New Web Site -- in Progress

 

Help! I earnestly request that my  subscribers and readers click this link

NEW GALLERY WEB SITE 

and give me feedback, suggestions, corrections, ideas for what's missing, and any other critique you'd like to contribute to my new gallery site-in-progress. Since I am designing the site with iweb and publishing it on .mac, I particularly want to know how it works on PC platforms and on browsers other than Firefox. I won't switch my public domain, www.susiemonday.com until I've done a bit more work, but it's ready for some outside eyes.

There is still an enormous amount to do to get the site where I want it to be, but with this much done and published, I feel like I have met my Artist Breakthrough Program goal of developing the site by April 1. With your help, I can take the next steps to  fatten it out with more content, better edited photos, and additional pages during the next 3 weeks leading up to my sale at Fiesta Arts Fair, April 19-20.

A few specific questions:

Do the live hyperLINKS need to be a more distinct color?

Is it too weird to have the tense go from third to first person (home page to gallery pages)? And if so, which should it be ?

Should I have a more formal bio/resume page?

Should I have more or fewer pictures on each of the galleries? Should I subdivide more or combine them? Do I include prices? Size? Media? More description for each photo on the gallery page and then NOT include it on the slideshow?

What other pages do you think I should include?

Does the design and format look enough like my blog to have a consistent style? Any suggestions on visual "branding"?

Any other ideas? Really, I need them. If you don't want to leave a personal comment, email me by sending a message to susiemonday@gmail.com (you do have my new email, right?). 

I'd Rather Be in the Studio

 

No kidding.

Wouldn't we all? The teetertotter between marketing and making is yet another of those dicotomies, those dualities, that I am working to embrace.

One of the best resources I have found is Alyson Stanfield -- Art Biz Coach, extraordinare. As

I mentioned a few weeks ago, I signed up for her first Artist Breakthrough Program. The results were both helpful and surprising. I intended to work on a plan for launching a coaching aspect to my work -- mainly because I know that I am called to mentoring other people's journeys to their deepest creative work. In working through the process with 11 other wonderful artists (see links to their sites at the end of this post), my first breakthrough was that I was nuts to try and start ANOTHER "business," which even a deep calling becomes when one decides to market it or make it part of one's profession. I do have my hands full. Instead, with the rest of the 28-day program, I focused on putting together a do-able promotion plan for the exhibits and shows that I am committed to the rest of the year: Fiesta Arts Fair on April 19-20, a group show at the New Braunfels Art League Gallery in August, a solo show at the Rockport Art, also in August, and a presence in the regional quilt shows in the Dallas area, September through December at the Arlington Art Museum. This blog will play a part in keeping my focus on making the most of these opportunities, and I hope all of you that are reading will help me stay on track! My goal is to show exceptional work, to invite friends and interested audiences, to sell work and find opportunities for commissions. All of these exhibitions mean that I must be both in the studio, and on my best business behavior -- with organization, optimism and confidence -- and good promotional materials, as well. As much as we artists would like to live in our little bubble studios, those of us who must pay for groceries, shelter and the ever-rising gasoline bill, have to face the entrepreneurial realities of the marketplace.

The ABP is just the latest of the courses and resources that I've had from my connection to Alyson's web-based work, and everyone of them has been helpful -- her's is one of the blogs that I read every week; I play her podcasts on my iphone; I  refer to her materials, and now, I dip into her book -- I'd Rather Be in the Studio -- for answers to specific marketing and business  questions. And I'm scheduled for a virtual book tour when Alyson stops by this blog on April 22. I am in great company I realize, now that the blog tour has begun. The first stop was with Cynthis Morris, a wonderfully inspirational coach and writer; today's stop was at Christine Hellmuth's blog. I can't wait to read who's next, and I encourage all of you to follow along. Here's the blurb from Alyson's promotion:

I’d Rather Be in the Studio! The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion is for artists of all kinds. Painters, sculptors, ceramist, jewelers, photographers, and others will benefit from the easy-to-follow self-promotion practices in this book.

Author and art-marketing consultant Alyson B. Stanfield, of ArtBizCoach.com, focuses on sharing the artwork directly with potential buyers through electronic and traditional communication outlets—in a manner that is comfortable, not artificial. Artists match Internet marketing strategies with sincere personal skills to take charge of their art careers.

The book includes online worksheets and downloads.

Meanwhile, what's up for MY promotional materials?  A new website for my gallery/art work home-away-from-home  is coming soon. This blog, at least for the foreseeable future, will stay on Squarespace, but I hope to move my gallery site to .mac within the next couple of weeks, with new images, updated navigation, a more professional appearance and an easier interface that will help me keep it updated!

P.S. Here is a list and links to 5 of the artists who were partners in the Artist Breakthrough Program (in no particular order, the others will be in the next post):

Patricia Scarborough, painter 

Lyn Bishop, digital fine art 

William H. Miller, fellow Texan (Houston), photographer, digitalist, painter 

Lynne Oakes, painter and teacher 

Karine Swenson, painter, abstracts, lives in the desert 

Mavis Penney, painter, photographer, lives in Labrador

Be sure to click the links to these artist's blogs (those who have them) -- a wonderful way to catch a glimpse of the creative life in a wide world of media, locations and situations -- like studio open house visits without the travel.  

I am from..

I am from prickly pear pads covered with cochinil and from the sticky sweet carpet of yellow mesquite beans. I am from the grape Koolade scent of purple Mountain Laurel in March and the musty flame of sumac leaves in October.

 

OK, let's take a tiny creative break from all that focus.

I spent half an hour this morning soaring around the blogosphere. The best thing by far I picked up was a wonderful writing exercise on Terry Grant's blog, And Sew It Goes (I followed the trail from one of my regular must-reads -PaMdora's Box).

The premise is to write something based on a evocative poemevocative poem  titled I am from by George Ella Lyon.

This is making its way around the internet (see 2 Lime Leaves), not quite a meme as one doesn't exactly get tagged, but  I hope you'll try it, and if you have a blog, post it there with a comment so we can find it. If  you don't have a blog, just put your version in the comments here or in my next post where I will publish my version! See you tomorrow with poem in hand. Here's the template that started it on its internet voyage, from writer  Fred First in his blog  post on February 18, 2005. He put this together from the original poems structure, I think.

I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.

I am from the _______ (home description... adjective, adjective, sensory detail).

I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail)

I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name).

I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one).

From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another).

I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it). Further description.

I'm from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family).

From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member).

I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).

Of course, you can make your own version without the template, too; many of those doing this exercise have done just that. But I think I will enjoy the structure -- open-ended forms like this appeal to me, just like figuring out the size of a potential art quilt seems to be the first step my creative process requires. I like filling in a space with colors, rhythms, lines and shapes and this kind of writing is the literary equivalent, I suppose.

Think of this as a creative breather, something that might take an hour out of your busy day, but that will feel as though you've had a wonderful massage, a walk in the woods, a picnic by the lake -- all without taking much time or gasoline to get there. 

Focus is fine. Necessary and Essential. But we creative beings (and that's all of us) also need to take deep drinks of water from the random universe. Playing around with a not-so-familiar framework or media or idea is often just the thing to renew your energy for that big push. 

Focus

 

What does focus feel like?

I am taking an online course -- actually more of  a group coaching program --  that asks me to focus on a specific goal for 28 days. (My goal is to plan a creativity coaching service that complements and extends my teaching and studio work.)

This focus thing is hard for me. Really hard. Even in attempting to focus, I find myself all over the map. Am I really such a flittery-gibbit? Oddly enough, I know that one of my strengths is my ability to focus on the task at hand, in hand, on the table top. Once I am in the flow with a concrete activity, it is easy for me to have my headlights on the task and the work gets my total attention. BUT, focus that is conceptual -- to narrow my thinking and planning to a specific end -- rather than a hands-on goal -- like finishing that piece of art on the table -- is more difficult. I don't know what to do with the sea that I am already swimming in. I am trying to transfer the feeling of concrete focus to conceptual focus. What does it feel like in my body, in my spirit?

Last week (the first of the 4-week program) I made a bit of progress. This week I want to do even better. One thing that seems to help is intention (and stating that intention out loud): Today I will spend 4 hours on my Breakthough Goal, and 4 hours on the other work that needs doing, chosing the most important tasks, making a "next action" list and checking them off as I get them done.

Another thing I learned last week is that the more specific and measureable my actions are, the more likely I am to accomplish them --As one of Linda's statistics professors says, "If you can count it, you can do it."  For example, last week I  set a goal to collect 50 names for my mailing list, as I am planning a quarterly newsletter and want to send it to a wide audience. At the Joan Grona sale, I made it a point to ask every single person who walked into the gallery to give me contact information if they would like to receive arts event and workshop information. And it worked. I now have 50 new names to add to my list.

So, off to the studio -- today, to the desk -- focus, focus, focus. I'd love to hear any strategies that help you accomplish your goals, especially those that help to make the fuzzier conceptual ones more like real on-the-table tasks.

Zero InBox

Here's another helpful organizational hint from Merlin Mann's 43folders, one of my very favorite website/organizational resources. I am posting this today, because of a topic on a private blog that is being used by participants in Alyson Stanfield's Artist Breakthrough Program -- more about that in my next post.

Email can do us in, but also add immense productivity. It's all in the way we use it. Taming my Inbox has made me more efficient, less likely to succumb to cute-but-tame-wasting forwards, and has helped me keep the main thing the main thing.