Preview: Millionaire or Artist? How About Both?

Hugh Macleod spends his time in west Texas drawing cartoons on the back of business cards. He sells his art on the internet. It may sound simple enough, but he has turned it into big business. Now he’s ready to help artists hit the big time, as well.

Macleod, who lives in the small town of Alpine, is leading a panel at the 2010 SXSW Festival in Austin called “Millionaire or Artist? How About Both?” It will focus on using social media to thrive at a time when traditional businesses are tanking.

“(The internet) gives you access to customers on a cheap and easy global scale,” Macleod says. “Being discovered is a bit of a crapshoot. I’m trying to develop a critical mass constituency.”

Macleod is living proof that this method works. Besides his successful career as a cartoonist, he is also the CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets and distributes South African wine in the United States. His online marketing efforts have led to a five-fold increase of sales in just two years.

It may seem like an unusual pairing, but Macleod believes making it in the wine business and the art world is not all that different.

“Artists have to be entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs have to be artists,” Macleod says.

As the title indicates, Macleod’s SXSW panel will be primarily geared toward artists. Topics will cover selling art online, how to increase sales through your web site, the skill of marketing art without the use of a traditional gallery and how to sell art without selling out. However, the idea of marketing yourself online through social media applies to many walks of life. Therefore, non-artists are welcome to come, as well.

“It certainly can be useful to a lot of other people,” Macleod says.

You can read more about Hugh Macleod and check out his unique artwork at his gapingvoid blog. More information on the panel, including the other artists who will be speaking, is available at the SXSW web site.