Lux, Etsy, a Winner and What’s Next
Sign by the Front Door
View from the front entrance
Lux Center For the Arts
My trip to Nebraska for the opening of the shows at the Lux Art Center was short but fun. I arrived in Lincoln not long after 3:30pm on friday and left the next day around noon. I had to get back to Colorado to take my daughter to dinner for her birthday last night.
The opening was well attended and I enjoyed giving another gallery talk. I’ll post more pictures of the show tomorrow and talk about my trip. Today I had a few odds and ends I wanted to write about.
Etsy
I’ve decided to try Etsy again. I was deciding between shutting down the shop or using it to sell some of my older work. Because the fees are so low I decided to give it a try. If this doesn’t work out well or feel right I think the next plan is to try putting something on my website, which is in the process of being redesigned. I’m moving the entire thing to wordpress so it’s easier to maintain.
| Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade LisaCall.etsy.com |
I’d Rather Be In The Studio
As I mentioned last tuesday, I’m giving away a copy of Alyson Stanfield’s wonderful book I’d Rather Be in the The Studio.
I used an online random number generator to select the winner – and that winner is Patty O’Rourke. Thanks to everyone for playing along and creating the links. Patty – congrats! Contact me with your address and I’ll get the book in the mail to you.
What’s Next
I spent some time on the 7 hour drive home from Nebraska thinking about what’s next for me. On January 1st I posted the following goals for my art career:
- I complete the new Markings pieces that I need for my solo show at the Macky Gallery in February by February 14th.
- I frame my plains drawings by February 14th so they can be included in my solo show.
- I create new Structures pieces for my solo show at Lux art center by March 15th.
- I complete all paperwork and provide requested materials for both solo shows and the show I am curating at the Lux on time.
- I ship all artwork for upcoming juried shows on time (Materials Hard and Soft, Art Quilt Elements, Artist as Quiltmaker XIII at Firelands Association for the Visual Arts).
- I determine with crystal clarity my definition of success for my art career.
- I write goals for the remainder of the year that will lead me to the success I define.
I’ve now completed 1-5 with some minor exceptions. Like deciding to skip #2 so I could hang more of my textile paintings and I won’t be shipping the work to FAVA until the end of the month.
That leaves me with 6 & 7. My goal is to complete #6 (my definition of success) by April 13th and post it on my blog. Then I’ll move on to #7.
What’s Happening in the Studio
Honestly – not much. I completed the work for my 2 shows and haven’t done much since. I put a total of 3 or 4 hours of work into my studio in March. I was sick for longer than I’d like to admit. I had an infection that resulted in a very unpleasant lower back ache and I had no motivation to make art. Now that I’m healthy I can’t wait to get back to my studio.
Time to head there now.
Posted by Lisa in: Being an Artist
Tagged: Alyson Stanfield, Etsy, goals, lux center for the arts
Lisa, is it straightforward moving over your website to Wordpress? Because I’ve considered it – I assume you use Wordpress pages, do you? Is it possible to redirect your domain name to a blog webpage? (I assume that’s what you’d have to do, is it? ie. if I’ve got http://www.lizplummer.com could I redirect it to http://www.lizplummer.com/blog/whatever the homepage wordpress page is called?)
I’ve had an Etsy shop since the beginning of this year and I’ve found that to sell anything you really have to push it all the time and spend time in the forums and in street teams getting to know people… so far, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll ease off as I get known. I’ve had fun getting to find out about other makers in other media anyway in the process!
I don’t leave comments much these days on your blog but I really enjoy reading your posts.
Thanks Liz. We’ll see how etsy goes.
As for the website – I suppose ’straight forward’ depends on your level of comfort with the technology. And yes – I’m using pages for the ’static’ portion of my website (all of those pages are being redesigned and rewritten).
I’m not sure I understand your question about the URLs but you can set any page in your wordpress site to be your home page – doesn’t have to be your blog.
Yeah, Etsy’s fees are pretty cheap. The hidden cost, like Liz said, is the time you need to spent hawking your goods to get any sales. I think most buyers on Etsy are other shop keepers — I don’t know if Etsy has been too successful reaching outside markets.
Lisa, have you had much success with the Guild.com store?
Daniel – I don’t intend on putting any time into selling on etsy. I’ve sold nothing on guild.com – but have friends that sell quite a bit.
Hi Lisa
Thanks for that. What I mean is, if people type in http://www.lizplummer.com they will get to my website and http://www.lizplummer.com/blog they will get to my blog – but pages will all be under http://www.lizplummer.com/blog, won’t they? Because it is a subdomain or a directory (never quite sure which is which…). So presumably if I made one of the pages within the wordpress setup to be my homepage, it couldn’t be http://www.lizplummer.com, UNLESS I could set up a redirect. But I don’t know if I can set up a redirect if that page is a subset of the main domain.
Liz