If you read my last post, you will see Ron English's Abraham Obama, an image that blends the faces of Senator Obama and Abraham Lincoln.

In response, artist and featured ArtId blogger Michael Mize asked which United States president could we blend McCain with. My answer was Bush. Here's his rendition of what I call John McBush!

Thanks Michael. I think this is so appropriate. Maybe a little less compelling than the Abraham Obama, but the messege is crystal clear!

It seems appropriate to show you the latest work by artist Ron English, "Abraham Obama".

I don't know where to begin except to say I like the piece alot. This artwork brings up so many questions that I suggest you buy a couple of bottles of wine and get together with your friends and talk about it. Loudly.

But, here a few quick thoughts that come to my mind:

1.The American divide on moral issues is akin to the divide which caused the civil war. (that's a biggy)

2. American needs to gain back its freedom from a tyranical administration.

3.Obama and Lincoln make a good couple.

4.Will Obama's role in the future of our nation be anywhere as important as Lincoln's was?

5. What does Andy Warhol have to do with it?

6. Love public art.

7. Art and activism go hand in hand.

Feel free to add to the list.

Also, you've got to check out the music video Ron English made about the Abraham Obama image.

P.S. Thanks to Sander Hicks and Vox Pop cafe, bookstore, performance space and public art space for turning me on to this and providing the image.

I'll admit it - I love my competition reality TV shows, especially the ones where people have to demonstrate some skill and creative talent to win. I especially love Last Comic Standing because comics are often not funny when they're hanging around the house - the first season they were downright curmudgeons and I loved them for it because once they hit the stage they transformed into hilarious likeable beings. Genius! I also am addicted to Project Runway where the competition is difficult and the designers have to really "work it" to avoid elimination. Sometimes I daydream about what kind of garment I would have made if I had been on the show... So, when I found out that Bravo TV has just agreed to take on an art reality show, I was very pleased.

The show is called American Artist and is the brain child of Sarah Jessica Parker of "Sex in the City". It will feature artists as contestants who will be given a new art challenge each week that tests their overall artistic talent through media, skill and creativity. The artworks from each challenge will then be judged by a panel of fellow artists, gallerists, collectors, curators and critics. American Artist's grand-prize winner will receive a gallery show, a cash prize and a sponsored nation-wide museum tour according to Jim Hibbard's Live Feed of the Hollywood Reporter. Not too shabby.

For those of you who snub this kind of TV, I understand. I'm sure it is completely produced to tug at our heartstrings and make us love to hate. However, I do think shows like these have some merit beyond entertainment. For one thing, I think it is a step in the right direction when our society begins to root for the emerging artist. Artists face so much adversity as it is, especially when they just start out, that to have TV shows honor their talents is positive for our culture as a whole. Also, these shows do a good job at communicating an artist's passion and tireless committment to their art regardless of fame and fortune, turning the emerging artist into a role model for viewers. Lastly, through these shows the average viewer is given the chance to learn something about art outside of a museum or gallery. Art becomes personal and watchers gain an appreciation for the process and the final product that they may have not had before. Of course everything depends on how the show is produced. Done poorly, it could be a total bust, but if it's done well, I bet TV audiences everywhere will embrace American Artist.

What will that mean for art sales? They say that ballroom dancing classes had through the roof sign-ups after Dancing with the Stars!

On ArtId, we talk a lot about marketing artwork through the Internet and other venues. We talk about the difficulties of doing the marketing oneself and oftentimes of the need to "just paint". While artists have varying goals for the art they create, at some point there comes a desire to step out beyond the pack and be recognized. In the midst of working on this goal, it is easy to feel that only a lucky few ever get to make a name for themselves in the more elite art community. Recently, I spoke to one of those "lucky" artists and learned achieving this goal is much less about luck than it is about determination, talent, and smart planning.

ArtId member Barbara Groff is a well known still life pastel painter who recently won The Pastel Journal's Ruth Richeson/Unison Pastels Award for her painting Bittersweet with Blue. In the April 2008 issue of The Pastel Journal, you can read a feature article about Barbara and her award winning painting. In 2002, Barbara made the decision to phase out her thriving graphic design business and to devote herself to her fine art full time. Though she hates to boast, all of her work in the last several years have been major competition winners.

Barbara believes that often the reason many artists aren't successful in competitions or in their daily art business is that the work they produce is "not consistent and the level of quality varies". She says that oftentimes artists get caught up in doing all kinds of styles and genres and can't settle on something that works and is unique. In other words, they haven't yet found their signature style which can then be developed and refined. In turn, collectors want to see a high level of quality carried throughout an artist's cohesive body of work. In many ways, having a signature style is like creating a brand and then marketing it.

Finding her own style was what Barbara described as a "eureka moment". Like many artists, Barbara's earlier work spanned the gamut. "I painted landscapes and other things and in fact, I didn't like still lifes, I thought they were boring. Until one day in 2001 when I got very excited about a still life concept that had popped into my mind. I remember making a quick thumbnail sketch with detailed notations around the sides and feeling very excited about it. I thought this concept was unique and intriguing. It was a composition with grapes and marbles where I used the marbles in the foreground to carry through the round shape of the grapes in the background. I then went a step further and considered how grapes turn into another form as wine and so I painted a wine glass tipped over inside a clear glass marble. The spilled wine flowed out onto the table and into the cast shadow of the marble. I called this approach a "transition" because one object turns into something else and is represented as a different form. From that point on, I've painted a series of transition pieces that have kept me very engaged and in general have changed the way I think about my still lifes."

Barbara's transition pieces started her on the road to success in the art world. While not all of her paintings are transitions anymore, she continues to paint in her signature realist style. And since she has been successful with it, she knows she can depend on her style to continue to sell her work.

Planning has also been a key ingredient to Barbara's success. "I have always been a person who figures out how a thing is going to go before I start it," says Barbara. "That's just how I've always been. When I start a new painting, for example, I think it through very carefully before I ever put pigment to paper. I do a small sketch first to make sure the concept is going to work. If I'm not sure it will work, I don't bother to paint it." !IMAGE200!

Barbara has also used her planning nature in the business area of her life. As a young woman just starting out, she landed an entry level job doing graphic design and worked her way up the ranks to the point where she decided she wanted to go into business for herself. "You know, I had to make sure I could get the clients on my own, that I had enough money to start off with, that kind of thing." The planning paid off. Barbara's graphic design business flourished. But, after Barbara's eureka moment in 2001, she decided to phase out her graphic design work to concentrate on her art full time. Again, she did some planning, calculated the costs and earnings, and made sure she had enough product to make the numbers work. Since then, she says her worked has continued to grow and the pay off has been more than she could have imagined. "It's amazing what happens when you devote yourself full time to your art."

To be able to work full time on art is a dream many artists feel is unattainable. Before turning "pro", Barbara was always working on her art in the moments she could find after work or on the weekends. "That's the other thing," she said. "You just have to keep at it when you are an artist. Most artists know that they will always be working on their fine art no matter what they have to do to pay the bills. You just can't give up. That's the most important thing."

As for the competitions, Barbara says "When an artist submits a piece to a competition, it can't just be any OK painting. It has to be a painting that really stands out. There is so much that gets judged in these competitions, artists have to make sure this is their best work before submitting. It has to be good technically, conceptually, and have a strong overall structure."

She also advises artists to submit pieces to local group shows and competitions to see how their art compares to the work of others. This helps artists determine the level of quality they need to achieve, and in some cases realize what it is they already have.

Even with many competitions won and living a fruitful artist's life, Barbara admits that being a professional artist still means doing other things beside art to make ends meet. Many artists teach workshops, give demonstrations and lectures, jury competitions, etc. "Your life becomes a combination of a lot of different things. You just don't just work in the studio all day."

What I find so motivating about Barbara's story is that she is a realist about her artwork and about the business world. She combines her talent for art with strong business sense and hard work. Even non-artists can heed her advice. And while this might not be everyone's way of living the artist's life, it certainly is one to be admired and learned from.

Please stop by Barbara's ArtId gallery at http://artid.com/members/bsg43/ to see more of her award-winning paintings.

The Full Body Project is a collection of black and white photographs depicting a group of morbidly obese women in various poses and dance shots, nude and sometimes in skimpy outfits. The women, in real life, are members of a burlesque dance troupe called the Full-Bottom Revue which challenges audiences to understand what Nimoy calls "fat liberation". Nimoy has photographed the women rather ordinarily, using little set-up for these shots and leaving little to the imagination. There are among the works some suggestions of the question "what is beauty" in respect to the female body: Nimoy, for example, places the women in the same poses as other famous "nude" pieces, which asks the audience to compare and think about what the larger bodies do for the art. But, on the whole, these photographs make no claims about beauty at all. The bodies of these women are not in any way "beautified" so to speak, which was what bothered me about the show.

My initial reaction to the work, not having read anything about its process, was that these women were portrayed as not being beautiful. The models, too, seemed not to care about the element of beauty as much as they seemed to be strutting, projecting more of an image of bullish pride.

I walked away from the show disappointed, thinking that Nimoy could have done more and in some way let these women down. It's been a few weeks now and I have been thinking about this show quite a lot, trying to understand the importance, if there is any, in this kind of work. I visited Nimoy's website and began to read the history of the show and the way in which Nimoy constructed the project.

He says, "I wanted these pictures to be more about them. These women are projecting an image that is their own. And one that also stems from their own story rather than mine. Their self-esteem is strong. One of them has a degree in anthropology and will tell you that ideas of beauty and sexuality are "culture bound"_that these ideas are not universal or fixed, and that they vary and fluctuate depending on place and time. They will tell you that too many people suffer because the body they live in is not the body you find in the fashion magazines."

While this is all well and good, I wonder if "fat and proud" is evocative enough a subject to make meaningful art. Doesn't there have to be something else to the story? Or, is the power of the show that as a viewer I am allowed to make my own judgement, have my thoughts about beauty and health etc? I am part of the "culture" after all, and this show did effect me in some way.

!IMAGE165!Before writing this blog, I took a look at the paintings and photographs of nudes from the artists on ArtId. It's true, I didn't find too many large women depicted, but I also didn't always find the magazine model type bodies either. Unfortunately, I did find one too many of a woman in that pose where she's leaning back, her head raised to the sky, arms slightly behind her like she's letting the warm sun beat on her chest, which I guess is a cultural idea of beauty that to me is sort of weird --it dislocates the woman's brain from her body, which is pretty offensive. But I digress. What I did find, in most of the work, was an attempt towards beauty. I especially liked Megan Reilly's line drawings of the female figure, which suggested shyness, and John Sowley's Atelier series with multiple nudes in a room. In these works, there seemed to be something deeper to be seen than just "hey, look at this body."

!IMAGE166!Anyway, I'm still not sure how I feel about Nimoy's work. Some days I think, yeah, fat and proud is enough, and other days, I wonder if I didn't like the pieces because I am fully entrenched in the cultural idea of beauty and the body myself. So, I'm asking my readers to chime in, check out The Full Body Project online and see what you think.

I recently read the article in The New Statesman "Too Much Information" about the current installation at the Tate Museum entitled "Shibboleth" by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. Shibboleth is a large, open crack in the cement floor of the Tate resembling lightening or a fissure in the earth one can imagine encountering during an earthquake. I haven't seen it in person, but from the picture I can imagine I would like it. I like conceptual art in general and would appreciate contemplating the possible meanings or connections this installation might elicit.

However, Alice O'Keefe, author of the article "Too Much Information", has an interesting complaint with Shibboleth:its title and the explanations both the artist and the Tate give to viewers about the piece. O'Keefe argues too much is being told about the artist's intention rather than letting the artwork stand on its own and allowing viewers to take from it what they will.

According to the Tate, "A shibboleth is a custom, phrase or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to a particular social group or class. By definition, it is used to exclude those deemed unsuitable to join this group." Salcedo extends the explanation by telling reporters that Shibboleth is about "borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a third world person coming into the heart of Europe."

The question I find intriguing is where is the line (pardon the pun) between too much explanation and not enough when it comes to conceptual art? In this case, a good crack in the floor could mean many things to many different people. Does the explanation take their inherent connections to other meanings away and therefore diminish the piece?

In one of my earlier blog posts, I wrote about a show at the MassMoca by Spencer Finch in which I encouraged viewers to make sure they got the "guide book" or they would be lost without it. In turn, I have recently been writing a series of poems in response to the Finch exhibit where I have come up against the problem of describing the artwork exactly or allowing my response to it to be enough. My poet friends advise more explanation on some of these poems and less on others, which makes me believe the issue is not so much a philosophical point of view as it is an aesthetic one.

I agree with O'Keefe in the case of Shibboleth. The crack is extremely strong on its own and has the power to live outside of the artist's original intention. But, the Spencer Finch exhibit becomes stronger when explained, and once explained can extend it's meaning through each viewer's experience.

Another critical element to this question is the artist him/herself. My personal opinion is that an artist needs to be able to separate his/herself from the finished product, no matter how intense and meaningful the intent and the process of making it was. It appears as if Salcedo could not separate herself from her piece and therefore added to it through her use of a title and explanation. Somehow, aesthetically, she has isolated her viewers. In contrast, the Spencer Finch pieces with their high level of explanation pull the viewers in in an attempt by the artist to share his experience fully. One thing is clear: once explanation is given, it cannot be taken away.

While collecting art is an activity that many people think is out of their means, the panel agreed if a person truly enjoys art and wants to own it, money should not be a particular worry. "No matter how much money you have to spend on your first purchase, $1,000 or $10,000," Heller gave this advice, "keep your money for one year and visit all the galleries and museums you possibly can to find out what kind of art it is you like."

He went on to say that while most people think that collecting contemporary art is how art collectors make money and establish an important collection, this is not true. A person might find that he/she prefers art from another time period or culture than contemporary western art and can develop just as impressive a collection as one in the contemporary realm. The year spent doing research will educate the buyer as to his/her tastes and give him/her a deeper understanding of the language, symbolism, and styles that inform art.

When the panel was asked how a person who didn't have the opportunity to travel to major metropolitan areas to visit galleries and museums can do their research, Susan Cross, curator for MASSMoCA said that visiting open studios can be a great way to discover what kind of art is out there. She warned, however, as did the rest of the panel, that art fairs are not a good venue for collectors or artists. Because of its retail environment, an art fair isn't likely to have the kind of work an art collector is interested in. Occasionally, a promising artist will show interesting work at an art fair, but the work is often already sold and just being used to showcase the artist.

Beginner collectors can also do their research online. Many museums now have virtual tours. Galleries across the planet have websites, and millions of self-representing artists display their work on the Internet. Allen Schwartzman, a collector, art historian, and art consultant to museums suggested that before spending a lot of money for a piece of art online, a collector should have a return policy agreement with the artist or seller in case the artwork does not have the same appeal in person as it had on the computer screen.
"There is something very special about being in the same room with a piece of art you love," said Schwartzman. The art should speak to the owner on many levels. In fact, Schwartzman also advised collectors to sell pieces from their collections only when those pieces stop speaking to them on a daily basis.

So, how does a person develop an impressive collection? According to this panel of experts, educating oneself is essential. Then, if collecting contemporary art, a collector needs to find an artist whose work speaks to him/her, but also whom the collector believes will continue producing even greater work. In the case of period collections, visiting antique shops and looking through dealer catalogues is a good way to begin. Once a collector has a few pieces in his/her collection, the lifelong obsession will have probably taken root, and a refined eye will have developed.

From this point on, it seems the collector is on his/her own. The panel encouraged risk taking and told their guests to anticipate mistake making. They also warned collectors not to be intimidated by the art world. If a buyer wants to see what is sitting in the back room of a gallery, he/she should ask to see it regardless of the severe-looking person sitting at the front desk, a phenomenon everyone agreed was annoying. Most importantly, beginner collectors should collect art for the love of art and nothing else, that way the collection is meaningful, enjoyable, and one-of-a-kind.

Note: The artwork featured here is Jackson Pollock's, "Blue (Moby Dick)" from the Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki.

!IMAGE148!After watching a news clip about the first fallen soldier from Utah who had died in the Iraq War, Kaziah Hancock became struck by the feeling of immense loss this news must have had on the soldier's family. Although Kaziah has no children of her own, the realization of this loss overwhelmed her . Her response was to paint the fallen soldier, James W. Kelly, of Salt Lake and send the painting to his family free of charge. The experience was so powerful that Kaziah knew right away she wanted to paint as many fallen soldiers as she could for the families they left behind.

Kaziah's project began near the beginning of the Iraq War, when there were 80 soldiers killed. After nearly going broke, having put her professional art career on hold, Kaziah continues today, having founded the non-profit humanitarian organization, Project Compassion. with the help of donations and other artist volunteers. Kaziah and her volunteer artists have painted thousands of portraits and accept requests from family members daily.

!IMAGE149!As you'll see in the video, Kaziah is a passionate artist who paints the soldier portraits not just from a single photograph, but after taking the time to read letters written by the soldier, to talk to the family, and choose carefully from a lifetime of photographs. This process helps Kaziah to truly connect with the soldier she is painting. In this way, each painting is a journey that Kaziah and the other artists take, emotionally charged, but full of generous intention. The paintings are a way for the soldiers to live again not only in the hearts of their families, but through time.

No, unfortunately artists cannot stop war. But we can give our talents towards the efforts of peace.

Descriptions:

An artwork's title is different than a its description. In your online studio, we give you a place to title your work and a place to describe your work. You may want the name of your artwork to be "The Leap", for example, which is perfectly fine for a title, but for a description, you've got to get more specific.

Describe the subject matter of your art in detail. Let's say "The Leap" is a landscape painting, with a red covered bridge that you painted outside in Minnesota in fall, and there's a bullfrog crossing the road. In your description, you want to say all of that concisely. Like, "Painting of a red covered bridge in Minnesota with fall foliage and a frog jumping on the road."

The reason is that hardly anyone is going to type in "The Leap" into a search engine when looking for a painting. Instead, they might type in "Painting with frog", or "Minnesota foliage painting", or "Painting of Covered bridge", "Fall Foliage Painting", "Bullfrog Painting". You get the idea. The descriptions should contain the words that best describe the artwork in detail. That way the person searching for any of those things has a greater chance of finding your painting and deciding if it's what they are looking for. "The Leap" as a description will, quite frankly, get you nothing.

Landscape paintings are relatively easy to describe in succinct language. But, what about an abstract painting? What if the entire painting is a swirl of blue and yellow paint and you call it "Study #2"? The same idea applies, but you have to be specific in a different way. You may want to consider how you would describe your piece to a lay person. I will take stab at it: "Contemporary abstract expressionistic oil painting in blue and yellow. Modern, vibrant art." In this case, style and genre are important as are the colors and the few descriptive words.

!IMAGE146 False advertising will do you no good. You might get people coming to see your piece by describing it as a "surrealist Dali nude with lemons" but when all you've got is a still life with lemons, they're not going to buy and you've wasted everybody's time.

eBay Titles

Titling your listing on eBay runs on the exact same principles. While you can still have the title of your piece be "The Leap", don't put it in your listing title. It doesn't belong there. The eBay title is about getting as many of your strong, descriptive words into the allotted character space as possible. This is slightly different than your website description. On eBay, you have to be really concise and consider how someone might look for artwork like yours.

So, back to "The Leap", the painting with the frog and the covered bridge. You would have to use the word "painting" to begin with because eBay sells everything in the world. So by using the word "painting" you've narrowed the field quite a bit. Still, there are a lot of paintings on eBay, some from artists like you, others from random people selling paintings off their walls or something. I've seen some eBay listings with the word "original" in the title to describe a piece of art being sold by the artist, but I'm not sure how strong that word is. It seems to me if someone is looking for a painting with a covered bridge, they would take it with or without the title of "original" -- all paintings were original at some point. But I digress. How about, "Painting of Minnesota covered bridge w/ frog and fall foliage." Remember, that small words like "with", "of", and "and" don't matter in the search engine world, so sometimes just leaving them out makes for more room for more powerful words.If there were room, I might stick in the word "landscape" since sometimes people just like a good landscape painting and would be willing to browse some. Also avoid words like "one of a kind", "unique" because then you are entering the antiques arena. "Fine art" works though. Again, you get the idea. I would also suggest a trip to eBay to see how other artists are titling their work for more ideas.

Once someone clicks into your listing on eBay, you can say anything about your piece you want. Tell them the title, the dimensions, the inspiration for painting it, your life story, whatever you think would sell it. Just be sure that everything you say about it is true and that the picture you provide is a real representation of the original piece. You don't want any returns or unhappy customers.

I encourage the artists on this site to go back through your studios and make any adjustments to your descriptions that will help it gain more targeting viewers. And sell on eBay too. It costs nothing to send your piece out into the eBay world from here. Who knows, you might sell something quicker than you thought.

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The artwork used in this article is from member artists, David Hasler. and Peter Kitchell. Maria Williams-Russell is the Minds Island Editor-In- Chief and has worked as a web marketing consultant for art related websites for the last five years. She is also currently working on her MFA in Poetry at Goddard College. If you are interested in writing for Minds Island, please contact Maria for submission guidelines at mariawilliams@gmail.com ]]> http://artid.com/members/art_review/blog/post/125 Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000 Miniature Books Exhibit At The Boston Public Library

!IMAGE140!Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Boston Public Library's main branch in Copley Square to see their miniature books exhibit entitled 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures. While I have always considered handmade books pieces of art, I have to say that the miniature versions are awe-inspiring. If you are new to miniature books, like I was, you will probably first ask yourself, 'why?' and then, after passing over a few of these magical little fineries, you will ask, 'why not more?'

The books, many of which are the size of a postage stamp or smaller, are all meticulously made tiny treasures indeed. Covered with finely crafted and customized cases the books evoke the feeling of being presented with a precious gift. Remove the case to find tucked into the inner lid a mini magnifying glass, which is fascinating in its own right. The book's covers are often laden with intricate, decorative handiwork and done in leather. Once you get to the books themselves, they seem like the surprise luscious filling to a gourmet chocolate.

The books vary widely in craft and content. Many have wonderful personal touches like built-in bookmark tassels, are printed in color or black and white, and have serious or whimsical content. The collection includes books about herb gardens, books of poetry, and much more.

In fact, a lot more! This particular collection is a conglomeration of the Public Library's own miniature book collection and part of the collection of Boston based antiquarian bookseller Anne Bromer of Bromer Booksellers. Bromer has co-written a book of the same name as the exhibit, 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures, and is an expert on the subject of miniature books as well as rare books in general. This exhibit has many highlights, including a miniature book illustrated and signed by Pablo Picasso, the complete works of William Shakespeare, The Emancipation Proclamation, many "concise" versions of the Holy Bible, a gold gilt mini Koran, and even early miniature stone tablets.

For an experience that is physically miniature, the overall effect is great, which for me was the whole point. I desperately wanted to handle one of the books to see what it felt like to be a giant. I wanted to put one of those mini magnifying glasses to my eye to see if I could actually see an entire mini world open up through the lens -- they are fantastic in that way, unexpected, and totally impractical, except to evoke wonder.

It is hard to imagine what people might have done with these books. I discovered that some more recent of the collection were made for dollhouses, and the larger books displayed, perhaps the size of a business card, which were used while traveling. But, in most cases, I think they were made as art for arts' sake, and were used as precious keepsakes to be carried in the pocket, and to marvel upon the loveliness of something so small, beautiful, and delicate.

If you are a fan of art book making, miniatures, typography, book binding, or giants, you've got to see this! The exhibit runs now through September 2, 2007 and is free and open to the public. Enjoy!

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Maria Williams-Russell is the Minds Island Editor in Chief and has worked as a web marketing consultant for art related websites for the last five years. She is also currently working on her MFA in Poetry at Goddard College. If you are interested in writing for Minds Island, please contact Maria for submission guidelines at mariawilliams@gmail.com ]]> http://artid.com/members/art_review/blog/post/121 Tue, 08 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000 Recently, I wrote an article entitled, The Art Of Marketing Your Own Art. for the Minds Island website. In it, I focus on the art of creative selling artists have to practice in order to take control of their art careers. I used the painter Duane Keiser. as an example of an artist who has done exactly that by utilizing the Internet. Keiser is the artists who initiated the "Painting A Day" phenomenon in which artists paint a small painting a day and sell/market it on the Internet via eBay, a website, a blog, or all of the above. You can read The Art Of Marketing Your Own Art. on Minds Island now to get the background.

!IMAGE135!Keiser's story struck me because, in general, there seems to be a natural disconnect between artists and their computers (digital artists not included) that many artists find hard to bridge. It's easy to understand why; an artist's relationship to his/her work typically involves brushes, canvas, paint, eye, hand, and breath. Computer keys can be very unappealing. Regardless, the Internet offers a bustling marketplace where artists and buyers are redefining the way the art world does business. That is, a move away from the traditional sales route, which depended on brick and mortar galleries. So, wanted to speak to Duane Keiser directly to dicover how he personally bridged the gap and found financial success.

Duane Keiser was kind enough to grant me a phone interview in early March. This article documents the highlights of our conversation.

Our meeting was for 10:30 am on a Tuesday. I sat on the floor in my daughter's room, computer in front of me, looking at the latest Keiser paintings online, a lush peach, which I could click on and buy on eBay. I clicked. Immediately, I was taken to an eBay listing of the work. I saw the price for this piece had started at fifty dollars and was, at the time, bid up to three-hundred-something dollars. I didn't bid, but it looked like at least 15 other people did. Though, I am definitely considering buying a Duane Keiser original on eBay. To me, his work adds a luxurious quality to the mundane without trying to elevate it with intricate patterned cloths, or wall-papered backgrounds. As a writer, I am attracted to that. In addition to the peach painting, there was painting of a rainbow trout, an open oyster, and a smothered palette knife, each plainly placed, yet delicately transferred. The fact that I could actually afford one of Keiser's paintings helps as well!

Duane Keiser was in his car when I reached him, looking for a place to park wearing his cell phone headset. Casual and relaxed despite the parking dilemma, I quickly got the impression that Duane Keiser was a man who was sure of himself. After a quick introduction, I began.

MW: Duane, can you talk about how your art career was going before you began selling the small works online?

Keiser : Sure. My art career was going fine. I had had a couple of one-man shows in NYC at the time and had shown a lot before that, so I was on a normal trajectory for a successful artist in the traditional sense. But, even when you're in a New York Gallery, it's hard to make much money. Sales are sporadic and there are expenses, like the galleries take commissions, and there are various other expenses.

MW: So, by showing in a gallery, the hope is that if you're not making a solid income yet, at least you will be building recognition for your art?

Keiser: Yeah. Well, you hope to create a following. The thinking is that someday you'll make it big, you know, the discovery will come and the big art review will come out and then you'll be able to make a living as an artist. But the fact is, or, it has been my experience, that there are very few people that happens to.

MW: How then did you come up with your first idea of "100 Paintings For $100"?

!IMAGE136!Keiser: Well, mostly it came from my realization of how things were going taking the normal route. Here I was showing in a New York gallery and was selling fairly well, but I still wasn't able to make ends meet. So, one day I looked around my studio and I saw all these little paintings I had done, for myself mostly, for my whole life. I knew galleries were not really interested in little pieces because they couldn't get that much for them. So, I figured - here I had my own studio where I could hang stuff, I a had a mailing list., and I could put together my own opening in my studio. I could have a party, make the place look nice, put up some track lighting, have some good beer, good wine, invite my friends who couldn't really afford to buy the bigger art at the time, and just have a party. Everyone could look at some good art while having a good time. It made perfect sense to me, like why hadn't I done this sooner? So, I had the party, everyone came over, and a lot of people bought their first original oil painting. It came close to selling out and everybody had a good time. I ended up doing that for few years, like twice a year I would have a big opening.

MW: And how would you let people know about the openings? You said you had a mailing list.?

Keiser: Yes. I would have people sign up for my email list and every time I did a new painting, I'd email it to people. And people liked it, you know, usually people are getting Viagara ads in their email, so this was something different. They could check out my new work, and if they wanted to buy it, they could click on it.

MW: How did you set that up in your email, the click-thru, I mean?

Keiser: Well, at first people just mailed me checks. It was on a first come first serve basis. If they wanted the piece, they would just email me back and send a check.

MW: So, when did you decide to start using a website?

MW: Can I ask if you made the website yourself or did you hire someone?

Keiser: I actually made it myself. I taught myself some html and I figured it out and made a website. I saw early on, well extrapolated, that the Internet was going to be useful. I felt that the screen technology was going to get better, more and more people were going to get cable connections and so forth, so I knew that I needed to get comfortable with the technology and building websites. I was excited about it, actually.

MW: Ok. Back to the small paintings, do you think that the big hit was the price point of $100 or was it a combination of all the efforts?

Keiser: I think it was a combination. Small works are good for collectors because they can hang them in their homes in these little nooks and crannies. There's a preciousness, an intimacy that something that small gives people. And the price point - well, I think that artists over-price themselves in general. It's the only business I know of where if the work isn't selling, they raise the price the next year regardless of what the demand is, if they are selling or not. There is this mentality that if I make my paintings expensive people will eventually come and meet my price point. I think it should be the other way around. You start your price points lower, brutally lower, and begin to build the demand organically. The other way is really unnatural. So, I decided to test my theory out and make some paintings that I could sell for about a tenth of what I would normally get in a gallery.

MW: And you didn't feel compromised by that?

Keiser: No. Though, other artists were telling me I was crazy, that I was under-cutting the market. It was not seen at the time as something that was proper. So, it was a little bit of a risk. And, you know, there was a risk that my galleries would be mad that I was selling my own work, which when you think about it is crazy.

MW: Did your galleries make a fuss?

Keiser: No, they didn't. They understood that this was a different kind of work for a different kind of buyer. And I happened to have some pretty cool galleries and people that I knew pretty well. And they knew this was my own thing. I wasn't going to undercut them in any way. So, I set it at a $100 and it was perfect, just the right price. People were able to buy more and then they would buy bigger pieces. And the smaller pieces ended up being like mini advertisements in their homes. So, it makes sense. At first you undercut your prices, and it hurts a little bit, but look what you get from it.

Keiser: Well, there are a couple concerns, which are all legitimate. First, if a collector of yours sees your work on eBay for half the price of what they bought a similar piece for, naturally they are going to be concerned. That's part of the problem. The counter to that is a lot of collectors now understand that if you cut your price and put it on eBay that this is not necessarily what the painting is worth and there is the possibility of it getting bid higher. And they understand that this is the kind of strategy that might get your prices really high. You go down to where your market is and grow it from there. Then it can build again on top of that. But if you price yourself out of your market, just throw something on eBay, and you don't bring an audience to it, it's not going to sell. That's the other thing people don't understand. You can't just put something on eBay without bringing an audience to it. Like if I just put something on eBay right now without bringing people to it from my website and my blog and stuff, I wouldn't get that many people looking at it.

MW: That's a good point. So let's back track. You went from 100 paintings for $100 to another idea called "A Painting A Day" in which you started a blog with images of your work, which were clickable and went straight to an eBay listing of the piece where a collector could buy it. How did that all evolve and how did you manage to grow your audience this way?

Keiser: I started fooling around with a blog. just to check it out, and it became a huge hit in a matter of days because BoingBoing.net got wind of it and listed it as a cool blog to go to with this guy who was doing a painting a day. I didn't even know about the article until I got about 100 emails in my inbox one day. Then it just ballooned from there. USA Today did an article on me and then the New York Times and other bloggers were linking to my blog - all these artists who wanted to do Painting A Day projects started doing them, hundreds and then thousands maybe now, and I just started using all that. I kept building up my email list and ultimately leading all that traffic and interest to my eBay listings. And I would recommend to your readers my strategy, to have low set prices at first and then once things start selling consistently, and quickly from their email list or buyer list or whatever, then is the time to start using eBay. When you've got your audience and your price points where they need to be. I think of it as a tea kettle kind of thing, when you hear the water boiling, that means the interest is growing outside its container. Then you're ready for eBay. I think what's happening is that people are jumping to eBay right off the bat. They're making high set prices, and in a lot of cases it's just not going to work.

MW: You mentioned that other artists are picking up on the Paintings A Day phenomenon. How has that affected your business?

Keiser: Well, I haven't quite worked it all out myself yet. But from very early on I encouraged people to use my idea. I figure the more people painting the better. You know, artists would email me and ask permission to do it and I just kind of gave it away, just go ahead and do it. And people would link to my blog from their blogs, so my traffic always increased. And now, it's just sort of opened up the market for this kind of work. Now collectors can choose from more small works, collect the landscapes if they want, or my stuff, or whatever's out there. It may have affected my sales slightly, but not enough to make me really worry about it.

MW: What about the larger pieces of yours now. Are you still selling in the galleries?

Keiser: Yes. But I have sold some larger work online now too, just not at the low price. I'll even sell them in an auction setting but price it so the galleries don't get undercut. Typically the galleries give a 20% cut anyway.

MW: I also noticed you have your own uTube videos. on your blog. Can you talk about that?

Keiser: Yeah. I started fooling around, doing these little videos of me painting and put them on uTube and on my blog and people seem to like them.

MW: Do you think you're getting much traffic from Utube?

Keiser: Yes. A lot. It could be that they are coming to my blog and then going to uTube from there, but then are coming back. It's hard to track uTube, but I know one of my videos has had like 10,000 views.

MW: It seems to me that the video is just the next generation of what's going to happen with A Painting A Day.

Keiser: Well, yes. Like soon we are going to be able to put live feeds up from our studios and technology is going to just keep getting better, so I have some ideas of what I might do with that. But I've always been a tech-nerd, a gadget geek. Like the html seemed to me to be another creative avenue. Like making a website is to me like making a painting now. I enjoy coming up with a clean, interesting design.

MW: What about the search engines? I noticed if I type in "Painting A Day" as keywords, your site comes up as the first in the non-paid section of Google. Have you worked at site optimization and stuff like that?

Keiser: No. In all of this, I have never spent a penny on advertising in the search engines.

MW: As we come to the end of my questions, can you give me your general opinion about sites like Minds Island that offer Internet tools to artists?

Keiser. Well, the good thing about it is that people who are not technically savvy can get their work up and have tools like eBay available to them and a Paypal account or some credit card mechanism and they can have a presence fairly easily. That's good. They need that. What happens is that once you have a presence, again, you have to bring people to your work. You have to bring collectors in. And the company can't really do that for 500 or so artists at a time because each artist's work is unique and they need a unique selling strategy. I think there is the potential to get lost in the crowd. But, that falls on the artist. You got to ask yourself, how can I bring people to my work, and then do it.

At the end of the interview, it was that last comment that stuck with me, "You got to ask yourself, how can I bring people to my work, and then do it," which is exactly what he did - he saw a problem and solved it for himself. Duane's work now sells daily on eBay, his videos are available on uTube, he's got great press online and off and he has successfully managed to make ends meet as an artist, which is the goal of most artists - and for writers, for that matter. He also proved that computers, and more specifically, the Internet, are not all that difficult to grasp. It is true that Duane Keiser found his personal niche in the market, being a "gadget-geek" as he said, but that doesn't mean other non-geeks can't make it happen too. To me, sites like Minds Island are just the first step. From there, anything can happen, A Painting A Day, or something else, who knows? Sounds like the possibilities are endless.

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Maria Williams-Russell is the Minds Island Editor in Chief and has worked as a web marketing consultant for art related websites for the last five years. She is also currently working on her MFA in Poetry at Goddard College. If you are interested in writing for Minds Island, please contact Maria for submission guidelines at mariawilliams@gmail.com]]> http://artid.com/members/art_review/blog/post/119 Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000 !IMAGE132!

Sometimes it's difficult reconnecting with creativity. Life's responsibilities often get in the way of a certain freedom our minds need to create art. For some people, creative blocks are a constant struggle. Personally, I need to get out in the fresh air for about ten minutes and take a walk. Walking allows my eyes to wander and land on just about everything around me without placing judgements, my brain starts working on all the stuff that's going on in my life without any pressure to resolve. I usually come back happier and more motivated to complete that project I've been working on. That's why I was so excited when I came across a website called sketchcrawl.com, the perfect antidote when you're losing your creative edge.

Sketchcrawl.com. is the brainchild of cartoon artist, Enrico Casarosa, who after a night participating in a pub-crawl for a friend's bachelor party, came up with the idea of a sketch-crawl. Armed with some pencils and watercolors, Casarosa spent an entire day walking through the city, stopping to sketch whatever interesting came into view.

"Giving yourself this kind of mandate for a full day changes the way you look around you. It makes you stop and see things just a tad longer, just a bit deeper. Needless to say I loved it," writes Casarosa on the website.

Casarosa loved it so much, he invited other artists to sketch-crawl with him. The experience was even more enjoyable in a group. Because every artist has a different eye, the work on the same crawl varied greatly, and it was fun at the end of the day to compare and talk about their work.

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Casarosa's desire to document his sketch-crawls was met in the form of a blog. In it he encourages artists to participate in sketch-crawls either on their own or in crawls he helps organize through the blog. Sketch-crawls are being organized all over the world and participants can post a sample of their sketch-crawl work online in the website forum.

What I discovered in the work posted in the forums, is an excitement in the everyday aspects of life. Quick drawings of a stove with tea-kettle or people on a bus jump off the page (or screen). There is a fresh urgency to many of the sketches, with their sometimes scribbled lines and dripped watercolor I think comes from losing the burden of trying too hard, or worrying about it. Ultimately, it's fun. Whether or not you consider yourself a sketch artist, isn't that where it all began, sketching in a notebook as a child and realizing you had a special way of seeing the world?

The sketch-crawl community now uses the sketch-crawl as a fundraiser to support charities. I love this idea - any group of artists anywhere can gather together and spend a day renewing their love of art while doing good for their communities, whether local or global.

So, go check out sketchcrawl.com. and spend a day outside walking and drawing. Organize a few artist friends and do it together. Reconnect with your creativity and make more art!

Note: The art is this article was provide by Minds Island member Pheobe Wilson. !IMAGE134!

Artists, Get Creative!

!IMAGE127!As an artist, you probably know that making great art isn't all it takes to make a living as an artist. Once the artwork is done, getting the artwork sold is another challenge. Even if you loathe the idea of having to be a marketing agent and public relations guru, with a little creativity, the marketing aspect of the job can be done on your own terms.

Take, for example, painter Duane Keiser. Duane is a painter who, until the past several years, typically sold a couple of paintings a year. That is, until he came up with the idea of "100 paintings for $100." The idea was that he would paint 100 small postcard size paintings and then sell each of them for $100 dollars. He painted the paintings and then put an invitation out to his friends and buyers to come to his studio for the opening of "100 Paintings for $100". The opening was a hit and the paintings flew off the wall. You do the math. Keiser's entrepreneurial idea paid off. So, he took it one step further. He started to post his small works for sale on his website, and whenever he put a new one up, he sent an email to all of his friends and clients again. The pieces sold. After awhile, Keiser decided on a new, but similar selling strategy. He began painting one postcard size painting a day and posting them on a free blog with a click thru to eBay where clients and visitors could bid on the paintings. Again, the idea was a phenomenal success. "After that, it just exploded. I would post a painting, and someone in India would buy it within five minutes," says Keiser as quoted in the online article by USA Today.
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Not only did the paintings sell, but the auction venue on eBay allowed a $100 painting to be bid up to sometimes $1200. Again, do the math. Keiser suddenly found himself making a decent salary on his art and making a name for himself. The buzz his "painting a day" blog created got him mentioned in the USA Today article, as well as in the interior design magazine Domino. Now, "a painting a day" has become a trend and written about in the New York Times last August.
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I give you this example to motivate you to take the not-so-giant leap into marketing your own work. As an artist, you are also a small business and finding new and interesting ways to sell your work can mean the difference between selling a couple of paintings a year, or a couple of paintings a day.
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The Internet can be the best tool you ever used in finding the right buyers for your art. The opportunities are endless. But, like Keiser, you have to work it and have confidence. Without the confidence and motivation, obviously nothing will happen. So, put those thinking caps on. Sit down one afternoon and brainstorm. Ask yourself these questions: What could I do that would be an interesting way to sell my art? What kind of budget do I have for advertising? Who do I need to be in contact with and how do I reach them? And then, go. Do it.

!IMAGE130!Your ideas could range from selling your paintings in the park to donating a painting to all the art consultants in your area so they know your name and can contact you when they need more work - for sale. Basquiat gained attention as a graffiti artist in his youth by leaving thought-provoking phrases in his work under the name SAMO. The important thing is, whatever you do, you will have beaten the marketing blues and be making headway on the financial aspect of your chosen career. Good luck. Have fun. Make sales!

Minds Island artists, if you have any interesting sales ideas or success stories in this regard, please post them below!

The small works of art shown throughout this article have been created by Virgilla Lammons, Debe Abbott, Alex Slingenberg, Sarah Ahearn, and Irene Stapleford .

What Is A Copyright The main purpose of a copyright is to make sure that others do not use your artwork without your knowledge or consent for their own needs, whether it be an outright theft of an image for reproduction and sale or if it is to use on other publications such as a website, brochure, or film. Legally, it is the responsibility of the other party to contact you and ask your permission to use the art as well as to comply with any conditional terms you might have regarding that use.
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How Does A Copyright Work
As an artist, you technically hold the copyright to your work at the time you have completed it. You put down the brush, the pencil, or whatever you used to make your art, and you behold your finished creation. At that moment, it is copyrighted, which means from that point forward, somewhat like its guardian, you have the right to lead, shape, and protect its public life in whatever way you see fit. By understanding the rights associated with your copyright ownership, you will be more able to make decisions regarding the sale and distribution of your work.
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Under copyright law, you may sell the original work of art to a buyer for an agreed upon price. What you have sold is a single object, not the rights to do with that image what the buyer wants. Regardless of physical ownership, you still hold the rights to its image, and the image is what people will want to reproduce. Therefore, you can give or not give permission to others to reproduce that image. You also have the right to determine how and when it is reproduced if you do decide to give permission. In addition, as the holder of the copyright, you have the right to profits made from the sale of any reproductions of that image. In short, your copyright makes it illegal for someone to reproduce your original image and/or profit from it without your permission and guidance.

Protecting Your Copyright This is great! You made this piece of art and without any further action you can exercise your rights to it. As with most things, copyright ownership rights are not so cut and dry. There are many reasons why it may be difficult at some point to prove your ownership if the need arises, and just because you own the copyrights doesn't mean you are going to know if someone is violating them. So, while the rights to your artwork are intrinsic to you as the artist upon completion of the work, it may be worth your while to take all the steps you can to protect your artwork from art predators.

One way to begin is by registering your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. While not necessary, a registered copyright may be the right thing for your work. The fees for copyrighting were raised last year to $45 for each filing. The U.S. Copyright Office gives the following reasons as advantages for registering your copyright:

_ Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.

_ Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.

_ If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate. !IMAGE126!

_ If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.

_ Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website and click on Intellectual Property Rights.
Whether you have registered your copyright or not, it is always a good idea to affix a Copyright Notice on your artwork if possible. A Copyright Notice is a written notification of the copyright held, to whom, and at what date it began. You've probably seen them before on books and record labels, even websites - the copyright symbol with your name and the date the piece was copyrighted. For two-dimensional art, placing the notice on the back frame or writing it directly on the paper or canvas will probably work. But for three-dimensional work, such as sculpture, it might not be so easy. The Copyright Office suggests, in that case, tagging the piece with a removable notice prior to selling. The idea is that these notices imply a trail or watcher of the piece and may help deter someone from using the image, but it is no guarantee.

In this "Information Age" it is difficult if not impossible to track every piece of art you have created. But, there are small ways in which you can deter infringement. !IMAGE124!
When posting your work online for example, make sure that you use low-resolution images that are fine for the Internet, but that will not reproduce in print. Usually an image in 72 dpi will be low enough. Consider creating a Copyright Notice or even a watermark on your digital images, which will make it more difficult for thieves to reproduce your work.

If you are particularly concerned for one reason or another and wish to know exactly where your work is at all times and how it is being used, there are companies that will track your art and manage your copyright permissions and earnings for you. The Artists Rights Society provides a service like this at arsny.com.

For further information about copyright laws, and how to register your art, please visit the U.S. Copyright Office. There is good information in their frequently asked questions help section.

The lovely florals displayed throughout this article are by Susan Edwards.

There are several ways for artists to use the Internet. One is as a virtual business card. Say someone sees your work in a group show or at an outdoor art fair. They love what they see but for some reason they cannot buy from you that day. They take your card. If the card has a phone number and an address that they don't necessarily consider local, that buyer is very unlikely to follow up and purchase something from you. But if the card also has a website address, it is much easier for them to re-familiarize themselves with your work with the click of a few keys. This is where the research comes in. They may continually come back to your site to see if there is more work, or whether you will be displaying at a show nearby in the future. It is also a good idea for you to collect visitors email addresses to send them notices of your latest work so that they don't forget that you are out there. By using the Internet, you have the ability and advantage to retain that prospective customer.

The second way for artists to utilize the Internet is by using it as an advertising tool. This means that you are using the Internet to gain new customers. This is where many businesses fall by the wayside. Since the Internet is made up of millions of websites, your work can easily get lost in the shuffle. But the good news is that there are very easy and practical ways to avoid getting beat out.

Like traditional advertising, getting yourself in the forefront of the Internet means being in a lot of places at once. You must anticipate how your customers will try and find your work on the Internet and then put it exactly where they can find it. For example, Overture.com, a major search engine and leading keyword advertising company, gets approximately 4,000 people a month that type in the phrase "art for sale". You want your work to be easily accessible when that keyword is typed in! There are several ways to do this. You may want to build your own website and pay someone to submit it with the proper meta tags each month to all the search engines. This is a good idea, but for many artists, too costly an investment. A less expensive way is to create a simple website with clear images of your work. Then get your work and personal site listed on several other websites that are on the top pages for specific keywords that fit your work. Also, list your link on as many websites as you can. There are many non-profit artist directories on the Internet. Check with your local art league or council to see if they have online directories of artists. Once your work is out there, be sure to use specific keywords when describing your work. Search engines will recognize them and bring up your pages when someone types in the same words. You will have to do some Internet research of your own to figure out where you should be, but once you've seen the field, it's much easier to play!

The third way artists use the Internet is through direct sales. When an interested customer finds you on the Internet, let them have an easy way of buying your work. It's always a good idea to be able to take credit cards to eliminate the lag time of sending a check, but if you don't have the ability to accept credit cards, make sure that you have listed all your contact information clearly beside your work. In most cases art buyers will want to get in touch directly with the artists before buying a piece. Talking to the artist about the work they are interested in will be the final point that pushes the sale through.

So, if you are in the business of selling your art, it is a smart move to use the Internet as a tool to do just that. You will have a virtual business card to allow you to retain old and potential customers more easily and you will be able to advertise to a much larger buying audience. But remember, there is a bit of smart legwork that needs to be done. You can't just put your work up in one place and let it simply sit there. As with any selling campaign, you have to be diligent.