even so, it's still important to take a step back and realize it's important to kind of set your marketing intentions. And you get a lot farther in any field that you're doing if you can see, you know, who you're talking
Rob Lee:to. Thank you. So I got 2 more real questions before I get to those rapid fire questions because I you know, you type a fire one too. I've been I've been typing as we've been talking, by the way. So reflecting on the last, you know, as you said, the sexy 2 decades, you know, how do and what are the maybe larger ways that you feel that the online art world has, like, transformed?
Rob Lee:And with specific, you know, attention around sort of art buyers and collectors with their expectations, how has that shifted over, like, the last, like, about 2 decades?
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Well, I think kind of, like any business that existed online, Amazon had a huge impact on how we work. So things like free shipping, that was probably one of the major changes for us because we used to charge shipping on top of the art that we sold. And people would get sticker shock. Shipping art is expensive.
Alex Farkas:And if we said the painting's a $1,000, typically shipping is about 15 to 20% of the cost of the arts. They say, we're gonna add another $150 on top of that and people work on. So free shipping and along with that packaging, we, in the early days, had artist package things. We created this really elaborate relationship with UPS stores around the country. Artists would take their work to the UPS store.
Alex Farkas:We had an account with all the UPS stores so they could look us up. The store would package our in a myriad of different ways. Sometimes it'd be really professional. Sometimes they'd throw in a box with a bunch of packing peanuts and it'd be a mess in our client's home. So, about 10 years ago, we came up with this solution of shipping things in these really beautiful custom built art boxes.
Alex Farkas:It's 3 layers of high density foam, and the middle layer tears out. It's all perforated, so it fits the shape of the art perfectly. We send a box to the artist, comes to their studio or their house, and we also give them a prepaid shipping label and slap it on the box and send it off to the client. So I think some of that stuff we take for granted, but you have these companies like Amazon that totally revolutionized the ecommerce space. And it keeps happening, things that people expect Now free shipping now, it's faster shipping, stuff like that.
Alex Farkas:And so I think that has changed the online art market more than maybe just the space itself since it's still kind of a a niche place. There are more businesses, of course, that exist now than before, but they function pretty similarly. Mhmm.
Rob Lee:I
Alex Farkas:think one thing that I've hoped would happen is that we would see more more galleries like U Gallery in a way that were focused on fewer artists and being a little bit more curated because there are tons of marketplaces where there are a 1000000 artists with 5,000,000 artworks, and it's very overwhelming. The more art you look at, it's same as going to a museum. The more art you look at, the less any of it means to you. And so I have been hopeful that we would see more of the rise of kind of the independence. I don't know if that will happen, but I would like to see that.
Alex Farkas:That's that's kind of my vision for the future. But, really, we just, you know, have to keep up with the trends of what people expect from everyday ecommerce in order to be successful selling original art, which is kind of silly, but that's just the nature of humans.
Rob Lee:Yes. And, I I think you're you're you're there. And, you know, what I've what I've what I've heard, you know, in the in the sort of, like, time we'd be been talking is, you know, just it's always process improvements, always innovative, always, like, being aware of the scene you're in and, you know, trying to just make the best of what you have going on and really refining it. That's that's important. That's what I'm hearing.
Rob Lee:Like and I relate to it in doing this, so my hat's off to you with sort of that effort and just being aware of the changes that are going around that are there. Like, you know, you're right. I wouldn't even think of, like, oh, right. It it has to be shipped. Right.
Rob Lee:I have to get that. Art's big. Like, what are you thinking? Like, what are you like? Some pieces can be really big and really expensive to ship.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Totally. I mean, I think that's it. Once in any business, you can define what your core business is. You don't have to make a huge change to your model.
Alex Farkas:It is just improving over time to stay relevant. We view ourselves, especially now, when Lee and I talk about You Gallery, we say, we're building a 100 year business. We want this to be something that keeps growing and evolving. We even joke, well, You Gallery's still in its teenage years in so many ways. So who knows what it'll look like in 10 or 15 or 20 years?
Alex Farkas:But really thinking all the things we do each year. It's funny. You start doing your annual planning, and you think I'm gonna set these goals, and all these months go by. And then you get to the end of the year, and you see what you accomplished. It really it's pretty amazing.
Alex Farkas:If you go to work every day, if you show up no matter how the days are going, good or bad, when you get to the end of the year, you'll have done some pretty amazing things throughout the year. And it's all those incremental changes over time that you can look back and say, wow. I can't believe we were doing x 2 years ago. That looked so so silly compared to what we're doing now. And then forward again 2 more years, and you said the same thing, just constantly trying to do a little bit better at, you know, your core processes.
Rob Lee:Yeah. My, my partner reminds me of that, being able to bounce ideas off of her. And I'm like, man, I don't know what's going on with this art podcast. And she was just like, look back at what you did, like, 2 years ago or last year. She's, like, you have a drink named after you, a coffee partnership.
Rob Lee:You were able to interview these different people. You're coming up on realistically, she likes to do the number stretch too. You're coming up on a 1,000 interviews. It's like, it's only 720. And and but it's always sort of moving in that direction is consistency thing.
Rob Lee:And if you're always looking at it to your point about the incremental changes, like, it it's I got a piece of it I got a piece of feedback, I guess. You know, for the the last year, I've been just really hitting it hard at the gym. Right? And ended up talking to one of the trainers there, and just unsolicited, he came to me and he was like, I saw you about last year, what you were doing then and now what you're doing. He's like, you're in here 6 days a week, my guy.
Rob Lee:He's like, you're you're doing it. And he's like, even the days he's like, you have to have days where you hate it, where it sucks, where you don't really wanna do it or give it that effort, but incrementally even a bad day is moving towards that that goal whatever that goal might be. So he just wanted to give me my flowers in that regard, and I think the same thing applies to our businesses, our creative pursuits, those those different things you're spending time toward.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Totally. Well, hats off to you about that because I definitely in any of these spaces, it's so true. Showing up is almost the majority of it. I have thought that for years, but just going to my desk, wherever it is, if it's an office or in my house, and sitting down and looking at what's happening is a huge step.
Alex Farkas:And as long as it keeps showing up, even if you have bad days or unproductive days, it they get they get evened out and more so with the good days where you're more productive. But takes a lot of effort to just go to just get to the gym every day or just get to your chair and keep working, especially when you've got a mountain of stuff really.
Rob Lee:This I
Alex Farkas:don't wanna deal with any
Rob Lee:of this today. I wanna do something fun. Right. I I you know, this this morning, I was like, alright. Little oh, 29 degrees?
Rob Lee:Word? That's what we're doing? And I was like, let's just do it. Let's just, you know, get in there, brush your teeth, get ready, stretch, get to get to it.
Alex Farkas:Yeah.
Rob Lee:So this is this is sort of the the last real question, so this is this is sort of the the last real question, and this is a bit of a change because I feel like the original question, I think, has been covered. So I wanna, like, talk about this one as far as the I guess it's suggestions. It's I guess in that space of suggestion, advice that you would wanna share to the Murrays out there that are listening. See, I use your terminology. What, you know, would you wanna share it and impart upon them to, like, hey, you know, this is something to maybe consider just in sort of the the items that are adjacent to your work.
Rob Lee:Because I think a lot of times, you know, it's a lot of things to do. You know, you can make the work and be really good work, but then there's just so there's, like, super small tweaks that you can put into play that can help, you know, kinda get it to that next stage and get it to that next stage where they're working with, like, Ud Gallery or or something in that regard. So any suggestions or or or piece of advice in that way?
Alex Farkas:You mean and you mean advice for artists specifically as opposed to my married clients. Right? Yeah.
Rob Lee:Yeah. I I do mean ours. Yeah. Sorry.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. No. I think I think for artists, the same things really apply. Really, the showing up thing is a big part of it. And not being dissuaded by having lack of interest in, your work or your series in any given space.
Alex Farkas:But I think really for the advice I would say is, if you're struggling with the art making process, that's one side of it. Keep going your studio. Keep making art. You'll get there even if you have those bad days. If you're struggling on the business side, I think my advice is to really get out there and do your research like we're talking about to figure out where do you think your art belongs.
Alex Farkas:If we're talking about in galleries, for example, hit the pavement or hit the the web and see where you fit in. One of the things I often hear from artists is I got rejected from a gallery and, you know, it's very dissuading for me or why. And I usually say, well, galleries are in it just like you to have the right fit of work to sell. And so finding the right place to be promoted is really important. So that means paying attention to the aesthetic of the gallery, talking to the gallery owners or the people who work there, and figuring out how your work is a fit, or, if it's not, asking them for recommendations of where they think, you can go that will be a better space for you.
Alex Farkas:There's a lot of people in the world, so odds are, if you're creating something, you can find a market for it. But you sometimes have to get creative about what that market is. Sometimes it's bending your work a little bit around it, but I think oftentimes it's just going out there and defining who your target audience is. Like, we defined our Mary, defining your target audience for your artwork. So, yeah, I I hope that's helpful.
Rob Lee:It's very helpful, and you helped me out there too. You brought it back to my by botched point earlier, so shout out to you. Sorry about that. No. No.
Rob Lee:That's me. That's me. No. No. I appreciate it.
Rob Lee:So that's kinda it with the real questions, and I got a few rapid fire ones, and then we'll do we'll close out on sort of shameless plugs. You know, I always say, shameless plugs. It's about plugs here. So with the rapid fire, I always tell folks, do not overthink these. These questions are goofy, some of them.
Rob Lee:Some of them are good, but some are goofy. So, this is the first one, and maybe it's the last one, I think it does, but let's see. You mentioned hot dogs earlier, so I'm gonna assume that this food is in play. Thin or stuffed crust, which what do you prefer?
Alex Farkas:Oh, thin crust. I love Italian pizza. Good.
Rob Lee:You get it? Now this this really is in one of the things that was mentioned earlier. What color means a lot to you? Like, whether it could be on your walls, maybe it's a sort of color that you feel like you look good in, but what's a color that means a lot to you?
Alex Farkas:Black. Gallerist, it's gotta be black. Oh, I grew up with a mom who were all black in Arizona, and she got teased about it mercilessly. And I was lucky enough that I moved to a big city where everyone else wore black, but, yeah, always black.
Rob Lee:That's great. That's great. I always wear these midtones. Like, this is not intentional. It's just like I needed to put on a sweatshirt, and the blue one was just sitting there, and it happens to kinda match with my hat.
Rob Lee:So, yeah, that's I don't I'm not a dark blue guy. It's just what's what's sitting around. I don't do my laundry. Where are you more likely to get work done, a cafe or bar?
Alex Farkas:Oh, I like cafes because I love coffee. I do like a good drink, but, yeah, I don't think anything would happen. The laptop will get closed in the bar. I'd probably start talking to someone, and that would be the end of it.
Rob Lee:Someone might say that that is a version of work, like, in at least in what I do. I'm I'm doing a lot of this. I also enjoy coffee as well, and I find I do most of my meetings as coffee meetings, but some of the more, funding oriented meetings, they take place in bars. I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
Rob Lee:Yeah. I have another one of my batch cocktail that they make here at this place for me.
Alex Farkas:Yes. Okay. Fair enough. Coffee for the everyday work. But if you're if you're working for the big bucks, bars are probably a better spot.
Alex Farkas:I'm with you on that.
Rob Lee:Alright. This is this is the last one, and and thank you for for enduring. This is this is fun. What is your favorite book on business and perhaps your favorite book on art? And before we got started, I was reading, like, 2, like, books.
Rob Lee:I was just kinda going over a few chapters, a few books before we got started just there in the studio. So so what's on mind? What's in what's in mind for you?
Alex Farkas:My favorite book on business is called The 1 Page Marketing Plan. A few years ago when I was really rethinking about how to retool the company's marketing, Leah and I went out and bought a stack of, like, 30 books on Amazon about marketing, and we read through all of them. And that was the one that went to the top, and we ended up contacting the guy who wrote it. And he became our business mentor, And he totally changed how we thought about our company from so many angles. His book on its own, though, is awesome.
Alex Farkas:There's countless things you can do from for any business. He explains he said, people come to me always. They say, but my business is different. He's like, no. It's just marketing.
Alex Farkas:And he's so right. So I give Alan Dibb a plug. One page marketing plan is awesome. Favorite art book, I think, is a little more challenging for me. It's a good question.
Alex Farkas:That you might have stumped me on that. I think that, it depends on what we're talking about. For just shameless, like, our world entertainment. I've always liked 7 days in the art world. It's kind of like, I actually give it to a lot of our employees to read when they start working for us, especially if they don't have an art world background, because it's it's kind of like, a little bit of the drama of the art world, but the author goes and spends 7 different days.
Alex Farkas:I don't know if you're familiar with this book, but she does, like, a a day, at an art school. She does a day at an art fair, a day with gallerists, and it's really very enlightening about kind of how the art world works. So I feel like that's my favorite kind of more silly level. Yeah. For more intellectual, not a specific book, but I love Artforum.
Alex Farkas:People always say no one reads Artforum, they just look at the pictures. But there have been years with reading Artforum for me where it just kind of unlocked the English language. The people who write for that, the most of them are, you know, academics and, critics and, historians have such a beautiful language. Some of the articles I've read there with a dictionary next to me so that I can better level and, very insightful just on so many different things. So I I guess that's kind of a trick answer to your question, but now of Artforum.
Rob Lee:Sam, being a gentleman thief right here, I've, like, added each one of these. Like, well, Artforum has been book map bookmarked, but, the 2 books, definitely the, one page marketing plan have been, added to my, Amazon, cart.
Alex Farkas:Fantastic. I I hope you enjoy it. Alan is awesome, so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts when you're done
Rob Lee:with it. Absolutely. So that's kinda it for the podcast. I think we've we've covered a lot of territory here, and so there are 2 things I wanna do as we we close out here. 1, I wanna thank you for for taking the time, and and being on this podcast and being open and sharing with us.
Rob Lee:And and 2, I wanna invite and encourage you in these final moments to share with the listeners where they can check out everything of your, you know, work, U gallery, all of the good stuff.
Alex Farkas:Yeah. Just that easy. U gallery.com. We're open 247, 365 days a year for almost 2 decades. I'm gonna keep that one from this.
Alex Farkas:I love that.
Rob Lee:Absolutely. Absolutely. And I wanna again thank Alex Farkas from You Gallery for coming on and sharing a bit of his journey and letting us know about You Gallery. And I'm Rob Lee saying if there's art, culture and community in and around your neck of the woods, you've just got to look for it.
Creators and Guests
