Friday, February 29, 2008

Information for Our Ladies of the Clothesline

good morning jefferson heights
For those of you applying and dropping off work for The Clothesline Art Show I welcome you to my home. I can't wait to rearrange furniture, take down my paintings and decorations and put up the work that is being juried. When I offered to have my home as the drop off point I thought it at merely practical, but now I am excited thinking of hosting our jury and also transforming my home into a place where fresh art from new and old artists comes to rest. Temporarily. Until the Sessions House and Laura Pettit welcome you in May.

I think of the process that I have used over the years to get myself "out there". I make the most of my gifts and my stage of life without having them bump heads too often. The internet is an amazing thing that can become a great tool for those of us who are moms with little kids. I can work on my correspondence, my website, my web shop, my photographs, my advertising all in the comfort of my living room. I can put out little kiddie "fires" while doing this as well. I know those of us involved with the Clothesline Art Show are all in different stages of life, career, and knowledge of the internet that's why I wanted to post some basic tools that have made my career as an artist possible and profitable while holding true to my beliefs as a stay-at-home mom. Be wise and productive! And with that, let's get to the resources.



Business Cards
For this Clothesline Art Show we are requiring each artist to have contact information in the form of business cards. This makes each art patron able to access your personal info without searching for a pen and paper. It also helps your fellow artists know what to give an interested customer when the artist at hand is unavailable. The companies I have used with great success are
Vistaprint and Moo. Vistaprint has a great deal where you can get 250 free business cards all you pay is the shipping and you can choose from various designs that range from basic to kinda funky. Shipping is around $6 if you are willing to wait a few weeks, expedited shipping is more expensive. Moo is a company from the UK that has high quality products that are sure to get you noticed. I have started using Moo cards as my business cards and they show off your work with their fine color imaging and neato size. These cards are not the cheapest, but they are worth it. Plan on giving yourself a couple weeks for these to be delivered they come from the UK in a cool little box. It costs $25 for 100 cards. If you get these for the Clothesline Art Show plan to be almost out of them before the shows end.


Pictures
Having pictures of your work well photographed and online gets you almost instant advertising with little effort. There are many ways to upload and share your photos. I have not tried them all. Editing software completely aside I will always recommend
flickr. You start an account, describe yourself as much as you want, add a picture of yourself (or your work) and upload pictures. You can now edit your pictures on flickr and add effects. You can title every picture, add 'tags' to your picture (these help people typing in searches to possibly land on your photos), put your photos into groups (like Kreativ Network, Chattanooga TN, Artwork on Paper or Bunny Lovers Unite!), comment on other peoples photos, and have 'contacts' you wish to visit often to see their photos. Flickr also has TONS of perks. You can load your photos from your flickr account directly to Moo and many other applications that make your experience with printing your artwork very versatile and affordable. It's a HUGE resource and a mondo time-sucker. I have started a Clothesline Art Show flickr group. If you have photos of the show you want to add do it today!


Web Shops and Websites
Again, there are millions of ways to have websites. When I decided to start
mine I just Googled a do-it-yourself sort of website and that's what I have kept for about 2 years now. I don't know that much about designing a website that's why I paid for a system that had templates to plug my info into. I went to Web.com. I pay $20 a month and then I have to pay a domain name fee. You can pay annually or up to 5 years I think. The annual fee is around $120 bucks. If someone can get me a better deal on any of this I'll gladly hand over the reigns. For me it was about immediacy. I could not wait another day to have a website. It's easier than trying to hand out your weblog address to every body. Having an actual website is not necessary. You can thrive quite nicely with a blog and a webshop.


Speaking of web shops! Another site that is just something to fall in love with and waste much time and fundage on is Etsy. Etsy is a site that sets up free web shops for anyone as long as the products you sell meet certain criteria. They must be handmade. Etsy is here for those of us that make things. It's for everything handmade! They also sell quality vintage items and stuff-making supplies. It is like Ebay in the fact that you pay to list each item and you pay a final value fee. The fees are much lower than Ebay charges however. You set up an account, add info about yourself, add items, 'tag' those items so they will be found in customers searches, add the materials you use, upload photos of your item, list prices and shipping. You can add a fancy banner to the top of your shops page. You can search for items and add them into your favorites. You can go to forums and ask questions or go to chat rooms and make 'friends'. You can search for other Chattanooga local artisans! I think we need to start a Clothesline Art Show Team! Again, it has endless possibilities. You can make transactions as simple as you want them to be. Your sales will be sent to you in your regular email inbox, no worries, you won't miss anything! It has been completely worth it to have an Etsy shop. Put it on your business card, the shop address is simple and easy to remember. Customers on Etsy are looking for a certain price range I've found. I don't put much on there I wouldn't be that jazzed to ship. The priciest thing I've sold has been $300. It costs 20 cents for each listing. Listings do expire, I think you have 3 months.


Keeping up with Blogs
I'm not going to go into web logs because I know that most everyone knows what they are and what to do with them. Sometimes it's easier to not have a blog and have a MySpace account or (and I prefer) a Facebook account. Having these simple accounts makes finding you easier for people who want to keep in touch. I load pictures of artwork and upcoming shows onto both MySpace and Facebook. Folks that I never email and never would be able to find my blog can easily find me and respond to the event I've listed or the pictures I've posted. That again is about how much time you want to invest online.
I want to recommend setting up a Google account so you can suscribe to all the blogs you read (or skim). Google has a function called Google Reader. It organizes blogs by their addresses and keeps a list of the most recent posts. As soon as you click on that recent post it vanishes from your reader so it's not cluttered. It saves so much time because you're only looking at things that are updated. There are some blogs that update constantly on my reader like Whip Up, Decor8, Portrait Party, and the Artful Parent. These blogs are great resources and it’s great to check them out when convenient knowing that all the recent posts are collected. But for my everyday I just can check to see what my friends have written. There are many inspiring sites out there and with the Google Reader you can keep them organized without wasting precious art making time.


There are so many other things that I could go onto list, but this is just a start. I hope that These resources help our Clothesline members become more recognized without beating the street too hard to get noticed.

I can’t wait to see your guys as you drop off work! You can always contact me with any questions you have about the information above and we will add more to it I’m sure as technology takes off way ahead of us. Blessings!
Katie

Friday, February 22, 2008

Seven Days In Counting

Hello Everyone! We would like to welcome you all back to the Clothesline Art Show blog. After our show in September we blogged and updated and met and now we have sent out invitations to artists to have them apply. We hope if you have expressed interest in participating that you got an invitation. And we look forward to getting your application on March 1st and then finally seeing what you created on March 7th.

We are terribly excited about Clotheslines upcoming show, May 9, 10, and 11. Our relationships are really important and the relationship we have with you is just as important. If you are a newcomer who received your application and are seriously wondering if all of this is a good idea or you are unsure about your ability, or the form of art you create, please know that is how we all feel. We are all women who have jobs, families, children, husbands, lives that fill our time in wonderful, exciting ways but, we are committed to making art. We also all have to come up with three artworks to be juried. We decided to put everyone on the same playing field and we hope it works. We believe this process takes courage and grace and we hope if you have questions or concerns that you can feel free to let us know. We never want to exclude your ideas or thoughts and it is important that you create art and are filled with the power that it gives you through God.

That power may seem obscure to you as you comfort your children, or wait tables or eat in chaos with your family, or rush to get to work everyday on time. We would like to encourage and lift you up at this time, as you decide to fill out your application and "bust out" three new pieces of art. You may not even feel God or know God in your art and we have talked a lot about why we incorporate God into Our Clothesline Art Show. We feel like God lives in our hearts and He will drive us to do this "art show thing" when we never thought we could. We believe because of our previous experiences that God blesses us as we create and show our art.

Please do not let fear get in your way as you make the decision to apply. We are not a clique of women who get together and gossip or compete with one another, we simply are passionate about making art. Is it not a true delight? To create and share your creations.

You might be concerned about how we will jury your work. We would like to assure you that our process in new but one we think will work. We decided to use a "decision tree" process that will give the jurers a way to decipher between those who have shown previously and those who have not. It will include a series of questions that allow for the variety, quality and depth or growth of art created. We have invited 25 artists but only 15 will be chosen to show. If you are a student or someone who has not previously shown before we really want to see what you have been creating. There is no excuse for any of us to let this opportunity to go by without trying and we are open to you, if you think you can do it. Which we think you can!

If you have questions please email us at ourclothesline@gmail.com. And remember applications are due March 1st. We need to get a count on how many artists will be dropping off their art and so timeliness is important, it will help you as well. Thank you.

Good Bye & Happy Art Making!