There’s a moment most artists and cultural practitioners recognise.
You’re asked a simple question:
“How many works do you actually have available?”
And suddenly you’re guessing.
Memory, notes, WhatsApp threads, folders, half-spreadsheets.
A vague sense of “I think I still have one left?”
This tool was born exactly there. And you can download it right now ⤵
The Artist Ally Inventory is a Google Sheets template designed to help artists, curators, and small galleries bring clarity, continuity, and calm into how they manage artworks, prints, and merch — without turning their practice into bureaucracy.
This is not about control.
It’s about orientation.
🏛 Gallerist Notes: “There is no bigger hindrance to a gallery’s ability to execute and prepare a show for an artist than the artist themselves not being prepared.”
Why an inventory can give you more freedom (not less)
When your work starts circulating — exhibitions, shops, online sales, studio visits — complexity arrives quietly.
Not all at once.
But steadily.
And without structure, that complexity tends to live in your head.
The problem isn’t that artists don’t care about organization.
The problem is that most systems weren’t designed for artists or were never taught at all.
This inventory exists to translate creative practice into a legible structure:
so you can price clearly
answer confidently
protect yourself legally
and make decisions with real data instead of guesswork
💡 Insight: Professionalism doesn’t arrive as a single decision. It arrives through small systems that remove friction from your thinking.
🧭 What this tool actually is
At its core, the Artist Ally Inventory is a living document.
You don’t need to fill everything at once.
You don’t need to use every column.
You can hide what you don’t need and grow into it over time.
Some people use it as:
an artist managing their own studio
a gallery handling multiple artists
an agent coordinating production and sales
a curator tracking works across locations
Same tool. Different rhythms.
Artist Erik López/ IMGN postcard merch, co-designed with XAV
How it’s structured (high-level)
Instead of overwhelming you, here’s the logic:
1. Identity & Structure
Each item gets a stock number — a code that helps you instantly recognize what it is.
🧭 Mentor Notes: I like stock numbers because they are codes that help you think clearly: Artist → category → series → production logic.
There is no single right system, what matters is consistency. Once you create your own internal language, the sheet starts speaking back to you.
Here, the stock number identifies the work itself, while ownership, consignment, and loan status are tracked separately — allowing the artwork’s identity to remain stable even as its market situation changes.
2. Artwork first, products second
In this inventory, the artwork is always the reference point. Everything else — prints, merch, sales — branches out from it.
Year refers to when the artwork was created.
Country of origin refers to where the artwork was made.
Merch, prints, or editions all orbit the original work.
This keeps the artistic lineage intact — even when products multiply.
Artist Tay Hota postcard merch, co-designed with XAV
3. Status, availability, and reality
You can clearly see:
what exists
what’s in stock
what’s on hold
what’s not ready for shipping yet
This avoids the classic situation of saying “yes” before checking reality.
🏛 Gallerist Notes: Status refers to whether a work is stock, on loan, or with a third party. Availability refers to whether it can actually be sold.
4. Location & Collaborators
Where is the work right now?
Studio.
Gallery.
Shop.
Coworking space.
Someone else’s wall.
The inventory makes this visible — so you don’t rely on memory.
It also tracks who you work with:
print shops, producers, collaborators.
Over time, patterns emerge.
Good collaborations repeat.
Bad ones don’t.
5. Images, credits, and visibility
Each item can include:
a main image URL
photo credit
Which means:
When the press, galleries, or clients ask — you’re ready.
No digging. No confusion.
🛠 Practical Tip: If press or a gallery asks for images, this column alone can save you 20 minutes of searching — every time.
6. Pricing, Taxes & Clarity
This is where many artists hesitate — and where clarity matters most.
Retail price.
Currency.
Taxes.
Projected profit.
One column we love in this template is Projected Profit (with no third party), which automatically gives you a sense of what remains after taxes.
⚠️ Reality Check: You don’t need to love this part — but ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. Clarity around money is a self-protection strategy.
7. Sales, Invoices, and memory you can trust
Once a sale happens, the inventory becomes your backup brain:
who bought the work
when
in which currency
with or without discount
invoice status
This is about not relying solely on goodwill or memory. Remember: Memory fades. Documents don’t.
This tool is intentionally complete — but that doesn’t mean you must use it all immediately.
Start small:
List what you already have
Stop
Come back when you’re ready
You can hide columns.
You can grow into it.
As Xav’s Tai Chi teacher says:
Don’t make your practice so big
that you stop practising.
Courtesy of Abbozzo Gallery
This inventory is shared courtesy of our certified ally, Abbozzo Gallery — a Toronto-based gallery deeply committed to clarity, ethical art sales, and long-term value in artistic practice.
This template is the materialisation of a shared belief between Artist Ally and Abbozzo: that artists deserve systems that support them.
Accessing the Inventory
The Artist Ally Inventory template is open to exploration by clicking here.
To access and copy the sheet, you’ll be asked to request access — this helps us understand who’s using the tool and keep the ecosystem alive.
This is the first of many off-studio work tools & templates we’ll be releasing.
Every tool we share is part of a larger system:
a way of translating beauty into structure,
intuition into continuity,
and creativity into sustainability.
Built with strategy.
Guided by care.
