I wouldn’t have bothered with setting up a Gallery Website in 1997, when the Web was less a part of our culture. But by 1999 I was more or less obligated to bother with it, and now I have no choice: everybody has a bloody website, so I have to have a website too. What a pain in the arse; I’d far rather be backpacking in New Mexico than helping to upload yet another damned site, as I did recently. But backpacking will have to wait, at least until next month.
What does this have to do with you as an artist? Read on and you’ll see.
Once I learned how to work with our site, I found it beneficial, although I’ve yet to see any great boon develop from it. Art buying, by my experience, is a very firsthand sort of business, where the client normally must see the work before making a decision. But the Web can serve as a useful tool in introducing prospective clients to an artist or gallery; the client can then view more of the artists’ works through mailed visuals, or by appointment. The tough part is getting those clients to find you within the informational black hole that the Web has become.
Normally it is easier for a gallery to be found on the Web than individual artists. Why? Because any well run gallery will make certain that their web address is listed on all business cards, stationery, postcards and ads. They’ll also place their website with a wide variety of search engines. With the amount of marketing that most galleries do, this spreads the information rapidly. Artists by their nature are less likely to promote their website so extensively, but I still feel you should have one, now that they’ve become as common as business cards. I mean all modern technologies throughout history have sooner or later been adopted by artists, whether the Gutenburg Press, box cameras, or email. Websites are no different.
If you’re already with one or more galleries, make certain that they include your work on their site. If possible, try to get them to devote an entire page to your work. You want to set up your own site? I couldn’t advocate that enough. Just be aware that setting up a stunning site can cost several thousand dollars if done through lavish means, or several hundred dollars if done through simpler means: in other words, by using a website service or a computer-savvy grad student.
However you establish it, you’ll have to file the site with numerous search engines. Investigate the ones that are most relevant to what you do. Also list your website address on all business cards, postcards, emails, etc. Without these steps, it will wind up bringing you little impact beyond the fees you’ll pay to maintain it. If it comes to this, you may as well scrap the thing. But if you promote it with an eye toward advancing your Web presence, you’ll find that it will have an impact on your career in indirect ways–and sometimes direct ways, such as an unexpected call from a new client. If you don’t have a site, your chances of advancing are considerably diminished. Personally, I’d rather see you advance; you’ve already paid enough dues.
FYI it only costs me about $160/year to keep my website (http://andreapratt.com) up and running and the updates are dead easy but still flexible once you get the hang of the web host’s site-building tools. With my package I have up to 10 pages included and more than enough capacity. It does take a time investment to get it clean and looking good, but I enjoyed that aspect of it. It’s a very simple website, but I think art websites should be kept simple to best enhance the artwork.
You punk. I wish we could establish and maintain ours for that kind of dough. But of course a gallery’s site is necessarily complex, especially with all of our artists, projects and programs. Do I enjoy helping to update and maintain it? Not at all. Do I find it yet one more cyber intrusion into what would otherwise be a slower pace of life? Yeah. Is it good for business? Undoubtedly, for what that’s worth.
I agree wholeheartedly that every serious artist should have a website. Without mine, I don’t know how I could have reached the clients and galleries I now have.
I just spend a couple of hundred a year on the hosting and the spam filter through my host. I designed and keep up the site myself (self taught). It was a slowly evolving process. Now I just need to remind myself to take pages off and update the “look” now and then.
I have my own web site too, and have had one from the very start of my full time art life. (about 8 years now)
I got mine thru Yahoo, it costs 20.00 bucks a month and I built the site myself. It has taken years to learn what a site should look like, and I am still learning…but it has paid off. I have found new clients, new showings and new commissions from the site. I have even sold a fair amount of work through it…although most clients that buy from my site have already bought a work of mine and know the quality will be there, even though my photography pretty much sucks. Now I am spending my money on a pro photographer and replacing all the pictures with high quality ones…and the bonus of that? Well, now I have great pics and can turn them into prints if I want to. It’s totally worth it to have both a web site and blog as an artist today. Totally.
I think today it is absolutely necessary for anyone who has to offer services or products. Not only for an artist. In order to keep a website business oriented it is also necessary to strictly refrain from personal and private deails – or at least to keep it completely separated. I am sometimes quite irritated to see artist’s websites cluttered with family issues and endeavours – this is not the way to become recognized as a professional.
To have a website also has a practical impact: Websites can save lots of time. Before I contact someone I can check out whether content, service, product is of interest – rather than having to phone, email, visit and waste precious time only to realize that it is not what I was looking for.
Bad example for not doing so:
I got a call from an interior designer company, made an appointment with them under the assumption that the manager had visited my website – only to realize that it was a complete waste of my time AND his time because my work did not fit into his expectations. He told me in a long sermon why he did not see my work fitting to his needs and that he had never time to check out websites before. What a ….
Btw – I am paying 4.95 $ per month to my webhost and an additional 19.95/year for the domain! I created my website entirely myself after I bought a detailed book about HTML coding. I had to invest a lot of time into the learning phase and in fact it never ends but the money you can safe this way is better invested into things you cannot do yourself. The web is full of good tutorials for free – why not utilize them? Additionally I am also using my creativity on the web which can be equally rewarding as finishing a good painting.
Petra Voegtle
http://www.vyala-arts.com/