Artspan:

NEWSLETTER
DECEMBER 2011// VOLUME 8// ISSUE 11

December 2011 Newsletter

Written and edited by Eric Sparre

IN THIS ISSUE:

Design Contest


The prizes for the design contest are:

1st place: $150 and 6 months Artspan membership free

2d place: $100 and 3 months Artspan membership free

3rd place: $50 and 1 free month membership for each of the three winners

We have been a bit surprised that so few members have submitted their sites, particularly as so many of you have used the new tools to completely revamp your sites. There are some really creative and interesting site designs on Artspan, and we hope that more of you will participate in the contest. Just send the url to DesignContest@artspan.com any time between now and December 31.

The only requirement is that the website must be designed with our new totally customizable templates.  Judging criteria are: (1) excellence of design,  (2) originality, (3) how the design works with your work, and (4) how the design maximizes the capabilities of the new tools. The winners will be announced on January 11, 2012.

Using Facebook to Promote Your Art, Part 2

by Joan K. Smith, Director of Marketing

Please find Part 1 of this article here. Here is Part 2:

OK,  you have friends who follow your status posts and links, and you are following the Facebook “rules of engagement” by making your posts and comments open ended and/or intriguing to encourage dialogue with this group.  So how do you boost your visibility even more in the Facebook world? Here we’ll address a few tips and tricks for getting to the next level:  Laying the groundwork for turning this social hub into a powerful professional branding tool.  
(continue reading here...)

Member Interview: Artist Wendy Gill

by Sid Bailey, Marketing Associate

Mountain views, abandoned mines, ghost stories – delve into artist Wendy Gill’s background and you’ll be confronted with a cross between the quiet captivation of a John Ford vista and the nostalgic humor of a Scooby Doo episode.

Gill’s memories are firmly rooted in the enduring mountainside in North Park, CO, where she spent her childhood daring rooftop lunges into snow piles in the winter, and mostly falling in love with nature as the spring sun swept patches of greenery and small creeks back into existence. (continue reading here...)

Referral Program

You have until December 31 to win six free months membership in Artspan. All you need do is refer three new members.  The new members will receive one free month in addition to the 30 day free trial they get automatically…. in other words, they will get two free months total when they mention your name or give your referral code (which is found in your Control Panel). 

Also, for anyone who may already have a website, we will be happy to provide individual assistance in moving images from their current site to their new Artspan site and help in any other way we can.  We know that it may seem a lot of trouble to set up a new site (even if the cost of the current site is twice that of Artspan  and has a lot less to offer).  So we want to make the process an easy one.

Need some reasons for why Artspan offers the best value of any template provider? Go to the Join Us page.

Shipping Deadlines for the Holidays

If you sell prints, the following are the deadlines given us by our printer partner in order to ensure that prints arrive at North American addresses by December 23.

For 5 day shipping, the order must be received by December 13
For 2 day shipping, the order must be received by December 16
For overnight shipping, the order must be received by December 19

For Europe, clearly the deadlines will be much tighter.

This Past Month

We are finalizing the server move in December and hope to have some enhancements of the image upload function completed at the same time.  The move to a “cloud” server solution has absorbed a lot of our tech resources for the last few months, but, starting January 1, we will be focused again on the many exciting projects we want to get under way.  Some of these could have a big impact on your ecommerce capabilities.  See the January newsletter for more detail.

Featured Members


Nancy Bossert


Nancy Bossert
Painting, Ceramics, Prints, Fiber Art

nancybossert.artspan.com


Nancy has mastered a wide range of media to express her vision: paint, encaustics, clay, jewelry, and fiber.

“My main work as a Fine Artist is working with the figure, but abstractions aren't far behind. I have honed a great respect and quality with the encaustic medium and process. At any given time I will be working in clay, in particular mouth-blown, or jewelry. The common thread in my work becomes the textural element and the coloration. I tend to use the same carry-through of texture on my clay pieces as my paintings, and the same compositional balance."


Paul Bloomfield


Paul Bloomfield
Photography
paulbloomfield.artspan.com


Paul’s statement on his work:  “Nature--its systems, manifestations, and constant reminders of the impermamence of so much, directly affects both the content and method of my work.”

And on how he works: “Often in my photographs I do not find what I first saw. Meshes of trees and branches overlap and connect in my view of the scene, but these lines, angles, curves, and their trajectories can get lost in the confusion of flattening space and depth in a photograph. By reworking the images I get to emphasize the relationships and dynamics of lines and movement. It is another level of engagement with the image and memory.”



Legal and Other

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