If you are reading this article it is likely you find yourself proficient enough in wood carving to think others may want to purchase what you have carved. Assuming you are not deluding yourself and your wood carvings are of reasonable quality, you should carefully think about your goals.
Are you carving strictly to make money? Are you interested in selling some of your carvings to support your hobby–to pay for your new tools, books, wood and classes? Is your house too full of your wood carvings and you just need to get rid of some to make room for your new wood carvings? Your reasons for selling your wood carvings have a lot to do with how you should go about selling your works.
As one successful wood carver once told me,” Remember, you don’t have to be a great wood carver to make a living at it.” He has published several books and has an established store. His carvings are interesting and original but as I looked them over that day in his shop and looked through some of his books today, I have to agree that though good, they are not the best wood carvings around. But he is still making a living out of his wood carving today.
Let’s consider some of the venues to sell your wood carvings.
There are large flea markets available all around the country which bring in a lot of potential customers. Before you try to sell your wood carvings there, consider the time and effort you have put into your wood carvings. Do you really want to sell your wood carvings for flea market prices? If so go ahead and try it but don’t expect top dollar for you wood carvings. Flea markets have such variety of goods that although there will be a lot of people there, there may not be many interested in wood carvings.
Craft shows are a step above flea markets. People are coming to look over crafts and generally come with the intent to buy something if it catches their attention and the price is right. Some wood carvers are happy with the results they get from selling at craft shows. Others are disappointed with the prices wood carvings sell for at craft shows.
eBay
eBay is the largest flea market in the world. That’s right, flea market. When someone searches on eBay, they are generally looking for a bargain. True, sometimes people are searching for some hard to find item and are willing to pay a premium. Vintage caricature wood carvings from the likes of Carl Johan Trygg and his sons, Andy Anderson, Gerald Hannah and others can be found and can sell for substantial sums. But for an unknown modern wood carver, selling his pieces on eBay is like selling at a flea market.
Wood Carving Shows
Wood carving shows bring two types of people, wood carvers and wood carving collectors. By far the largest proportion of people coming to the wood carving shows are wood carvers. They will buy books, tools, wood, roughouts and other things but are unlikely to be buyers of wood carvings. Why buy when you can do it yourself, or at least aspire to do it yourself? Although in the minority, collectors do come to the bigger woodcarving shows. Carvers can and do sell wood carvings at these shows and can get excellent prices.
Art Shows
Art shows can bring very good prices but are hard to crack. To most art shows wood carving is a craft and not an art. It takes originality and stubbornness to crack the art show market. One of the first things you must realize it that your wood carving is actually wood sculpture. Unless you are very proficient in wood carving production, you will not earn a great deal of money unless you do crack the art show market.
If you are interested in wood carving for money, you should consider doing commissions. The customer chooses what you carve. You lose some freedom in subject matter but you have a ready market for your finished goods. If you are interested in doing commission work you must get the word out. Have cards available to hand out at shows. You may not get many sales at the shows but you may line up some commission work. Word of mouth will get you work if you please your customers. Some wood carvers have several years of backlog for their commission work. It takes time to build a reputation but it can be done.
Website
You can create your own website to sell your wood carvings. A basic website is not difficult to create if you have some knowledge of html. If not maybe you can find a friend or relative to help you create it inexpensively. You can incorporate PayPal to allow customers to buy from the site directly. This is not difficult. PayPal provides the coding which you can just copy and paste into your own html. Having your own website opens up your potential market to millions of people.
It may take some time before your website draws a lot of visitors, but there are ways to improve your traffic. Include your website on your cards that you hand out at shows. Selling items on eBay, although not providing a great price may bring traffic to your site where you can sell your wood carvings for a better price.
Selling your wood carvings can be very fulfilling. When someone buys my wood carvings, I feel like what I am doing is valued. Whether I make a few hundred dollars or fifty dollars, I am always pleased that someone valued my work enough to pay for it. It also clears some shelf space for my next wood carving.
If you want to try your hand at selling your wood carvings, try one of these venues and persevere, you’ll crack the market.
