There are a few companies that really know what they’re doing — even if we don’t agree with their products, their models of how to sell said products are the best in the world — and we artists can really learn a lot from studying them.

Nobody will be able to tell me that McDonald’s makes great food — that aspiration went away a long time ago — but what McDonald’s probably does best in the world is being consistent, especially considering it’s a “food” proprietor and not a tech or software company. 

But you might say, that consistency in making burgers is boring and has nothing to do in the art world (unless one decides to paint the same patty and bun composition over and over again, preferably out of protest for something — probably life), and I agree. The issue isn’t in being consistent, it’s being innovatively consistent as well as consistently innovative. 

And that’s the hard part.

Regardless whether of we make 10 works a year or we’re the kind of artist that can make 3 paintings a day — being consistent in the quality and the experience that our work delivers is a must, if we wish to succeed in the long run.

The important thing to consider is, that it’s not a black and white spectrum of good and bad; the art world is a rainbow of different approaches, different levels of quality of our paintings, and the main idea really isn’t how good we are (especially not compared to someone else), but what kind of a novel perspective we can bring into the millennia-long conversation that is the art world as well as how good are we at replicating it every time a new collector orders a commission or we decide to make a new series.

Let’s start with novelty: To make a truly great work we have to be constantly innovating and searching for novel perspectives, but even though we live in a time where new materials are constantly being invented — like the infamous Vantablack — novel doesn’t actually equal new.

If you’ve read Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero’s Journey, you know that most epic stories resemble one another — sometimes to the extent of being pure copies of each other with minimal alterations to the plot and only really vary in context, not content.

And that’s the point. Context changes old stories like the Babylonian creation myth and makes them into new ones: Like Christianity’s Genesis story, Harry Potter and pretty much any Hollywood movie about somebody that couldn’t, but in the end could (and the misunderstanding of this fact is what makes people believe alien space lizards are ruling our world … don’t ask).

But the right way to approach this conundrum is the fact that in order to be novel, we have to study consistency. Only by understanding the patterns that our wold is built upon — only by providing a narrative that fits within these patterns and is built with them in mind, can we actually produce something novel, that at the same time isn’t just a glorified excuse to have another Kick Starter campaign.

By studying boringly consistent work, the McDonald brothers invented the prototype for one of the most innovative businesses in the world, and Ray Kroc took that invention and made it into what McDonalds is today. They created the system and he provided the vision.

If we wish to become truly successful in our artistic endeavours, we have to create a consistent output and experience for our collectors; how we present our work and where, what kind of work we do and what our work is about.

Having our paintings on every sales platform imaginable can help our reach in the beginning, but over time, it’s best to focus on one platform and really learn how to use it — not only will a deeper understanding of our digital shop help us get to our target audience, over time they will get used to be able to buy our work at exactly that particular place (nobody stumbles into a bakery and gets confused by the products that they sell and the same applies for any Loui Vuitton shop and should also apply to our art).

We have to decide if we’re going to focus on one particular kind of art, rather than making paintings, sculptures, videos and photographs and then some. If so, it’s best to find the one medium we really excel at and double-down on that, so that people learn to expect a certain kind of art from us.

But we could just focus on our personal brand instead; Picasso, even though most people know him as a painter, was also an incredible sculptor, print maker and actually pioneered certain methods in pottery and ceramics, when he was living in Vallauris, France. Nobody thought: “Ah jeez, I don’t know if I can trust Pablo’s vases, he’s kinda new to it; they might have bubbles and the lacquer probably isn’t food grade …” 

The thing that allowed him to transition from one medium to another effortlessly was his name. Because his name became the epitome of consistent innovation.

While being an artist isn’t at all like being a proprietor of hamburgers and milkshakes (if the damn machine actually works of course), we can learn a lot from the way they conduct their business. If we take care of our production, focus on a consistent and coherent body of work and present it in a distinctly personal way over and over again, our chances of going full-time with our art will increase immensely.