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

   

introducing the Tartbeats!

I made the banner 

(except the flying monkey with the shield on the left; that was made by Beth of Great Graphics)

Find out about us HERE (we just started a blog). 

We orginanally all came from Artfire, then became a team of close friends who support each other and chat about everything under the sun. Some of us are in the process of starting up our own e-commerce sites. We are a diverse group of sellers (supplies, vintage, art and handmade). 

I think we are an unusual team because most teams have a medium in common. We have friendship in common. We invite you to become a friend too by following our blog and commenting on our posts. Hope to see you there! 

Meet Bette Be Good Vintage and Another Time Vintage Apparel!

Vintage 1980s Black Beaded Belt with Multi Colored Flowers XS 26 waist

available HERE

I always loved cummerbund belts from the 1980s. I still have many of them from that era in my closet that I still wear (gave up the big hair that went with these, though!).

Bette has several shops. She primarily focuses on vintage apparel from the Victorian era through the 1960s (but tries to narrow her focus even more to the 1940s - 1950s). This belt is an exception.

Bette's website is Another Time Vintage Apparel and the Etsy shop that featured this belt is Bette Be Good Vintage. Bette also has another Etsy shop called Bette's Bargains.

(Tina of Blue Tine Jewellery also has a blog post about Bette this week HERE). 

Meet Lyn of 3 Cedars Jewelry!

Jasper Pendant with Copper Spirals

by 3 Cedars Jewelry

available HERE

Lyn has been making jewelry for 20 years. Today I am focusing on her wire wrapped jewelry, but she has many other kinds of styles available in her Etsy shop HERE.

Lyn has a daytime job as an Optician. 

Here is another piece by Lyn:

 Tigers Eye Pendant with Copper Spirals

by 3 Cedars Jewelry

available HERE

Here is another piece:

Agate Pendant with Drusy and Silver Filled Spirals

by 3 Cedars Jewelry

available HERE

Lyn also makes earrings in this style:

Ametrine Rough Cut Earrings

by 3 Cedars Jewelry

available HERE

Meet Becky of Seventh Child!

Brass Filigree Necklace by Seventh Child

available from her Etsy store HERE for $22.00

It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Becky! Becky has a lot of different kinds of jewelry designs in her Etsy shop, but I am focusing on her jewelry which has a Celtic or Renaissance/Medieval flair for those of my readers who are Renaissance Faire re-enactors or Renaissance musicians (of which I am one). Wouldn't this look great with a courtier's outfit?

Have a look at this one too:

Medieval Style Necklace by Seventh Child

available from her Etsy store HERE

 Here is a detail picture of the same necklace:

detail of Medieval Style Necklace

The reason why Becky's shop is called "Seventh Child" is an interesting one. Please read on (borrowed from her profile page in her Etsy shop):

I am the seventh of seven children and was born on the seventh day (Sunday) at seven in the morning weighing seven pounds seven ounces(really, it's on my birth certificate). It was shear coincidence that all four of my names wound up with seven letters each, but, still, it happened. Hence "Seventh Child".

I love that story!

Here is another one like the previous styles:

Dragon Necklace with a Filigree Medallion on a Brass Chain Choker by Seventh Child

available from her Etsy shop HERE

These are a bit of a departure from the others, but would still look great at a Renaissance faire or a Celtic festival:

Dragon Necklace with Obsidian Teardrop on Hand Beaded Glass Chain by Seventh Child

available from her Etsy shop HERE

Pewter Celtic Knot Earrings with Green Drop Beads by Seventh Child

available from her Etsy shop HERE

Meet Pam of Epicetera!

Arrow Head Necklace

by Pam of Epicetera

available in her Etsy shop HERE

I just love that one! The incorporation of an arrowhead into a piece of jewelry. Here is another stunning necklace made by Pam (looks like a modern painting, doesn't it?):

Citrine Nugget Necklace

by Pam of Epicetera

available in her Etsy shop HERE

Pam is located in the southwest. She gets inspired by searching for gemstones in remote places. 

Disney Productions bought some of her items to use in their movie production of "Tiger Town." Pretty impressive, eh?

She loves making one of a kind pieces and designs which show a lot of artistry. 

Her Etsy shop is HERE. She also has a great blog where she talks about "everything you always wanted to know about gemstones" (amongst other topics): look for that HERE.

She also has a website! You can go HERE to see that!

Here are some more pieces by the talented Pam:

Meet Babs of Croweshea!

Cotton Crochet Scarf with lime green, turquoise and yellow

by Babs of Croweshea (on Etsy)

this scarf is available HERE

Isn't this a fun way to display a scarf? Every time I see Babs avatar or her pictures flashing through my circles on Etsy, I giggle! I don't think anyone on Etsy is doing this, so it is inventive indeed! 

Babs learned how to create crochet fashions from her Mom at an early age. You can see the rest of Babs's store HERE. 

Here are some more of Bab's creations with her signature bear:

available HERE

available HERE

meet Cindy of cctexan3

large chunky necklace amethyst with 52mmfocal flower 18 inch

by Cindy of cctexan

available through Cindy's Etsy shop HERE

Today I am promoting Cindy of cctexan3. Isn't this piece beautiful? As you may have guessed, Cindy is from Texas. She makes jewelry with her Mom. You can find a lot more of Cindy's jewelry in her Etsy shop HERE.

meet Cynthia Lariviere of "Wire Your World"!

Natural Pink Mother of Pearl 14k Gold Filled Wire Art Pendant
by Cynthia Lariviere

available here on Etsy

This is just one of many pieces of jewelry you will find from Cynthia in her Etsy shop.

Cynthia has been working with wire for several years. She is self taught jeweler and it became a full time occupation in 2006. She sells her work at a lot of weekend art and craft shows. She won first place in the jewelry category at the Oviedo Butterfly & Nature Art Show in 2007.

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!

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

admiration for ArtdeJoie

I can't resist telling you about this! Remember I had done a satire piece about Etsy called "Etsy Deluge" (complete with owl, cowl, mustache and the kinds of clouds that Etsy loves)? If not, here it is again (this was the blog post about it if you want to delve further):

Well, after I posted it, ArtdeJoie told me she was working on her own satire piece. It is called, Hipster Jury. Here it is:

Hipster Jury by ArtdeJoie

Copyright Joy Appenzeller Bauer, 2011
(click on the painting above to buy from ArtdeJoie-- if it has sold, she may have prints, so check the rest of her shop too)

It is modeled from the Henri Gervex painting, "Salon Jury".

In the 1800s in Paris during a time when Impressionism was in full swing, the all-powerful Paris Salon, which put on the premier exhibits of its day, rejected Impressionist works (the ones we so admire today) and tilted their curation unfairly towards certain kinds of painting styles, defined as Academic.

In ArtdeJoie's painting, the artists who get preferential treatment are not based on merit or formal fine art training, but upon subject matter: the owl, fox, mustache and cupcake. Further promotion is granted based on hearts, tweet frequency, popularity, networking circles and conformity to hipster tastes.

Indeed, in a recent Etsy Success Writing Workshop on Etsy's website, mtraub says, "Your MFA and press mentions are all well and good, but I'm far more persuaded to buy your resin sculpture because of your weekend zydeco band and passion for coleslaw."  

Really?

Anyway, I admire ArtdeJoie and her "Hipster Jury" painting.

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

Etsy Deluge, the Etsy privacy issue

Etsy Deluge

© 2011

watercolor, ink and a tad of colored pencil

painted in response to Etsy's latest buyer privacy issues

(note: only Etsians will get what this piece is about. But, to enlighten those not privvy to the joke, it has to do with Etsy's front page, which for years focused on owls, cowls, mustaches and certain kinds of rain clouds-- to the point of radically over-doing it, at least to many who sell on the site). 

For the moment, if you want this piece, it is available as an original 11" x 14" watercolor through this link

or as a 5" x 7" print through this link from my Artfire on-line store. Other purchasing opportunities may avail themselves at some point, so check back for the edit on this page.

Anyway, the privacy debacle started out in the Penny Arcade forums where a buyer's name came up in a google search with the artisan dildo she bought on Etsy. Yup, all out there for her grandmother, co-workers and the world to see! It was placed in the google search under her name on the first page of the search, right after her on-line job resumes. Why? Because Etsy changed their privacy policy to make real names of buyers come up in searches. The only way for buyers to change their privacy settings was to log onto the site and change them manually.

Etsy claims to have e-mailed everyone about the change, but the e-mail was buried in a newsletter about how to take great catalog worthy product photography. Also, many buyers only came to the site once to buy or discontinued their e-mail addresses, so many were not notified. I have strong spam filters on my web-mail address (if I didn't, I would get thousands of spam messages a day-- as it is, I get anywhere from 700 to 1,000 now). So, I never got the e-mail either.

From there, Ars Technica took up the story. In the Ars Technica comments section after the article, there was a "battle royal" going on in the forums between Etsy's CEO, Rob Kalin (along with some of his Etsy staffers) and the sellers and buyers of Etsy. What angered sellers and buyers most was that they had been complaining in the Etsy forums about the "opt out" (of having your name shown in searches unless you opted out)-- arguing that it should only be an "opt in" situation. Every forum that was brought up about the situation was immediately closed and some of the sellers were also "muted", i.e. not allowed to post in the forums any longer.

From the Ars Technica article, it went viral. The list was substantial in the end (click on each name to see each site's article on the matter): MSNBC, Washington Post, Consumerist, Huffington Post, Yahoo, BoingBoing, Forbes, Digital Trends, Help Net Security, NY Magazine, NY Convergence, Auctionbytes, The Business Insider, Gizmodo, The Village Voice, The Mary Sue, BuzzFeed, About, Reputation, Salon, Now Public and Geek Sugar.

This was preceeded with lots of other bad press including the rape card fiasco and the Glamour fiasco. Click on these preceeding links if you want to understand what it is about.

I was personally effected by the rape card fiasco. Two women customers, who saw the unflattering story break on CNN, came into a brick and mortar gallery where I was working and wanted me to sign the petition to force Etsy to take the rape cards down from its site. And then they looked at me and asked why I would want to sell on a site like that, not realizing that Etsy is not all about dildos, radical art and Regretsy type items. I do think the outside world mainly regards Etsy as an off-the-wall kind of marketplace filled to its brim primarily with Regretsy items and Keep it Weird items when actually the opposite is true: there are more artists making exceptionally unweird items than weird ones, they just never get much press.

It's not getting much better over at Etsy.com. The recent article in Inc Magazine portrays Etsy as a giant flea market and its CEO as crazy:

Inc Magazine, April 2011:
“Today, Kalin is socially awkward, reticent and given to eccentricities which seem downright crazy.”

Kalin speaks in the article too: (Inc Magazine, April 2011):
"I speak to people in the business world and the technology world, but I don't admire them", he says, pointing an 8-inch combat knife at me for emphasis.

There's more, but I won't go further.

I know a lot of sellers are having a difficult time selling, and many blame the latest happenings (if they are allowed to speak out-- you mostly have to look off of the Etsy site to find out how sellers are really taking it all).

Needless to say, I don't really fit in (in terms of what they like to promote). If I made owls, cowls, mustaches and certain kinds of watercolors and Regretsy types of items, I would. But I don't (normally!). I'm trying to figure out what to do about my own shop on Etsy and in the meantime primarily focusing on my Artfire shop and the brick and mortar gallery scene in my area, which is sober in comparison. I'm not recommending or actively advertising Etsy at all to my brick and mortar customers primarily because of the privacy issues. All I need is my brick and mortar customers coming into the store with "Why didn't you tell us that our names would be splashed all over google and that our e-mail boxes would be bombarded by spam!"

I still have a few things listed at Etsy. If you love Etsy, then make sure your privacy settings are the way you want them!

Here is a close-up of the owl's face, complete with mustache:

edited to add: more on this subject through this link.

links:

MY WEBSITE
SOME OF MY ART FOR SALE ON ARTFIRE

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

original drawings on small jigsaw puzzles

Mermaids and Fishes II

© 2011

Mermaids and Fishes I

© 2011

Stars and Doves I

© 2011

Leddy, the Exotic Bird

© 2011

Note: I was planning on this blog post being about the Etsy privacy disaster (as promised from the previous post), but I am putting it off until the next time I blog. It's more pleasant to share new work:

The puzzles (above) are pieces I made yesterday and today. They are original drawings using india ink and professional artist's markers on small blank jigsaw puzzles. Very liberating! I usually plan most of my artworks with preliminary drawings. This is the first time in years when I just took my pen and drew. In other words, I winged it!

I am putting them up for sale in my artist's co-operative gallery, Valley Artisans Market.

Valley Artisans Market celebrated their 30th anniversary this last Sunday with a potluck for members (past and present) and their families.

I usually don't post work that I take to galleries and shops, but perhaps I will start.

Valley Artisans Market is a combination gallery/artisan's market/gift shop. Everything in the shop is locally made. My own handmade items in this shop include framed giclee prints, small wheel thrown vessels and sculptures, greeting cards, gift tags, jig saw puzzles, painted and printed teeshirts and painted and printed tote bags. They also allow me to have my CDs for sale in the shop.

The shop is located in a town very close to where Grandma Moses lived and painted and is often filled with summer and autumn tourists who want a taste of an older America. The area hasn't changed too much since she lived there. The houses still look like the houses she painted. There are no big box stores except a small Cumberland Farms and an Agway. There are no condos, parking lots or apartment buildings. It is like stepping back in time.

The gallery is what you'd expect in an area where Grandma Moses lived: fairly conservative with lots of paintings of the rural landscape and farm animals. Perhaps my work is less conservative than most of the work in the gallery.

links:

MY WEBSITE

VALLEY ARTISAN MARKET

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

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

Oak Leaf with Acorn Border

(note: copyright watermarks do not appear in actual art)

After my last project ("Pumpkin Faerie"... refer to last blog post), this was a relatively unambitious project. I had been out walking last weekend and picked up some acorns and a clump of oak leaves. I put them on a small table next to me as I finished the pumpkin faerie. They kept "speaking to me" out of the corner of my eye, as the saying goes, and as soon as I was done with the faerie, I started right in on this one.

Right now, I've got it for sale as a print in ye olde online store. (edited on 12/16/11 to say it is also available through my Artfire on-line store, which at prersent has the largest selection). I will probably be adding greeting cards & fine art gift tags in this design too at some point.

I also got a piece accepted into a juried art exhibit called "Black and White" at Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center. The opening for the exhibit is October 1, 2010 from 5 - 7. And yes, I will be at the opening unless I get the miserable cold that everyone in my family has (ugh). 

Here is the front of the postcard (© Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center):



I've also spent some time making Etsy treasuries this month (it is a good way to network & support each other). Here are my recent treasuries. I show them in the order I did them, i.e. my first in the month to my latest (note: if there appear to be missing items, it is either because they sold or expired after the treasury was made):

Coolest September

The next one was made for a group of artists who I got to know through a particular forum (many of whom are overlooked by the company) to show the company that there are worthwhile items on Etsy than the sellers they constantly promote:

Gorgeous September 

This next one was also made for these same group of artists: 

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

This one was made late on the evening after my walk through the woods picking up oak leaves and acorns:

Squirrels and Acorns

I've also been featured in treasuries by some of the same artists that I featured. I will share that with you next time.

My Website
My Artfire on-line store (largest selection)

My Etsy on-line store (seasonal selection)
Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My band site: Saratoga Faire

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

Pumpkin Faerie

(note: copyright watermarks do not appear in actual product;

you may have to click on image to get the full effect)



A pumpkin faerie, just in time for autumn! The original is 14" x 18.25" and watercolor and ink. I am selling these as prints in ye olde online store.

This one took a long time. Since mid August! Interrupting my progress was a huge harvest, putting food by for the winter, a gig in Bolton Landing, applying for grant funded gigs, entering a juried show at Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center (which I still haven't heard back from), painting frames (for a gallery exhibit) and painting more OSWOAs.  

My Website

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

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My band site: Saratoga Faire

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

edited on 12/16/11 to add that I also have her available in my Artfire on-line store which at this point has a much larger selection than my Etsy shop.

updates, new member of the Etsy Visual Arts Team

I'm a new member of the Etsy Visual Arts Team (VAST team for short). I'll be posting recent works on their blog as well as this one, though the rule is only wall art, so I won't be posting greeting cards, tags, CDs, pottery & music updates.  But you can still count on those posts here.
The link to their blog on blogspot is here. I already have a new post up.

I am planning on putting some of my pottery up in my Etsy on-line store soon. I have been slowly draining out my pottery inventory from brick and mortar galleries to sell on-line. I'll be emphasizing drawings, paintings, greeting cards, prints, tags and journals for brick and mortar galleries and shops, but will no longer be selling pottery in a brick and mortar gallery unless it is for a specific art exhibit.

I will also be phasing out my "gift shop" pottery unless on-line sales are amazing.

If I do work in clay again in the future, my plan is to make only art pottery & sculpture.

But before I can post my pottery here, first we have a performance coming up at a folk festival in the Lake George area and I am entering a piece into a juried exhibit. So, those things take precedence before I can start the long process of picture-taking, listing and configuring shipping. I'll post as soon as I've figured out all of the issues with listing on-line.

link to

Etsy Visual Artist's Team Gallery

other links

My Website

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

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My band site: Saratoga Faire

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