My Art Inventory

Since 2005 I’ve been keeping an inventory of my artwork.

Because of this, I have detailed records (as of this writing) of 226* of my paintings. I know that my paintings reside in at least 102 households. I have the names and contact info for many of my buyers and collectors–for my own purposes, I define “buyers” as anyone who has ever purchased a painting, “collectors” as anyone who has purchased 2 or more. I may be mistaken, but I believe the collector who owns the largest number of my paintings has 14 of them. (This is, of course, with the exception of my mom and dad, who own 21, but they don’t count, because they’ve never paid retail prices. NOT that they ever should, mind you!)

For paintings that were sold by galleries, the buyers/collectors are sometimes made known to me, but more often not, which is why I have an unclear picture of exactly how many people own my paintings, and who they are.

There are many reasons why it’s important for artists to keep a detailed inventory of their life’s work. I believe that making the effort to keep a record of each piece I create is a concrete way to take my own work seriously, and place value on it. It is lovely to look through the inventory from past years and see just how much I’ve really done. When I get to painting # 500, I’m going to celebrate! And, it’s a comfort to me to at least have some idea, even if only a partial picture, of where all my work has ended up.

I can pull up the title, dimensions, and medium of any past painting on a moment’s notice, along with a jpeg image of the work, for publication whenever needed.

I can keep in touch with my collectors–I know who they are. The people who have supported my career the most are the ones who most deserve perks in return from me–first dibs on artwork, the inside scoop, price discounts, free shipping, etc.

When I send my work off to galleries, I know which gallery has what. If I didn’t keep track of this I can only imagine the confusion that would ensue. For example, when someone comes to me wanting to buy a particular painting and I need to retrieve it and provide the gallery with a replacement, if I have 4 different galleries carrying 30 different paintings, you can see where things might get fuzzy. I might be able to keep track of it all in my mind, but it’s not worth the effort or the risk of human error and professional embarrassment. (“I’m sorry ma’am, um…I think that painting is still available, but I’m not sure where it is, exactly…can you give me a week to track it down?”–Yeah, not acceptable!)

When I’m doing my taxes, it’s easy for me to figure out how much money I made on art sales the previous year.

For all these reasons and more, I don’t believe any professional artist can succeed without keeping an inventory. If ever there is any confusion about what a painting was called, or when it was made, or who has it now, all I have to do is look it up!

The beauty of keeping an inventory system is that once you initially set it up, and get into the habit of keeping it updated, it becomes second nature. Any time I finish a painting, there’s a checklist I must go through. I don’t even consider it officially “complete” until I have signed it, given it a title, photographed it, and added it to my inventory file.

I also require myself to add the image to my website, to blog about it, and to share it on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. In this way, my diligence about keeping good records actually has the domino effect of forcing me to consistently share my work with the public. Quite honestly, people (and I mean people who follow me online and WANT to see my work, people who might BUY my work) might not know I even exist today, if the sharing of my artwork weren’t automated by my self-enforced mandatory checklist. My website would be an inconsistent mess, my blog posts would be even more haphazard than they already are, and I’d have unseen paintings languishing in my studio. Really, it would be a sad sight to behold.

There’s no “wrong” way to keep an inventory of your art, as long as you take good photographs and all the pertinent details are recorded and easy for you to find. But here’s what works for me.

My process is simple. First I photograph the work, and make sure it’s nicely edited–this means a photo taken in good lighting, true to color, not warped or skewed in any way, and cropped to the edges of the painting–in other words, ready to publish as needed. There is no excuse for poorly photographed work. It’s step one in presenting your work professionally (but that’s a talk for another day.) I have two folders for photos. One is for the original high-res image. The second is for the smaller image, which is just my original, but re-sized to no larger than 600 pixels in either dimension, for use on my website and anywhere else online.

Then I add my painting to my inventory file, an Excel document. The columns across the top read: Control Number, Title, Medium, Dimensions, Retail Price, Date Sold, Current Location, and Notes. Then the details of each painting are recorded in the rows, and updated as paintings are sold or when they move to a different location.

I also make sure to write the control number and title of each newly created painting, in permanent marker, on the wooden stretcher bars on the back of the painting.

You can invent any system that suits you for the control numbers. I really like mine, and recommend it. Mine is based on the month and year the work was created. (I do not sign the date on the front of my paintings, at least not anymore, so the control number is how I keep track chronologically.)

It starts over each year on January 1st with the number 1 and goes to the end of the year. After the number, I add a letter which corresponds to the month (A for January, B for February, C for March, and so on.) Then after that, the last 2 digits of the year.

So, for example, there is a painting in my inventory with the control number 41J08. This tells me that it was the 41st painting of the year, created in October of 2008. That particular painting from my inventory file was titled “Cosmic Dance II.” It is 36″ x 42″, acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas, sold for $1,490 on October 30th, 2008, and still resides with its buyer as far as I know. The “Notes” field tells me that it was a commission.

Other things that I record from time to time under “Notes” include things like “Not for Sale”, “Wedding Gift to ___”, “Donated to ____ charity auction”, “Sold to unknown buyer by ___ Gallery”, “Purchased by ____ as gift for ____”, etc.

For unsold paintings, “Current Location” is usually either “Home,” or “____ Gallery.” I do my best to update this consistently, but even so I often catch myself in small errors…occasionally I’ll realize a painting is still recorded as “Home” even though I sent it off to an exhibit, or I realize I’ve forgotten to mark something as sold and put the buyer’s name down as its new location. Luckily my errors are rare enough that I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. I can’t imagine how lost I would be if I didn’t try to keep track at all!

You can take this even further with recording details. Some artists keep a record of every exhibit a particular painting has ever been in, every gallery, etc. along with the exact dates. Some artists keep their buyers’ phone numbers and addresses alongside sold paintings in their inventory file (while I just keep my invoices in a separate folder.) I don’t deny those other artists are very smart, and doing those extra things probably saves them a minute here and there. But I don’t bother.

Some artists actually insert a tiny thumbnail image of each painting into their database next to the details of the work, to provide a quick visual reference. But it’s too much work for me to do that, when I can just as easily go to my image folder if I need to see a picture of the painting in question. Some artists create a very thorough database using fancy software–I see how having such a database would be pleasing, but for myself, I don’t see the need, as a simple list has always served me well.

Hopefully this has been a fascinating insight into the way I approach my work. But even if it’s bored you to tears, now at least you know that the “absentminded, disorganized artist” stereotype is not always true. 😉

*Update, January, 2022: My current inventory file now lists 634 paintings and counting!