I am spending time this week really analyzing what I want to do with this blog and with my art – and the art of those of us in our Mixed Media Arts Tucson group. I am working through BlogMasters Club with David Risley and learning a huge amount of information. Part of me is getting discouraged, but another part of me is extremely excited. For those of you interested in building your art business, let me show you what I’m learning.

There is so much information available on line if you are interested in marketing yourself. Knowing what to look for – and the whole issue of key words – has really confused me. So I am taking this step by step. I went looking on Amazon in the categories of buying art and selling art. No magazines in the buying art, becoming an educated art buyer, but there were a couple if interesting books that could be used as resources to round out my own knowledge. The magazines under “art” tend to be “make it yourself” kind – quilting, scrapbooking, sewing – many of the same magazines I tend to buy. But nothing on how to know what and how to buy art. One magazine, Flaunt – $60.00, 10 issues – is supposedly a trendsetter (their words), but had lousy reviews – magazine was just taking money and not delivering. I keep telling myself not to be discouraged, I really do think this will be a potential market – I will need to tweak things.

The two books I found that look really interesting are “The Art of Buying Art” by Paige West and “The Art of Buying Art” by Alan Bamberger (you can click through to Amazon to purchase).  The interiors looked helpful.

From here I went to Google to check out what kinds of forums are available to follow buying and selling art. No question there is traffic here on line, as opposed to strictly magazines. There are about 132,000,000 forums available, I found several within the top fifteen that had potential. They all seem to be focused on artists getting their work out for others to buy. Foundmyself.com is on the honor system for selling, with a first glance of some nice-looking work. I especially like the opening graphic – “artsy” and eye-catching. Emptyeasel.com  had a great article on helping buyers find your work. About three years ago my digital partner and I were talking about an online site to sell art. I think this is going to remorph itself into something within the blog. Given the number of forums, I do think there is market potential. But – I want more than just places to list your art. What about the actual selling – and driving buyers to want to purchase the art? Those are the big questions. Off now to start looking at the keywords.

Now to make some art this weekend! Need to marble some paper, follow up on a wholesale order, get a few fiber pieces ready for a show in March, start planning our new blog Mixed Media Arts Tucson. mark papers, finish the geometry quilt, and get some good walking in. Should be in the 60’s!

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