Are your hands always busy? Can you create something out of nothing? Flea Market Artists keep traditional and modern skills alive!

Job Overview         

Flea Market Artists create unique art pieces using a variety of traditional and not-so-traditional crafts. In addition to crafting, they also use business, marketing and accounting skills to keep their business alive.

Requirements and Qualifications

You’d think that artistic abilities would come first. Surprisingly, having some background in business, accounting and marketing are just as important. Good customer service, interpersonal and communication skills also come into play. If you’re planning on selling online, you’ll need computer skills. Art shows? Plan on doing some lifting and carrying.

Typical Education

Though a formal education is not typically required for a self-employed craft artist, a bachelor’s degree conveys a great deal of knowledge on many areas important to an artist, including design and form, business, art history, marketing and accounting.

It provides the opportunity to have work evaluated, to have it appear in shows and to work in a variety of media. It’s also the time to build a portfolio, samples of your best work, which is shown to prospective clients.

Steps to Become a Flea Market Artist 

After completing your degree program, you’ll begin to advance, taking advantage of art or craft shows, gallery showings, and the like. You can join the Craft and Hobby Association, which provides many services to it’s members, or local art councils.

Setting up an internet presence is very important if you want to sell beyond your local region. Towards that end, learning photography gives you the skills and knowledge you need to represent yourself online, in art and craft show applications and in your portfolio.

Similar Jobs

Not quite ready to take the leap into full-time craft artistry? Here are some career paths that will feed your creative muse while paying the bills:

• Do you want to tie different ideas together? Art directors coordinate a variety of areas on large projects.
• Curators, museum technicians and conservators care for museum pieces, providing repairs and creating displays when needed.
• Have a flair for fashion? Fashion designers create innovative footwear, accessories and clothing, choose fabrics and trim and provide specialized assembly instruction if needed.
• Want a creative office job? Graphic designers put together visual concepts that convey ideas, information or inspiration.
• Are you an inventor? Industrial designers conceptualize, design and test new manufactured product ideas.
• Do you like sparkly things? Jewelers and precious stone and metal workers use a variety of techniques to create beautiful jewelry.
• Multimedia artists and animators use computers and a variety of art materials to create two- and three-dimensional animation, models and visual effects.
• Strike a pose! Photographers capture still images of a variety of subject for both digital and print use.
• Are you always teaching other people your crafts? Self-enrichment teachers provide continuing education courses that allow people to build their skills outside a degree program.
• Is there something captivating about smooth wood? Woodworkers use a variety of tools, stains and hardware to create functional and artistic pieces out of wood.

Salary

Craft artists make an average wage of $12.95 per hour as of May 2010. Pay rates for self-employed artists vary greatly, with some charging high fees and others asking for little more than the cost of materials.

Job Outlook

Craft artists are expected to see a 7% increase in job opportunities over the next ten years, slightly slower than the average of all careers during the same time period. Competition is strong, with many craft artists having an outside income in addition to their craft income. Pay for this career follows the economy; when the economy is doing poorly, so does the artist’s pay and vice-versa.