Musings of an unhinged mind.

Hi friends,

As artists, each of us has pretty much built our cozy, secure art community network of show venues, friends and customers. I certainly have and it's been wonderful.

However.....(pause here).....you have also noticed that the art world is a bit difficult nowadays. Coasting along, doing the same things for the most part isn't getting the sales like it used to.

With a sense of dread on my part, I have avoided the online marketing thing pretty successfully up until recently. With the encouragement (read kick in the butt here) of some really splendid mentors, I have put on the armour, picked up this really big sword and decided to look for the dragon.

Well, the dragon is huge......marketing is not short on advice out there, but with an open mind and some serendipitous happenings, it's beginning to fall in place. In order to not get to lost in it all, it is a great help if you go into this search with some idea of what you want to market.....art, books, ideas, workshops; how you want to market.....galleries, art festivals, online; where you want to market.....locally, regionally, worldwide.

Search out different advice.....there is so much out there and it's free. Brush Buzz, Artonomy, Canvoo, FineArtViews Newsletter are good places to start. Click on different sources within each of these and you will be well on your way to finding much useful information. DO SOME OF THE THINGS suggested by these different sources. Heck, do all of them. Create a presence on the web, you have nothing to loose.

Being somewhat reclusive by nature, it's been a real stretch over the years for me to embrace a much more social way of life, so at first this has felt like a huge invasion of privacy, but you are your "brand". I know branding isn't a popular word right now, but I look at it as your story, your reason for doing the art, the strand that ties it all together. Let other people in on the story. They will never know about it if you don't tell them.

As you go about finding the dragon, you will notice that your mission, where you want to go with your art, will become much clearer or perhaps even change. Not too long ago I thought that art festivals was where it was at for me. Now with somewhat of a shock, I realize that is no longer what I seek. So I am gearing my marketing efforts towards these new found paths that are starting to emerge.

Will our economy get better and things start to improve? I wouldn't count on it anytime soon. In the meantime, don't sit on your sword and wait, get out there, start bush whacking, engage those dragons.

Just don't spend all your time slaying dragons. Get to your studio and create!

All my best....keep coloring outside the lines,

Sandra

Hi friends,

To create the art that is yours alone requires that you turn off the outside world and listen. Listen to you.

Perhaps you are about to start work on a landscape....do you have the urge to paint the late afternoon sky pink? Forget about that time in kindergarten when the teacher admonished you for painting grass purple.

Other people's opinion of you and your art does not have to be your reality. It's easy to be swayed by other's words.....the whole science of advertising and influence has gotten very subtle and sophisticated and permeates our culture in almost everything we do. So it's easy to be swayed into an "acceptable" mold of how to do your art.

What you need to ask yourself though, is this the real, unique, one-of-a-kind, original you that you're expressing?

Do the hard part.....listen to you.

"You have the answer.

Just get quiet enough to hear it."

                       ~Pat Obuchowski

Keep Coloring Outside the Lines,

Sandra Haynes

(p.s. To understand how subtle influence is, pick up this book: Influence--The Pyscology of Persuasion. You will be amazed at how hard it can be to think for ourselves.)

An old barn in beautiful shape, standing tall on a bright fall morning.

The air was so pure you could almost feel the light around you, reflecting and warming up even the shadows.