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My favorite place to live as a child was by the ocean. I still love to go there. I am living in one of the hottest, driest places in California (the Central Valley) and I remember fondly the cold breezes and fog coming off the water. Not that we don't have fog here, but somehow it isn't the same. At least once per year, my husband's pool association has a big event in Monterey at the Monterey Convention Center which is next to Fisherman's Wharf, and we usually go. While we are there we sometimes take advantage of the free time to travel up the coast to Morro Bay. This photo was taken from the side of the Rock away from all the shops. I understand that it is less expensive to moor your boat out here where you have to reach it by rowboat than using the Marina docking which has walkways.
I have always found boats and ships fascinating. When I was a child, we lived in the Pismo area and I spend many days with my father on the Pismo Pier or on the shore. I have always loved watching the boats move in and out. Monterey Bay has a long history of being a safe haven for ships. As early as 1602, ships carrying elegant goods from the Manilla islands used the harbor. In 1870, a commercial wharf was built for regular passenger and freight service. Around 1913, commercial fishing industries began using it. It is now the largest marine sanctuary in the world and provides access to a variety of recreational activities.
A private or public Marina however is very different from a commercial Port, although both are usually located in a harbor. Harbors are bodies of water where ships, boats and barges can seek shelter from stormy weather, or are stored for future use. Natural harbors are usually found in bays, estuaries, and river mouths. A good harbor occurs where land and water come together and protect ships from wind and waves as they enter and dock. Harbors can also be built from jetties and causeways as well. Harbors can be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor usually has intentionally fashioned breakwaters, sea walls, or jetties, or they can be made by dredging.
Harbors include entry channels and inner channels (to allow movement to areas and support features for refueling and repair. Harbors can be found on the coast or on inland lakes. A natural harbor occurs where a part of a body of water is protected and deep enough to anchor a ship. Natural harbors are of immense tactical and financial significance. Many of the world’s great cities began on natural harbors.
Harbors and Ports are often mixed up with each other. A port is a facility for loading and unloading boats and ships. While ports are often found in harbors not every harbor has a port. A port is a manufactured coastal or lake or river area where boats and ships load and unload passengers and cargo. It may contain quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, and slipways with cranes or ramps. A port usually has buildings or warehouses for storing goods and a transportation system to move those goods inland or out to other countries. Ports are a place where rail, truck, barge, ship, and other transport methods meet.
A Marina is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina contrasts from a port because a marina usually doesn’t handle large passenger ships or cargo from freighters although many small (the word is relative) boats do take passengers out for local tours or fishing trips. The word marina is also used for inland wharves on rivers and canals used exclusively by non-industrial pleasure craft. In a Marina, Boats are generally moored on buoys, or fixed or floating walkways tied to an anchoring piling (floating docks and pontoons). Buoys are cheaper to rent but less convenient than docks allowing an owner to walk from land to boat. Harbor shuttles and water taxis may shuttle people between the shore and boats moored on buoys. Marinas may be owned and operated by a private club, such as a, but also as private enterprises or municipal facilities.

Street Vendors such as the one in this painting have a long and varied history. A street vendor is broadly defined as a person who offers goods for sale to the public at large without having a permanent built up structure from which to sell. Street vendors have been in existence since ancient times. In all civilizations, ancient and medieval, one reads accounts of travelling merchants who not only sold their wares in the town by going from house to house but they also traded in neighboring countries. Ancient and medieval civilizations were accepting to these wandering traders and that is why they flourished. In modern times, we find that street vendors are rarely treated with the same measure of dignity and acceptance. Every city in the U.S. has its quota of these independent enterprising vendors. In New York City alone, there are more than 10,000 street vendors— hot dog vendors, flower vendors, book vendors, street artists, and many others. They are small businesspeople fighting to make ends meet. Most are immigrants and people of color. They work long hours under harsh conditions, asking for nothing more than a chance to sell their goods on the public sidewalk. They have no health insurance unless they buy it themselves, no sick leave and no unemployment insurance. The 2008 recession squeezed customer’s wallets and forced many who had previously worked a nine to five out of work and out of resources, leading to a modern street-vending boom. I took the photo for this painting one spring when I was down on Fresno’s Fulton Mall. I sometimes keep a photo for decades before I decide to use it in a painting.

Well, here I am again attempting another still life. I paint more for myself than for others and I am determined to conquer this type of painting. Why is it that a still life done by my friends and fellow artists always seems to me to breathe life and energy while my own does not? I suppose it is true that we are our own worst critics. A painting has to speak to me while I am working or it seems to have no magic. This one talked but I confess it kept urging me to put a fly on the grapes or the cheese. Sometimes I do have an inconvenient sense of humor….
Aperitif (actually spelled apéritif Pronunciation: ah-pair-ee-TEEF) is a French word for a starter drink that opens a meal. More than just an opener, it is a welcome to your guests and an appetite stimulant. First of all, what is an apéritif? An aperitif is generally an alcoholic drink that precedes a large meal. Think of it as something like a beverage appetizer or hors d'oeuvre. Occasionally the term apéritif is used to describe the whole intro course that opens up your guest's palate before a large meal to follow. This usually consists of a beverage served with finger foods or "amuse buche" such as olives, bruschetta or other simple appetizers. An apéritif is a cocktail or other alcoholic beverage that is specifically served before a meal, or with a small appetizer. In the culinary arts, the purpose of an apéritif is to stimulate or arouse the appetite.

Some of you may feel guilty about promoting sales of your work. For those of you who do feel guilty about telling friends, past customers, family and acquaintances “Hey, consider buying from me when selecting art for your home or office or buying a book as a gift, let’s consider a few things. Do you know what the 80/20 Rule is? Well it says that 80% of money spent locally stays in circulation locally. By promoting the idea of buying your art, you are contributing to the health of your neighborhood! When someone buys art from you, they provide you with money, which you in return spend on groceries, rent, clothing and other stuff (which hopefully you also bought in a local business!)
Sales tax spent with you supports local infrastructure, police, fire and schools. Money stays with the community when spent in local businesses. The Tax Policy Center: (click here for the entire article), says, “Local governments received transfers from both the federal and state governments equal to about one-seventh of total revenue. From their own sources, they collected about $700 billion, or 17 percent of all government revenue.” When your friends and family buy from you, they are helping to return money to their local economy, so you should feel no hesitation in pointing out to them that your work can be a resource for their decorating projects!
Spending money locally shows pride in their community culture and local products. As a person who lives in the area you are more apt to locally recirculate money your friends’ family and acquaintances spent with you on your art in the form of purchases from other local business, thus supporting the local work force. When you give some of that money to local charities, even if it is just the local boy or Girl Scout troop, or maybe the local food bank, you are keeping money spent with you in movement. It’s a fiscal circle that keeps people working to make the stuff they and others buy.
“I’m an artist/writer, not a business person”, you shout. Well, I hate to break this to you, but anyone who wants to sell his or her art or books is in business. According to Wikipedia, “a business (also known as enterprise or firm) is an organization or person engaged in the trade or sale of goods, services, or both to consumers”. Q.E.D. Business is NOT a dirty word. Businesses allow us as consumers to buy food, clothes, and gas. It allows us to find a place to live (real estate sales and rentals), and most likely it employs a lot of us who are not fortunate enough to be able to make a living selling our work. OOPS! There is that word “sell” again.
Local Business Can Support Local Artists and Writers
• Local business can provide a mutual support base by being willing to allow artists and writers to display their work for sale in their stores and offices. The artist or writer will come in to see their art and most likely buy something from the business. They will also promote the business by telling their sphere of friends and family about having art or books on display in the business and urging them to come and see it.
• Allowing creative people to promote shows, book signings, sales and event by displaying flyers in local business helps develop a mutual dependency.
Local Artists Offer
What value does the community receive when they purchase art from a local artist rather than from a national chain store?
• Well-made handcrafted items give a cachet to their office, home and gift giving. When giving gifts it shows the buyer not only thought enough of the person receiving the gift to take into account that person’s personal tastes, but also took the time to check the gift out carefully.
• Buying art and books from local artists and writers gives the opportunity for a one-on-one personal experience and gives buyers an opportunity to develop a personal and professional relationship with the artist or writer.
• Books and Art are individually created unique, versatile items. Why buy something indistinguishable from what everyone else is buying?
What YOU As The Artist Or Writer Can Do To Promote Sales In Your Neighborhood This Holiday Season:
• Remind past clients, friends, and family, church and organization members that you are a resource for buying holiday gifts or décor items.
• Offer items for sale as “Sales specials”.
• Offer a bonus or discount off a future purchase if the buyer refers another buyer who actually purchases your work. This type of promotion is done all the time in other industries; it is sometimes called a “referral commission’. No money is actually paid until the other buyer makes his/her purchase and mentions the name (or brings in a coupon) of the referring buyer.
• Artists can adapt some art into small affordable reproductions (cards, small prints, puzzles, ornaments, cups, etc.) for sale at a holiday boutique or Studio Open House.
• Writers can arrange book signings at local boutiques, stores or other holiday events.
• Send past clients, friends and neighboring businesses postcards showing your work and invite them to view it in person at a local book signing, show or gallery.
• Take advantage of the local Art Scene by inviting a selected few to come with you on Art Hop nights and show them to galleries where your work is being sold.

I spent a great deal of time in the area around Pismo and Shell Beach as a child. when I started 1st grade we moved to the area from Michigan. My father went to work as a civilian missile inspector at Vandenberg Air Base. He loved to fish and one of his favorite spots was what was then known as the Dinosaur Cliffs at Shell Beach. It was called that by the locals because sometime around 1950 an enterprising gentleman with a dream of exploiting the area by creating life-sized dinosaurs as an attraction built one there. Unfortunately, he ran out of money before he managed to get more than one of them (a blue painted brontosaurus) built. It was a local landmark in the 1960’s. Even in my day, it was dangerous to attempt to go up the stairs located in one of the legs to the platform in the head although the view was fabulous. Unfortunately in the interest of public safety, the city fathers dismantled the life-size brontosaurus, and created a plebian park with small (and safe) replicas of dinosaurs for children to climb on.
I often accompanied my father there on his fishing trips, and although I was a poor fisherman, I learned to love the ocean. Much has changed since I was a child playing in the shallows created by low tides. Because of the nesting pelicans, the huge rocks where my father fished have been made off limits. However, the scenery is still beautiful and it still smells of seaweed kelp and salt air, and exploring the tide pools during low tides you can find many odd sea creatures. I just wish I could find a photo of that life-sized brontosaurus!

For many of us, giving our work over to an individual or a group to be analyzed is scary, but so much can be learned by having someone not intimately connected to you evaluate your work. An unavoidable truth in the art world is that all through your career all kinds of people are going to say all kinds of stuff about your art. Some of them will even tell you to your face. Others may write about it, post about it or gossip behind your back. An artist not only has to learn how to handle this nonstop blitz of feedback, comments, and criticisms, but also how to gage and respond to what is said, and most importantly, how to not take what is said personally. To get the most out of a critique, it is important to decide Before submitting your work to a critique, what you really hope to gain from it. This is where some honest personal soul-searching can be useful. Most of us always try very hard to create the very best art we can. We put the total sum of our skill into every painting or sculpture. Unfortunately, when we ask, “how do you like it” we do usually hope for an endorsement of our efforts instead of an evaluation of what is technically wrong. Evaluate the person doing the critique. An important determination you have to make about responses to your art is whether a particular comment is based on the individual's personal tastes or is instead based more on their overall knowledge and understanding of the type of art you create.
Decide what you like about your painting before asking for criticism. The better you know what it is you like or dislike before receiving criticism, the better able you will be to evaluate what is being said. Listen to what is said, make sure it applies, and then ask yourself: “would it be better changed, or do I like it just the way it is?” Don’t get defensive! Remember; a critique doesn’t have to become an argument to win the critic over to your side.
Seek the opinions of your peers whenever possible. The more respect you have for the critic, the easier it is to accept the evaluation by the critic. It helps also if you attempt to understand his or her biases. We all have them. Some of us are technical sticklers and others like to see the breaking of rules.
Don’t discredit positive feedback. Because we often feel guilty at accepting praise, It is often easier for us to accept negative criticism than praise.

Acrylic paintings now make up a significant part of the permanent collections of museums and art galleries. Artists' acrylic paint was introduced in the 1950s and since then has dominated the arts and crafts market. In addition, it has been accepted by artists as a viable alternative to oil paint. Unlike oil paints, which have existed for centuries, Acrylic paints are a relatively new medium. Once dry, acrylic paint is not water-soluble and will usually be dry within 30 minutes of application, whereas oils do not become dry to the touch for 48 hours. Most acrylic paint used by artists is water-based. There is a form of acrylic paint that is solvent based, but it is not in general use by artists. A variety of additives can be added to the acrylic paint to make them easier to work with or to give the texture wanted by the artist. Examples of these are thickeners, stabilizers, preservatives, and merging solvents.
Because it is a 20th century product, artists don’t have centuries of experience to tell what effect aging may have on an acrylic painting. Acrylic colors retain their original brilliance as long, or longer, than traditional oil paints, and they are much less delicate and prone to damage by UV radiation than watercolors and other water-based paints. The surface of a finished acrylic painting does not seem to become brittle or yellow with age, but remains flexible, insoluble and stable.
The behavior of acrylics as a painting medium and their physical and chemical properties are different from oil paint and merit different strategies in caring for acrylic paintings. Some traditional conservation methods can in fact cause damage to the acrylic paintings. The aging characteristics of acrylic paintings are just beginning to be understood. It is known that aging may cause some acrylic paintings to form a grey veil on their surface or develop yellow discoloration. The soft film formed by acrylic paint will easily abrade or dent with just fingernail pressure. This type of damage can ruin the appearance of paintings which should display a perfect surface. Because Acrylic paint stretches when exposed to heat and cold, Acrylic paintings are expected to develop fewer cracks than oil paintings; because of this flexibility, they can withstand much greater forces without breaking. Cracks can form in acrylic paintings however. When exposed to sub-zero temperatures, acrylics become increasingly brittle and crack so don’t store your acrylic paintings in a freezer!
Acrylic paintings have unique qualities that need diligent preventive care to avoid long-term damage. Acrylic paint attracts and holds dirt and is difficult to clean. Varnishing to protect the paint is not a perfect solution either. It is imperative to store acrylic paintings in a dust free, smoke free location to reduce the amount of dirt accumulated. It is also important to keep the display or storage temperature below standard room temperatures to reduce further softening of the paint film. One might have to accept that acrylic paintings will experience some visual change due to dirt as time goes on. Avoid handling the painting's surface directly -. Erosion from scuffing or touching the paint surface can damage or alter the appearance of the work significantly. This is because skin oils are acidic and can damage the artwork over time Dust and dirt are a particular hazard. Acrylics can also pick up mold residue if they are stored in a warm climate like a bathroom or locker room, or even a kitchen.
At present, there is no completely satisfactory solution to the problem of cleaning acrylic paintings. Removal of the top most dirt layer is perceived to be easier on a varnished painting. Varnishes provide surface protection from abrasion, dust and dirt. Varnishing acrylic paintings has problems attached to it. Natural varnishes, such as dammar, will yellow in time and the solvent used in their removal will dissolve or soften the acrylic paint layer, thus damaging your painting. A water-soluble varnish may be an answer; however, this is still being researched by manufacturers to see what long-term effects may take place. Instead, it is important to store acrylic paintings in a dust free environment to reduce the amount of dirt deposited while keeping the display or keep the temperature below standard room temperatures to reduce further softening of the paint film.

DEATH' FROM EXPOSURE: The environment in which a painting hangs can directly impact its life. Ignorant buyers may purchase a piece of fine art from you and subsequently destroy it by hanging it over their fireplace or right in front of a sunlit window. This is not always due to malice; your buyer may not understand the influence that the microclimate of their home or the room temperature can have on a work of art. For instance, a watercolor can be compromised if placed in direct sunlight for any length of time because direct sunlight will cause it to fade. While an acrylic painting won’t fade in direct sunlight, intense heat may cause the surface of the art to soften. If this happens, it is possible to make a dent or other type of impression by pushing on the surface of the painting. The good news is as soon as an acrylic painting is put back into a cool temperature, the surface will harden right up again .Both Oils and Acrylic paintings can be damaged if displayed above a traditional fireplace, The surface of an oil or acrylic painting will end up with a nasty film of soot. Your buyer can further damage the painting by attempting to clean it with a harsh chemical cleaner.
DEATH' BY INADEQUATE HANGING: Your buyer may assume that a large work of art can be hung in the same manner as a small painting or photograph. We all know this is NOT the case. This issue is helped along by all those wonderful stores who sell sawtooth hangers (attached with tiny, tiny finish nails) or thin metal frames with skimpy hangers. A broken frame from falling off the wall is NOT a good start for your art in a new home! Your artwork may end up in a trans can or the local dump because very few art buyers would know how to re-frame it or if the stretcher bars are broken in the fall, how to re-stretch the canvas. Granted, it isn't strictly your obligation to ensure your buyer knows how to hang your work as it should be... but I fancy most of us would love it if our art ended up being passed from generation to generation! Inform your buyers on how to hang the work so it doesn’t fall down and go boom!

DEATH' BY OVERWATERING: Your buyer may presume that it is okay to use a damp/soapy cloth to remove grime, dust or soot built up on a painting. He or she may think it is appropriate to dip a sculpture in various cleaning chemicals. NO! NO! NO! I wonder how many works of art have been severely spoiled by 'simple' cleaning approaches comprising water or a combination of water and chemicals. Ensure that your buyers appreciate the basics of proper cleaning methods... they may thank you later (your art would if it could).

You can help prevent the untimely demise of your art after it leaves the care of your studio by sending along a sheet of cleaning and instructions with the sale. Pastel Artist Carol Santora provides her buyers with a 'Handling Your Artwork with Care' sheet when her pastel paintings are sold. The sheet offers general tips for handling and hanging original artwork out of direct sunlight, etc., and specific handling of soft pastel paintings. It also explains about pastels and includes a note of thanks for their purchase. Since I don’t work in Pastels, I had to write up my own. A “how to care for” sheet helps to impress upon the buyer that they have purchased a valuable commodity, something that should be cared for and treasured. Hopefully, they will pass along your instructions to their children and help to increase art awareness.
CLEANING YOUR OIL OR ACRYLIC PAINTING.
If your art has developed a yellow film or darkened, this may be due to old varnish darkening. This must type of work must be cleaned by a professional or a museum because it takes an expert to remove the darkened varnish without damaging the art underneath.
Otherwise, begin with a feather duster and brush lightly to remove dust. Acrylics can also be touched up with a damp (NOT WET!) cloth.
Do not use soap or other chemicals.
Acrylic paint even when protected by varnish can be quite absorbent. If the frame needs cleaning, don’t use a spray cleaner as it may drift over onto the art. Ideally, the frame should be removed if extensive cleaning is needed.
HANGING YOUR ART
To avoid damaging your painting, do not hang this painting over an active fireplace. This will cause soot to form a film over the canvas, and darken and dim the colors causing permanent damage. To avoid stretching or cracking, Do not hang in direct sunlight and avoid placing in a room where temperatures rise above 85oF or below 60oF. Acrylic paint becomes soft around 60ºC. The soft film formed by acrylic paint will easily abrade or dent with just fingernail pressure. This type of damage can ruin the nature of the image so avoid touching the surface of the painting as much as possible.
Hangers should be strong enough to support the art. Don’t hang your art with sawtooth hangers because they are usually not sturdy enough to hold a painting for any length of time. For one thing, they are usually provided with teeny, tiny finish nails which pull out easily. This can cause the painting to fall, which may damage either the frame or the stretcher bars holding the canvas. If you are framing it yourself as well, the hanging wire should have the ends either taped or be enclosed in plastic sleeves. This will prevent cutting your hands on the wire (Inexpensive tubing can be bought at the hardware store, cut in small lengths, and then slipped over the wire before you twist the wire it to the art.) Fasten the wire with flat, screw in hooks to prevent damage to your wall. Finally, the ideal place for the hooks to be placed is approximately 4” from the top of the frame. This will ensure that the painting doesn’t lean out from the wall.

Some of you may feel guilty about promoting sales of your art. For those of you who do feel guilty about telling friends, past customers, family and acquaintances “Hey, consider buying from me when selecting art for your home or office, let’s consider a few things. Do you know what the 80/20 Rule is? Well it says that 80% of money spent locally stays in circulation locally. By promoting the idea of other buying your art, you are contributing to the health of your neighborhood! When someone buys art from you, they provide you funds which you in return spend on groceries, rent, clothing and other stuff (which hopefully you also spent in a local business!)
Sales tax spent with you supports local infrastructure, police, fire and schools, stay with the community when spent in local businesses. The Tax Policy Center: (click here for the entire article), says that “Local governments received transfers from both the federal and state governments equal to about one-seventh of total revenue; from their own sources, they collected about $700 billion, or 17 percent of all government revenue.” When your friends and family buy from you they are helping to return money to their local economy, so you should feel no hesitation in pointing out to them that you are a resource for their decorating projects!
Spending money locally shows pride in your community culture and local products. As a person who lives in the area you are more apt to locally recirculate money spent with you on your art in the form of purchases from other local business, thus supporting the local work force. When you give some of that money to local charities, even if it’s just the local boy or girl scout troop, or maybe the local food bank you are keeping money spent with you in movement. It’s a monetary loop that keeps people working to make the goods they and others purchase.
“I’m an artist, not a business person”, you shout. Well, I hate to break this to you, but anyone who wants to sell art is in business. According to Wikipedia, “a business (also known as enterprise or firm) is an organization or person engaged in the trade or sale of goods, services, or both to consumers”. Q.E.D. Business is NOT a dirty word. Businesses allow us as consumers to buy food, clothes, and gas. It allows us to find a place to live (real estate sales and rentals), and most likely it employs a lot of us who are not fortunate enough to be able to make a living selling our art. There is that word “sell” again.
Local Business Can Support Local Artists
• Local business can provide a mutual support base by being willing to allow artists to display their work for sale in their stores and offices. The artist will come in to see their art and most likely buy something from the business. The artist will also promote the business by telling their sphere of friends and family about having art in display in the business and urging them to come and see it.
• Allowing artists to promote shows, sales and events flyers in their business helps develop a mutual dependency.
Local Artists Offer
What value does the community receive when they purchase art from a local artist rather than from a national chain store?
• Well-made handcrafted items give a cachet to their office, home and gift giving. When giving gifts it shows the buyer not only thought enough of the person receiving the gift to take into account that person’s personal tastes, but took the time to check the gift out carefully.
• Buying art from local artists gives the opportunity for a personal experience one-on-one with the artist.
• The buyer has an opportunity to develop a personal and professional relationship with the artist.
• Art is individually created unique, versatile item. Why buy something indistinguishable from what everyone else is buying?
What YOU Can Do to Promote Sales In Your Neighborhood:
• Remind past clients, friends, and family, church and organization members that you are a resource for buying décor items or holiday gifts.
• Offer items for sale as “Sales specials”.
• A bonus or discount off a future purchase if the buyer refers another buyer who actually purchases art. This type of promotion is done all the time in other industries; it is sometimes called a “referral commission’. No money is actually paid until the other buyer makes his/her purchase and mentions the name (or brings in a coupon) of the referring buyer.
• Adapt some art into small affordable reproductions (cards, small prints, puzzles, ornaments, cups, etc.) for sale at a holiday boutique or Studio Open House.
• Send past clients, friends and neighboring businesses postcards showing your work and invite them to view it in person at a local show or gallery.
• Take advantage of the local Art Scene by inviting a selected few to come with you on Art Hop nights and introduce them to other artists.

Acrylic is a very forgiving medium. By this, I mean that if you goof up you can just paint over it and start again! Can’t do that with watercolor; at least not unless you are very, very skilled with it. I do love the way a talented watercolorist can bring a painting to life with watercolor, but sadly, I find it much harder to work with than acrylics. I am a kind of create as I go painter, and with watercolor it seems necessary to mutinously plan each step. I like the way oils look also (my mother worked in them) but I can’t use them because of the chemicals and the smell and oils really dry too slowly for someone like me; I end up with mud every time because I am too impatient to wait until my canvas is workable again! Pastels and charcoal don’t stink but I am such a messy painter that I inevitably end up with as much on me as I do on the canvas or paper!
I am an impatient painter and acrylics are wonderful for artists like me. In four or five hours you can add at least four layers of paint without creating mud because each layer will dry and be workable in about a half hour. I will confess that it puzzles me to hear of other artists complaining that acrylics dry too fast to work with. I often have to stop and walk away for that half hour in order to let my painting dry enough to add another layer of paint. If I want to thin my acrylic paint to make it more transparent I just use water. If I want an area I am working on to stay wet a little longer, I spray the canvas with water or wet it with a brush. I don’t use any of the available mediums that are supposed to slow down the speed in which acrylics dry. I have tried them but I didn’t like working with them. I did notice that many artists who received their first artistic training in transparent watercolor seem to put a lot less paint on the canvas than I do, which may account for their acrylics drying faster than they want. I find that acrylic loves to be applied nice and thick. The thicker the paint (the more you start out with on the brush) the easier it is to push it around on the canvas and the longer it will take to dry.

Now that you have discovered the ease of internet publicity, internet sales, and computer record keeping, it is time to discuss some of the pitfalls of being a member of the Internet generation. The world wide web is the wild west and your neighborhood sheriffs are rare, so you need to do what first generation settlers did: learn to protect yourself and your computer from the bad guys.
The holiday shopping season is about to pounce on us, and with it, a rash of computer malware and virus invasions. Why are there more of these foul assaults during the holiday seasons? Ever hear of Cyber Monday? The number of Internet users doing their holiday gift shopping is much higher this time of year because it is so much faster and easier to simply order your gifts with the click of a mouse, have it gift wrapped and shipped to your family and friends, than it is to brave the crowded shopping malls and holiday traffic, bring home presents and then gift-wrap them yourself.
Many holiday shoppers are also infrequent users of cyberspace and depend heavily on their internet provider to guard them from Malware or Virus invasions, and a great many of users don’t perform computer Maintence on a regular basis. If you are using one of the Internet Browsers such as Firefox or Explorer they do provide some measure of protection because they use free virus prevention programs to help foil these attacks, so do many of the Internet Providers such as Xfinity, Yahoo, Google, U-verse and such. You can also purchase virus prevention programs in hard copy and load them from a disc. Many times this is simply not enough. Why is it not enough? Because those nasty little gremlins who create these attacks are constantly working to tunnel through whatever protections are on your computer. The war started the second the internet was created, and if you don’t want to become a casualty, you need to protect your computer. Most of these insidious Malware and Virus invasions can be stopped short if they are caught early enough. At our house, we run two types of anti-Malware/anti-virus scans weekly.
What is Malware? According to Wikipedia, “Malware, short for malicious software, is any software used to interrupt computer operation, collect sensitive information, or gain access to your computer. It can appear in the form of executable code, scripts, hidden e-mail attachments, etc. It also shows up when you are careless about what web sites you visit. Malware is a general term used to denote to a variety of forms of hostile or invasive software.” Malware masquerades under a variety of terms: computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, scareware, and other malevolent names. Home users and organizations to try to safeguard against malware “attacks” by using anti-virus, anti-malware, and firewalls programs many of which can be bought at your local office supply store. They can also be downloaded directly into your computer from the Internet.
How do you give your computer a flu shot? Well the first step is to make sure your computer security settings on your Control panel are set to make the most of your computer’s built in security. Below are five basic steps you can take. If you are using Windows, 1) turn on your windows firewall. A Firewall is software that either checks information coming from your network or internet and blocks or allows access to your computer. 2) Set up a list of approved programs and require that you be asked before new programs download. 3) Set up to be notified if the firewall blocks a program. 4) Make sure the programs you use have the latest updates because updates may contain additional protections against Malware that attacks through legit programs. 5) Keep your ant-malware/virus programs updated! To do this make sure your software is set to automatically update new protections. Usually this can be done in the background.
Anti-Malware programs or scans need to be run frequently. I would recommend at least once per month, and during the holidays every week. There are three basic types of scans designed to catch malware: A Quick scan which is fast and superficial, a Full scan which goes through every file on your computer and a Boot Scan. The Boot scan is a very powerful tool because it begins scanning during your computer’s most vulnerable time when it first starts up because until it is fully loaded, your protection software isn’t fully functional.
Even with all these precautions, you might still be successfully invaded by one of these nasty critters. One year we experienced a powerful malware that went through our firewalls like grain through a goose. It locked us out of all our programs. Well if this happens to you, then it is time to call in an expert to scrub and disinfect your computer. Your first step is to turn off your computer and leave it off, Don’t keep turning it back on in the hopes that the problem will have disappeared! Since you probably won’t be able to access the internet from the infected computer, it is a good idea to have the name and contact information of a computer cleaner on tap. If you don’t have time to do this before you are infected, try phoning the store where you purchased your computer or a store that sells them, and ask if they can recommend a company.
There are software programs out there you can buy which are supposed to be able to disinfect your computer, however if you aren’t computer savvy to begin with, you may not be able to use them successfully.
If this sounds overwhelming, it really isn’t. Keeping your computer safe is no more difficult than learning to drive a car. It’s just a new and different technology. And really, do we have a choice?
Good Luck! Gail

I chose this title simply because the name Beta Antares sounds as if it would be a planet to reach for. There is absolutely no scientific reason to choose it; as far as I know we still don’t know what is around that star or if it even exists! This painting was created from Barsoom, an original acrylic painting and digitally altered. When I used the invert command in Photoshop, it created a completely new painting; the ocher sands turned blue, the sky became purple and the red stone cliffs turned to emerald crystal. This painting now depicts sailing on an alien world through the cliffs under two moons. I consider this the ultimate in romance and adventure (sailing on an Alien sea under two moons...). Just imagine that you are a new colonist on a newly discovered planet. The humans who colonize these worlds will encounter different and perhaps dangerous animals and plants. They will truly be stepping out into the unknown, in the way our pioneer ancestors did.
There are those of us who think we should not be spending money to try to get out into space because we have so many pressing problems unsolved here on earth. I disagree. I am well aware of our earthly problems, but our best breakthroughs in science and biology have always come when we are striving toward goals like space exploration. I feel that unless human beings are striving toward a goal they will stagnate. So, yes, even if I won’t be around to see it, I still say we should reach for the stars!

Every year at Christmas, I advertised my work by painting a Christmas card that my husband could send out to his pool customers, my customers, friends and family. The year I painted Christmas Eve, I was looking for a “Currier & Ives” feel. For the sleigh and horses, I used a photo from a trip to Tanaya Lodge in Yosemite, and I must have looked through thousands of photos of covered bridges. It isn’t unusual for me to combine several reference photos in creating a painting. The background I just made up…Most farmers and ranchers in snow country usually kept a set of ski-type rails around for the winter. When it started to snow, they would remove the wheels from their buggies or wagons and substitute the sled rails. Sleighs came in many shapes and sizes, from utilitarian vehicles resembling wooden boxes set on runners with benches inside for passengers, to the finely crafted and polished cutters of the high Victorian era.
I was also experimenting with larger size paintings so Christmas Eve is quite large: 36”h x 48”w. Additionally in order to make the surface rigid enough I was using board, so it is also quite heavy. This was the last painting I did in these large sizes. Although I love the freedom of using so much space to create, storage became a problem.

Another way to frame inexpensively is finding used frames and refurbish them. Where can you find used frames? Well the main sources I have found for used frames are flea markets, second hand stores and yard sales. Take your tape measure with you because frames and framed art found here may or may not meet the usual size requirements of standard canvas sizes sold in the art store. The frame probably won’t be in pristine condition so you may have to do some refinishing. Look for wooden or metal frames because they are easiest to clean up and refurbish. I prefer to stay away from the more ornate frames with raised plaster designs because of the difficulty of repairing the faux carvings.
Choosing A Good Used Frame is not as difficult as you may think.
Metal Frames: A good used metal frame may have scratches, but it will be square (no warping) without bent edges. Depending on the size of the art you are planning to frame, it should probably be at least ¾” to 1” wide. Make sure the corners fit together well without any danger of coming apart. A little rust or scratches are okay as they can be sanded off and smoothed out. Check the sizing with your tape measure to be sure your art will fit. Metal frames are typically used to frame watercolors or pastels, which are done on paper, and while the art paper may be cut to fit the frame, pastels and watercolors are also usually presented with a mat. Unless you have a mat-cutter, you will be using pre-cut mats, which come in the same standard sizes as canvas so making sure the frame is a standard size will cut down on the amount of work you will need to do when you frame the art. The mat may be reusable depending on its condition but it is an easy fix. Scratches on the glass or plexi means it will have to be replaced, although if the glass is scratched very near the edge of the frame it might not be noticed.
Wood Frames: A used wooden frame may or may not come with a canvas painting or print. The good news here is that after you have checked to make sure you won’t be covering up a lost masterpiece, you will also have a blank canvas or board that you can use to paint your masterpiece! (Look for a separate blog on re-using canvas).
Not fixable issues: Check the frame for warping. This can be caused by water damage or just simply damage done to the frame itself. While warping can be corrected it requires wood shop tools like vises and such. Probably not worth your trouble.
Chipped Corners or edges: Unless you are going to go for a distressed or really rustic look this can’t be fixed. It can be minimized with paint but it will still show up to the eyes.
Fixable Issues: check for loose corners. This is an easy fix usually requiring some wood putty and finish nails. Scratches and stains are also fixable requiring stripping, re-sanding and either re-staining or painting of the wood part of the frame.
Linen Mat Issues On A Wood Frame: The most common flaw in a used wooden frame is the linen mat is stained or discolored. This is a pretty easy fix; just repaint it with off-white or parchment color. A tear in the mat may or may not be fixable, depending on the size of the damage. Usually a little glue and repainting the mat will suffice.
For How-To procedures see the blog Refurbishing A Used Frame.

Framing fine art can enhance the overall appeal of a piece of artwork; unfortunately, if you don't frame your art wisely it can ultimately ruin the paintings appeal altogether. We all want our art to look its best, so artists inexperienced in the art of framing usually begin by using a commercial framer. A commercial framer will give you a nice, professional looking frame for your art. They will also give you sticker shock when quoting the price. Depending on the size of the frame wanted a commercial framer can charge anywhere from $200 to $600 for a simple frame for a painting. Keep in mind that the cost can go much higher if you want an elaborate, ornate frame for your art. Contrary to popular supposition, it is not cheaper using a metal frame (favored by watercolorists and pastel artists). A commercial framer must not only charge you for the materials, but also for the labor it takes to actually frame the painting.
The simplest way to avoid this type of sticker shock is to do your own framing.
Step One: finding an inexpensive frame that looks good. The local art store will have a variety of frames to select from so watch the sales magazines for Coupons from your local art store and use them. Depending on the size of the art you are framing, you may be able to find suitable frames from other sources also. Dollar and discount stores such as Walmart and Target typically have photo frames available in sizes that can be adapted to paintings. Words of warning here however; make sure that the frames you purchase from this source are made of wood and not plastic or acrylic. Plastic or acrylic frames can’t easily be adapted to the hanging systems required by most art shows and the saw-tooth or eyelet hangers that come with the frames probably won’t be accepted at a professional show. Another difficulty is sizing. Take your tape measure with you; some of the frames sold at these places are not the standard sizes used by artists. Frames that look to be 11 x 14 can turn out to be 10 x 13 or some other odd size that won’t fit canvas or canvas boards sold to painters.
Another good source is On-line catalogs or internet stores. Typically these sites will charge less than your local art store because you are circumventing the middleman’s markup. This is my favorite source when purchasing new frames because the cost is usually 30 to 50% less than that of my local retail store. Of course the shipping does add an extra fee which cuts down on the savings somewhat. I buy frames from these places in bulk once or twice a year because there is an additional discount if you buy at least 3 or 4 frames at the same time and if you sign up for the stores e-mail program you will be notified when they are having a sale. If you can’t afford the initial cost up front, you might consider buying in bulk and sharing the cost with other artists. Some good sources of Catalogs are to name only a few:
ASW (Art Supply Warehouse) http://www.aswexpress.com/,The Frame Place http://www.frameplace.com/xwoodfrm.htm, Frame USA http://www.frameusa.com/wood-frames
Another way to frame inexpensively is finding used frames and refurbishing them. Where can you find used frames? Well the two main sources I have found for used frames are second hand stores and yard sales. Again, take your tape measure with you because framed art found here may or may not meet the size requirements of standard canvas sizes sold in the art store. The frame probably won’t be in pristine condition so you may have to do some refurbishing and refinishing. Look for wooden or metal frames because they are easiest to clean up and refurbish. Part three of this series on inexpensive framing covers ways to refurbish a used frame.

When I was in my late twenties, my parents retired to a plot of land in Arizona outside Kingman. They led a hardscrabble retirement, building their house from native rocks and lumber scavenged from the local dump. With very little money to retire on, my father earned enough to support them by harvesting cacti and landscaping the yards of the “snowbirds” that came to Arizona to escape the cold during the winter. My mother created paintings on boards and old cabinet doors found discarded at the same dump which she sold at a local flea market.
This is a tribute to man’s ingenuity, and the “make it work” philosophy of a previous generation. When my Father’s truck came up with a flat tire, he was too far from town to call a tow truck, even if he had the money to have one come 30 miles over dirt and gravel roads to change it for him. Besides, in his day, you fixed your own flat tires. Using the oxygen from his welding kit, he re-inflated the tire, which enabled him to drive the truck with the repaired tire into town.

9/23/13

Choosing a gallery is NOT a matter of taking the first offer you get from a gallery, or taking a recommendation from your Uncle’s cousin. It is also not about showing trust in humanity. Choosing a Gallery to represent art can be one of the most important decisions an artist can make. This decision will affect who sees the art, and consequently who buys it. An artist is an equal partner with the Gallery: The artist supplies the product sold and the Gallery in turn supplies the selling venue. Neither party can exist without the other. If an artist chooses poorly, it reflects on both the artist and on the art. Art is a business as well as a creative endeavor. If an artist is pursuing art as a career and not as a hobby, artists need to be aware of legal issues that can affect artists as well. Most artists benefit from showing their art at Commercial Galleries. Unfortunately, not all commercial galleries are created equal. Some are aboveboard and have excellent reputations and ethics. Others do not. Commercial art galleries derive their profit from sales of artwork, and thus take great care to select art and artists that they believe will sell and enhance their gallery's reputation. They spend time and money cultivating collectors. If the artwork sells, the gallery makes a profit and the artist is then paid. It is not unusual for a commercial art gallery to charge a 50% commission on sales. Before entering into partnership with a new gallery, the artist should do what any responsible person would do before entering into a contract: check it out with the local Better Business Bureau and Chamber of Commerce. Ask to speak to other artists who are under contract. Do they make sales? Does the gallery pay on time when a sale is made? Does the gallery make sales of an artist’s work and not tell artists about it? What about advertising and publicity, how much does the gallery does and who pays for it? Artists should also attend a few of their receptions or events and see who is attending. If it is mostly other artists under contract, very few sales will be made. A successful commercial gallery will be in a location where there is a high volume of foot traffic and visited by a lot of art fans is ideal. A location such as this may be pricey, but if an audience is already there and primed to visit the gallery with the intent to buy, less can be spent on advertising to drive buyers to see the work.
Surprisingly there are a number of on-line and nuts and bolts alternatives for choosing where you will show your art. The words “on-line art gallery” can mean different things, however; an online art gallery most likely will be a website to display and sell art. For example: 1) An on-line art gallery can be displaying art work from their current, future, or past exhibitions, and be set up to promote the exhibition rather than to sell the work via the website. 2) An artist presenting his/her own gallery, either on his own website and 3) Multi-Artist Sites or shared websites (ArtId, Fine Art America, Etsy, etc.), representing many artists working in different medias and genres. On a multi-artist site the artist either pays a monthly fee or agrees to a commission paid when the work is sold. These are usually non-exclusive and are a risk free opportunity for the artist to sell art worldwide. Search for them using "original art" or "online art gallery". The advantage of Online Galleries is that while the art buying public is growing, many people are still intimidated by walk-in commercial Art Galleries. If a potential buyer has access to a wide range of art viewed in the comfort and safety of their own home, they may relax and make a purchase. A lot of artists now have an online Gallery as well as a walk-in commercial Gallery which means that an artist can present a lot more art to a lot more people.
Beginning artists can be confused by Vanity Galleries because they are not the only gallery which charges a fee to the artist; a vanity gallery charges artists fees to exhibit their work and makes most of its money from the artists rather than from sales to the public. Some vanity galleries charge a lump sum to arrange an exhibition, while others ask artists to pay regular membership fees and then promise to organize an exhibition with a certain period. Occasionally a vanity gallery will appear to have a selection process because the number of artists on the membership roster cannot exceed the available time slots for shows. Vanity galleries have no incentive to sell art, as they have already been paid by the artist. They are not selective because they don't have to be. Most Professional critics and reviewers tend to avoid them.
Cooperative galleries (sometimes called artist-run initiatives), are galleries operated by groups of artists who pool their resources to staff the gallery, pay for gallery space, exhibits and publicity. Most cooperative galleries carefully jury their members. Also, most, galleries of this type do require membership fees. Sometimes members must share the overhead cost of operating the gallery.

The holidays are coming, and with them come events and fairs to sell your work. I call these “Booth Events”. There are usually 3 types of events where you can sell your art: Outdoor, Indoor and Tabletop .A booth event is a sale with multiple vendors with each vendor putting up their own display booth. An event may be geared to sell only art or it may allow different types of vendors. Outdoor events are usually larger than the Indoor ones and attract a larger crowd. A Tabletop can be either indoors or outdoors; the main difference between a Tabletop and the others is the space size. Most booth events allow you a 10’ x 10’ space. Usually with a tabletop you only have a space about the length and width of a table (usually 8’ long by 3’ wide) to display your art. Your booth set up should be light and portable, easy for one person to set up in about 20 minutes, and fit into your vehicle along with the products you are planning to sell.

OUTDOOR EVENT
To take part in an outdoor booth event you should have the following:
Pop-Up booth: Pop-Ups come in several price ranges and styles. Ideally, you will have help setting it up, but I would recommend the E-Z Up brand because it can be set up by one person. (I’ve done it many times). I would also recommend a couple of practice trials setting it up in your yard before you go out to the event if you have never set up a booth. The best Pop-Ups for displaying art have white top and straight sides. The white top provides more light to see the art and the straight sides give you somewhere to fasten display racks. You can also purchase sidewalls to hang from the sides of the booth. This is necessary if you are taking part in an event that lasts several days because you can use the sidewalls to enclose the booth when you go home for the night. However, unless the event has very good security, I wouldn’t recommend leaving your work out overnight, but you can leave your display stands set up inside.
Display stands or racks: You can buy display set-ups from the art supply catalogs; however if they are more expensive than you can afford, it is possible to make your own. For my displays, I bought 8’ wire closet shelving from the local hardware store. Turned on end, they can be fastened together with plastic tie straps or Velcro, and the wire bars then make nice spaces to hang different sizes of art. This portable shelving can also be made into stand-alone shapes (boxes, triangles and rectangles) for indoor events where you can’t take the Pop-Up. As additional security for stand-alone shapes, I would suggest that sandbags or weighted milk cartons be fastened inside the shape to prevent tipping.
Portable easels can also be used as a part of your display. The art supply catalogs have some excellent display easels that hold multiple pieces of art. If your easels aren’t set up to display more than one piece of art, you can simply lean a painting against the legs. You can also make these easels yourself out of copper, PVC pipe or wood.
Small fold up tables with a nice tablecloth will hold your cash box and give you something write on when making out receipts. They can also be used to display very small or 3-deminsional art, cards, etc. Just don’t make your space so crowded no one wants to come it.
Sandbags or weights to hold down the booth in case of high winds: Many booth events are on blacktop so you can’t use the handy stakes that come with the Pop-Ups to secure your booth against winds. Weights of some kind are a must. A Pop-Up booth makes a big kite when the wind blows and it doesn’t have to be hurricane strength either. Nice clean sand can be bought from the hardware store and sandbags either from the Art Supply warehouse where you got your Pop-Up or from the hardware store. You can also fill empty gallon milk cartons and use the handle to fasten to the legs of the booth. You need about 20 to 30 lbs. on each corner.
Cash box: a locking cash box to keep change for cash sales and checks can be bought at the local office supply store.
Chair to sit in; while you will be spending a lot of time on your feet, it’s nice to have a place to sit down and relax so potential buyers don’t think you are just waiting to pounce.
Your art, photographs and other items you plan to sell: Plastic boxes with good, snap-lock lids work really well to transport small items. They are waterproof and usually hold up much better than cardboard if you are doing a lot of events. If you are going to be carrying your product in a pickup bed, make sure the lids of the boxes are fastened down and won’t blow open (bungee cords work well here). You will also need either bubble wrap or some type of padding to wrap around or separate delicate items. For larger pieces of art such as framed paintings or photographs, I recommend that you carry them inside your vehicle (in which case they can be separated by large pieces of cardboard to prevent scratching the frames), or completely wrap them in bubble wrap. The thing you are most looking to prevent is damage caused by the items moving around when you stop, start and turn the vehicle. Personally, I carry either a large, wide-tip marker in either brown or black to touch up frames.
A hand truck: You may have park some distance from your booth set up. While most places allow you to drive into the booth area to set up your display, it might not be feasible for you to do so. A hand truck or dolly will enable you to haul your art, display stands and Pop-Up into the area without having to transport everything a piece at a time. This is a big plus because you may have a limited time in which to set up your booth.
Sales Receipts, a calculator and bags: Hopefully you will be making sales, so the receipt book is a handy way for you to keep track of sales. Don’t spend a lot on the bags; you can get small paper bags and larger plastic ones with handles at the local Dollar Store.
A way to take debit or credit cards: If you want to make sales over $20, you need this. A lot of the cell phone companies now have this feature that can be added to a cell phone. I highly recommend Square technology or PayPal for this. Both companies provide a small square you can order off the internet free, attach it your smart phone or tablet, (please note you will need at least an I-Phone or Droid model), link it directly to your bank account, and take payments on the spot. It’s small, portable and easy to learn to use. The company takes a small percentage of each sale as a fee (2.75% per swipe) and the money is in your account the next day. The site is https://squareup.com/ or https://paypal.com check it out.
Alternatively, if the event is Wi-Fi enabled or your phone has a built-in data pack and can double as your own hot spot; you can bring your laptop or tablet and key sales directly into your web site. If you are using a laptop, make sure you have access to electricity because chances are your laptop battery won’t last all day.
You will also need a small printing calculator because customers who buy large ticket items are going to want a printed receipt, even if you are also e-mailing them one.
INDOOR OR TABLETOP EVENT
You are probably going to need everything mentioned above except the Pop-Up. Some indoor events will allow you a 10 x 10 space, but quite a few of them aren’t exactly that size or maybe your booth space is not in a square, so there will be difficulty fitting the Pop-Up frame into the space.
If you do a lot of Church or School sponsored Boutiques, a Tabletop Event is the most common type. At a Tabletop, you are probably going to be given just enough space to set up one 8’x2.5’ table with room for a chair behind it, so be prepared to cut your display down and bring only what you consider the most “sellable” items.
When I go to an event, especially an Indoor event, I always ask for access to electricity; I seldom take many large pieces of art to these events anymore. Since space is usually at a premium it is difficult to display a lot of large art; instead, I take a plug-in digital picture frame (you can do the same with either a laptop or a tablet) loaded with photos of my work. I have a power point presentation showing my work set to music. The moving slide show and music attract a lot of attention and I can display more art.
Remember to have fun and talk about your work.
Good Luck

Congratulations! You sold some art from your web site! Now you have to figure out how to get it to your buyer. Unless you are hand delivering your work you will need to ship it to the buyer. In order to reach your buyer in a condition that does credit to you as an artist there is a real need to select both your shipping method and your packing container carefully. For packing you are going to need a lot of tape, foam core board, acid-free paper, acid-free plastic bags and foam peanuts. To pack paintings for photographs, first, wrap the art with acid-free paper and tape it together so it doesn’t move. What is acid free paper and why do you need it? Acid-free paper has a pH factor of seven or above. The pH scale is a standard for measuring the acidity or alkalinity of all kinds of products, including paper. Before 1860, paper was usually made of rag or cloth stock and high-end expensive stationary is still made this way. After 1860, paper mills began using ground up wood and mixing it with acids and bleach to save costs, all of which have a low pH factor and react with air and water to produce acidic composites. Why use acid free paper? The acidic compounds found in non-acid free paper can migrate to your art and cause decay and damage. In the short time it now takes to ship to your buyer acidic compounds probably won’t cause much damage; however, they may still leave a residue on your work that can cause it to deteriorate over time especially if your buyer doesn’t clean the work immediately after it arrives.
If the art is unframed canvas or sheet paper, you will need to make sure that it isn’t bent or folded by rough handling during shipping. In 2012, Popular Mechanics conducted an experiment to see how packages were handled by Fed-Ex, UPS and the Postal Service. According to their published results, the package was dropped around three times and flipped an average of seven times per trip. Putting “Fragile” or “This End Up” did NOT increase the care handling the package got; in fact messages like this seemed to make no difference at all. Not that most of these delivery people will be deliberately be careless, but then there was that internet video of one of them tossing a flat screen TV over a fence when he couldn’t open the gate… How do you avoid this happening to your expensive art? After wrapping your work in the acid-free paper mentioned above, add a tough, lightweight reinforcement to help prevent bending (extra thick cardboard or foam core works) on each side of the art. Then slip artwork in an acid-free plastic bag to help make it water resistant, and wrap the whole thing in bubble wrap and tape so it won’t move. Why do you need to use an acid-free bag when you are already using acid free paper? When the plastic bag touches your acid-free paper, acid migration can still occur. Acid migration is what happens when acid from one object touches another. Acid migration is particularly dangerous to photographs. Chances are the acid-free paper you bought can still be contaminated by non-acid free plastic because the paper doesn’t have a seal. The acid free bag will seal off the art from contamination by the rest of the packing materials and help prevent water damage. Next, make sure you fill the entire packing container with shipping peanuts or bubble wrap so there is no extra space.
Should You Ship Art With A Frame? Personally, I don’t ship framed art unless it is for a show; and I avoid shipping any art that is under glass, because if the package is damaged during shipping, the frame itself could survive unbroken yet your art could be ruined by broken glass sliding around and cutting or scratching it. If you must ship framed art, then protect the corners with edge guards and substitute plexi for glass. If the buyer wants glass, request that they take it to a framer in their area and get it changed. The other solution would be to ship to a local framer in the buyer’s area and arrange for the buyer to pick up the art after it has been framed.
Since the above study by Popular Mechanics didn’t find much difference in handling packages with the three most popular shipping companies, you need to decide to whether use them or employ a company that specializes in shipping art, which could be expensive. However, if you are willing to pay for it, the specialty company may even pack your art for you.
What About Shipping Insurance? Whatever shipping method you use, I recommend insuring your package and including shipping confirmation. I highly advocate you ensure your art for the full price in case you have to refund the money to the buyer if it doesn’t arrive intact. A high-value insurance cost does usually ensure that the shipping company will take more care of your work because they don’t want to pay damages.
Tracking The Package. If you are shipping inside the U.S. then you should always get shipping confirmation. Unfortunately, I did discover when I shipped a painting to a buyer in Canada that I could only track it as far as the border, so I don’t recommend paying extra for confirmation if you are shipping out of the U.S. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection web site: https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/301/~/mail---tracking-lost-or-missing-packages, CBP doesn’t have the ability to track packages across the border. Occasionally a border station will hold a package for another government agency but we regular folks are just SOL. That painting I shipped across the border into Canada? The cost of shipping was almost as much as the buyer paid for it!
Speaking for myself, I now include a note on my website that I don’t ship originals out of the U.S. due to the high costs.
Good Luck!
Gail

Let’s talk about the pile of elephant dung in the middle of the room; namely, that adults in Fresno and Clovis consider a print from Target or Wal-Mart to be on the same level as an original painting from a local artist. Why is this? Well, I believe it is because they don’t think of paintings as a cultural medium, but as mere decorator objects. I think this belief was created because they were not taught to appreciate art as children, either from parents (who probably weren’t taught it either) or exposed to the idea of art and music as cultural mediums enriching society in the local schools. Why don’t we teach the appreciation of arts and music to our young people here in Fresno and Clovis? The dirty little secret is Money.
Despite numerous studies showing that students who are consistently exposed to and taught to appreciate art and music do better scholastically in Math and Science, Art and Music subjects always get the short straw when it comes to allocating school funds. Art and Music are “soft” subjects and consequently hard to measure on tests. We do need both math and science in order to compete in a technological world; however, it is well established that in spite of spending more money per student than any other state, California students continue to fall behind not only national, but world, averages and I believe that is due to poor emphasis on the subjects of art and music. Now, of course if asked, Fresno county Schools administration will agree, “There ought to be an art or a music class taught”. Nevertheless, this isn’t really happening and the classes that are taught don’t really address the problem. A single class that lets students play around with band instruments won’t teach our children to appreciate different types of music and its contributions to our culture. Neither will a class allowing students to draw pictures, although both of the options are a good start in the right direction. Art and Music must be integrated into all our subjects in order for our children to learn how valuable they really are. For instance, you can’t study Greek and Roman historical contributions without being exposed to their art and music as well. American history should include more than a paragraph mentioning Francis Scott Key’s National Anthem! A study of the American Revolution should include the contributions made by American artists in getting the message out to colonists. Many musical notes are based on mathematical formulas, but is this taught in math? Architectural structures, roads and bridges are part art, part geometry is this taught in geometry? I could go on and on, but I hope you get the point.
I believe that until our schools are committed to giving our young people a well-rounded appreciation of art and music as well as math, science and sports, our graduating students are going to continue to fall further and further behind the national standard. Creativity teaches independent thinking and without independent thinkers, we have no future leaders, only little robots who can recite by rote the party line without once understanding or considering the consequences. What do you think?

MURALISTS NOW NEED CONTRACTOR’S LICENSE
Artists may not be aware that they could be violating California state licensing laws if they were paid more than $500 to paint a mural on a permanent structure i.e. a house or office wall, outside building, etc... The C-33 Painting and Decorating license section covers painting a mural on a permanent structure. Individuals who limit their practice to that of an artist could also be covered under either D-64 (non-specialized contractor designation) or C-61 (Limited Specialty contractor classification). If an artist is paid more than $500 (labor and materials) to paint a mural on a permanent structure, they are subject to state contractor licensing laws under the Business and Professions Code Section 7026. As of this year, there still is no license classification for specifically for an artist painting art on walls or buildings, so artists are forced to apply for the general painting contractor’s license.
Requirements for C-33 licensing can be pretty stiff (and expensive); you must pass the state law and business exam in addition to the trade exam related to painting. Cost: Initial app fee $300, App to add a supplemental Classification $75, Home improvement salesperson (HIS) registration fee $75, etc... Then it has to be renewed each year. In addition to the license itself, CSLB always requires worker’s comp insurance on most projects if anyone but you do any part of the work. Then there are the bond requirements for a General License; “D” class licenses on the other hand may be less expensive to obtain since potential contactors are only required to pass the law and business exams. However, the tests themselves are quite complicated and most potential contractors actually take courses designed to help them pass the tests (this is not free either).
I don’t know if this could affect you if you merely provided the design for a mural and didn’t actually paint it or otherwise install it. I also don’t know if this covers the donated designs used on the Fresno and Clovis Freeway murals; most of them involved glass or ceramic tiles, which probably means that in our state you need a contractor’s license for installing tile!
According to the latest CSLB newsletter, an increased number of inquiries and complaints from consumers about licensing requirements for artists creating murals have caused the CSLB to tighten up on enforcement in this area so watch out for stings!
For More info: California State Licensing Board Contractors State License Board Protecting and informing consumers and contractors about proper contracting.

We may as well admit it: all of us secretly want to not only create fabulous art but want the public to appreciate it so much they pay us fabulous prices for it. The wonderful thing about making prints of our work is it a way to earn residual income on our art. If an artist sells a painting for $500 that is a one-time fee; if that same artist also sells 20 prints for $15 each then they have earned a total of $800 on that same painting.
Naturally as an artist, you want any reproductions of your art to reflect the quality of the art itself, which means you want to make the best quality reproductions you can find. I have had several artists ask me where they can get good quality prints made at a reasonable price. It’s a good question. There are two ways to go with this: make the prints yourself or get them made professionally.
If you are planning to make them yourself, besides the printer, you will need a good quality camera that takes high-resolution photos (Canon Rebel is excellent but there are others out there). I don’t recommend a point-and-shoot camera or your cell phone if you intend to make professional looking reproductions; although the smart phone photo quality is improving, I did notice that quality seemed to suffer with larger size prints. I would also recommend a good photo-editing program such as Photoshop Elements. I chose Elements because it will service either Apple or PC computers.
A printer that prints on a variety of paper products is essential if you are making your own prints. What brand of printer makes the best prints? Well, there are a lot of differing opinions on this, all having to do with what kind of ink will give you the truest colors, how easy they are to use, whether to use ink jet or laser printers, etc. Making the prints yourself does mean that you are probably going to be limited to paper and the sizes you can make; most home printers will only take legal or letter size paper. The printer that gave me the very best prints I ever made at home was an inexpensive Kodak printer. Unfortunately it proved too fragile to last long. Epson, Brother and HP all make good machines that will give you nice paper prints. You can even obtain letter size “canvas paper’ for printing on the internet, although I wasn’t really happy with the quality of the prints I made with it on my home printer. If you are going to make prints yourself, you must consider the cost of the ink. Many ink jet printers devour ink pods like a T-Rex. If you make a lot of reproductions, Ink jet refills can be so expensive that you might find it less costly to get your prints made by a print shop. Laser printers also make good quality prints, but a color laser printer and the toner to go with it can also break your budget. You will need to decide if the cost of the printing will allow you to still make sales at a profit.
The next option is to have your prints made by a professional printer. I am speaking here of commercial printers such as Kinkos or CopyMax’s Impress. The photo departments of Costco, Walgreens, Wal-Mart etc. may not give you a professional quality print because their print programs are designed to “flatten or homogenize” color to an “average” standard, however they also will work with you on this issue because they want your return business. Most of them can also do a canvas print mounted on stretcher bars. Again, ask for a proof because if you have vibrant, saturated or delicate shades you may find your print simply doesn’t reflect these qualities.
To use an outside printer you need a high-resolution jpeg or other type of photo of your work. If you are not a photographer, I suggest you arrange to have a professional take the photo in order to ensure that the photo has no distortions and that the color is true to the original art. You can have the photo transferred to either a jump drive or disc. An issue with having your prints made by someone else that doesn’t come up with DIY (Do It Yourself) printing: calibrating their printer to your photos. Calibrating a printer has nothing to do with the printer type; it has to do with communication between the computer and the printer. Even if the photo from your thumb disc looks okay on their computer screen, the print may still come out darker or lighter than your art. Always ask for a proof before accepting the print because it may be necessary for you to take your disc or jump drive home so that you can adjust the lighting or color of the photo in order to make the print “true” to the original when using an outside printer. If you do this, always save the “adjusted” photo as a separate file and leave the original alone. Making these changes is much easier if you are dealing with a local printer.
The other option to having your prints made is to find a local professional who specializes in making art prints. Here in Fresno we have several but Mullins Photography is the one most favored by local artists. If you bring in your art, they make their own scan and reproduce a print that is virtually identical to the original. Ask other local artists in your area where they get their prints made. Be prepared to open your wallet for this option though; because the cost of the initial set up fee will be more expensive than say Kinkos or Impress. On the other hand, it probably will be a one-time fee for that particular piece of art and the quality will be the best.
You can also order prints from the internet; a number of Internet sites do on-line printing. These sites are sometimes referred to as POD (Print On Demand) sites, and most of them do an excellent job. Fine Art America for instance will not only make your prints on a variety of paper, metal, cards and canvas, but also sell matting and framing and ship to your customer. With on-line printers however, you will have the same difficulties with the calibration as with your local outside printer. Since you can’t demand a proof from this type of site, I would suggest you get a small print made for yourself and adjust the photo. Keep notes on what you did so that you can use them when sending in later prints.

The phone rings, and some well-meaning fundraiser on the other end wants you to donate a work of art to their charity auction. Usually this goodhearted fundraiser will promise you a tax deduction, great exposure, enhanced publicity, and public exposure if you agree; sadly, most volunteer fundraisers don’t know what they are talking about as far as the actual benefits to you as an artist. Should you do it? This really depends on several things; how much do you support the cause itself? Are the benefits going to out-weigh the costs?
Well lets deal with the tax deduction benefit first. It’s not great. Generally speaking, you as the artist are allowed to deduct only the cost of creation (materials, etc.) unless you have had an appraisal done by a qualified art expert. This is no problem if you are a big name artist whose art is going to bring in thousands of dollars to the charity because the charity will usually have the art appraised by their expert, which you can then attach to your taxes. However, if you are donating to your child’s school, your church, local hospital, etc. chances are the charity is not going to pay for this appraisal because they can’t afford it. Sometimes the charity is worthwhile (in fact most of the time), but unless they follow my rules for donation, what they are really doing is training whoever comes to their event to devalue my art and disrespect me as an artist. This may sound really harsh but it has been proven to be true.
The next two items typically promoted by fundraisers are “enhanced publicity and public exposure” which sounds really good, but what exactly are they actually talking about? A line in the auction catalog and announcing your name when they bring up your art? Please. Remember that most of the fundraisers who do telephone contacts are volunteers with no actual experience in the field. In other words they really have no idea what they are talking about. Enhanced publicity should mean your name in the newspaper, on the radio or on the charity’s Facebook page with a link to your website. Public exposure should mean that instead of just pointing to your art and asking for bids, the auctioneer talks about you, what awards you’ve won, how good the art is, etc. to encourage the audience to bid higher. He or she should also mention your web site, and the brochures advertising you as an artist, which should have been available when the bidders were doing the walk-through.
Predictably, at most of these charity events, they practically give away the art because the bidders are not art collectors, they are there to support the charity and are looking for two things—something they can afford to bid on to satisfy their tax deduction and to support the charity. A lot of them might be even comparing your fine art to canvas prints they can get at a department store! Auctioning your art for much less than you normally sell for undermines the art market in general, and makes it seem as if the artist (you!) didn’t deserve the real selling price. Another negative side effect is to encourage your regular collectors and potential buyers to wait for events like this to buy your art cheaper than they could if they purchased it directly from you.
The “public exposure” thing is problematical; unless the auctioneer makes a really big deal about your art business and how valuable your work is, everyone present is likely to still think you have a nice hobby. I was once asked by my church to design a poster/logo for a women’s retreat. When the event coordinators husband saw it he remarked to her that it looked like a “real” artist had done it. I find that no matter how good the art I donate to their event is, my circle of acquaintances in my church, my children’s school and my family almost all still believe that my art is a hobby, so I don’t donate unless the charity agrees to the following ground rules:

• I set a minimum price for original art. If it doesn’t sell, I get it back. This is absolutely essential because unless you have an appraisal from a respectable appraiser attached to the art; all that you can take off on your taxes is the cost of material used to create the art.
• I qualify the event by making sure there will be folks there who can actually afford to purchase the art (this means getting actual names of who will be attending or at least who has been invited), and that the event will be well publicized: this means actual ads on TV, Internet, and Radio, hopefully with a mention of the art you are donating.
Once charities learned I stuck to these rules, I found that the requests dropped off dramatically. This doesn’t mean that I am wholly against art donations; I do donate my art to worthwhile charities, but I find that it usually pays better tax deduction-wise to donate a good quality print than the original. If you donate a print, you can deduct the entire printing cost, framing and matting which is a much better deal for tax purposes. To sweeten the pot for prospective buyers, I do always sign prints that I donate, and make sure I tape information about myself, my website and the art to the back of the print.

Good Luck
Gail

A cat is a cat is a cat," E.E. Cummings wrote. In addition, history would seem to agree with this distinguished poet. Moreover, who hasn’t been exposed to the popular play “Cats” 1Cats, a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot? The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as "the Jellicle choice" and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. The cat family can trace their genealogy back to ancient Cyprus and Egypt. According to earliest records, the first sign of domestication of the cat dated back 8,000 years ago when bones of cats, mice, and humans were found buried together on the island of Cyprus. Apparently early Cypriots brought both the cats and the mice to Cyprus with them: the cats on purpose, the mice probably sneaked in as stowaways. Unlike the domestication of the dog, a pack animal with a built-in obliging instinct, the cat had to be wooed to join humans. However, human settlements attracted a rich variety of prey who ate the grain and other foodstuffs the humans grew for themselves, so cats being sensible creatures, charmed their way into human households. Humans not only provided rich prey, but a guaranteed shelter from the weather. A little purring, a little lap sitting, a dead mouse or two and you were welcomed.
Planting, plowing and harvesting crops was often easier than hunting and gleaning and so became a way of life for the tribes of Africa, Egyptians, and peoples of southwestern Asia. The most difficult part of this new food resource was storage over the months when winter came. Where crops were stored to feed the villages and farms, it attracted rats, mice and voles who are the natural prey of the cat, and so the cat appeared to hunt them. Contrary to how it sometimes seems, humans are actually pretty good at figuring out what is best for their own survival. Before long farmers noticed the local cat residents ate the rats that ate the grain, which meant they lost less of their food to vermin. People began welcoming cats into their communities with open arms because they needed to get rid of the rodents who were eating them out of house and home. This is a practical example of how supply side economics enmeshes us: the farmers wanted their grain uneaten; rodents ate the grain, so cats who ate the rodents were welcome additions to any household. Families encouraged cats to stay around the house and farm by leaving scraps of food, milk-soaked bread, or fish-heads, to encourage cats to stay when hunting was scarce. Cats discovered a steady source of food and affection from their human company and a biological niche for themselves. The relationship that developed between Egyptians and cats was unique; Egyptians saw the cat not only a domestic benefit, but also came to worship them as both the Goddess Bastet and the Goddess Sekhmet. During this period, Egyptians owned all kinds of animals including cattle, sheep, fowl, pigs, and monkeys that they kept penned up, however, unlike the other animals, cats roamed freely and came and went where they wanted. In fact, Cats were held in such high regard that laws were created to protect them. In this respect, the Egyptians predated our own animal cruelty laws. Due to the cats exalted status during this time, a religious order of cat worship developed that lasted for more than 2,000 years. From the third millennium BC, when the Goddess Bastet began to appear in Egyptian records, she was first depicted as either a fierce lioness or a woman with the head of a lion. Images of Bast were created from a local stone, named alabaster hence the name. Originally Bastet was viewed as the protector goddess of Lower Egypt. As protector, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the later chief male deity, Ra, who was also a solar deity, gaining her the titles Lady of Flame and Eye of Ra. Bastet’s role in the Egyptian pantheon weakened as Sekhmet, a similar lioness war deity, became more dominant in the culture of Lower and Upper Egypt. In the first millennium BC, when domesticated cats were popularly kept as pets, Bastet began to be represented as a woman with the head of a cat instead of a lioness, and ultimately Bastet emerged as the Egyptian cat-goddess. In the Middle Kingdom (a period in Egypt’s history), the domestic cat appeared as Bastet’s sacred animal, and after the New Kingdom she began to be shown as a woman with the head of a cat, carrying a sacred rattle and a box or basket. Variations of the name have been spelled Bast, Baast, Ubasti and Baset, but they are all the same Goddess.
You can tell how much the Egyptians revered their cats because thousands of cat mummies were found in a huge temple at Bubastis along with mouse mummies to assure that the cat had food for the journey into the afterlife. In fact, the Egyptians so loved their cats that cat mummies outnumbered human mummies. Over 300,000 cat mummies were found in one excavation alone at Beni-Hassan in the 1800s. 1The word for cat in ancient Egypt was "mau," similar to our "meow," a universal cat word. An Inscription on the royal tombs in Thebes reads: “Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed...the Great Cat “
Bastet was not the only cat worshiped by the Egyptians: Amongst the many different divine characters in ancient Egyptian mythology was the warrior Goddess of Upper Egypt known as Sekhmet. Unlike Bastet who although in early incarnations was sometimes shown in the form of a lioness and later that of an ordinary house cat, Sekhmet was depicted in the form of a lioness and regarded as being the fiercest of all hunters. Egyptians associated the creation of the desert with her breath and she was regarded as being a protector of the Pharaohs in warfare.
Although Egyptian law forbade the export of Cats, they soon sailed aboard ships to countries bordering the Mediterranean including Greece and Italy. Ships have lots of mice and rats also, and cats have never been very good at obeying man’s laws. Overland caravans extended the cat's popularity to the north and east. Slowly cats voyaged to India, China, and Japan, where they became highly prized as pets and remarkable rodent killers. According to Animal Planet, the deadliest hunter in the Animal Kingdom is actually the domestic cat! For thousands of years this relationship continued in harmony until superstition in the Middle Ages caused the European populace to fear cats as witch’s familiars. Many an old woman who just loved her cat was hanged or burned as a witch, and the cat as her “familiar” received a similar fate. This was our first lesson in tampering with the ecology. With fewer cats to keep the exploding rat population in check, it expanded and so did the diseases rats carried. In the crowded, unsanitary conditions then existing in European society it is no wonder the population began to get sick.
Thankfully, cats have now resumed their rightful place as companions and household guardians against vermin. In fact, they are catching up the dog as the most popular pet in America. With our workaholic lifestyles any pet who can do a good job entertaining itself while we are at work has many things going for it. Although I have considered myself a dog person, I realized upon counting my pets, past and present, that they have been equally divided between dogs and cats, and I have actually painted more cat portraits than of the dogs! If you would like to see some of my inspirations go to http://gail-daley.artistwebsites.com/index.html and check out prints and cards of my cats!
1 Wikipedia

Unless you are dealing with an endowment fund to produce your show, there are some basic facts you need to face: An art show should pay for itself. This means you will need to cover expenses for the show out of either grants, donations or the entry fees from the show. There are very different considerations for dealing with a small regional show and a national or international one. Since I am assuming that most of my readers will be dealing with small regional shows, I will deal with issues concerning that type of event. If you are going to be dealing with an international or national juried art show, I strongly suggest the first thing you do is hire a professional event planner to assist you.
Whether you are organizing a group show, or having a one-man show or exhibit, don’t be fooled: there is a lot of work connected with an art show. You must decide where and when you are going to hold the show and how much are you going to spend. If it is a group show, you will need to decide if it is going to be judged or if you are simply putting on an exhibit. If you are doing a solo or one-man show for yourself, then all of these decisions are going to be up to you. If you are organizing a group show, there probably will be others who will have a say in these items.
BUDGET: It is best to know ahead of time how much you will need to cover expenses, so setting a budget is necessary. If you have no idea how much some of these things are going to cost, then you need the advice of someone who has experience in organizing a show. A list of items you may need to pay for is below.
LOCATION: Finding a location is your first order of business. You need a site that is large enough to hold the art and will be open during the show hours. Preferably it should be in an area with a lot of walk-in traffic and easily accessible to the public. Questions to ask the property owner: is there a deposit or rental fee? Does the venue require the show to be open during certain hours? How secure will the art be? Does the show require an attendant when it is open? (It is always best to “sit” the show, unless it is not accessible to walk-in traffic. This will prevent theft or damage to the art.) In real estate, the words “location, location, location” are very popular. These are popular words in art shows also. A successful show must be seen by the public. A location where there is a high volume of foot traffic and visited by many art fans is ideal. A location such as this may be pricey, but if an audience is already there and primed to visit the show, you won’t need to spend as much on advertising to drive buyers to see it.
DEPOSIT: Almost all venues you rent are going to require a percentage of the rental fee as a deposit. Find out how much this is up front. It may or may not be refundable if you or the venue changes your mind, so get this in writing as a part of your rental contract.
RENTAL: How much are you willing to spend to rent the space? You will need to weigh the cost of the space against how much you expect to make on sales. (This is true even if you are taking part in an outdoor festival or show where you are renting booth space.)
HOW TO DISPLAY: If the venue has a hanging system already in place, you only need to ensure that any art coming in is compatible with their system. If they don’t have a system, then you will need to find out how they expect you to display the art. Will they let you put up screws or sticky holders on the wall? If whatever you use damages their wall, who does the repair? In addition, what kind of repair will they expect? Unless your art is very heavy (more than 15 lbs.) I actually recommend those removable sticky holders to hang your art on smooth walls rather than screws or nails. Two or three per art piece will spread out the weight of a painting, they have a lip to hang wires, and usually the stickers will come right off and you won’t have to spend a lot of money on spackle and paint to repair the wall.
If you are displaying sculpture, there are other considerations: is the sculpture reachable by the public? Does it have sharp edges? Is it small enough to develop legs and walk out? For larger sculptures, I recommend a system of ropes to keep the public away from the art piece. Check with the venue to see if they have some. If they don’t, you will either have to take your chances with someone getting hurt or damaging the art. DO NOT set up a jury-rigged affair if you want your display to look professional. For the smaller sculptures, I recommend a pedestal with a plexi cover and placing it either against the wall or in an area where it isn’t likely to be bumped.
PARKING: unless your show is located in an area where potential buyers customarily walk to visit art galleries, you will need to make sure that easily accessible, low-cost parking is available to your show. Easy access by the public includes parking (preferably free parking). A venue may offer you a great deal, but if no one comes to see the show than the show can’t be said to be successful.
LIABILITY INSURANCE: insurance questions cannot be answered by anyone other than your insurance carrier. For a one-man show, at a minimum, you probably want some sort of theft and personal liability coverage but I don’t have any knowledge of what California and other states require or recommend. The venue may also have requirements for coverage and they may want a rider from your company naming them as an additional insured for the event. Whatever their requirements are—get it in writing! Art associations usually have an insurance carrier with liability coverage for shows. If you are doing a group show, ask the group treasurer to make sure that the group’s insurance amount meets the venue’s coverage requirements.
DESIGNING THE ART DISPLAY: When doing a group show you will actually know how much art you will need to hang only when all the entries have been received. In designing your display, you will need to take into account the size of the room, size of the art pieces and the amount of art received. If the room is small and a lot of art is received, then you may need to tell the judge he or she will be required to “cull or jury out” the art and only accept a certain number of pieces. This will probably vary according to the number of art pieces received and their sizes (a lot of art in a small room can still look good if none of the art is oversized). What you need to avoid is the art looking as if it has been crammed into the space. Since rejecting art can be controversial, this is an item than must be agreed upon beforehand at a group show. Some groups prefer to only hang small shows regardless of the quality of the art; others hate to reject any art. To avoid any misunderstandings, only the show coordinator should give instructions about this to the judge. If you requested a large room from the Venue, but don’t receive enough art to fill it, don’t hesitate to ask the Venue for a smaller space.
If you are presenting a one-man show, then you will be able to customize the amount of art you bring in to suit the space.
JUDGES FEE: If this is a juried group show, then most probably the group will already have a judge’s fee schedule in place and will decide as a group who the judge is going to be. If you are the show coordinator and don’t have a list of judges to draw from, and then ask the group if they have one. You can also look around the local art community for art teachers with a highly respected reputation.
When the judge arrives, there are basic instructions to be given: 1) Can best of show be taken from any category regardless of any rules concerning the number of pieces required for a category to be judged? 2) Can Best of Show be chosen before judging any categories? 3) How many pieces of art you are able to hang? 4) How much culling you expect the judge to do? 5) Should the judge offer on-going critiques as he or she judges? If this is the case, you will need a volunteer to take notes. These instructions will need to be agreed upon by the art group in your preliminary show discussions.
If you have multiple judges you need to instruct those judges as to how they come to an agreement if they differ on the rating of an art piece. With multiple judges if you don’t want a lot of negotiating about awarding the prizes among the judges, it is better for them to use silent score sheets with ratings for sections to judge the items. Any differences in rating can then be negotiated among the judges verbally. This will cut down on the amount of time it takes to judge a show. Whether or not to use score sheets with multiple judges is usually a matter for the group to decide.
ADVERTISING/PUBLICITY: How much are you going to spend on this? Sometimes you can promote an event for free: many TV and radio stations offer Community Affairs sites where you can unload information concerning your event, reception, sale, etc… for free. It helps if you are promoting some kind of Charity as well (10% of your sales will go to something like Valley Children’s Hospital, or the SPCA, etc.). These spots will probably run during “public service” times. Prime advertising times in most traditional methods of advertising will require hard cash up front, and you should bear in mind that these media outlets aren’t really interested in an event that has already taken place, so you want to advertise an upcoming reception or award ceremony ahead of time. Some of the traditional media outlets also have time frame deadlines of several weeks ahead that need to be met in order to get an article printed. If you are doing a group show for an organization, you may be able to turn this portion of the show to the group’s publicity chair.
PROSPECTUS: A prospectus is a fancy word for an entry form for the show. The more eye-catching and colorful it looks, the more the artists you are trying to attract as entrants will notice it. It should have the following information: location, date and time of receiving for the show; length of the show and the date, time and location to pick up the art after the show; the date of the artist reception; Entry fees and the number of art pieces per artist allowed. It should also contain a section called The Rules of Exhibit carrying information concerning the categories of the art permitted in the show, what type of items are NOT allowed and hanging requirements. A fill-in section for each art piece is usually included, along with a cut-off portion for an artist receipt to be presented at the close of the show to pick up the art.
If this is an annual show, a copy of the new prospectus should be mailed out to last year’s entrants. The prospectus should be as widely distributed as possible. Once dates and times are locked down, making the prospectus can usually be designated to a member of the group with the graphic skills to make it.
RECEIVING: For receiving you will need: 1) the treasurer there to take entry fees and write receipts. 2) An artist experienced in shows to examine each art piece as it comes in to ensure that it meets the show requirements as to framing and hanging. You may or may not choose to have a repair table for artists whose art doesn’t meet the requirements to make on-the-spot repairs. If you do, you should charge a fee for the materials and advice. 3) Log in Sheets. 4) One person per show category to log in the artwork in each category. 5) I also recommend a secondary log-in system on a laptop to enable whoever is making the catalog to use these logs to create the show catalog. 6) “Runners” to handle the art. Runners receive the art from the artist after it has been logged in and then put it with other art in that category. In this way the art has already been collected and sorted into the proper categories when it comes time to present it to the judge.
VOLUNTEERS: You will also need volunteers to assist in bringing in art for the judge to see and taking it back. It is important that you instruct these volunteers in the conduct expected of them. Yes, even those volunteers who have assisted before. A few simple rules to follow: 1) no talking while the judge is working (judging a category). 2) Don’t offer opinions unless asked and 3) don’t second-guess the judge among yourselves during judging (especially out loud). 4) If anyone has issues with winners chosen by the judge, they should express them privately. Remember these are volunteers so be tactful when giving out these rules!
SHOW CATALOGS: A show catalog serves two purposes 1) it identifies each piece of art and hopefully also shows the price of that art and instructions as to how to buy it. 2) If a prospective buyer takes it home with them, it can also be a resource for them to look back if they decide to buy a piece of art from the show.
Your catalog should look professional. A catalog can be a trifold brochure or a booklet, depending on the amount of information it needs to hold. A price list tacked to the window or wall won’t cut it. If this is a group show, then find out who usually makes their show catalogs and coordinate with that person.
Exactly what should appear in a show catalog? Each piece of art should be clearly identified by show item number, title of the art, price, artist’s name and media to match the card placed beside each art piece. A nice cover page announcing the duration and hours of the show, information about the judge and a section on how to purchase the art must be included. If the group has sold advertising to help defray the price of printing the catalog, then those items are usually located in the rear of the catalog. If this is a one-man show, then usually a simple color trifold brochure with your contact information will look good. If you have the skills to make it yourself, by all means save money by doing so. You may find when it comes to printing it however, that it is actually cheaper to take the design to a printer like Kinkos or Impress to print rather than spend a lot of money on colored ink to print it yourself. Remember this cost must be included in your budget.
CARDS: Identifying cards for every art piece matching the information on the catalog should be placed next to each art piece and should have the following: show item number, title of the art, price, artist’s name and media. They should be typed or hand printed by someone with VERY good printing skills. Do NOT stick a business card with the price in a corner of the art at a professional show in a pricey venue! It looks amateurish.
RIBBONS & TROPHIES: how much is the group going to spend? Generally speaking, most places that make ribbons and trophies charge more for a small “run” than they do for a large one. If possible use only the group name on each ribbon, and avoid putting the year, or if the group does more than one show per year, a title for the show. In this way leftover ribbons can be used at a later show. The group’s treasurer can tell you whom the group orders ribbons from and place the order. Ribbons are generally given for Best of Show, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mentions in each category. Sometimes a yellow ribbon is also given for “People’s Choice” (visitors to the show are allowed to vote on their favorite art piece).
AWARDS: Cash awards for Best of Show, 1st, 2nd and 3rd amounts are usually arrived at by using a percentage of the show entries and may vary from show to show. Sponsors may also donate items in kind also as a portion of the show awards. Some shows require that there be a certain number of entries in a category for money to be awarded.
RECEPTION: Sometimes at a one-man or group show, the venue will decide when to hold the artist reception. If not, then the main issue when scheduling a reception is making sure it is held at a time that the most people will be able to attend.
FOOD FOR THE RECEPTION: keep it simple. The patrons are there to look at the art, not eat. If the group is supplying the food, then coordinate with their food chair as to type and amount of food. Special decorations for the food tables should be left up to him or her if possible, but if items need to be purchased, then this is a budget item. If the reception is catered, then the same rules apply, but more money will probably be needed.
SEATING FOR THE RECEPTION: small groups (no more than 2 or 3) of artistically placed chairs so patrons can sit and study the art is always nice.
DECORATION: Again, keep in mind that while you want the venue to look well-put together, you don’t want any decorations to overshadow the art. A few tablecloths on the tables, flower vases, draping the chairs for seating to look less utilitarian, etc.
INFORMATION TABLE: Always have an information table with information about the group (or about you if you if it is a one-man show), a guest book, and show catalogs available. A show host or hostess to make sure that guests have information and a catalog when they enter is always nice. If you are doing a one-man show try and arrange for someone else to act as host or hostess so that you are free to mingle and make contacts with the guests. While sales may take place at the reception, be sure buyer(s) know that the art needs to stay up for the duration of the show.

When I started to take my art seriously, I knew that peer group association was important for me to grow as an artist, but finding the right art group to join was a little frustrating. Why is it so important to associate with other artists? Well, although you can create art in a vacuum, if your art is never evaluated by your peers, you may simply be stuck repeating the same type of art and art subjects at the same skill level forever. Peer groups challenge us to stretch our skills, reach for new goals and generally provide support when we are feeling down. Therefore, it is important to seek out those who are Sympatico with our ideals and feelings about our art. Local art groups can be invaluable in this area. Let’s face it, while our friends and family members may ooh and ahh over our art, they really can’t provide an informed opinion about it. In addition, most of us suspect they are praising our art because they love us, and not really because they actually love our work or are really interested in art. Close family and friends also seem to devalue our work as artists because they consider it to be of secondary importance to our place in their lives.
I was sure that other artists usually wouldn’t fail to recognize how important my art was to me in the way friends and family might, because their own work is just as important to them as mine is to me. Therefore, I went looking for other artists to spend time with. The easiest and fastest way to meet many other artists is to join a local art group. However, as I said, I knew virtually nothing about any of the local art groups in my area, so I simply joined most of them. In fact until I got to know and talk to some of the members of the first group I joined, I didn’t realize how many other groups there were in my area. I then went to as many activities sponsored by each group as I could to get to know how each group functioned. To my surprise, I discovered that while most of the same local artists also belonged to many of the groups, each group did have a different “feel” to it, depending on the group’s mission statement and who was actually directing the groups focus. In my area alone there are five or six art groups, all with different standards and goals. One of the alliances is simply a painting group that gets together to talk, paint or draw and critique each other’s work. Another aims its standards for professionals and is very picky about what they accept in their shows. A third group is warm and welcoming to new artists and seeks to encourage its members to strive to improve their skills. All of these groups have valuable insights into the local art world. While I do maintain my membership with most of the original groups I joined, I did finally find the group I consider my “home” group. Once you do find the right fit, you will also find the friendship and support you are looking for in your peers.
However, If you are not feeling the love in the group you joined, then you need to do some honest evaluation of that groups focus and aims and what you were looking for when you joined. You need to decide what it is about each particular group that makes you comfortable or uncomfortable. While only you can draw these conclusions, I do have some markers that can be used to aid you in making your assessment.
• What are the goals the group has set for itself?
o Do you agree with them?
• What were your goals when you joined this art group
o Friends
o Career advancement
o Improving your skill set
o Has it met your expectations
 If not, why not?
• Have you been a member long enough to have made a genuine attempt to get to know the other members?
• Are you comfortable with the majority of the group’s socio-economic status?
o Why or why not?
• Are you comfortable with the majority of the group’s education level?
o Why or why not?
• Are you comfortable with the age/sex of the majority of the members?
• Do the other members respect you as an artist?
o As a person?
• Do you feel the criteria used in selecting winners at the group’s sponsored shows is fair?
o Why or why not?
• Can you find topics to discuss with members at group functions?
• Are these people you would enjoy spending time with outside meetings and group functions?
• Are the other members friendly to you?
o If not, they why do you think they are unfriendly?
After evaluating your feelings about the group, then you need to make a decision as to whether to stay with the group or move on. Sometimes you may find that it is not one, but several local groups that give you what you need. Once you do find the right group fit, you will also find the rapport and encouragement you are looking for in your colleagues.
Good Luck
Gail

When did we start celebrating Valentine’s Day? Well I suppose you could say it began with a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote a poem that cemented a pre-existing general belief, at least in medieval England, that February 14 was the day when birds chose their mates. Chaucer, 1343 – 25 October 1400, is known as the Father of English literature and he is widely considered one of the greatest English poets of the middle Ages. The most popular idea of the creation of St. Valentine was that St. Valentine was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who had been forbidden to marry.
Okay, so how did Cupid get mixed up with the saints? In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of erotic love, affection and desire. He is often represented as the son of the goddess Venus, with a father rarely mentioned in ancient Roman sources although most likely his father was either Vulcan, Venus’s husband or Mars her most frequent lover. His Greek counterpart is Eros. Cupid is also known in Latin as Amor meaning love. Although Eros appears in Classical Greek art as a slender winged youth, during the Hellenistic period he was increasingly portrayed as a chubby boy with a bow and arrow. This is where we get those fat babies running around with a bow and arrow apparently! A person, or even a deity, shot by Cupid's arrow is filled with irrepressible longing. Cupid has wings to symbolize the idea that lovers are inconsistent, foolish and irrational. His symbols are the arrow and torch, "because love can burn (how many singers have used this “burning love” allegory in their music? The arrow comes to symbolize the hurt love can inflict; those we love can hurt us the most. The phrase “love is blind” comes from the fact that cupid or Eros is sometimes portrayed wearing a blindfold.
When I started researching for this blog (yes I do research my blogs!), I looked for art associated with Valentine’s Day and Romance. I discovered that most Valentine art appearing on the internet was in the form of cards and that 85% of the art concerning Romance came up with book covers. The book covers were interesting (sort of) as they appeared to be aimed at a primarily female audience. Does this mean that men aren’t interested in romance? Having been married for over 30 years, I have to say that this is not true, but men and women do define romance very differently. For most women the essence of romance is a handsome, virile lover, preferably a man who can handle himself in any situation. Jeff Foxworthy once said in one of his comedy routines that many women wanted a “dangerous man” as a lover (envisioning someone like James Bond no doubt) and then in reality would find themselves leaning out the window of a doublewide trailer yelling at the sheriff to “lock him up!” Reality meets fantasy.
Several years ago, I decided I wanted to do some romantic art (I admit with the ulterior motive of showing publishers I could do book covers!) so I painted some couples dancing. I used the most romantic images I could think of: beautiful clothes, candlelight settings, ballrooms, etc. I was very happy with the way the paintings turned out and I still feature them close to Valentine’s Day in promotions. I have promotions going now, one for any kind of prints or cards and two for canvas prints in special sizes. The two featured in special prints are Celebration and Lets Dance . Just click on the title and it will take you to the promotion page. This is a time-limited promotion and ends February 3rd so don’t procrastinate!
For the general promotion on cards and other prints, just click on the link Gail Daley's Print Shop and then enter this discount code on your order: DYDUKT (discount Code) and receive 25.00% off any item ordered. Only the first 20 customers will be eligible for the discount and it closes on Feb 15, 2013.

Why are humans so fascinated by Dragons? On the surface, they are just over-sized lizards; or are they? I first became interested in Dragons, when my then 10-year old son did. We kind of slid into dragonlore by way of dinosaurs. As a family we must have watched every movie ever made about dragons from Disney’s Pete’s Dragon to a wonderful documentary called Dragons, A Fantasy Made Real narrated by Patrick Stewart and created by the Discovery Channel treating the subject as if they were an extinct species. Since this had been my son Andrew’s original premise, it was great. He has a very active imagination, but then he grew up to write juvenile fiction.
Since I am an artist, Andrew wanted me to do a door mural on his room featuring dragons. My first attempt, which I did on canvas, was called NIGHT FLYERS; for this painting, I basically used a herd of running horses as my model of a flock of flying dragons. Unfortunately, according to my self-appointed dragon expert (my then 10-year-old son Andrew) they looked too much like horses because their legs were too long and skinny.
Determined to get it right this time, I re-rented all the dragon movies, and spent hours with the TV on pause while I drew dragons. That was when I realized that Hollywood hadn’t any more clue as to how they should look than I did. I must have found five or six different looks for them. Finally, after some trial and error, however, I did manage to achieve a composite that met with Andrew’s approval. I painted it on his door. I call it PLAYING DRAGONS. Since I figured that when he eventually moved out he wouldn’t want to haul a door with him, I also painted another version on canvas, which I called A FLIGHT OF DRAGONS. This one he could take with him.
I am not the only person fascinated by dragons, I have found a great website called http://www.draconika.com/ that identifies and describes many kinds of dragons. This only one of many sites available on the internet; all that is needed is to type in dragons as a search.
Much later, I was watching clouds while I waited in camp for my husband to return from gold panning in the desert and I saw a dragon in the sky. I changed the scene to night because I felt it would provide a more dramatic scene and called it DRAGON’S BREATH. I am still painting dragons; he latest dragon image is a miniature of a dragon’s eye called DRAGONEYE.

With tax time looming again, this seems an appropriate time to revisit this blog.
If you are serious about your career as an artist you must realize that Art is a business, and like any business it is necessary to keep track of expenses as well as income. I have been searching for a comprehensive program for my art business for years. Currently I would recommend QuickBooks to track your expenses and income. While there are some all-inclusive programs beginning to be developed, I have usually found some flaw in the program; either they were hard to use, or had an incompatible photo program for thumbnails of my art, etc. There are a couple of new companies with programs designed for artists out on the internet, but as yet I have not tried any of them so if you have information concerning them I am interested to hear from you.
Don’t want to buy another program? You can simply use an excel spreadsheet to track income and expenses but it will be very time consuming. QuickBooks, while a little on the expensive side is pretty user friendly and easily transitions into tax software programs such as Turbo Tax when it comes time to file your income tax.
Yes, Virginia, at the moment I am actually using three programs to track my art: QuickBooks for income and expenses, two excel spreadsheets to tell me where my art is at any given time (Current Location Report) (Painting Information Sheets) to track awards, income from each painting or prints made from it, and a photo file with different sized images of my art for various uses (webpage, large-sized prints, and specific sizes for on-line show entries). For Photo Editing I use Photoshop Elements. It is less pricey than the full Adobe editing program and as a painter I really don’t need the maximum amount of bells and whistles you get with the full Adobe Suite.
I can’t say this often enough; back up your data!
To conduct your career as an artist at a minimum 1ou should keep these types of records:
1. A photo log with both high- and low- resolution photos of your work, kept separately from your desktop computer. A working copy can be kept on the desktop, but be sure and back up your files each month onto a separate disc or jump drive.
2. A program that tracks income and expenses.
3. A record of each piece of art created and its disposition or current location.
4. Keep back-up copies of these items in a separate place. And up-date your back-ups monthly. Once your records are lost due to computer crashes, natural disaster or any other reason they are gone.
DEDUCTING BUSINESS MILEAGE
THE IRS DEFINES BUSINESS MILES as distances traveled using your vehicle while working on behalf of your employer or miles driven between jobs. For example, if your employer required you to drive from your office to visit clients using your car, that mileage would be deductible. The IRS does not allow you to claim a deduction for miles that you drive from your home to your job. This is considered “Commuting” by the IRS and is not deductible. For example, traveling to a client’s home or business to paint or draw them probably would be considered Commuting.
QUESTION: If I work out of my home as an independent contractor, can I claim mileage to work sites and back home? Can I deduct trips made to the bank and post office? What if I make business-related trips from my home office and also stop to do personal errands? How do I figure the mileage?
ANSWER: Yes, your mileage to work sites and back are business miles that must be supported by written documentation of where you went and how many business miles you traveled. Trips to the bank and post office also qualify as business mileage if documented. Trips for personal errands are ignored. The end result of your records should be business miles for the year (with a backup written log) and total miles driven for the year. To document your total miles driven, take your odometer reading at the beginning and end of the year. The IRS often looks at the odometer reading on auto repair bills to see if your total miles are reasonable. You will need to check with the IRS for their current mileage rate.
QUESTION: I drove about 8,000 miles last year for my home business. I have some receipts, but I didn't log all the miles. Is an estimate OK? Can I still take the deduction if I don't have all the supporting information?
ANSWER: No, estimated business miles are not allowed to support your tax deduction. The tax court disallowed the auto expenses in 2009 for the owner of a real estate brokerage firm and her employee in Engle v. Commissioner. The taxpayer admitted that their reported mileage amounts were estimates. In a summary opinion they held that due to lack of substantiation the taxpayers were not entitled to the auto deduction. I personally know of someone who lost their house when they claimed “estimated “mileage on their taxes! It isn’t worth it!
Most office supply stores sell mileage booklets for you to keep in your car. But you can write the information in a simple notebook.
DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY; IT IS NOT INTENDED TO BE TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE. EACH SITUATION IS SPECIFIC; CONSULT YOUR CPA OR ATTORNEY TO DISCUSS YOUR SPECIFIC BUSINESS QUESTIONS.

The volume of email rip-offs targeting artists has become an epidemic, possibly because scammers assume that we are non-tech savvy, and of course we are so excited that someone actually likes our art enough to shell out money for we tend to be us less cautious. Before you get so excited about the idea that someone actually wants to buy your stuff, take a good hard look at what they are requesting. If you know the signs of a scam, you will have some protection from their schemes. Here are some telltale signs that an inquiry to buy your art is a scam
• The person contacting you may be using poor grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. They may be offering to buy your art or they may tell you that you have won something. They are getting smarter about this, however, or at least their English is improving so you can’t always depend on poor grammar being an indicator of a scam.
• The person is “away” somewhere, in Haiti, the forest, out to sea, a sailor or an oceanographer—the latest one claims he is on an asteroid (?!?!).
• The person may claim that he is with an official government agency and trick you into giving him/her your personal information.
• The person insists on paying through a credit card or PayPal but doesn’t seem to know how to click on the “Buy Now” button on your web site. Sometimes they will offer to send you a certified check, which by the time your bank has verified it proves that it is written on a bank account that doesn’t exist! It used to be that a certified check was always good and in most cases it probably still is; the kicker with this type of payment though is the Bank has to have time to verify it. With this type of fraud, the buyer attempts to rush you into shipping the art the same day you get it before the bank can check it out.
• They want to make a fraudulent payment for more than the amount you asked for (not possible if they are using the Pay Pal Buy Now button; that is why they want your direct Pay Pal e-mail), and then ask you to send someone, presumably a fake shipping company the extra.
• They want to use their “own” shipping company and come to you to pick up the art. This is always a bad idea unless they have a local address. Some thieves use this as a way to scope out your security and after they have ripped you off for money, they burglarize you.
• Then the buyer asks you to wire a transfer to a fake shipping company that will come for the pick-up of the item the same day the PayPal payment is received. Usually it reads something like this “Will u be able to wire transfer the remaining fund to the shipping company that will come for the pickup of the item the same day u receive the payment from PayPal?” This should be a red flag because Pay Pal recommends that you always wait to ship the goods until they have verified the payment.
• You receive multiple e-mails saying the same thing or similar with the sender’s name changed.
• This supposed buyer asks for superfluous information which may already be on your web site, or unnecessary for them to know:
 Cell Phone or Home Numbers
 E-mail addresses
 Final asking price of the artwork
 Name (this will be on the payment)
 Mailing address (not a PO Box)
• Do NOT give them your PayPal e-mail; if they use the Pay Pal Buy Now Button they don’t need it!
Many of These e-mails are sent directly to artists who list their work on multiple artist sites, and they hit multiple sites, not just one Art web site’s members. If you are targeted by one of these scammers, don’t give them any information, and don’t respond to the e-mail. Treat them like any other inheritance or Lotto winning spam and delete them. If you respond, then the scammer knows the address is good and they may re-sell it to other scammers. No matter how tempting the offer, or how innocent the circumstances, remember that legitimate buyers will go through proper channels. I was actually targeted by the guy who claimed he was on an asteroid! How stupid did he think I was? This is the real world, not Star Trek.
Bear in mind that any site can get hit by these scam artists. Sites with multiple artists are rich ground for scammers as they can simply go down the member list and send out these spurious inquires to buy art or some other type of swindle. Sometimes you will get the same inquiry from different e-mail addresses. If you get one of these inquiries, try to find out where the guy got your name (sometimes they even mention it in the initial e-mail!) and report it to the site or to your internet provider. Generally speaking, the site itself will issue a warning to its members. Once I have done that I mark the addressee as “spam” and thereafter it goes into my spam folder. Not using a multi-artist site won’t protect you either; some of the scammy offers I got came directly from my own web site. You just have to be careful.
WHAT ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE IF IT HAPPENS TO YOU: If you were scammed you can go to http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/e-scams/e-scams and file a complaint with the FBI. The message on this site says “To report potential e-scams, please go the Internet Crime Complaint Center and file a report. Note: the FBI does not send mass e-mails to private citizens about cyber scams, so if you received an e-mail that claims to be from the FBI Director or other top official, it is most likely a scam.” The link also lists some of the newest E-Scams going around.
You should also file a complaint with the Consumer Protection Office in your Area and the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org or www.fraud.org, who can assist you in determining how to best register complaints regarding consumer scams. Fraud.org will let you fill out a fraud complaint, and then it will handle forwarding it to all of the appropriate agencies. While it is not likely that you will be able to recover the money if you paid by check or with cash, you may have some recourse if you used a credit card, so you should attempt to get your Credit Card Company or bank to stop payment. You should also file a complaint with your local police department. If they can locate the scammer, they may be able to prosecute.
Gail

It’s Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Local Business Saturday this week. This time of the year is probably when one of the best opportunities to sell your work emerges, yet most artists don’t know how to take advantage of it. Some of them may even feel guilty about promoting sales at this time. For those of you who feel guilty about telling friends, past customers, family and acquaintances “Hey, consider buying from me when selecting Holiday gifts”, let’s consider a few things. Do you know what the 80/20 Rule is? Well it says that 80% of money spent locally stays in circulation locally. By promoting the idea of other buying your art, you are contributing to the health of your neighborhood! When someone buys art from you, they provide you funds which you in return spend on groceries, rent, clothing and other stuff (which hopefully you also spent in a local business!)
Taxes such as sales tax spent with you supports local infrastructure, police, fire and schools, stay with the community when spent in local businesses. The Tax Policy Center: (click here for the entire article), says that “Local governments received transfers from both the federal and state governments equal to about one-seventh of total revenue; from their own sources, they collected about $700 billion, or 17 percent of all government revenue.” When your friends and family buy from you they are helping to return money to their local economy, so you should feel no hesitation in pointing out to them that you are a resource for gifts!
Spending money locally shows pride in your community culture and local products. As a person who lives in the area you are more apt to locally recirculate money spent with you on your art in the form of purchases from other local business, thus supporting the local work force. When you give some of that money to local charities, even if it’s just the local boy or girl scout troop, or maybe the local food bank you are keeping money spent with you in movement. It’s a monetary loop that keeps people working to make the goods they and others purchase.
“I’m an artist, not a business person”, you shout. Well, I hate to break this to you, but anyone who wants to sell art is in business. According to Wikipedia, “a business (also known as enterprise or firm) is an organization or person engaged in the trade or sale of goods, services, or both to consumers”. Q.E.D. Business is NOT a dirty word. Businesses allow us as consumers to buy food, clothes, and gas. It allows us to find a place to live (real estate sales and rentals), and most likely it employs a lot of us who are not fortunate enough to be able to make a living selling our art. There is that word “sell” again.
Local Business Can Support Local Artists
• Local business can provide a mutual support base by being willing to allow artists to display their work for sale in their stores and offices. The artist will come in to see their art and most likely buy something from the business. The artist will also promote the business by telling their sphere of friends and family about having art in display in the business and urging them to come and see it.
• By allowing artists to promote holiday boutiques, shows, sales and events flyers in their business helps develop a mutual dependency.
Local Artists Offer
What value does the community receive when they purchase art from a local artist rather than from a national chain store?
• Well-made handcrafted items give a cachet to their office, home and gift giving. When giving gifts it shows the buyer not only thought enough of the person receiving the gift to take into account that person’s personal tastes, but took the time to check the gift out carefully.
• Buying art from local artists gives the opportunity for a personal experience one-on-one with the artist.
• The buyer has an opportunity to develop a personal and professional relationship with the artist.
• Art is individually created unique, versatile item. Why buy something indistinguishable from what everyone else is buying?
What Local Artists Can Do to Promote Art Sales:
• Remind past clients, friends, and family, church and organization members that they are a resource for buying holiday gifts.
• Offer items for sale as “Christmas specials”.
• A bonus or discount off a future purchase if the buyer refers another buyer who actually purchases art. This type of promotion is done all the time in other industries; it is sometimes called a “referral commission’. No money is actually paid until the other buyer makes his/her purchase and mentions the name (or brings in a coupon) of the referring buyer.
• Adapt some art into small affordable reproductions (cards, small prints, puzzles, ornaments, cups, etc.) for sale at a holiday boutique or Studio Open House

When I started to take my art seriously, I knew that peer group association was important for me to grow as an artist, but finding the right art group to join was a little frustrating. Why is it so important to associate with other artists? Well, although you can create art in a vacuum, if your art is never evaluated by your peers, you may simply be stuck repeating the same type of art and art subjects at the same skill level forever. Peer groups challenge us to stretch our skills, reach for new goals and generally provide support when we are feeling down. Therefore, it is important to seek out those who are Sympatico with our ideals and feelings about our art. Local art groups can be invaluable in this area. Let’s face it, while our friends and family members may ooh and ahh over our art, they really can’t provide an informed opinion about it. In addition, most of us suspect they are praising our art because they love us, and not really because they actually love our work or are really interested in art. Close family and friends also seem to devalue our work as artists because they consider it to be of secondary importance to our place in their lives.
I was sure that other artists usually wouldn’t fail to recognize how important my art was to me in the way friends and family might, because their own work is just as important to them as mine is to me. Therefore, I went looking for other artists to spend time with. The easiest and fastest way to meet many other artists is to join a local art group. However, as I said, I knew virtually nothing about any of the local art groups in my area, so I simply joined most of them. In fact until I got to know and talk to some of the members of the first group I joined, I didn’t realize how many other groups there were in my area. I then went to as many activities sponsored by each group as I could to get to know how each group functioned. To my surprise, I discovered that while most of the same local artists also belonged to many of the groups, each group did have a different “feel” to it, depending on the group’s mission statement and who was actually directing the groups focus. In my area alone there are five or six art groups, all with different standards and goals. One of the alliances is simply a painting group that gets together to talk, paint or draw and critique each other’s work. Another aims its standards for professionals and is very picky about what they accept in their shows. A third group is warm and welcoming to new artists and seeks to encourage its members to strive to improve their skills. All of these groups have valuable insights into the local art world. While I do maintain my membership with most of the original groups I joined, I did finally find the group I consider my “home” group. Once you do find the right fit, you will also find the friendship and support you are looking for in your peers.
However, If you are not feeling the love in the group you joined, then you need to do some honest evaluation of that groups focus and aims and what you were looking for when you joined. You need to decide what it is about each particular group that makes you comfortable or uncomfortable. While only you can draw these conclusions, I do have some markers that can be used to aid you in making your assessment.
1. What are the goals the group has set for itself?
a. Do you agree with them?
2. What were your goals when you joined this art group
a. Friends
b. Career advancement
c. Improving your skill set
d. Has it met your expectations
i. If not, why not?
3. Have you been a member long enough to have made a genuine attempt to get to know the other members?
4. Are you comfortable with the majority of the group’s socio-economic status?
a. Why or why not?
5. Are you comfortable with the majority of the group’s education level?
a. Why or why not?
6. Are you comfortable with the age/sex of the majority of the members?
7. Do the other members respect you as an artist?
a. As a person?
8. Do you feel the criteria used in selecting winners at the group’s sponsored shows is fair?
a. Why or why not?
9. Can you find topics to discuss with members at group functions?
10. Are these people you would enjoy spending time with outside meetings and group functions?
11. Are the other members friendly to you?
a. If not, they why do you think they are unfriendly?
After evaluating your feelings about the group, then you need to make a decision as to whether to stay with the group or move on. Sometimes you may find that it is not one, but several local groups that give you what you need. Once you do find the right group fit, you will also find the rapport and encouragement you are looking for in your colleagues.
Good Luck
Gail

Why Blog? All the Internet marketers say that creating a blog presenting a wide variety of information of interest to your customers, both about your Art, the art world, your local art community and more is a great way to promote yourself and attract visitors to your website. Also recommended is to create a newsletter and write articles on a variety of issues relating to art collectors, buyers and the local art community and distribute it through your blog. Report on the latest happenings in the art world. This is a great way to generate daily visitors to your site. Plus frankly, it’s a great way to be able to feature your solutions to the issues through links into appropriate pages on your site as part of a report.
A lot of the sites I where I have art also have an automatic link to Facebook and/ or twitter. Whenever I blog, I check the automatic update to these sites which then posts a link to the blog. In this way, I save time spent promoting my work. Doesn’t this sound so simple and easy? Well to my sorrow I found out that Blogging’s not as easy as it sounds. A little like thinking you can do a major remodel of your house without any construction experience just because you watched some home improvement show! Oh sure, I can write the blogs no problem; however finding a blog site I can use and setting it up turned out to be harder than it looked. Then I discovered each Blog post had to be promoted with the same stuff I was using for my art on my website (SEO, etc.)
At first I tried two of the best publicized: Google Blogger and WordPress, and I do confess the Google Blog Tiger has eaten me. Both Google and Word Press do say you can start out free and then upgrade which I was in favor of as I didn’t know for sure which site was going to work for me. A year later and after many frustrations and downright silly mistakes, I paid Google the $10/year fee for my domain name and succeeded in losing my entire blog. When I loaded a blog up on Google after the upgrade, it showed as long as I had the Google Blogger open, but as soon as I closed it, the blog disappeared and the message “no longer in use” appeared on the site. To the best of my knowledge, any blogs I created there went into LaLa land! I have tried in vain to find the domain name I paid for without success and Google is NO help whatsoever. Google’s tutorials are awful and their help forums never seemed to cover what I need. Google has no e-mail contact for customer service so you can’t ask them to do research and find your blog. I tried the search site without luck. The idea of not having a customer service contact seems to be a recurring theme with independent blogs as I encountered the same issues with Word Press whom I no longer use for the same reason.
Am I the only artist who can’t find a blog that is easy to sign up for and use? There are lots of free sites out there in the wild and wooly internet, but Baby it’s a jungle out there! A lot of the free artist sites do offer a free blog along with the free web page, but their blogs don’t seem to get much traffic except internally; however some of them are making improvements with this issue; notably interfacing with Facebook and Twitter.
I generally blog on multiple web sites for the same reason I have art on those sites; exposure, exposure, exposure. I have rated the sites I use from 1 to 10, with 10 being highest.
SiteName Rating Share Features Notes
ArtId 8 Over 50 share options, including Linkedin
ArtistSites 3 none
Fine Art America 3 none
Fresno Arts Net 5 Facebook & Twitter
Gail Daley’s Fine Art 5 Facebook, twitter & Google Have to close site and go back to it to share
My Space 5 Facebook, twitter,tumblr & Google
Sell-Arts 3 none

The biggest issue I have encountered so far is actually the twitter/Facebook link; sometimes I end up with multiple tweets or notices to my Facebook page about the same blog. I try and avoid this by not putting the same blog at the same time on every site (I have a chart! Yes I had to make a chart to keep track of where I was posting what). I also have a blog on my print store and my site for original art as well as the local art network. Why do I use several blogs as well as web sites you ask? I do it because it increases the chances of someone new checking out my blog and then maybe going on to buy my art. Let’s face it; we all have favorite sites where we look for things, so by using several different sites it increases the potential of reaching more prospective customers. The free sites were definitely more user friendly than the stand-alone sites like Google and Word Press however.
I also recently tried AtContent, another Blog site. They were actually a lot of help in constructing the actual blog, and they also allowed me to tell everyone about it. However, I discovered to my sorrow that the blog link they had me use was blank. When I clicked on it after a complaint came in from a LinkedIn user, it too said, “Blog not found”.
Instead, I have been uploading my blogs onto my web site, closing the site, and then going back to the site and promoting it by using the Facebook, twitter and Google+ sharing methods I installed. Very Cumbersome, but it does work. I also always upload to ArtId because of its fantastic sharing abilities (the list shows about 50 different network sites!) and it is the best for blog sharing.
The real solution to blogging jungle of course is for all the sites to add more sharing options and for Google Blogger and Word Press who do draw a lot of traffic, to actually install customer service links (NOT links to those useless user forums!). Their site designs are beautiful with lots of features, but they DO need to add customer service.
Good Luck!
Gail

I Am An Artist So Why Would I Need A Lawyer?
It seems never to occur to most artists (with some notable exceptions) to have a lawyer look over the contract their new Gallery or licensing company wants them to sign. Why not? Well, a couple of reasons might be that the artist is just so thrilled to have an actual walk-in gallery or licensing firm offering to display or sell their work that the artist overlooks making sure their rights are protected, or that the artist simply can’t afford to hire an attorney.
There are several types of contracts an artist might be involved with.
• A contract commissioning a piece of art.
• A consignment contract with a gallery to sell your work,
• A licensing agreement to sell prints, cards or commission work to be translated into other art forms (plates, tiles, textiles, etc.).
• An agreement with an agent to sell or advertise your work.
• An agreement with a venue (non-gallery) to display or sell your art.
• Booth rental space at an event.
When are the times when you should have someone with legal experience take a look at what you are signing? Well, if you can afford it, anytime you want to be paid for your work, but if you are a starving artist, can you afford a $60/hour retainer? Probably not, however you do have some other options. If you ever find yourself in need of legal representation, you can try Lawyers for the Arts. Most states have either a volunteer lawyers for the arts organization or regular lawyers for the arts who if you ask for it will sometimes give you a bro bono consultation to see want you need.
VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS (VLA) is both a generic term for a number of legal service organizations located throughout the country. It is also the proper name of an organization in New York City, Founded in 1969. That organization is the oldest VLA in the United States. Many states also have their own non-profit organizations: In California, Bay Area Lawyers for the Arts (BALA) was founded in 1971. When BALA expanded to Southern California joining with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts--Los Angeles, it was renamed California Lawyers for the Arts. There are more than 30 VLA programs spread around the states. Lawyers for the arts is not a single organization, but a network joined by similar vocations providing a range of free or low-cost legal services and educational programs to tackle the needs of artists and arts associations for all genres of art and artists
Each organization functions independently. Most of them are nonprofits but some are affiliated with arts councils, arts service organizations, bar associations or business for the arts programs.
Several of the platforms include
• Legal services through referrals and sometimes on-site consultations;
• some host legal clinics; alternative dispute resolution including mediation and arbitration;
• accounting services;
• law student internships who are usually a lot less expensive to use and can overlook contracts;
• educational programs on topics like contracts, copyright, estate planning, taxes and nonprofit incorporation;
• Most of them also carry publications on a broad range of issues.
In CALIFORNIA, if you are looking for an attorney, you can also go to: http://www.CaliforniaAttorneyReferral.com, or you can try someone from the list below:
• Beverly Hills Bar Association Barristers Committee for the Arts 300 S. Beverly Dr., Ste. 201 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 (310) 601-2422 http://www.bhba.org/Committees_Sections/Barristers-Comms-10-11.htm
• California Lawyers for the Arts (Sacramento) 1127 Eleventh St. #214 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 442-6210 http://www.calawyersforthearts.org/
• California Lawyers for the Arts (San Francisco) Fort Mason Center, Building C, Rm 255 San Francisco, CA 94123 (415) 775-7200 /http://www.calawyersforthearts.org/
• California Lawyers for the Arts (Santa Monica) 1641 18th St. Santa Monica, CA 90404 (310) 998-5590 http://www.calawyersforthearts.org/
• San Diego Performing Arts League 110 West C St. #1414 San Diego, CA 92101 (619) 238-0700 x. 16
Please keep in mind that some of the address and phone numbers may have changed. Since I have never used any of these firms, I have no idea of their quality, fees or abilities.
Even if you don’t see the need to have legal advice on every little thing, there are some issues you need to make sure are covered in any contract you enter into.
• If this is a commission sale, when is to be completed and how soon afterwards are you paid?
• Is the Gallery or Agent requiring exclusive rights?
• When are payments due from consignment sales?
• How long does the consignment last?
• If there is a reception who pays for it?
• Who hangs the art?
• If the hanging causes damage who pays for the repairs?
• If the gallery or venue goes out of business make sure your art cannot be considered part of the gallery assets or they could be sold to pay business debts in which case you won’t receive any payment for your work.
DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY; IT IS NOT INTENDED TO BE TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE. EACH SITUATION IS SPECIFIC; CONSULT YOUR CPA OR ATTORNEY TO DISCUSS YOUR SPECIFIC BUSINESS QUESTIONS.

How Do Copyright Laws Affect You As A Visual Artist?
The visual arts category on the U.S. Government website, involves pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including two- and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and applied art. Examples include paintings, photographs; original prints; art reproductions; cartographic works (maps, globes, and relief models); technical and mechanical drawings; and architectural drawings, plans, blueprints, or diagrams. Copyright protects an author’s specific expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, name, or title.
The United States Copyright Office was created to serve the copyright community of creators and users, as well as the general public. Here you will find all key publications, informational circulars; application forms for copyright registration; links to the copyright law and to the homepages of other copyright related organizations; news of what the Copyright Office is doing, Congressional testimony and press releases; the latest regulations.
Copyright Basics - US Copyright Office U.S. Copyright Forms
Form VA - Copyright form Visual Arts Form VA with instructions
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998
Due to fast-breaking developments in the electronic storage and transmission of images, an artist is expected to have a good understanding of copyright law and how it is interpreted in our rapidly changing social and high-tech landscape. "The complex and challenging issues of copyright are now part of the daily reality of all artists who work with images".
Two basic aspects of copyright as it applies to visual artists are: what rights the artist or designer has to their own work, and what accountabilities they have when using the creative work of others. Unlike pre-internet days, images are now being broadcast all over the world and it is difficult to hide copyright infringement. Using copyright protected images to create art cheapens your portfolio; it isn’t good for your artistic integrity and you can be sued. Digital cameras now cost so little that everyone can take their own reference photos. Artists can also search the internet for photos that allow re-use (just check the “owner allows re-use” in your search filter).
With the creation of Flicker and Facebook among other photo sites, Visual artists can’t help living in an environment saturated with images. As Artists we are influenced, whether consciously or unconsciously, by everything we see around us in books, magazines, TV, the internet, and in advertising. If you use photos as reference images, you should use your own photos or public domain images. Look at the photo for inspiration but add your own creativity and "artistic license" to make the final image your own. Make sure that your image is not an exact copy of the photo. A word of warning: the “10%” use doctrine touted by many as a defense can be very subjective in a court of law and I wouldn’t want to depend on it in front of a judge. For more information on this subject, I recommend:
http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/197870/Trademark/Not+All+Is+Fair+Use+in+Trademarks+and+Copyrights
To Review
• These days, almost all things are copyrighted the moment they are written, and no copyright notice is required.
• Whether or not you charged money doesn’t make any difference to Copyright violations; only the damages you might have to pay out will be affected by how much money you made on your sale.
• Postings to the internet are not automatically in the public domain, and the fact you found it there doesn’t grant you any permission to do further copying except maybe the sort of copying that might have been expected in the ordinary flow of the net and only a judge can make that decision.
• Fair use is a complex doctrine meant to allow certain valuable social purposes. For more Information on Fair Use, go to http://www.copyright.gov. Ask yourself why you are re-doing what you are working on and why you couldn't have just used the subject in your own style.
• Copyright is not lost because you don't defend it; that's a concept from trademark law. The ownership of names is also from trademark law, so a name can’t be copyrighted although it may still be protected under Trademark laws. If you want more information on Trademarks vs. Copyrights go to: www.uspto.gov/trademarks/law/tmlaw.pdf.
• For those writers among you Fan fiction/slash and other work derived from copyrighted works is a copyright violation; while the owner may ignore a few fun stories presented on their characters or story lines, if you try and sell it the owner will have to take notice in order to protect their copyright.
• Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of criminal defendants you hear so much about on TV don't apply. Watch out, however, as new laws are moving copyright violation into the criminal realm and who knows what the future may bring. Remember all those people who went to jail or got fined millions of dollars from downloading music?
• Don't rationalize that you are helping the copyright holder by using his or her stuff; often it's not that hard to ask permission.
• While posting E-mail is technically a violation, revealing facts from E-mail you got isn't, and for almost all typical E-mail, nobody could wring any damages from you for posting it. The law doesn't do much to protect works with no commercial value.
Watermarking for Digital Images
Watermarking your work can be a way to protect your art from pirates, but nothing is foolproof. There are a couple of different types of watermarking you can use: visible and invisible.
Invisible Watermarks: Can be used for copyright protection and recognition of digital images. Unfortunately an invisible watermark may slightly alter your image. Also the technique is so new that there is not yet an “industry standard.” Please be aware also, that watermarking has not yet been tested in the court. However, most commercial printers such as Kinkos and Copy Max’s Impress use software that can detect watermarks and will refuse to make copies when they detect them. Eikonamark is one of the Software programs available for casting "invisible" watermarks on digital images and detecting these watermarks. However, I have never used it so I don’t know how much distortion it will cause to your images.
Visible Watermarks: Putting a visible watermark on art that you post to your website identifies it as yours and hopefully discourages pirates. If you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, look under the “Security” section of the setup dialog. You can add a semi-transparent overlay to many images automatically when you use the Web Photo Gallery Creator feature. Watermark Factory is one of the software programs to help you to protect images. You can add a visible watermark to your digital images and photos. The watermark can be your copyright or the URL of your site or your logo or just about anything else you choose.

Books on and about Copyright
The Permission Seeker's Guide Through the Legal Jungle by Joy R. Butler
All About Right for Visual Artists by Ralph E Lerner & Judith Bresler
The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook by Nancy E Wolff
The Writer's Legal Guide: An Authors Guild Desk Reference by Tad Crawford & Kay Murray
Digital Copyright By Jessica Litman
DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION IN THIS BOOKLET IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY; IT IS NOT INTENDED TO BE TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE. EACH SITUATION IS SPECIFIC; CONSULT YOUR CPA OR ATTORNEY TO DISCUSS YOUR SPECIFIC LEGAL OR TAX REQUIREMENTS OR QUESTIONS.

What response do you make when some person posts a negative opinion of you or your work on your website or a social network site? Some tips on what you can do about this without starting a major public feud and how to turn a negative into a positive action. Congratulations. You now have a brand new web-site (or blog site). You have spent hours designing it and putting into it everything you think will help you make it popular. Whether you created this site in the hopes of developing an audience for your writing, selling your art, promoting a non-profit organization, business or for some other reason your new site is precious to you and you need to share it with the world at large. There are so many ways to do this beginning with sending e-mails to friends and family, advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google AdWords, etc.
Most of these sites have suggestions as to how to reach other members to tell them about your new site. After you have followed instructions from these sites to publicize your work, in a couple of days when you call up your site to see if anyone has actually looked at it, and among the positive comments posted, you discover that someone has written something ugly either about the site, your work or you and posted it on your site. This is a little like having someone kick your baby and you are justifiably offended. The question is what do you do now?
In answering this I’m going to make a couple of assumptions: 1) you haven’t done anything to the negative poster to make them want to embarrass you by publicly posting ugly comments to your site, and 2) this isn’t someone you know well because obviously if you were well acquainted with them you wouldn’t have sent an invitation in the first place. If you are like me your first impulse would be to slap back at this person. This is entirely a normal reaction and it is a perfectly understandable, human impulse to strike out at what injures us. However, I urge you not to give in to this impulse. If you start an insult slinging match by posting a nasty response to the negative comment on your site it will only increase the adverse impression of your site with potential customers and visitors that this person has created. It also will make you look unprofessional and probably detract from your sites message which should be about the work or ideas you have presented there.
You can take positive action when this happens, but first you need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Your first action should be to find out a little about who this person is and how they came to visit your site. When you do find out this information I advise you to resist the itch to retaliate by posting something ugly in return on their site. I understand you would like them to know how you felt but this will only escalate matters, so don’t do it! Once you know who they are, simply remove the comment from your site and if the site offers this feature, arrange to moderate any future comments posted. If the person posted the comment using Facebook or Twitter, you may need to change those settings also to require comments to have your approval before being posted.
You should realize that if this person received an invitation to view your site the invitation may have come from you, especially if you were innocently following suggestions to increase your circle of influence put out by LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Google. All of these sites encourage members to make new connections by checking out other members who are interested in the same things, belong to the same groups, follow the same companies, etc. and send out invitations to connect. These suggestions are not necessarily bad; in fact you may make some valuable acquaintances and good friends by using them. Please be aware however that the old adage about kissing frogs also applies; you may also have unintentionally reached out to some people who practice behavior my mother used to call “rude, crude, and socially unacceptable”. You won’t be able to screen these folks out ahead of time because this kind of character reference does not get posted on their self-created profiles! Hateful people exist and they just love to spread their discord and repulsive behavior onto others. The positive thing you can do I mentioned? Sometimes it helps to visualize yourself blowing a big, noisy, fat raspberry at this person, and then start a “Do Not Send” list and check it before you send out invitations to view your work. Good luck!
Gail

Presentation is everything. A poor presentation can make the difference between getting a sale and being accepted into an on-line show. For the judges to get an accurate idea of your art, the image you send must match the colors in the art and be sharp and clear. For many of us, taking a good photograph of our art is hard. Before you send off the photo of your art you should 1) make sure that the size of the photo agrees with the directions given by the prospectus, 2) make sure the image is sharp, clear and not distorted, 3) check the colors in the photo against the actual art to make sure they are correct. I am not a professional photographer, but I do manage to take credible photos of my work without paying a pro to do it for me. Here are a few tips that might help those of us who are “photo challenged”:
LIGHTING:
• Make sure you are taking the photo in an area that doesn’t cast shadows on the work. Personally I use the front of my garage and I do it between 11:00 am and 12:00 noon. I have simply put a nail into the wood at the appropriate height for the camera and then I rest the painting’s stretcher bars on the nails. If you are using paper or canvas sheets you can put the sticky stuff teachers use to hang students artwork on the wall to the back of the art (just make sure it is level).
• Make sure the sun isn’t glaring on the work so there are no shinny surfaces to reflect back at the camera. If you are working with watercolor or pastel then take the photo before you frame it because glass will reflect back at the camera also. Personally I also take the photo before I varnish acrylics to cut down on the glare caused by the varnish.
DISTORTION
• Make sure that your camera is aimed squarely at the art. It helps to use a tripod; you can align the front two feet of the tripod squarely with the art so that you aren’t taking the photo at an angle that will cause one side of the art to be larger than the other. If necessary use a tape measure to make sure the feet are an equal distance from the art. A tripod also helps to prevent blurring is caused by your hand shaking. Most of us don’t think our hand moves when pushing the button, but it does.
• Use a small hand level to ensure that the camera is not angled either down or up when taking the photo as this will also cause distortion.
CAMERAS
• You don’t need an expensive camera to take photos of your art. Canon makes an excellent quality digital camera for under $300; it is very user friendly. As a plus, the newer models also take video so you can use this setting to record art shows and then upload to Facebook, U-tube and other social network sites.
CAMERA SETTINGS
• When taking the initial (raw) photo of your work, be sure to set your camera to take fine or large files and take at least 3 exposures of each artwork.
EDITING YOUR PHOTOS FOR THE WEB
• The least expensive and easy to use photo editing program is Photoshop Elements. It has tutorials and is fairly easy to learn.
YOU SHOULD HAVE THREE TYPES OF IMAGES
• A large resolution image (between 1 and 2 MB) to use if you decide to make prints of your work
• A medium/low resolution image to put on your website (between 1 – 2 KB). This size is usually too small to encourage attempts to pirate your image because it probably won’t make prints any larger than a 5 x 7 without blurring, but you can add digital watermarking with Elements.
• A small image (between 200 and 125 pixels) for thumbnail images and record keeping.
• You should keep photo log with both high- and low- resolution photos of your work separately from your desktop computer. A working copy can be kept there, but be sure and back up your files each month onto a separate disc or jump drive. Be sure to keep the back-up copies of these items in a separate place and up-date your back-ups monthly. Once your records are lost due to computer crashes, natural disaster or any other reason they are gone. Good Luck!

Do you have an internet presence? If you do, are you getting value for your money? Do you have only one site, or do you use many? I use about 5 – 10 sites regularly and I selected most of them for specific reasons which I have given below. Why do I put art up on so many sites? Well, frankly, I do it for the same reason Ann Landers syndicates her column in so many different newspapers: so I can get more exposure for individual art pieces. The more widespread your art is throughout the cloud, the more chances it has to be seen. This also gives me the experience of looking at the individual sites and seeing what different artists have done with their sites.
Though painful (and expensive!) experience, I learned to analyze each site I use and to check out how much traffic they actually draw. Some lessons I learned along the way: not to use sites that demand a lot of money up-front, not to depend on the site to promote my work no matter how much I am paying them. Why not depend on their marketing if I am paying for it you ask? Well, just economic basics really. Each site is in the business to make money the more artists that use them the more money they make which means I am not their only customer. Although most of these sites have automatic promotions for their artists, it doesn’t guarantee you will reach potential buyers.
Reason number one for using multiple sites is exposure, exposure, exposure. Reason two is while most of my sites do have some features in common which creates overlap, they are also a way I can increase my Google presence by linking them together. Reason number three is that we all have favorite sites where we look for things, so by using several different sites it increases the potential of reaching more prospective customers. Reason four is more problematical: I want to be taken seriously as an artist and one way to do this is to have a business presence, and investing in an internet web site is a lot less expensive that opening an actual gallery. If you want to check and see if you are being taken seriously as an artist, ask yourself if when friends and family talk about your art usually they say you have a hobby. Then ask yourself if your name would be the first one thought of if they are looking for art for their home or business? I will just bet you that it isn’t. Sad but true and one way to impress upon customers that you are a “real artist” is to spend money on a business presence.
My Sites
GAILDALEYSFINEART: GailDaleysFineArt is my own web site which I use to promote information concerning my art, my activities and myself. At one point, I paid lot of money for an “on-line store web site” which sold relatively little; despite all the SEO (search engine optimization) stuff the host site recommended I simply wasn’t reaching very many buyers. I also discovered several drawbacks to selling original art on-line; the most exasperating of these was shipping costs. I once sold a small painting to a customer in Canada and found that it cost as much to ship out of the US as I made on the art! I had the same experience when I sold a print. So I simply put up a notice on my site that originals were only sold inside the continental US. It was a tough decision, but I also scaled back the site to a more informative platform. I can still sell art from it, but I now negotiate each asking price, and I found an alternative place to sell prints of my art.
FINE ART AMERICA: GailDaleysPrintShop . Fine Art America is a great site for prints; you set a base price for the sizes of each print and FAA posts a price that includes their commission. Customers can choose canvas prints, Wrap Style: Black, White, or art prints with any kind of fine art paper. I can sell more prints at lower prices because FAA can print cheaper than I can locally. If the customer orders a frame or mat, I also get a commission on the sale of the extras. The site also offers prints of my work in cards individually or in sets. Shipping and sales tax is automatically computed and doesn’t come out of my profit. Whenever I post a new painting to the site, I can automatically up-date my Facebook page and twitter as well as several other sites, like Stumble on and Pintrest. As a bonus, the site also has a blog that I use. It is relatively inexpensive $30/year.
ARTID: I chose ArtId principally because of the no-cost link to E-Bay store as I discovered early on that listing art on e-bay can be costly. Either prints or original art can be posted. E-Bay is enormous and the competition is fierce so any method I can use to get my art posted not requiring a fee is a plus. ArtId is easy to use if you aren’t very familiar with the internet and it does have some nice features. While it has a free membership, with a “Silver” membership (around $20/month or $240/year) you can unload an unlimited amount of images and also get to list your art free on e-bay. It has links to PayPal, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; the site also has a blog feature.
ARTISTSITES ArtistSites.org is a site I discovered when I was first exploring the internet. It is free and it also has a blog. Unfortunately if you are a buyer it is not a particularly easy site to use or find a particular artist. For one thing, there is no search box where you can put in an artist’s name, and while the artists are divided by last name, (for me you would look under D), once you reach your designated letter the artists aren’t in any particular order. It also appears to be used mainly by other artists. However, I do maintain it and I find the comments from fellow artists both helpful and interesting.
SELL-ARTS Sell-Arts.com is another free Site. It is also user friendly, and it has links to PayPal, a blog, a forum for artists that apparently isn’t used very much, and, probably the most interesting feature, an Art News section featuring articles from local/national/international newspapers and magazines. I maintain it because it increases my internet presence.
ARTISTSLIKEOURSELVES: The site was created for artists by artists that I discovered in my early internet days. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a high Google presence; when you search for it oftentimes you get an error message, so I while I maintain it, I don’t list it with other links on my personal web site. This isn’t an easy site to use for a buyer either; when you do find it, like Sell-Arts, there is no artist search. It is designed for use by visual artists, writers and performers. The site more or less forces you to interact with your fellow artists because while it doesn’t cost money to become a member, in order to post art you need a certain amount of “credits” which you obtain by viewing and commenting on other artists work on the site. Artists like Ourselves uses a 'credits' system to promote expression of both art and the artists' opinion of others' art. When you sign up, you are given 50 credits immediately. Each time you upload a picture, painting, musical piece, poem etc. you are charged 10 credits. This means that you are able to upload 5 pieces immediately. To earn extra credits, you can send feedback to other artists about their work. Each time you send a comment to another artist, you earn two credits, so in order to upload one new painting, and you need to look at 5 from other artists.
ARTANDDESIGNONLINE ArtandDesignOnLine.com is another site with dual type membership: Free and paid. I found it in Artist’s Magazine. Although I set up a page on this site I don’t utilize it much. However the search engine is super easy, and with a free listing you are given a basic account with up to 4 photos, a subscription to Art and Design Online Newsletter, a personal My InnerCircle © account, full access to comment or network with fellow artist's/gallery listings, a personal Event tool and Calendar, and basic access to the Email Blast tool. The paid membership is relatively inexpensive around $10/month or $120/year.

Why Do I keep mentioning Blogs as a plus when choosing a site?
I have a whole blog on promoting my art which I will cover later. Just be aware that blogs are another way to let people know about you, about your art, and what you are doing with it.
 

Should paintings or nude statues be shown in a public setting such as a Library or Mall? As a visual artist who sets up art displays in public places, I am very aware of our American society’s standards of what is considered acceptable for public consumption. All societies have these standards of behavior and yes, the standards do evolve with society. 60 years ago, Tarzan of the Apes was considered too sexy for the libraries! What is acceptable in Europe is quite different than what is acceptable in America also. American standards are usually much more conservative than those prevalent in Europe. In this financially strapped time, Libraries are very dependent on donations to purchase their materials. Let’s face it; donors are simply not going to purchase materials they don’t like and they won’t give money to organizations that do. Just as a person isn’t allowed to scream “fire!” in a crowded area for fear of causing panic, as a society we will always need to make judgments as to what is appropriate for our public libraries to spend their money on. And yes, in the past governments have been very heavy handed on what was considered appropriate. On that subject, the right of Private adult individuals to decide what they will read and see must always be defended. The internet has virtually ensured that free speech will be protected; As long as it exists, artists and book publishers will be permitted to sell these items (in the appropriate venues), and I don’t think we need to be too worried about government imposed censorship.
Is there a difference between a Rubens classical painting and Playboy? Most of us think so. And yet some of his art is probably more graphic than a Playboy centerfold and this image certainly shows violence toward women. Nevertheless most museums would have no hesitation in displaying it in a public venue.
A great many "women’s romance" novels do contain what used to be called soft or “vanilla” porn (sexual situations which are sometimes graphically described although I find the authors usually use euphemisms). These novels ARE purchased by libraries; I have checked them out myself. The main difference between hard pornography and these novels is women’s romance books usually don't also contain profanity in describing the sexual adventures of their heroines, and although the libraries do purchase books, videos and games containing graphic sexual themes or graphic violence, these materials usually aren't kept in the juvenile section. Most county libraries require a parent’s permission for a child to check out materials from the adult section. Is this censorship? Absolutely. Is it appropriate? As a parent, I have think so. Children often lack the maturity to put what they are reading and seeing in context and require adult interpretation to help them do so. If an adult is there to provide an explanation of, oh—visuals of the Nazi death camps or the Manson murders or the books “Helter Skelter” and Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”, then it can be appropriate for a child to see those images or read those books. Only a parent can truly judge whether or not their child could handle such graphic images, or if the child has enough of a grasp on the difference between reality and fantasy to be allowed to play a video game that is rated “mature”, read an explicit book, look at a Rubens painting or watch such a movie. For myself when setting up a public art display I find the following criteria helpful in judging whether or not reading matter or an art display will be acceptable to the general public: 1) the context in which it appears; i.e. A painting, recording or a book containing graphic sex or violence will be much more likely to be acceptable if it contains historical facts. 2) The age of the audience the video game, book or display is intended for. I agree with the view held by most Americans’ the subject matter should be age appropriate. So Yes, Censorship can be a positive force if used properly.

Juried art shows are an opportunity to learn more about your craft. In the art world, a “Juried Show” means a show that has an actual judge who has been paid to choose the best art out of the entries. Usually there will be a non-refundable entry fee per art piece, and cash and awards will be given to the winners. Entering a juried show means you are putting your art out there to be judged. You should always enter what you consider to be your best work to date. Keep in mind though, that your art may not be accepted into the show. Does this mean that you are a poor artist? Or that your art is “bad”? Not necessarily. A juried art show is a subjective format and there are many reasons why your art might not have been accepted. It may simply mean that the space to display art was limited. Perhaps the art was good, but your presentation (framing/matting) detracted from your art and the judge preferred art that was better presented. Or maybe this just wasn’t your best work.
If your art wasn’t accepted by the judge, you might consider having an artist whose opinion you respect critique the work for you. Please be careful with this; the person who does the critiquing should be a more experienced artist with some knowledge of technique and the principles of art. We love them, but the opinions of our friends and family who don’t know any more than we do about art really aren’t useful as critiques. In many local shows, the judge will offer critiques as they judge, and a member of the art group putting on the show will have been assigned to follow and write down what is said. If the judge offers a critique, pay attention.
Above all, don’t take this type of rejection personally. Nationally known artists get rejected from shows also. Sometimes the judge just doesn’t like the subject matter or maybe he/she doesn’t care for the colors, or the shape, etc. The point is: don’t ever expect to enter a show and win or even automatically be accepted. You are probably going to kiss a lot of frogs before you get the prize! For some shows just getting accepted is major. Every juried art show should be viewed as an opportunity to learn more about your craft.

Our domestic chicken breeds probably originated in the Orient either in Asia or India. They have certainly made numerous appearances in literature and art since the time of Christ (they even appear in the Bible!). Chickens are very popular as art subjects; almost every artist I know including me has painted at least one chicken. Sooner or later most artists who paint in the realism genre attempt to paint chickens. Mostly because they are fascinating creatures but also because everyone seems to want to buy them: We find images of them on Paintings and photographs, plates, kitchen towels, salt and pepper shakers, and collections of them everywhere. I wonder what it says about us as a culture that we so often feature paintings of the main course in the room where we eat it. Yet when I looked up Chickens in Art in Wikipedia I found nothing of note. There was a lot about chickens in religion and mythology and a lot concerning how to cook them, but nothing on the historical significance of using them as art subjects. The internet as a whole was no better. When I searched for “Chickens in Art” I must have found hundreds of sites where some type of art featuring a chicken was being sold but nothing on their popularity as an art object. Why do you suppose no one has anything to say about using chickens as a subject for paintings?

Interestingly enough I found that most Chicken art appears under the category of Folk Art instead of Fine Art. According to Wikipedia “Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic. Characteristically folk art is not influenced by movements in academic or fine art circles, and, in many cases, folk art excludes works executed by professional artists and sold as "high art" or "fine art" to the society's art patrons.” The impression this quote gave me was that Folk Art was excluding Fine Art rather than the other way around. I suppose that since Chicken Art sells so well many of us tend categorize our “chicken Paintings” where they will receive the most exposure and sell well. What do you think? Who is excluding Whom?

In 2004, I created two paintings of chickens using a composite of different photos of the birds my parents were keeping to raise for eggs and meat when they moved to Arizona. Sadly, the coyotes in that part of the country also liked them—for dinner so they didn’t stay around long.

I did NOT use the keywords Folk Art or Chicken Art when listing Barnyard Ballet and Barnyard King on the internet and I am wondering if this is the reason I still have the paintings.

We may as well admit it: all of us secretly want to not only create fabulous art but want the public to appreciate it so much they pay us fabulous prices for it. The wonderful thing about making prints of our work is prints are a way to earn residual income on our art. If an artist sells a painting for $500 that is a one-time fee; if that same artist also sells 20 prints for $15 each then they have earned a total of $800 on that same painting. I’m not going to go into the virtues and differences between Limited Edition Reproductions and Unlimited Reproductions; that will be for another blog.
Naturally as an artist you want any reproductions of your art to reflect the quality of the art itself; this means you want to make the best quality reproductions you can find. I have had several artists ask me where they can get good quality prints made at a reasonable price. It’s a good question. Pretty much there are two ways to go with this: make the prints yourself or get them made professionally. The other things you will need besides the printer if you are planning to get prints made of your work is a good camera that will take high-resolution photos (Canon Rebel is excellent). I don’t recommend a point-and-shoot camera or your cell phone if you intend to make professional looking reproductions. I would also recommend a good photo-editing program such as Photoshop Elements.
If you make prints yourself, you will need a good quality printer that prints on a variety of paper products. What brand of printer makes the best prints? Well, there are a lot of differing opinions on this having to do with what kind of ink will give you the truest colors, how easy they are to use, whether to use ink jet or laser printers, etc. Making the prints yourself does mean that you are probably going to be limited as to the size you can make; most home printers will only take legal or letter size paper. The printer that gave me the very best prints I ever made at home was an inexpensive Kodak printer. Unfortunately it proved too fragile to last long. Epson, Brother and HP all make good machines that will give you good quality paper prints. You can even obtain letter size “canvas paper’ for printing, although I wasn’t really happy with the quality of the prints I made with it. Then there is the cost of the ink. If you make a lot of reproductions, Ink jet refills can be so expensive that you might find it less costly to get your prints made by a print shop. Laser printers also make good quality prints, but a color laser printer and the toner to go with it can be cost prohibitive.
The next option is to have your prints made by a professional printer. To do this You will need a high resolution jpeg or other type of photo of your work to give the printer. If you are not also a photographer, I suggest you arrange to have a professional take the photo in order to ensure that the photo has no distortions and that the color is true to the original art. You can have the photo transferred to either a jump drive or disc. There is an issue with having your prints made by someone else that doesn’t come up with home printing: calibrating their printer to your photos. This has nothing to do with the printer type; even if the print on their computer looks okay, the print may still come out darker or lighter than your art. Always ask for a proof before accepting the print; it may be necessary for you to take your disc or jump drive home so that you can adjust the lighting or color of the photo in order to make the print “true” to the original when using a commercial printer. If you do this, always save the “adjusted” photo as a separate photo and leave the original alone. Making these changes is much easier if you are dealing with a local printer. I am speaking here of commercial printers such as Kinkos or CopyMax’s Impress. The photo departments of Costco, Walgreens, Wal-Mart etc. aren’t going to give you a professional quality print because their print programs are designed to “flatten or homogenize” color to an “average” standard. If you have vibrant, saturated or delicate shades you may find your print simply doesn’t reflect these qualities.
The other option is to find a local professional who specializes in making art prints. Here in Fresno we have several but Mullins photography is the one most favored by local artists. If you bring in your art they will make their own scan and reproduce a print that is virtually identical to the original. Ask your local artists where they get their prints made. Be prepared; because of the quality the initial set up fee will be more expensive than say Kinkos or Impress.
There are also several on-line printers who do an excellent job. Fine Art America for instance will not only make your prints on a variety of paper and canvas, but sell matting and framing and ship to your customer. With on-line printers however, you will have the same difficulties with the calibration as with your local printer. I would suggest you get a small print made for yourself and make adjustments to the photo. Keep notes on what you did so that you can use them when sending in later prints.

Promoting yourself as an artist is hard work. Don’t expect someone else to look out for your interests. Does this take time away from creating your art? Yes, it does. However, if you don’t spend at least some time per week marketing yourself and your art, you will make very few sales unless you are very, very lucky. To maximize the time spent on the internet promoting your work, make a list of what you expect to accomplish to promote your art that day. I strictly limit the time I spend on the internet and I compartmentalize what I do there. I schedule 2 hours per week for business. At the end of the two hours I am done, whether or not I actually accomplished everything on my list. The 2nd thing is not to do purely social things while promoting your business. Schedule a different time to catch up with friends & family on your social networking site.

In this day and age, the internet is an essential tool for Artists. Art buyers will often first check out an artist’s website for information before picking up the phone to call directly. A website is also useful because it should show how to contact you. Because the general public spends an average of 2 hours online daily, why shouldn’t they spend it with your art? If you can’t afford a complete site, check out the dozens of Art sites that offer a free page to promote your art. Most of these are user friendly and don’t require a lot of internet knowledge to upload your art or start a blog.

Blogging: create a blog that presents a wide variety of information of interest to your customers, both about your Art, the art world, your local art community and more. Create a newsletter and write articles on a variety of issues relating to art collectors, buyers and the local art community and distribute it through your blog. Report on the latest happenings in the art world. This is a great way to generate daily visitors to your site. Plus, frankly, it’s a great way to be able to feature your solutions to the issues through links into appropriate pages on your site as part of a report. A lot of the sites I use have an automatic link to facebook and/ or twitter. Whenever I blog, I check the automatic update to these sites which then posts a link to the blog. In this way, I save time spent promoting my work.

The more places your art appears on the internet, the more exposure you will get. There are a number of art oriented web-sites featuring multiple artists out there. Some of them will allow you a free page some of them charge a monthly fee and some sites offer both types of memberships. You should do your own research on the sites listed below.
FineArtAmerica.com
Artandesignonline
ArtBuzblog
Art-Exchange.com
ArtFinders.net
Artid.com
ArtistsLikeOurselves
Autocracy
Artscuttlebutt.com
Artspan.com
FanArtReview
Maythebestartwin
MosiacGlobe
MyArtInfo.com
Rtist.com
Sell-Arts.com
WetCanvas.com
Yessy.com
DailyPainter.com
GalleryDirect.com

Art is a business as well as a creative endeavor. Losing your art can be a financial loss. So can not being aware of losing money because you don’t keep track of costs. I have a sample spread sheet that I use to help me know where my art is at all times, what shows and exhibits the piece was entered into, and if I am making money on individual pieces. I would recommend QuickBooks to track your expenses and income. I have been searching for a comprehensive program for my art business for years. While there are some beginning to be developed, I have always found some flaw in the programs; either they were too difficult to use, or had an incompatible photo program for thumbnails of my art, etc.
You can simply use an excel program to track expenses but it is very time consuming. QuickBooks, while a little on the expensive side is easy to use and easily transitions into tax software programs such as Turbo Tax when it comes time to file your income tax.
This does mean that I actually use three programs to track my art; QuickBooks for income and expenses, and two excel programs to tell me where my art is at any given time (Current Location Report) and a separate excel workbook (Painting Information Sheets) to track the work created.
I can’t say this often enough; back up your data!
You should keep three types of records: 1) A photo log with both high- and low- resolution photos of your work, kept separately from your desktop computer. A working copy can be kept on the desktop, but be sure and back up your files each month onto a separate disc or jump drive. 2) A program that tracks income and expenses. 3) A record of each piece of art created and its disposition or current location.
Keep back-up copies of these items in a separate place. And up-date your back-ups monthly. Once your records are lost due to computer crashes, natural disaster or any other reason they are gone.

I am a self-taught artist. I concentrate on the interconnected relationship between man and nature, and the strong bond between humans and animals. Simple images of everyday life (past and present), pets, and animals dominate my representational art. I paint abstracts because they are fun. I also have a prolific body of Fantasy and Science Fiction art. I have won awards for my abstracts, pet portraits and historical scenes. The panting for “Transitions” an 8’ x 20’ mural was created in 2004 and installed by the Fresno Rotary Club at Freeway 168 and Bullard off-ramp in Clovis California on May 30, 2009.
I concentrate on the bonds between man, nature and animals because I think God created all of us to be part of a whole, not just individuals. While our individuality is important, equally important is our connection to each other. A painting should have an emotional impact on the viewer; it should speak up for itself. If a painting doesn’t evoke some type of emotion, I don’t care how technically perfect a painting may be; to me it is not art. Personally, I also prefer my art to say something positive. We owe it to ourselves not to spread gloom and despair all over everyone! There is enough of that out in the world without artists celebrating it! I love doing vintage scenes: If well done, you can be transported back to the past. Pets and other animals have so much they can teach us about freedom, responsibility and unconditional love. I always strive to capture the personality of a pet or animal when I paint them. The Abstracts and Science Fiction/Fantasy paintings I do purely for fun. It exercises my mind as well as stretches my creative limits.
As artists, we shouldn’t get so wound up in the idea of making money on our artwork that we forget we also have a commitment to encourage culture and make it available to everyone, not just an elite few. I don’t think it should be necessary to be a millionaire to own original art. For the majority of Americans, spending $300 to $500 dollars on art for their home or business is a major investment and we should respect that.
I work out of my home. I have a husband of 35 years who takes me to beautiful places to paint while he pans for gold, a son who writes juvenile fiction, and 2 cats. Sadly, two of our cats all of our many dogs have passed on. They are remembered with love, laughter and tears.