Let Me Re-Introduce Women In Yellow

This is my first painting in my Women Series.  I first thought of this series when a friend recommended I paint something for the restaurant, Quiet Woman.  Quiet Woman is located on Pacific Coast Highway in Corona del Mar, CA and has been there for more than 25 years.  The Quiet Woman hangs original artwork throughout their walls, but the paintings are all of women.

Women in Yellow
2010
40"h x 30"w x 2"d
Private Collection

I'm happy to say Women in Yellow never made it to Quiet Woman, because it sold to a private collector the minute I released it.  It prompted another painting called Dancer in Blue.  I have found that the majority of people who comment about my paintings, end up commenting about the Women Series.  I thought  I would take this opportunity to share what Women in Yellow means to me.  I would love for you to leave a comment about what it means to you.

The color of yellow represents light.  The light can be as big as the sun or as small as a fire fly.  In this case, the yellow represents the light in Women.  The light we bring to the world.  The light we share as daughters, as wives, and as mothers.  Yellow is also a power color.  Women in Yellow represents the powerful Women out there.  Thirty years ago, you may not have had a Woman running a Fortune 100 company.  Now, Women are creating Fortune 100 companies.  Women in Yellow represents those women who broke through any barriers they encountered.  Women are now running for President or Vice-President of the United States.  It's incredible how far we have come in the business world.

Maybe, like me, you're a Mom.  And what more powerful of a business can that be?  This could be where our light shines the brightest.  We are the gate for the next generation.  We share our fears, joys, and moments together about our children.  Maybe on the playground after dropping our kids off at school or during the many play dates we organize.

For many of you, its balancing both.  A highly demanding career and the demands of raising a family.  You represent both Women in the painting.  I'm proud of all the Women for everything we do!

I can't wait to paint more from this series.  Any ideas, any thoughts?  It would be great to hear from you what should the third painting of this series be?  I am very interested to hear what the Women in this painting means to you.  Please share.

Amy

What Makes You So Special?

OK, this doesn't have anything to do with art and YES, it's a total rant.  I wasn't even planning on writing a blog today, but a series of events happened that makes me want to SCREAM.  AAAAHHHHHHH!!!  OK, I feel better.  I'll feel even better after I bang this post out.  Notice this car sitting right there.  This is an elementary school.  Apparently the driver felt they were so special they should be allowed to park in a red zone within a couple of feet from a fire hydrant.  This person will say, oh but I was just running in to get my child.  Well, I took this picture after seeing it parked when I arrived and it was still there when I left.  Coincidentally, this school had its library burn down and was closed for about 15 years.  Notice how close the regular parking places are?  WTF??

How about all of you in the corporate world?  Have you worked so hard on something only to have someone else take credit for it when the deal closes.  You busted your ass to create the product, or you worked hours upon hours to fix things others broke, or you took phone calls after hours to calm someone's nerves, BUT there's this person who says, if it wasn't for me...  OR I did this and if it wasn't for that...  WTF?  (By the way, WTF stands for What the Flagnog, as my 5 year old puts it)  Are people really that insecure that they need to step on the other people to make sure they get credit?

In Jim Collins book Good to Great, he discusses the 5 tool CEO.  A significant difference between a good company and a great company is often the CEO.  The key characteristics of that CEO is they surround themselves with talented people and they always PUBLICLY recognize those people.  The CEO's that are all about "ME," well it eventually catches up to them.

Today, I had an e-mail conversation with someone who will remain unnamed.  I couldn't believe how much "me me me" was plastered all over the conversation.  Me and this person lost a decent size opportunity to do a few things together regarding art.  Let me start by saying, I discovered the opportunities which involve my art and I brought this person in because they had pre-existing relationships.  My feeling is 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.  Needless to say, we lost one of the opportunities today.  I naturally asked about the other three and I couldn't believe the "if it wasn't for me" sentences I got.  Excuse me?  My art, my relationship building, my decision to bring you in on it.

The great thing is I learned so much about this person BEFORE I'm wildly successful.  Luckily, I'm only a little successful, so they haven't benefitted from me too much.  OK, this was a little bit about art.

Chances are, you are not the White Knight, you think you are.  But if you ARE the White Knight, people will know it without you saying anything.  And next time you feel so special that you can park in a red zone next to a fire hydrant, think again.

Come on, now I KNOW, you have a similar story to these.  Tell me yours.  I would love to read them, because I know it will make me feel better.

I Don't Understand Artists and I Am One

I've written a few posts about marketing an art business.  I started my business officially in May of 2010.  So far I have been doing everything on my own.  It is tough and there is a lot to learn.  Here are a list of some of the stories I have written about marketing:


Facebook, Not Just a Social Network
Put Your Art in a Family or Friends Office
OK, Now I'm Adding Twitter to the Mix
Tell a Story and Your Potential Clients will Connect With You More
Be Persistent and Stay Ahead of the Competition


I've posted these articles on various sites and I amazed at the different comments that come back to me when it comes to actually selling art.  It seems the majority of artists are OK with taking their God given talent and showing it to the world, but not OK with asking to be paid for it.  Or asking someone to display it.  My article titled Be Persistent and Stay Ahead of the Competition got me the most animosity by far.  I wrote making phone calls to get your word out.  Wow, did people freak out about that one.  Here are some of the quotes:


I'm doing pretty well on the Facebook, calling seems too pushy to me ;)


Personally (and this may not be good business practice, but its just how I am) I am not going to chase someone down to buy something. Either they want it or they don't.


And my favorite,


I think it's age-related. Younger people, these days, don't call anyone, myself included and I'm 43 - they text, email, Facebook. Those over 50 generally do call. So let's keep this in mind if we know the age of the person we're trying to connect with, it might be helpful. The younger people I work with find phone calls too 'annoying' (their words)


The consensus for most artists seems to be that making an effort to market their art, other than through the internet, is just too pushy.  They don't want to be considered a used car salesmen.  They are fine having a web site, Tweeting, having a Facebook Page and certainly having their art on several online art galleries.  But they stop short of using the phone.  That's when they become a salesmen in their mind.


Maria Brophy, who is her Husband, Drew's Art Agent wrote a blog the other day after having a, seemed to be, heated conversation with someone who felt artists shouldn't be paid for their art.  Well Maria feels the way I do about it.  She wrote about how she felt during the conversation.  It is titled Why Artists Should (Not) Be Paid for Their Artwork.  I would argue that people's perception of arts value is partly our fault as artists.  Its almost more vogue to be a starving artist than a successful artist.  


Let me tell you.  I don't agree.  I love making my art and I love it more when someone appreciates it and wants to pay for it.  There are millions of artists out there.  Some are very good and others aren't so good.  Its like any profession.  You have your top 10%, your bottom 10% and everything in between.  Have you ever looked at a piece of art that is extremely similar to yours, but that piece sold for $10,000 and you're struggling to sell yours for $500.  Why is that?  Maybe they have been at it longer then you.  I'm sure they started out selling at a lower price.  I bet the difference is their marketing and business skills.  I bet they don't mind making a phone call to follow up with someone who showed interest in their work.  I also bet they are confident in their talent to put a price tag on it and not give it up for anything less.


I see artists as my competition.  Besides my art, I always have to think of why someone is going to buy my art over someone else's.  Or why a gallery is going to want to display my art over someone else's.  


This may piss you off, but I think my marketing and business skills is what will differentiate me over my competition.  I don't think my art is better.  I have a price tag on it and I am comfortable with the price.  I know people will hate my art and not understand why people would buy it.  I'm OK with that because there are billions of people in this world.  I don't need many of them to like it to be successful.  If the majority of my competition is scared to make a phone call or feels too pushy when they do so, then I'm ahead of my competition already. 


Some of the successful artists I am familiar with are Chandra Michaels, Drew Brophy and Alison Jardine.  I don't believe for one second they got to the level they are, because they were afraid to "sell" their art.  People are coming to them now because they have made a name for themselves, but I can assure you they didn't start their web sites or Facebook pages and sat back while people just found them.


Tell me your thoughts.  Tell me to eff off.  It's OK.  I would love to hear all the different opinions out there.

Facebook, Not Just a Social Network

About four months ago, we discovered that Facebook has a lot of great tools for small businesses. I’m talking about Facebook Pages. I remember a friend of mine on Facebook was constantly using his Facebook status to promote his business. Every once in a while someone would make a comment that Facebook was for social purposes, not business purposes. Now you can have the best of both worlds using Facebook Pages. Facebook lets you create a business page and attach it to your profile. This way you can promote your work without upsetting your friends. You may need to spend some time getting your friends to hit “like” on your business page, but eventually you can have the two be completely separate.

Facebook Ads allows you to create a small ad that shows up on the right hand side of Facebook Pages. You can target what geographical areas, age groups, and interests you would like to target. For example, we target people between Los Angeles and San Diego, aged 35 and up, and are interested in Art. That represents about 44,000 people. Every time your ad shows up, its called an Impression. A Click is when someone actually clicks on your ad. You can pay by the Impression or the Click. The great thing is, you can limit how much money you want to spend on your ad. We spend $10 a day. For $10, we average about 21,000 Impressions a day. We have ran our ad for 50 days and spent $500. For $500 we have had 995,925 Impressions, 1,125 Clicks and over 200 total strangers become a fan of Amy Pryor Fine Art. That’s $0.01 per 20 Impressions, $0.44 per Click and $2.50 per Fan. $2.50 to have someone see my updates on their Facebook Home Page is better than any other advertising I can think of. Maybe it doesn’t compare to ads on TV, but how much do those cost?

Don’t think of Facebook as just a social network. It can do a lot for your business. I’m excited to see just how far Facebook or Social Networking in general can go.

SEO: Written by a Newport Beach Artist

Today I read a 27 page report about Search Engine Optimization and how it could help my blog and business.  I'm OK with the computer to maybe the second or third level down, but after that my eyes start glazing over.  I figure if I'm really going to use online marketing to sell my art, I better learn some of this stuff.  Search Engine Optimization or SEO is what you do to get more people to visit your site.

Think about what you are or what you do for a living.  I am a contemporary artist who lives in Newport Beach, CA.  I Googled, Newport Beach Contemporary Artist, and after scrolling through the first 10 pages, I clearly saw that my website, blog site, or facebook page did not show up.  I am obviously not Search Engine Optimizing.  I did the same thing with just Newport Beach Artist.  Nope, zip, nada.  No Amy Pryor Fine Art.

So, this little nifty 27 page report said I needed to have better titles so these spider thingys can crawl on my site and categorize it into indexes.  Notice, I called this blog "SEO: Written by a Newport Beach Artist."  I'm assuming those spider thingys are having a hay day with that title.  Maybe I'll find my way to the 10th Google Page.

It also said to have links on my site so the spiders can cross over from other popular sites and vice versa.  These spiders like to know you hang around with other people.  If you want to read the full 27 page report, click here.  See what I just did there.  The report was written by Brian Clark, the founder of CopyBlogger and Scribe.  Apparently he is a big deal in the SEO world.  I just did another one of the tips.  Mention other well known people.

Of course, your content needs to be good so that people want to read it.  But SEO is what leads people to you so they can read it.

Another thing you should do is use taglines.  Ahah. Now I know what that is in my Blog settings.  A tagline can be considered another title for this article.  Maybe "How an Artist Uses SEO" or "SEO Basics for the Beginning Artist."  This way it has a better chance of being found when someone does a search.

Another SEO tactic is guest blogging on someone else's blog.  This way you can post your sites on that blog and direct that person's followers to you.  Similar to what I mentioned earlier but adding the guest blogging part.  My guess is, you're already doing a pretty good job if someone wants you to guest blog for them.

To recap:

• Google a title for yourself and see if you show up
• Make sure your title is "search" friendly
• Have links on your site directing it to other websites
• Have good content
• Use taglines or multiple titles to the same website or blog
• Guest blog, so your website can be attached to someone else's website

There are some real basics to getting started in SEO.  Hay, I'm an artist, not a tech expert.  If you want more in depth details, read Brian Clark's How to Create Compelling Content that Ranks Well in Search Engines.

Of course, if you would like to look at some beautiful art go to www.amypryorfineart.com

Amy Pryor

Newport Beach Contemporary Artist  ;)

When Are You Too Successful?

As I was scouring the many Tweets I get for good information, I saw that @redheadwriting posted one of her Bitchslap articles.  These are one of my must reads whenever she posts one.  She was ranting about a blogger who deleted her comment since it was not supportive of his blog.  You can read it at The Bitch Slap: This Is Not How You Run a Blog.  She wrote about poor Michael's handling of her comment regarding his blog: 50 Most Influential People in Blogging 2010.  Of course, I needed to look at the list to see what all the fuss was about.

Me being new to the blogger world, I wasn't familiar with any of the names listed.  I noticed that only 1 of the top 20 bloggers was a woman.  Her name is Katie Freiling.  I checked out her site and read her story.  She offered 7 days worth of Social Media training free, so I signed up for it.  You can too at www.katiefreiling.com.  I noticed that each of her pages offered the ability to retweet the page to all my tweet followers.  One of the things she advises is to advertise someone else 80% of the time and yourself 20% of the time.  I thought, OK I'll retweet her 7 days of Social Media training.  I read her About Me story and found that she has become very successful with her online marketing skills.  She started out with $30,000 of debt and now has a 6 figure income.  She even states she made $160,000 in two weeks.

As I was trying to fall asleep, I was thinking about ways to get more followers and ultimately have more people see my art work.  Than I thought about something.  Katie has 18,000 followers and nearly 5,000 following her Facebook page.  She makes a 6 figure income.  Why does she need someone like me retweeting her stuff.  She's doing fine on her own.  Why don't I find someone who has some success, but is still struggling to make it.  Of course, I don't want to spend too much time on someone new, but somewhere right in the middle.  I wonder how many people think the same way I did.  When you decide to "like" someone on Facebook or "follow" someone on Twitter, how much of your decision depends on the number of "likes" or "followers?"  Are you ever turned off when the numbers are too big?

Believe me, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have this problem.  What do you think?  Do you read someone's blog or buy their product, just because they are super popular or do you go onto the next person, because they are too popular?  I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear your comments.

When Are You Giving Too Much?

After many hours of painting and repainting, I am finally finished with a landscape painting I was working on for a possible client.  Notice I used the word "possible."  That's right, I'm not even sure this person will ultimately buy the painting.  It's also a landscape painting, and if you have seen my work, you'll know I am mostly an abstract artist.

But this was a project that an art broker presented to me and it could lead to several more paintings since it is for a commercial building.  From a little guidance on what the client wanted I went to work.  I first made the canvas since the dimensions were a little unusual.  I received some swatches to work with and the advice that the painting should resemble a coastal scene.  I painted and painted and painted.  Oh did I mention I painted.  I pretty much gave up two full weekends.  I heard a lot of "where's mom?" and hearing my husband answer, "in the garage."  I finally finished the painting and the broker took it to the client.  The response came back luke warm to put it best.  I had too much ocean, the painting was too blue, and the trees weren't detailed enough.  All the work I had put into it was all for not, although it wasn't a total loss.  I was able to go back and redo the painting, now that I had more information.

I went back to work and spent many more hours on this painting.  I finally finished it last night and let the broker know so he can present it to his client.

After I was done, my husband expressed his feelings regarding the amount of time I spent on this painting.  My argument was this painting could lead to many more paintings.  Not only that, I was starting to hear more people then I realized knew I was making this painting for this client.  (Art has a small world around it and news travels fast on these kind of things)  I feel like my reputation is on the line.  He feels that since it is completely different than my usual style, it won't have an effect on my reputation.  I haven't mentioned that my husband handles the business aspect of our art business.  He talks about other paintings I could have created in the time I spent.  I argue that other paintings may not have had a buyer, this one does.

How much do you give when it comes to art?  Do you stick to your personal style and try to be successful on that?  Do you break from your norm, just to sell a painting?  How much time is too much time?  I would love to hear your comments, especially if you are on my side.  :)

Amy