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

   

Flippy the Feather Duster, Exotic Bird Series

(note: copyright watermark does not appear in actual piece)

Here is another piece from my exotic bird series. You can see prior ones in this blog. The others were painted on thick bristol, but I got tired of worrying about the paints running too much, so I switched to Arches watercolor for this one.

I have this one up in the on-line store as tags, but will be adding prints soon. (note: edit on 12/16/11: the piece is available as a print.  Check my Artfire on-line shop or Etsy on-line shop for availability)

Painting these is just so much fun. No need to worry about borders, backgrounds, foregrounds, a context or perspective. Just create a new creature. Almost a new concept for me!

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)
My Artfire on-line store for purchasing CDs and some of my art (largest collection)

My Etsy on-line store (smaller collection for purchase)
My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

A Unicorn Escapes (also titled a Pawn Escapes)

Continuing with my love of millefeur (see my last 2 blogs)!

The second title refers to chess: any being that is not a king, queen, rook, castle or bishop is a pawn. I also blogged about a raven pawn here.

This is available at this point in time as a limited edition archival print at Lower Adiroindack Regional Art Center and through my Etsy shop.

This is a piece I did in 2008, but it is the first time I have posted it here. It goes with the general theme I have been working on since 2005 which you can find on my website here (the theme includes pottery, painting and fabric). A lot of it was shown for the first time at a 5 person show called Once Again at the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center.

All of this is "additional" work and meant to fulfill artistic longings, so I don't have as much of this work completed as I would like. My "real jobs" at the moment are greeting card designer and musician. I try to work on my "show" themes when I can find time.

In this piece, I am just starting to get into millefleur mode. The copper border and unicorn choker is much nicer and richer than the scan depicts. It features playing card suits (hearts, spades, diamond and clubs).

Here is a detail of the unicorn:

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Wedding and Anniversary Custom Art Archival Print with Two Trees and Two Doves

Note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in the actual art. You may have to zoom in to see what it really looks like.

This is a piece I have been slowly working on during my phase of painting very detailed pieces. The detailed pieces are still not completed, but I managed to complete this one.

It is a series of custom prints that I am working on just for Etsy. I had been browsing the site one night and saw a number of tree and dove art pieces for weddings and anniversaries and most were stark graphic depictions in 2 - 3 colors. I thought I'd try a more painterly approach and see what happened. The sky is actually painted seperately from everything else because I wanted to try a number of sky colors. I'll be posting those versions soon in the same place.

The piece is indeed up in my Etsy shop here. I notice that it is getting more views than usual, so maybe Etsy is a wedding store? A place where people buy gifts? Who knows. It's my first on-line store experience aside from CD stores and my website store and I'm still trying to figure out who the community is.

I have been sick with the flu for awhile… huge necessary detour… and this art piece seemed like a good one to take a chance on as my fever was diminishing (with a few symptoms lingering). I just didn't feel comfortable delving into pieces that are taking a long time to design and complete and where a wrong move could derail months of work.

It's not a masterpiece (as so many gifty things aren't), but something that may have appeal in that community.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)
My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby