Artfire does a Regretsy, and movin' on up!

An advertisement on one of my ornament listings for a factory-made ornament

(note: this is something that was done by Artfire, not by me!)

(note on 4/27/15: Artfire added an ad-free option a week ago from all of the complaints from sellers about the ads. I took Artfire up on the offer to keep ads out of my shop, and I now feel okay about sending buyers there ... for now. I am still setting up my own e-commerce website, but at least I don't feel rushed, and can do it at my leisure. The rest of what I wrote, below, is the original post)

As many of you know (especially my loyal brick and mortar customers), I have been selling on Artfire for awhile now. The site was looking better than it ever has, it had gotten mobile friendly, and then, wham! Ads!

No, I did not want my listings for my handmade and fine art to be blasted with ads looking like an ad farm! 

And no, I will never put ads with handmade, fine art listings. And believe me, I could make this blog cluttered with ads too, and make good money doing so, but I have never taken that route because I don't believe it is respectful to my customers and it goes against everything small businesses and artists stand for. 

I liken the ads on my listings to this scenerio:

I shop for food primarily from local farms. I actually drive to a lot of farms. I love the drive to the farm where I buy my eggs for three dollars a carton, for instance. They are lovely eggs by the way, all different colors, by all kinds of different breeds of chickens, and some of them even duck eggs, and so much fresher and better tasting than stale grocery store eggs. This farm is a place I love to go to because of the lovely scenery, where I can meet and pet the chickens who produce my eggs, where I chit-chat with the owners and where I can walk around admiring the wildflowers, horses and cows. Sometimes I see herds of deer mingled in with the cows, or off in the distance. You can see at least a hundred miles into the distance on sunny days. Imagine one day I pulled up and there was a big billboard for "cheap eggs, only a dollar, at your local Walmart" stuck to the chicken shack, and many other billboards and signs blocking the scenery, making it confusing about whether I was buying their farm eggs or ones from a factory farm. Ick!

Well, that's how I feel about the ads on my listings.   

I had been planning to move to my own site in the autumn because I needed to offer wholesale and I couldn't do that on Artfire. I had to use it as a kind of e-mail service and explain everything, rather than have it spelled out in a listing (and imagine how much more confusing it is with these ads for wholesale buyers!). Anyway this has precipitated a need for a fast move, hopefully by next month. I spend my evenings copying listings when I am not trying to keep supplies of greeting cards and other art products stocked for brick and mortar shops in my area. So, I will let you know soon where I have moved to. Here are some other ads they plastered to my handmade ornament listing:

 NO THANKS!

As for other movin' on up plans:

I am also busy creating listings for Fine Art America because most of my customers contact me for print sizes I don't have listed, to get a custom size/order. Having a shop on Fine Art America will make it so much easier for ALL of my customers to order a myriad of sizes on different mediums, even huge 40 inch canvas prints. There is so much I can't do in my own home-based printing business; I have had to farm a lot out. This will give everyone a chance to own any size they want, and on any medium from archival canvas prints, to archival fine art paper, to posters for a kid's room, and greeting cards, and other products. This is a shop I was focusing on launching until Artfire distracted me, and now it's almost like a race to see which site gets done first, my e-commerce store or the Fine Art America store. The stores will probably be done in close proximity to each other!

As for Etsy, I am not invested in running any kind of major store there for my handmade or fine art. If you want to know why, this article explains my views. In movin' on up, I am by-passing venues. Etsy is being relegated to tiny experiments for different kinds of themes. Right now I have focused on a handful of owl listings.

Other things I am working on:

I have some Easter listings to show you soon.

I am doing illustrations for a book (someone else is the author). That's all I can share now.

I will be offering a lot more Victorian designs on the new website, but still keeping most products focused on story-book art, Celtic designs and Renaissance inspired art. 

Just because I have been silent does not mean I haven't been working extremely hard!

NO LINKS TO ONLINE STORES FOR NOW

   

Artfire Collection of artists

I thought I'd share this Artfire collection. I don't think I've ever shared any before. My piece is the tree with all of the playing card symbols in the middle row. The link to the collection and all of the individual shops is HERE.

November 2012 sale: horse holiday cards

horse holiday cards on sale only through my Artfire Shop for November

wholesale prices: 25 cards for $25 (excluding shipping costs)

from top to bottom (click to be taken to listing or to buy):
Spirit of Winter

Spirit of Christmas

Christmas Horse

Most of 2012 is the year of the Chinese water dragon, a year marked by sudden and unexpected events and changes. For me, that's an understatement! They haven't been pleasant events and have impacted me and every close family member in my life. It has been overwhelming, a juggling act that it is teetering on failurse at every moment, without a shread of normalcy in anything: work, home, relationships with family and friends, events. Phone calls with my mother often begin with "The water dragon strikes again!"

That's how the Chinese year/astrology is effecting me. Now for those of you into western astrology, I have a Uranus exact square Pluto on my native sun (also exact) most of this year. What does that mean? Well, it means sudden and unexpected events and changes. More of the same, apparently. So, does that mean I get a double whammy since both eastern and western seem to match in this case? It would seem so.

Anyway, since I am unable to get much work accomplished, I thought I'd have a sale of some designs from the past. Enjoy!

WEBSITE

ARTFIRE ON-LINE STORE (largest selection)

ETSY ON-LINE STORE (seasonal selection)

and oh, yes, I launched a facebook professional site recently:

FACEBOOK SITE  

what I'm going through and new Etsy team

My life seemed to have taken a dive off a cliff on January 21 and hit bottom on February 14 (I think!! -- hopefully that is where the bottom is). Without going into too much detail, I haven't been posting or making many new things because of this new set of events, so I thought I'd do something different for a change and use the blog to promote some other artists while I am recuperating from events.

I joined a team on Etsy about a month ago. We are a team of about 80 sellers, all from the Artfire site initially (some of us are still sellers on Artfire). We are called the TART team. It is a very supportive team in every way imaginable -- personally and in business. I feel more connected to the sellers on it than I have ever felt about any other team I've joined in my life, including all of the brick and mortar art co-operatives I've joined. It is a fantastic group of talented people! I feel very lucky to be part of it!

Stay tuned!

fuschia scarf to wear with a jacket

Here is the second edition to my handmade clothing line on Artfire.com. If you haven't been reading along, I started out with an extra long mulberry scarf. As I said in that previous blog post, I have made my own clothes for years and wanted to offer the kinds of clothes I make for myself to the general public.

These photos were taken about a week ago on a windy day. This is how the scarf looks with a black wool blazer jacket:



I decided I'd also try it with a casual Acadia National Park fleece jacket:



Here is what the stitching looks like close up:



Here is a closeup picture of me in the Acadia National Park fleece jacket and the scarf:



outfit details:

the handmade scarf is available on Artfire.com through this link

Black wool blazer by Spitalnick

grey Acadia National Park jacket by Green Brand Sensegal (made in the USA)

Earrings by Cheryl Gutmaker (made in the USA)

Shirt by International I.N.C. Concepts (made in the USA)

Boots by L.L. Bean

my links:

website

on-line stores:

Artfire (largest selection)

Etsy 

You saw it!

I'm running Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions:

on some holiday art and cards there is free shipping, free gifts, coupons and other goodies...

Just stop by my Artfire shop.

Enjoy the season!

mulberry scarf, extra long

Mulberry Scarf, extra long

part of the new handmade clothing line I'll be offering

I have made my own clothing for years, so I thought I'd make some of it available to the public (first time ever).  Working in so many mediums is a result of having to teach a lot of mediums to art students in the public schools (yes, I have a masters degree in art education).

All of the details on length, etc, are available in my online Artfire shop (my online shop of choice as I can have a lot of categories, a lot of mediums and unlimited listings and where artists are treated respectfully).

Two of these are presently available.

Here are smore photos of the extra long mulberry scarf:

And, yes, I am the model, but I hope to have another model for the new line eventually.

MY WEBSITE

MY ARTFIRE ON-LINE STORE (art, CDs, clothing)

MY CDs AT CD BABY

the busy-work aspects of selling art

This is the new banner I had to make for my Artfire shop because they made the avatar huge

and moved it from the left to the right. I didn't feel like I had a lot of time, and don't know how many banners I'll have to make in the future, so I rushed through it.

I wonder if they'll move the avatar to another place again.

This is the banner I originally had. I like it more, especially because I could fit in my artwork, but it didn't work with Artfire's new studio design. I put a lot more time and effort into it and it shows. You can see that I still had to push part of the design to the right
(where the avatar used to be -- a smaller avatar than the one in use now):

 

This next design was my first try before settling on the design at the top of the page. It still kept some of the ideas of my old design. Unfortunately, I had to scrap this because the avatar covered up half
of my unicorn relief sculpture and all of the shamrock (sniff, sniff): 



At the same time all of this needed attention, Etsy (my other on-line shop), enacted some changes to the listing process. Hitherto, listing items was mostly about timing because the default search was always recency. The reason why timing is critical in a recency situation is that you had to guess when people might be on Etsy shopping and get your listings on then (as recently listed items were always on the first pages of search). It meant people in England were listing at midnight or later to be seen. In Australia they were often listing at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. This was crazy-making (as a lot of things on Etsy have been -- they seem to be trying to clean up their act lately) and a lot of sellers just renewed unsold items throughout the day, every day, to give them a boost in the rankings rather than risk the chance that their items wouldn't be first in the category search pages. I'm glad Etsy changed the listing procedure from recency to relevancy, but it meant that yesterday and today was about changing my tags (tagging is much more critical in a relevancy structure than a recency structure -- it is how buyers find items using keywords for a specific type of search).

The weeks before all of this, I had to deal with designing, making and buying display units for some of my brick and mortar shops, designing a tote bag, printing my images on teeshirts, packaging cards and writing a letter to a perspective buyer, shopping for art supplies and latex paint, creating signs and flyers and cleaning my studio.

All of this is work I don't get paid for (except the teeshirts) and it took up the good part of three weeks. It is part of what running an art business is all about, though.

I do miss creating my own art. I'm lucky if I even get in a half hour day these days. I see the light at the end of the tunnel however (doing a preliminary dance!).

MY WEBSITE

MY ARTFIRE ON-LINE STORE

MY ETSY ON-LINE STORE

girl baby feet cards, boy baby feet cards

Girl Baby Feet cards
© 2009
newly available on-line through this link

used for congratulations or baby shower with your own insert

Boy Baby Feet cards

© 2009

newly available through this link
used for congratulations or baby shower with your own insert

WEBSITE

MY ARTFIRE ON-LINE STORE

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):

Music MYSPACE

My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:

CD Baby

Amazon

InandOutRecords (Europe)

My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby

Congratulations to Kelleyanne of Discord Threads for her NBC debut!

Kellyanne makes a lot of upcycled clothes and her skirt was featured in Kathie Lee and Hoda's show! Read about her experience through this link.

I first noticed Kellleyanne in the Etsy forums. Her avatar was a golden apple. Later she changed it to a duck holding a golden apple. We both moved to Artfire at the same time and when she moved to Artfire, her avatar was again the simple golden apple she had started out on Etsy with (no duck). She may or may not remember me from the forums, but that doesn't matter because I sure recognized her and was pleased to find out about her success (also guts and determination)!

Have a look at Kelleyanne's creations:

Kelleyanne, Discord Thread's Artfire Shop

Easter gift tags, Bunny in Spring

Bunny in Spring

gift tags

© 2011

I love making gift tag designs, though I'm not entirely thrilled with having to cut them out and ribbon them. I designed these to go with how the tags are cut via the cutter. These are fairly large tags (4.5" x 2.75"). I have them in my Artfire shop through this link and they are also available through some of my brick and mortar stores in my area (find them through this link).

On another note, Kitty Ballistics featured one of my cards on her blog. Have a look at her blog through this link.

MY WEBSITE

ARTFIRE ON-LINE STORE

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):

Music MYSPACE

My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:

CD Baby

Amazon

InandOutRecords (Europe)

My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby

Simon Lovey, Exotic Bird

© 2011

part of the Exotic Bird Series I have been working on

7th in the series

This is listed as a giclee print through this link in my Artfire shop.

I tend to do work on my exotic bird series when I am stressed out or the weather is too hot to think straight. I can just make up what I want as I go along; I don't have to worry about being true to persective or color. I look at these pieces as simply joy.

Joy is a good juxtaposition to being stressed out (sounds so obvious, doesn't it?).

I don't mind telling my readers that my state of stress concerns Etsy's latest privacy breaches. I will go into a lot more detail about the matter in my next blog post, but to briefly keep you abreast, Etsy changed its privacy policies recently and disclosed all buyers' real names to the general public (buyers could opt out of having their real names disclosed-- but many buyers were not aware of any of Etsy's change of privacy policies because they never received Etsy's e-mails). To make a log story short, what people bought on the Etsy site was searchable through google. The story broke on all of the major media (MSNBC, Washington Post, Huffington Post, etc). This effected sellers too, as buyers were blaming sellers for recommending and advertising the site, a site they (the buyers) thought was secure.

At this point, I cannot in good conscience recommend Etsy until this has been worked out to my satisfaction, thus the warning after my Etsy link below:

MY WEBSITE

MY ART IN ON-LINE STORES:

Artfire

(You do not need to be a member of this site to buy—secure site... and largest selection)

Etsy

(You need to be a member of Etsy to buy--secure site... seasonal selection)

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):

Music MYSPACE

My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:

CD Baby

Amazon

InandOutRecords (Europe)

My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby

Holiday Art Show at Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council in Lapham Gallery

This is the postcard for the event (you might have to click on the image to see all of the pertinent information).

I was juried into this show again this year. This is the website for the Art Center if you want to check it out. I will have prints (framed and unframed), cards and gifty art tags for sale. It runs from November 12 - December 24.

I was also in the previous juried group art show at the same center. The show was called "Black and White". I discovered a picture of my entry in their latest newsletter:

You might have to click on this picture too. This one is a pretty tall handthrown porcelain bottle: 2 feet high.

I have some new art pieces I'm racing to finish up. I will post those soon.

And I am trying to fill up my Artfire Shop as much as I can possibly handle (the brick and mortar shops are taking precedence at the moment).

My Website

MY ART IN ON-LINE STORES:

Artfire

Etsy

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):

Music MYSPACE

My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:

CD Baby

Amazon

InandOutRecords (Europe)

My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby



Twin Hearts in Turquoise and Purple, new art print

Twin Hearts in Turquoise and Purple

original is 10.5" x 13.5"

print is 5" x 7" (image size is approximately 4" x 6")

I made the original in 2006 and then altered it in 2009, but never used the alteration until now.

The 5" x 7" print is available in my Artfire On-line Shop.

I am busy with a particularly intricate piece and preparing for holiday shows (both music and art), so I thought I'd show you this one since it will take me some time to show you my present design.

My Website

MY ART IN ON-LINE STORES:

Artfire

Etsy

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):

Music MYSPACE

My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:

CD Baby

Amazon

InandOutRecords (Europe)

My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby

Intricate Heart, before a greeting card design, now a print

I have had this design available as a greeting card for quite awhile, but decided it would make a nice print too.

I have it for sale in my Artfire shop as a 5 x 7 print.

I have been in a number of treasuries on Artfire and on Etsy.

The treasuries on Artfire are:

1. Autumn/Fall... Aren't the colors gorgeous?

2. Leaves... To Return Again

The treasuries on Etsy are:

1. Terrific $10 Temptations

2. Shops from Saratoga Springs

I also made a treasury recently:

1. October Beauties (have a look: you know you want to!)

Tonight I am framing some work for a gallery exhibit.

My Website

MY ART IN ON-LINE STORES:

Artfire

Etsy

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):

Music MYSPACE

My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:

CD Baby

Amazon

InandOutRecords (Europe)

My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby

White Feather original painting & print

White Feather original watercolor and ink

7" x 9"

This is part of the Windswept Doves series. I had a bad flu all last week and this is what I worked on while I was in bed. I always come back to the theme of doves or angels when I'm down. It was slow going because I was mostly sleeping.

When I scanned it in yesterday, it seemed bright, psychedelic and almost neon. I tried different approaches in the computer and came up with this one for a limited edition giclee print:

White Feather limited edition giclee prints

7" x 9"

I have it listed in 2 online shops: Etsy and Artfire (yes, I am presently opening another on-line shop-- more about that later, though I did notice that the one at Etsy presently has 0 views and the one on Artfire has 7 views and they were both put online at the same time... hmmm...).

My Website

MY ART IN ON-LINE STORES:
Artfire
Etsy

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):
Music MYSPACE
My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE
My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:
CD Baby
Amazon
InandOutRecords (Europe)
My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby