Chase Bank Burning

Los Angeles artist Alex Schaefer, painting banks in flames, has obviously caught the spirit of the times.  Visited by the police for questioning over his plein air paintings with added flames, and receiving subsequent media exposure, the painting started on eBay for $920 and reached $25,200 when the virtual hammer fell!

Here’s the video of an interview with the artist:

Alex Schaefer on Alex Jones

Alex Schaefer’s Blog

So the next obsession becomes ‘getting web traffic’.  But this focus is also going to disappoint. An artist doesn’t need any old web traffic.  They need people who are going to connect with their artwork, take out their wallet and make a purchase….i.e. that rare breed of people who are willing to pay for art they love.

Ok, so I’m telling you to forget about focusing on bringing droves of people to your website, but how do you get those illusive potential fans of your artwork to find you? Well, that’s the hard bit, but if you can nail this one, you have a successful art business.
As with most things worthwhile there is no easy route to success (take solace that if there were, then everyone would be doing it).  However there are steps that you can take towards this goal, and the more steps you take, the closer you get!

1. Give people Reasons to Care about your Art
   
   Be unique, original, and dedicated to your art.  Have something worth communicating visually.  People want to be inspired, surprised, and gob-smacked (not literally by the way, in case you are considering some sort of performance art!).  This doesn’t mean that you have to do work that shocks, but it does mean that your work has to be remarkable and stand out. 

   If your work doesn’t currently stand out, it is worth looking at the art that you consider stunning, and compare how you can use some of the same techniques, style or content in your own work to take it to a new level.  I’m not talking about plagiarism here, but inspiration!

   Alan Bamberger, recently interviewed on Fine Art Views said  ’An art dealer once told me, “No art sells itself.” And he’s right, but that doesn’t mean you hawk it like timeshares or used cars. Perhaps the most important key to “selling” art is giving people reasons to care. With all the other stuff out there for people to care about, why should they care about your art? Why do you care about your art? That’s a great place to start. If you can convey and convince, in a simple sentence or two, why people should care about your art the way that you care about it– you make sales. The same can be said for gaining exposure online or in a more traditional manner. You have to give people reasons to care.’

2. Create an Uncluttered, and Easy to Use, Professional Website
   
   A website is the first port of call for most people nowadays to check out anything that they are interested in.  An artist needs their own domain name and a hosted website. Don’t get your brothers mate, who does websites as a hobby, to design your site for you – it will show!  When you do this, all you are saying about your art is a) I am not successful enough to be able to afford to pay someone to create a good site for me OR b) I don’t care about my art that much to bother with making it look good. 

   Pay money to have this done professionally – do research into web designers who are designing sites that you like the look of.  If you want people to enjoy using your site, you want an uncluttered and easy-to-use website.  Remember ‘Less is more‘. Don’t get convinced by any web designer to have an all Flash site, as the search engines won’t pick up any text from your site to index – so you won’t be found on internet searches.

   Use text on your website to speak about your art in a way that conveys your passion for your art and subject matter.  Don’t use dull art-speak that no one except pretentious arty types have a hope of fathoming.  If words are not your forte, get someone to help you.  Tip: NOT your brother’s mate… ok? (unless, that is, he is genuinely good with words.  If so milk him for every last favour you can!)

   If you can stretch to it, get your web designer to create a site that let’s you log in and manage it’s content.  This is called a Content Management System (CMS) in geek speak, and although it will cost you more in the short term, you will find that it will soon pay for itself as you can update the text on your website more frequently, and add / change images (rather than paying the web designer to do this).  You will therefore make your site more alive with fresh content and worth re-visiting for viewers and search engines.

   And the last Don’t, don’t hand over your last payment to your web designer until you have thoroughly tested your site to see that it is all working as it should be, AND have a couple of other people do the same.  They will show up any problems that those uninitiated in the navigation of your website, will have i.e. the rest of the population, and give you a chance to address this with your web designer while you still have the carrot of money owed.

   There is an alternative to having a bespoke website created for you, and that is using an artist website service. These are basically template sites where you can log into your account and customise the look and feel of the site, and update with your text and art images.  They may offer a good alternative to using a web designer to design a site for you, and often they come with extras like an integrated blog and a email marketing option.  Many of them have free trials so you can see if you like the service before committing money to it.  Have a look at Foliotwist, FASO, and Artspan.

3. Sign up with an email marketing service
   
   And put a box to sign up on your website somewhere near the top of your site.  I use iContact to manage my mailing list, but there are many other good email-marketing options such as Constant Contact and Vertical Response.  Some you pay monthly and some you can pay-as-you-go. 

   The reasons for using an email-marketing service are:

   a) It makes it easy for you to create email mailouts like newsletters, updates etc.  And we all know, if something ain’t easy, it goes to the back of the queue of things to do.  So email-marketing services allow people to sign up to your email list via a sign up box on your website, and you can log on and create attractive emails to send out to the whole list in one go.

   b) They make sure your email marketing efforts don’t get marked up by Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) as SPAM and binned!  Very important this one, as the email marketing companies have agreements with ISP’s so that their mail gets marked as good mail, rather than nasty spam.

4. Create a Blog
   
   Preferably self-host via your website hosting (ask your web designer).   This is first choice because the fresh content you put onto your blog, elevates your connected website in the eyes of the search engines. The second best option is to have a blog hosted on Blogger or a similar hosted blogging platform like WordPress. Note that if you choose the first, self-host option, you can use WordPress too, but with more options than if you go for the hosted option.  So that’s another plus for self-hosting. 

   Why Blog? – Well blogging is the best way to get fresh content onto the web about you as an artist and your work.  The search engines love blogs as the content is in a format that search engines like (‘search engine friendly’) and is sucked up quickly, appearing speedily on Google searches.  Also it allows viewers of your website to sign up to the Feed of your blog, which basically allows viewers to receive updates from your blog automatically by email or via their Feed Reader.  You would sign up for a Feed service like Feedburner for this.

5. Post Regularly on your Blog about your Art
   
   The thing about a blog, you have to write or post regularly.  I’m not talking about every day, but you can’t just post something then leave it for 2 months as it will look sad, and you don’t want the words ‘sad’ in connection with you and your art do you? Write about your art, share completed works and works in progress (moderately – not hourly!).  Describe the inspirations for your art, the things that inspire you in your daily life (note: get image resizing software so that your images are always quick to load – very important if you are using digital camera images that can be massive files). 

   Don’t be boring – if you are boring yourself with your writing or blog posts, its a good time to take a review on what kind of content you are interested in reading, and how you could get your blog content more engaging.  Look how other people are doing it, compare, adjust, and repeat until you have your blog finely tuned and worthy of a busy persons attention.

6. Start getting together an Email List
   
   Start with your friends and family, and expand out to anyone who has shown an interest in your art.  Always ask permission before adding someone to your email list so that you are not spamming, and use an email marketing service for the reasons discussed above. 

   Your Email List has the potential to be your Number One marketing asset. The success of it depends on using it regularly, keeping your mail-outs interesting, adding contacts to your list at every opportunity and making it easy for people to sign up to your mailing list.  It’s also OK to ask people you get talking to if you can add them to your mailing list.  People will usually be quite flattered and as long as there is an option to unsubscribe at the bottom of your emails (provided automatically by email-marketing services), then they won’t feel trapped in a list they can’t get out of.

7. Send out Regular Newsletters using your Email Marketing Service
   
   Share your best blog posts, your best writings and artwork.  The key is regular – once a week is great, once a month is not enough.  The aim is to be always there in your patrons mind should they decide they want to buy art, and also to help your viewers to feel connected to you and your art.

 

8. Keep in Touch with your Patrons Offline as well
   
   This lesser used technique is so valuable to an artist. Send out hand written letters, little prints and cards to your patrons.  Send out other things that may be of interest to them.  Even, deep breaths now, call them and speak on the phone.  I know it sounds a crazy idea in this remote technology age where we text, tweet, and generally punch information into a keyboard, but trust me, if you have something worthwhile to say to them, your patrons will appreciate your call. Generally treat your patrons as the most important people in the world – they are if you wish to make a living from your art business.

 

9. Keep in Touch with anyone who has given you a Referral
   
   Make sure you keep in touch with anyone who has ever referred your work onto anyone else.  Let them know how that referral went, and that you really appreciate their help. People want to know that their help has made a difference to your life and when you show that you appreciate it, they are more likely to help you again if they can see that their assistance has been helpful to you and appreciated.  They are your commission free sales force, and should be paid back in kindness and appreciation.

 

10. Know who your Customers are
    
    Identify what kind of people they are, what they are interested in, and where they hang out both offline and online. Find ways of hanging out at the same places and connecting, both online and off, with people who have similar interests to you.

As Naomi Dunford says in her course ‘Marketing for Designers and Other Artsy Fartsy Types‘:
“Blogs and forums are especially good, because then you can figure out where else they’re hanging out. If your target demographic is business folk and they all hang out on marketing blogs, you may find out that they also all seem to hang out at some forum that talks about fund-raising. That gives you more places to go to find new customers.  If you know where your customers are, it’s a lot easier to target them with your (now kick-ass) marketing. Otherwise you just have to stand on a corner yelling how awesome you are and hoping someone who cares walks by and hears it.”

11. Get a Business Mentor that is experienced and NOT an Artist
    
    It would probably be helpful to many artists to have a regular meet-up with a business mentor that is not connected to the art world.  They will bring a different perspective and see things not through ‘art’ glasses, and may offer ideas that you had not previously thought of.  The very nature of making a commitment to meet up with another business person to regularly discuss your art business matters has the affect that the business side of things doesn’t slide from month to month, and you are regularly assessing and monitoring your progress. 

    Artist Linda Blondheim says ”The best thing I ever did was to get myself a mentor who is in the business world, not an artist. She listens to my ideas, goals, and implementation of plans. She advises me away from the precipice of stupid ideas and toward successful ones. Because she is in the corporate world, she has a different slant on things than I do as an artist. One of the mistakes a lot of artists make is to spend all of their time interacting with artists or those in the arts community. I learn far more from my relationships with non-artists, because they live in a different world than I do. ”

 

12. Use Online Galleries to build your Online Reputation
    
    Online Galleries are good for increasing exposure of your art and giving you more opportunities to find buyers.  They also have another great plus: When someone is checking you out on the web, if you’re on several online galleries then your name is coming up in connection with other galleries on the web, and your credibility as an artist is boosted.  Also your personal website is boosted in the search engine rankings as you have relevant art sites linking back to your artist website (called ‘backlinks‘  - the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page). 

    But remember to choose quality professional online galleries, like our online gallery Artdomain, so that your work is boosted by association.   All associations you make will either ‘build the brand’ or wreck it.  You choose.

13. Focus not on You, but what you are Doing for Others
    
    Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity, states that “if you can really build relationships and focus on how you are actually helping people, that’s how your project will become successful”. For an artist, “helping people” can mean enriching another person’s life through friendship, your art and common interests. 

    Another example is the classical realist oil painter, Sadie Valeri, who holds small private workshops and classes from her studio.  These are very popular and, as well as providing income as an artist; they also connect Sadie to other people interested in art and a wider audience of her art.

    Sadie also co-founded the Women Painting Women blog that explores how contemporary women painters are handling women as subjects.  You might think that promoting other artists on this blog is like increasing your competition, however the reality is the opposite, as this kind of narrow focus of subject matter is harnessing the search engines to funnel in viewers interested in your particular subject matter. A ‘win-win’ for all artists involved.

    And one last great example of an artist focusing on helping others through his art, is Canadian artist Matt LeBlanc and his Art for Life project.  Matt lost his older sister to cancer when when she was only 5 years old.  The Art for Life project was a fund raiser for a local cancer charity, where he created 200 abstract paintings in 6 months with the aim of raising $25,000 for the Tree of Hope Campaign.  He managed to raise $38,000, and all this while working a day job in marketing and painting in the evenings and weekends!  Here’s the video of the Art for Life Campaign Gala – very inspiring.

 

14. Keep Going even when you feel the World is Ignoring You
    
    Remember, success rarely happens over night.  Behind nearly all success stories, there has usually been years of working on their craft, unnoticed and without recognition.  The last words go to Hugh McLeod who created the cartoon of a sign saying ‘Welcome to NOBODY CARES, population 6 billion’ : 

    “We like to think we’re rock stars. But actually, the number of people who don’t give a hoot is rather large…
    Experience has taught me, if you start off on a journey with the expectation that the rest of the world is going to remain indifferent, you’re better off. Especially if you’re later proved wrong.”

     

Related Posts:
Web Design Tips for Artists by Sadie Valeri

Hope by AlicePopkorn

I wanted to share with you a whole creative world that I knew nothing about until a few days ago.

I was looking for an image for a blog post that I am drafting and decided to look through the digital artist Cornelia Kopp, aka AlicePopkorn’s photos on Flickr.

I originally found her work when I read a post about using Flickr for great images for your blog. Basically Flickr has the option to allow their users to specify whether they would like to share their work in various ways outlined within a Creative Commons license.

With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit

So an artist can display their work on Flickr or their own website or anywhere else on the web, and by stating their Creative Commons license, they can have other people display it on their websites, blogs, magazines etc providing they give the artist credit.

Artists often have a copyright paranoia and wish to strictly control all uses of their art work, however the Creative Commons approach allows artist to maximise the exposure of their work to a larger audience, while still retaining copyright.

However there is a group of artists that go one step further with Creative Commons, by sharing original work for others to re-work creatively, and it’s this use that AlicePopkorn describes as the Zeitgeist of our new Century.

Peace by AlicePopkorn

When you look at her work you often think ‘where did she get all those wonderful models, backgrounds and textures to create the finished digital photo manipulation?’  Well when you start looking into it, there is a whole community of artists that share, mash up, and create new art using other artists images, all on the ethos of Creative Commons and crediting of the original artist.

If you click on the image at the top of this blog post, it will take you to the Flickr website, where below the image you see the credits.  The artwork was created for a competition where one artist shared a digital image of the grass background and a fluffy cloud sky.  From there AlicePopkorn has used another artists photograph of a woman, and another of a textured background.  By skilfully manipulating these images in Photoshop, combined with her own visual library of imagery,  the end effect is often very imaginative and enigmatic.

AlicePopkorn often also uses poetry or other text under her images on Flickr, and in this case she links to a YouTube video of the Nepalese nun Ani Choying Drolma singing.  The stage is set and her image entitled ‘Hope’ is imbued with tradition, tranquillity and spirituality.

The Lost Toys - by mizzdraconia showing the Before and After photos

There is a massive community of artist on websites like deviantArt,  sharing and remaking images, as well as models creating ‘stock’ images of themselves and other models, just for this very use.

Like all art forms the standard of the finished photo manipulations vary, however there is definitely a buzz around the sharing and connecting that arises from this art form, and you can see the standard only getting higher as artists compete to create more original and inspiring art.

And the end product doesn’t need to be manipulated photographs.  There are artist working in a painterly format using Photoshop and a graphics tablet (see Jessica Truscott for example), and there is huge scope to use the digitally manipulated images as source material for new art works in conventional art mediums, such as drawing, painting or sculpture.

Many artists are selling their created images via Print on Demand services that are integrated into sites like deviantArt, where the artist doesn’t physically organise the printing but takes a cut of the profits from the sale.

There is often a mantra about the necessity of artists using their own reference material to ensure no copyright issues arise, however this sharing and photo manipulation is like the music industries sampling of other people’s music to remix and create new works.

As with the traditionalists in the music business, some art purists may feel this is the outcome of the drying up of original ideas, resulting in less original creative output.  However I see great creative possibilities in the loosening of the restrictiveness of copyright, and the sharing of others creativity to produce new works.  I now ‘get’ what AlicePopkorn is referring to when she said:

“I believe in this creative potential in all of us and through connecting and sharing we all blossom.

I support the creative commons idea, I think it is the Zeitgeist of our new century.”

Sadie Valeri art studio, 2004

I came across a fantastic blog post ‘Motivation and Discipline don’t help‘ by the realist painter Sadie Valeri that I just have to share with any fellow artist reading this blog who may be going through a loss of direction with their art or a total block in creating.

Sadie talks about how she felt very discouraged as an artist after graduating from Art School:

I think I was stymied by my idea of what art and painting should be, by my idea of what was “Important Art”.

Important Art was what was showing in the New York gallery scene of the 1990′s, or in the New York MOMA. Important Art was what my art school friends who went on to do Masters of Fine Arts degrees were doing: very large, abstract or semi-abstract paintings.” – Sadie Valeri

However this kind of art was not what interested Sadie personally and she felt trapped in the deliberation that if she wasn’t doing that kind of art, then somehow the alternative was being a ‘bad artist’ or a ‘sellout’.

Seriously, Art School should come with a health warning:

‘Procede with Caution – Art School can Seriously mess up your head!’:

I had been accepted into the most prestigious art school in the country based on my high school portfolio of highly realistic drawings and paintings done from life. And then I was taught that that was not art. – Sadie Valeri

I definitely can identify with what she is saying.  I also had a similar experience to Sadie when going to Art School.  Although the place I chose had a very strong painting tradition there was definitely a dominant emphasis that conceptual art was the clever art of the time, and all other art was considered traditional, already done or just making pretty pictures, thank you very much.

I can remember tutors at Art School hardly giving any advice or support, just mumbling through their stop at your space, then drifting off (and they were the good ones, ha!…I’m not kidding by the way).  You would then spend half the day trying to decipher any advice that could be gleaned from the encounter.  They seemed more on their own trip than actually helping the young souls hanging on their every word.

I can never forget in first year when it was the turn of our art group to go to Culzean castle  where the art school had accommodation and a studio for the art students to stay and study for a week.  Most of us wandered around the extensive grounds being creative in some shape or form, while the tutors that were with us treated it more like a holiday camp.

One of them, and anyone who attended art school at the time that I did will know exactly who I’m talking about, didn’t even bother with tutoring but instead tried to impress the female students by running around the woods and jumping out like a wild animal from trees on the return route from the pub.

I guess you could describe his tutoring style as standing back in a silent, starring way, while his fellow tutor / side-kick, who was obviously also feeling rough from too much alcohol,  tried to give the eager students some sort of structure to the week.

Tree Trunk Detail by The Loop Designs

One of the students, Julie, was a bit older than most of the other students there, and having travelled before attending Art School, she was much more worldly-wise.  The antics of the tutors was obviously getting her back right up, and she spent the week painting and drawing tree trunk details like the photo left.

At the end of week review she had great fun waxing lyrical with a straight face about the symbolism of arse-holes (for American readers please read ‘ass-holes’) that she found in the environment around her.

Some exceptional artists do manage to transcend, or ride through the Art School madness with their visions intact.  Jenny Saville for one, whose paintings where of the painterly tradition but that also provoked some discussion about how women see themselves.  I think to survive and thrive at Art School you have to be very strong minded and sure of your direction….I’m just not sure that’s how many 18 year old’s are at that point in their life.

Anyway as much as I enjoyed art school at the time, it definitely left it’s toll on me, and I can really identify with Sadie Valeri when she talks in her blog post about how she couldn’t be creative for years after.  Going by the comments on that particular blog post, I am not alone.

Post-It Motivation by Amy Loves Yah

But there is hope, and Sadie truly offers this when she says:

We are all creative all the time, we just don’t realize it. If you want to paint, you probably already notice things around you all the time you wish you could paint or draw. Our ideas about what is Art, or what is Real Art, or what is Good Art versus Bad Art , don’t help us to actually be artists. Don’t focus on being a good artist. Don’t try to be motivated or disciplined, don’t even try to be an Artist.

Just focus your attention on what interests you in your normal, day-to-day life, starting with just a few seconds or minutes at a time. The rest takes care of itself.- Sadie Valeri

Fear - captured in old structures by AlicePopkorn

For me, one of the most thought provoking things on the TV recently has been the BBC series ‘The Big Silence‘.  From the same team that gave us The Monastery in 2005, The Big Silence focused on 5 individuals attempting to incorporate silence into their lives, as a way of getting in touch with the deepest parts of ourself and how this, in turn, can connect us to God.

While finding an immersion into silence difficult initially, those that really embraced the silence did indeed find a deeper understanding of themselves and a need to live a more purposeful life. They also found a connection to something deeper than themselves, although some were reluctant to name this as a connection to God.

The way many of us live our lives –  busy busy busy – silence is a very alien concept, and closely related to boredom in many peoples minds.  Most of our distractions – TV, mobile phones, and the internet – fill our days with the thoughts of others and so expertly cushion us from ever having to think deeply or in any prolonged or meaningful way.

Many of us are afraid to spend time with ourselves without a distraction of some sort.  We’d rather do ANYTHING other than this.

But in avoiding silence and avoiding coming to terms with who we are, where we’ve been and what matters at our deepest levels, are we doing ourselves a disservice?

Are we afraid that if we scratch the surface, or look under the bonnet, that there’s nothing there?  Do our props define us and without them, are we afraid that there is not much else to us?

The proponents of The Big Silence would say we just need to stay quiet enough for regular periods of time, to allow our real selves to be unearthed and discovered, and for our inner voice to be heard.  By being connected to our internal voice we enrich our lives and our connections to others.

bill-hicks by Dan Correia

In the excellent film about the life of the comedian Bill Hicks , one of Bill’s friends talks about Bill’s comedy near the end of his short life. He described how Bill’s true voice emerged as his inner voice began to more closely match his outer voice.

For Bill Hick’s, this meant that he became more outspoken, more creative, more political and fearlessly asking the questions that weren’t being asked by other comedians at that time.

Throughout his life he was constantly pushing his own boundaries.  A small sketch that he used at the start of the week would be developed and by the end of the week it had become a full blown comedy sketch.

He was constantly evolving and his comedy was very much a reflection of his internal dialogue.

I think this is the goal of the artist – to allow our true artistic voice to emerge.  To see more clearly and to feel more deeply and to not be fearful of who we are or what we think. To not be afraid to look silly, weak or vulnerable, or be afraid to go into territory that others don’t go.

Never walk on the travelled path, because it only leads you where the others have been – Graham Bell

The searing honesty is what people connect to.  You mirror their soul and help them connect with lost bits of themselves, burried bits, ugly or beautiful bits.  You help people to understand, to accept, to feel angry, to let go or to appreciate the beauty around them.

The things that are most meaningful at our deepest levels, have a common thread tying us to all humanity.  An artist only has to tap into their inner voice and listen to it.

You know that voice…the one not filtered by our doubts, fears and insecurities. The unfiltered brilliance that we had when we were children, not worrying about looking good or saying the “right” thing. That voice.
Michele Welch

Vulnerability & Art – Sarah Marie Lacy

Iraqi artist Soodad Al-Naib

Iraqi artist Soodad Al-Naib talks with Emma on the day her joint exhibition ‘A Call for Meditation‘ opens at the Strand Gallery in London.

Soodad, you are an Iraqi artist living in the UK.  What brought you to the UK?

I’m originally from Baghdad, and I am educated and have worked with art ever since. Art back then was the way to reflect my culture, my development and future goals. It was hard back then to produce art but it was hugely appreciated by arts lovers. Iraq is a colourful country which I long to be in once again. I came to the UK after a series of unfortunate events. I witnessed death and survived it 3 times which left its marks on my skin (as I call it my canvas). Death was an artist with me and if I can call death (HE) then he was creative!

I found my sanctuary in London; I got literally back on my feet again here, and started living and contributing to the community.  It was a hard journey to get to this stage. To recover and get my head up. I live with guilt for being alive and having the opportunity to live while dozens of my relatives and friends didn’t have this chance. Art was and still is my companion through this voyage.

Obviously you still have family and friends in Iraq.  What is life like for them now in Iraq?

Soodad Al-Naib Artwork

My parents, relatives and friends still live and work in Baghdad and I’m on constant contact with them.  I speak to my mother twice a day since 2003 just to be comforted that the day went peacefully for them and they are in no harm. My body and my existence is here in London – people see me and talk to me as if I’m completely in front of them, but the reality is that I’m living two lives – my mind is there day and night. Life in Iraq (for my parents) is worse than how they lived before; no security, no services and no peace of mind. A day in Baghdad for my parents is a struggle, I don’t know the source of their strength but they have it, and that is what makes them continue. People here complain about train delays or cloudy weather… and my parents complain about how they will get out doing their food shopping or going to work, and how to get back home again in one piece. Many times my mother would be on the other end of the phone saying to me “thank God I’m hearing your voice. We thought that was it” since they had just caught in an attack or nearby explosion. Its hard being there…

What is it like being an Iraqi in the UK?

I came from a culturally rich and artistic environment, and London in my opinion, is a very contemporary city. I think I have coped well and absorbed the differences to my benefit.  I was overwhelmed with lots of things when I first came here.  I struggled to understand the culture and there were times when I wished I was back in Baghdad.  However with time I gained knowledge and friends. I could say I started from zero in the UK and will continue till my last breath to prove myself and my art to the world.

Tell me about the themes in your art.

Soodad Al-Naib Artwork

The themes in my art, I would say are quite honest and truthful to the reality that I’m living with internally. I’m not pretending to have a pink and relaxed life filled with roses, blue skies and green fields.  I can’t be that Impressionist now. People who know me describe me as a happy and satisfied person, always laughing and joking around, but that’s my mask.  That is how I fit into this country and the community who suffers from the recession and their own obstacles. I don’t need to bring murkiness to those around me, and by doing so I keep the pain to myself.  The only way to liberate it is to direct it onto the canvas, using my angry colours and surreal figures.

I need to translate my dreams, fears and pain into my artworks to document the events and to store my overwhelming amount of guilt within the canvas space. I know this may sound disturbing, but it’s my way to heal and continue.  Art shouldn’t be all about beauty or harmony.  Art is the reflection of the soul in all its states of happiness and bitterness.

Expressing feelings into visual images is a gift and a blessing that relieves me from the burden of carrying the heavy weight of emotions. I visualise the journey of my art to be parallel to my journey in life and I categorise my art as phases.  I passed the Birth, Curiosity, Rebellion and Eclipse phases, and I’m still in the Guilt and Recovery phase, trying to emerge to the Rebirth phase. I’ve been stuck now for years in the Recovery phase, and that is what you can see in my works.

Are you finding an audience that is receptive to your art?

Artist Soodad Al-Naib working on her paintings

I do have an audience that is familiar with my art; they are a specific category of fine arts oriented people whom identify with the colours and the stories behind the paintings. I would love to have more response to my art as a truthful and a reality documented art.

Tell me about your latest exhibition in November.

Nowadays I’m represented by our charity the IFAA (Iraqi Fine Artists Association) that opened many doors for me to be linked with a wider fine arts audience. We are a group of Iraqi artists living in the UK.  The charity was founded to link and to bridge build with Iraqi artists all around the world and to keep the links and prevent the Iraqi arts from dissolving within the unknown future of Iraq.  There is no land containing us all together as we are scattered all over the globe as refugees.

The IFAA will open its annual exhibition on the Strand gallery in central London on the 8th November 2010 and we are so very proud of our accomplishments through all the hard years and times that we have all survived. I wish many people could attend and see the arts we are presenting.

Soodad Al-Naib’s website

Click on the image below to see full size the exhibition poster:

A Call for Meditation Exhibition

Emmrick Konrad - artist portrait by photographer Warren Lee

Some artists get annoyed about the idea that artists could benefit by using blogging as a way of promoting their art to a larger and more receptive audience.  As if art should always stand alone, and not muddy itself by over explanation.

Art should speak for itself…
Yes, but only if you make talking art…;-)

As in the above photo of Emmrick Konrad intently working on an artwork, the main focus of any visual artist is to communicate their unique artistic vision in a visual format. However once the artwork is complete, blogging is an effective way to get people to see your art, understand your art, and become interested in it.

Of course art should be open to the interpretation of the viewer and not be straight jacketed into the artists conception.  However people are interested in knowing what inspires artists to make art.  They want to get ‘under the bonnet’.

The problem is the gallery system restricts access to the artist.  Some of you may prefer it that way however it may not be the best way to ensure your work gets maximum exposure.  Also the galley system can be intimidating to a large number of potential art buyers.

Kesha Bruce writes an interesting blog post and mentions an article on Marc Jacobs, the world famous/fabulous fashion designer, that even he at one point, was too intimidated to go shopping for art. Although he is talking about up-market city galleries, the same intimidation is felt by more ordinary people in more humble galleries. Kesha says:

The traditional model of selling art in galleries has removed people from the experience of art, let alone the experience of buying it. Aside from those people who are especially motivated to take a drawing class or enjoy painting as a weekend hobby, very few people feel connected to art in the same immediate way that they feel connected to music for instance. The whole experience of viewing, understanding, buying, and just interacting with art and the very real people who make art has become almost completely alien. And this alienation has become the norm. Am I the only one that finds this fact tragic?

Lego sculpture 'Emergence of an Artist' by Nathan Sawaya. Photo by Tony the Misfit

Artists blogs can connect the artist to people who are intrigued by their vision, and their methods and mediums of exploring that vision. People can connect to the artist in a way that is not far out their comfort zone.

The artist Linda Blondheim recently posted:

My strategy and focus has been changing gradually over the last two years and I don’t think the tried and true marketing techniques are as relevant today for me as they once were. As a young artist my focus was on building a name brand for myself by entering juried competitions, searching for gallery representation, museum shows, going to gallery openings and art walks, being seen with all the right artists and being part of the art scene.

Linda now finds :

I have turned my focus entirely on my patrons and how to speak to them through my marketing and my art. They are the only people that matter in my career.

Blogging and communicating directly with your viewers allows for a more deeper connection with those interested in your art.

If what you and your art are about, resonates with the viewer, and as Hugh McLeod says, your blog  leads them somewhere they also want to go,  you have a powerful combination. Deeper, more fulfilling connections are made and more sales can result as a welcome side-effect.

My blog and newsletter have always been the way I truly communicate with patrons, artists, and friends about my work and life as a painter.
Linda Blondheim

You can leave me your thoughts on being an artist and blogger, by leaving a reply below.

Related posts:

Friday Inspiration – Hugh McLeod – Why most artists’ blogs fail

Should Artists Blog or have a Website?

Why your Mailing List is your Number 1 Marketing Asset

Hugh McLeod

All artists should read Hugh McLeods blog post ‘Why most artists’ blogs‘ fail. You may not like what you read, and it may turn things on its head for you, but that’s because the reasons he gives are true:

Hugh says that ‘Nobody’s reading your blog because of your art‘

They’re not reading your blog because they’re thinking of buying your paintings, they’re reading your blog because the way you approach your work inspires them. It sets an example for them. It stands for something that resonates with them. IT LEADS THEM TO SOMEWHERE THAT THEY ALSO WANT TO GO.

And if your blog can do that, suddenly your readers are associating purple dogs and green sofas with something that ACTUALLY matters to them. And then, and only then, do they pull their credit cards out. Ker-chiing.

That’s the REAL job of the artist: To be a leader, not to fill the space with pretty “stuff”.

Wow……this gob-smacked me!…’be a leader, not to fill the space with pretty “stuff”’.

Hope you find it as inspiring and thought provoking as I do. Enjoy your weekend.

Austin Kleon

You know when you stop making art, for whatever reason, it can be so hard to get back into it?  The fear of being mediocre…or of ideas drying up…and the starting hurdle just seems to get bigger and bigger the longer you leave it.

Came across Austin Kleon’s blog today and his post ‘Punt‘ pretty much sums it up :

Inertia is the death of creativity. You have to keep moving, keep making. So much of making art is muscle memory, keeping your routine…

And when you get out of the groove, you start to dread making work, because you know it’s going to suck for a while–it’s going to suck until you get back into the flow.

And Austin’s advice:

Take half an hour every day and make something. No matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don’t stop.

In the same vein, artist Hazel Dooney in her blog post ‘Saving My Self‘ describes how after a setback she stopped painting completely, and began thinking that she was no longer an artist.

It was a box of English watercolour paints that changed things around. Based in a small room at her fathers house, creating small paintings of the ideas in her head, in watercolour and pencil:

These paintings saved my life. I ignored pressure from the galleries then representing my work to return to the large enamels they identified as ‘typically Dooney’. But eventually I gave up my job at the shoe shop and committed once again to the idea of myself as an artist.

It was as simple, and as hard, as picking up the paint brush and pencil and getting back creating.

Maybe it’s the fact that you’re not expecting much.  Maybe it’s because the images are done just for yourself, with no plans other than getting the ideas onto paper:

Of all my art, they are the most intimate and telling.

Hope this inspires anyone, as it has me, going through the artistic doldrums.

With so many ways to communicate with your audience, artists often overlook the basics in favour of the new and latest thing in social media-ville. 
 
While Blogging, Facebook, Twitter etc. are all excellent ways of getting eyes on your art, a regularly used and regularly maintained Mailing List is essential for marketing your art. 

HERE’S SOME REASONS WHY:

• A mailing list allows you to keep your name and your art in the forefront of your prospects mind.  They become comfortable with you and your art, and when the time comes that they are thinking of purchasing a piece of art, you may be the person they approach, and most importantly, feel comfortable approaching.
   
• It allows you to communicate directly with people. 
   
  Picking up the phone and calling your customers to let them know about a new artwork that you think they may be interested in, is the most effective contact, as it is the most personal and direct. 
   
  Writing a hand-written letter is the next best thing, as again it has the personal touch.  People want to feel special and that you are interested in them, which of course, you are.   
   
  Emailing is a wonderful way of regularly, and non-intrusively, keeping people up-dated on what you are up to and giving them links to your artwork.
   

HERE’S WHAT TO REMEMBER:

• Your aim of using your mailing list should be to add value to the receiver’s life.  Don’t just say ‘hey, check out my new paintings’.  People have busy life’s.  They need to be intrigued, interested and inspired.  Is your message doing any of these things?  If not, work out what you need to change to make people want to click on the link, or take the time to read your letter, or agree to let you come round and show them your art.
   
• With a mailing list you can contact people by phone, letter, email or for the best results, use all three.
   
• Keep a spread sheet or card index of your contacts and make notes about them i.e. how and when they preferred to be contacted / what artworks they have previously bought or shown an interest in / notes about them personally, as this is taking an interest in your customers as real people, and gives you the reference points to keep the conversation going.
   
• When you sell a piece of artwork, ask the customer if you can add their details to your mailing list.  Always ask permission to add someone to your mailing list, otherwise it can be classed as spamming someone, which is a big no-no.  Ask people who show an interest in your art if you can add them to your mailing list too - people will often say yes.
   
• Use a mailing list sign-up form on your website (on the front page and in a position that does not require scrolling to).  Make it easy for people to sign up.
   
• Let your mailing list know about new art works you have finished, what inspired the artwork, where you are exhibiting, your new blog posts of interest.  Let people know a bit behind the creative process or the locations that inspire your art.  Let them connect with you and become interested in you and your art.
   
• Always use a P.S. at the bottom of your email or letter.  People scan a message at first to see if what you are saying is of interest to them, and the P.S. is often the most read part of the message, so put your key message in there.
   
• Keep your message easy to read – use lots of white space / break up the message with lots of paragraphs, and use emphasis.  You’ll be amazed at how much more readable your message is if you do this.  Also Spell Check it.
   
• Have all your images online in an easy to view format, where you can link from your email message directly to the new images online.  (If you are using Flash to display your work on your website then you can sometimes find that you cannot link directly to individual art work – you are making it harder for the viewer, which can be to your detriment). 
   
  If you need any help getting your artwork online quickly and cheaply check out our Artdomain online gallery.  We are friendly and helpful and have a great online solution for artists.

 
In my next blog post I’ll explore some of the ‘pain-free’ online services artists can use to manage their mailing lists and mail out to their contacts.

To your continued artistic success,

Emma Brooks
Owner of Artdomain.co.uk

 
P.S. If you would like to get your artwork online quickly and cheaply, don’t forget to check out our Artdomain online gallery.  We do all the work of putting your art online.  It couldn’t be easier.