Self Representing Artists at Squidoo

Membership Closed

2007-09-10T17:05:00.000+00:00

I am too busy with my art career to keep up the maintenance of this group.

It's alot more complicated than just hitting "approve this lens". I have to manually add the lensmaster icon and the lens icon/summary. And the squidoo server can be excruciatingly slow, which makes it a real pain.

I also do not want to hand over the admin duties to anyone else, as I have strict criteria and don't want the quality of the group to be compromised.

So, we are in several top 100 lists here on Squidoo, so the group is already very large and well-known. A downside to this is for me, this means many more people keep applying, and I just can't keep up.

If Squidoo ever makes it so the lensmaster icon and lens icons are auto-displayed on the page, then I will open up membership again.

The current members will continue to be displayed and discovered by other Squidooers just like always.

Thanks everyone for your interest.
Victoria, admin

Our Group's Rankings

2007-07-16T07:50:00.000+00:00

As of this writing:

We're number 90 of "Most Active Groups", so we are in the top 100 for that.

And we're 4th on the list of "Most Popular" Arts & Literature groups.

We are number 74 of the "Top 100" Movers & Shakers.

We have 152 artists and 163 lenses!

Queue cleared

2007-06-03T02:46:00.000+00:00

As of this writing, the queue is cleared. I am still receiving incomplete lenses. Please make sure your lens is complete or at least has your art on it and a link where to buy the art before you submit it. Thanks.

100 artists!

2007-05-10T00:09:00.000+00:00

We recently passed the 100 artists mark!

Pending lenses are being processed (I was on vacation, sorry for delay).

Incomplete lenses (lenses with no bios, no art for sale, no content) are being rejected. I need to clear the queue and these are just taking up time and space as I wait for content to be added as I keep rechecking them every weekend. From now on, incomplete lenses will be rejected first check. You can resubmit your lens once you have actual art for sale.

I am going to go through current lenses and see that they are still active and have the correct guidelines. Some how-to lenses that didn't have actual original art for sale will be rejected and removed from the group. I had originally allowed some of these as there was a link to buy art in the bio. I have decided that the actual content of the lens itself needs to have the art for sale, since the bio requires a clicking of the "more" link before that that aforementioned link becomes visible.

Thanks everyone for your interest and good luck with sales!

Submitting incomplete lenses for approval.

2007-03-11T20:57:00.000+00:00

Since this group is strictly for self-representing artists who sell their original artwork online, I will not approve lenses that don't actually have any art on them for sale.

I receive a lot of requests to join the group from artists who only have a bio or not even that much content. After you have set up your lens, have art on it, and a link to your art, website or shop where art can be bought, then submit the lens for approval. I don't reject these unfinished lenses, but I don't approve them either. Once they are in the queue I just recheck them every week to see if you've made any progress to meet these basic guidelines.

Thanks, everyone, and good luck!
Victoria Champion, Admin

All pending lenses processed.

2006-12-06T19:27:00.000+00:00

My apologies to any email sent to me that I didn't personally reply to. I seem to have misplaced them when I downloaded them to my cell phone.

So to answer in general to some of the queries: Anyone is welcome to apply to the group. There is an automated system wherein you click on the link "Join this Group" in the sidebar and it will walk you through the process. I don't have any manual way to add you to the group unless you go through this automated system first. After I view your lens and approve it, then I manually add your lens and lensmaster icons to the Group's page.

I try to go through the pending lenses once or twice a week.

Thanks everyone for your interest and welcome to the new members! And happy holidays to all!

Welcome to our newest members!

2006-11-22T21:48:00.000+00:00

We've had alot of new artists join our lens. Welcome!

If your lens has been unapproved to join, it is because this group is for actual individuals who create original art. This group is not for collectives, impersonal businesses, or entrepeneurs who are not creating actual art.

Thanks everyone for your interest in the Group!

Waiting Lenses approved

2006-11-14T19:14:00.000+00:00

Sorry for delay, I was offline for a week or so, longer than I expected to be. All lenses pending approval have been approved and I am updating the Group page to display your lens links.

Our Group lens is fixed....for now

2006-10-30T23:59:00.000+00:00

The lens has been updated, the rss feed is showing the most recent blog posts, and the poll is still buggy, but I think that's probably always going to be the case.

Our Group Page Not Updating

2006-10-27T21:04:00.000+00:00

The page won't update the blog feed, and I also cannot edit or update the page, as the workshop isn't working. I filed several bug reports, and will process new members and lenses when I am able. Apologies to any who are waiting for approval, as it won't let me do that either.

Lens Workshop buggy

2006-10-26T18:57:00.000+00:00

I need to clean up a few items and am unable to do so because the workshop won't load any content in the modules. As soon as it is fixed I will get to that.

Congratulations to squashedtoad!

2006-10-26T18:55:00.000+00:00

Congratulations to our artist Madelaine Fedorowich for being a Squidoo front page featured lensmaster!

New admission moderation

2006-10-26T18:36:00.000+00:00

The function for moderating new lenses has been activated, where new lenses will require admin approval before being accepted, in order to restrict membership to actual artists.

Lensmaster Icons

2006-10-13T23:05:00.000+00:00

Some of you are missing Lensmaster icons, for display at the top of this Group page, as well as the sidebar on your individual Lens pages. You can use the same icon as the one that goers in the title bar of your lens page.

Go to "edit this lens" for your personal lens, then in the sidebar go the "About The Lensmaster" section, and just under your name you will see a small "edit" link. Click that, and it will have a place for you to upload an icon. Save and Publish.

Now your icon should show up at the top of the Group page. Let me know if that doesn't work.

Subscriptions to the Group

2006-10-12T03:06:00.000+00:00

We now have an email subscription for this blog. This does not subscribe you to the whole Group page, you will need to have an rss feed reader for that.

The rss url for the Group page is:
http://www.squidoo.com/xml/top_lenses/group/selfrepresentingartists

The rss url for the blog only is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/selfrepresentingartists

The link to subscribe to the blog only by email is:
Subscribe to Self Representing Artists at Squidoo by Email

I'll see what I can do about setting up an email subscription the the entire Group page, but it may not be possible as I am admin to the Group only and not an employee of Squidoo. They would most likely have to set something up like that.

In other news, we now have 17 lenses and rising!

Poll seems to be buggy.

2006-10-10T20:16:00.000+00:00

If you want to vote in it, just check back later, it'll probably work by then.

How to keep your Lens prominently displayed in the group.

2006-10-10T17:56:00.000+00:00

The best way to keep your lens visible and interesting in the group is to stay in the "recently updated" module. That's where most people will go to find fresh content. Even if you don't change your lens, just hit "Publish" every so often, and that will place it in the module.

Why we are here at Squidoo.

2006-10-09T19:33:00.000+00:00

Someone at WetCanvas! was just asking me what the point of this Lens Group was, and this was my reply:

"Squidoo is a social networking site, also called "social bookmarking". It is like the sites delicious and technorati, but more complex and interactive. Alot of people on the internet use these portals as "human search engines". It's like having people interested in the same topics as you saying "hey these sites are cool, check them out". It's a widely popular internet phenomenon right now. It's basically "word-of-mouth" on the internet. And "word-of-mouth" is long known to be an effective marketing tool.

The Squidoo Group is a way to connect all the different user pages (called lenses) that are about the same topic onto one page, for people interested in that particular topic, so they don't have to browse Squidoo in a hit-and-miss fashion.

In the case of this particular group, anyone interested in "self representing artists" can just peruse the lenses on that group's single page. And when they choose a particular lense (artist) to look at, that lense page (the artist's personal page) gives them links to all the places and sales on the internet for that particular artist.

I think social bookmarking is an immensely useful way to browse the internet. Lots of other people think so too."

The blog you see on our page (and my personal Lens) is actually hosted at Blogger and piped in through a feed hosted by Feedburner. And the Feedburner creates what are called "feedflares", which are those links you see that say "add to delicious" "add to technorati", etc at the end of each post...so if someone wants to share the Lens it beomes that much easier. Interconnectivity to social bookmarking sites, feeds, subscriptions, etc...is key in increasing exposure on the internet for blogs, sites, lenses, etc... which gets the end result everyone wants...more collectors looking at our art!

Welcome to Squidoo Group for Self Representing Artists.

2006-10-09T02:42:00.000+00:00

If you want to invite other artists to join this Squidoo Lens, just point them to this url:

Join us!

If you are a collector of art, browse through our member lenses to find that special artwork you've been dreaming of!