Making an Artist’s Living by 3D Printing

There’s a wonderful article by 3D printing artist Bathsheba Grossman over at Say Something, where she describes her journey from student to world-renowned 3D artist. And the best part: She’s now making a living from selling 3D printed art.

But it isn’t easy. She spent ten years after completing school to build up the skills in various disciplines (art, mathematics, CAD, etc.) and the experience to build up an art business that today serves as her main source of revenue. We’ve written of her work several times in the past. Her strategy is direct marketing: 

I haven’t made much inroad into the traditional art world, but then showing in galleries is not a focus for me. I made a conscious decision about ten years ago to work directly for the viewer – you – rather than try to get the attention of cultural gatekeepers.

What has been the result of her efforts? More than just a job, apparently:

My work has appeared in the New York Times, the London Times and Der Spiegel, as well as Wired, Discover and Make magazines. One of my lamps was in TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential designs of 2007. My sculptures have appeared in two hit TV shows, Second Life, and a Japanese videogame commercial. John Conway and Douglas Hofstadter used pictures of them in recent books. They’ve been shown in Italy, Spain, Korea, New York and Cleveland. An irony-free Wikipedia entry for me was started in 2004. And this site moved over a quarter million dollars of art in 2007, which isn’t bad considering I wrote the whole thing by hand, with web skills dating from about 1996.

You can see more of Bathsheba’s amazing work at her website.

Via Say Something