In the past few months I've been busy working with some outstanding artists helping them get their websites looking great and posted on the web.  I've really enjoyed working with each artist and always love seeing their websites come together.

There are lots of "easy" do-it-yourself website platforms available now and if you have the time and interest, this is a good way to take charge of all the details of your website.  If you prefer to use your time creating mosaics, having lunch with your friends and avoiding technical issues,  then let me help you create the website you and your art deserve.  
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I've created a couple of on line stores, a group website and individual artists websites.  Each site communicates beautifully the products, the art, the artists story and are easy for you to update. I've used a variety of website platforms to create these websites.  I'd love to help you get out from under the frustration of an outdated website, away from the muck and mire of trying to figure out how to update your site, to show you how to create and post pages, and give you a place to keep the community informed about your exhibition, new works and the unique products you have to sell.

Let's make it happen.  Contact me today - would love to hear from you.
BestArtistWebsites.com

                                                                                                                                                    bluefrontstudio.com                   boninglassdesigns.com          mosaicartistsofmichigan.com

 I have enjoyed creating several artist websites in the past few weeks, which I love doing, and as add  features to a website, some artists want a blog others don't, which causes me to wonder about the value for artists of having a  blog.  Here are a few of the reasons I think having a blog are important.

1.  as you put your thoughts, techniques, ideas into words it helps you develop a clearer message about your art. 
2.  you will inevitably start looking at others blogs and the content will enrich your art and stimulate your imagination.  
3.  you will develop a historic record of your artistic journey which will help you understand how much you've grow and accomplished as you review.
4.  a blog will help you explain your art in depth if you choose.  You might even have a work in progress post, which helps communicate the complexity of your work. 
5. having a blog will bring people to your website.

The more your art is understood and you are appreciated, the more sales, commissions, or workshop requests you will have.

I've followed quite a few mosaic artists websites and blogs over the years and each blogger approaches their blogs in a unique way - there isn't a "right way".  Some use their blogs to share a process or technique unique to them, others share their insights, many use their blogs to promote their workshops, and some are personal reflections - there are many ways to create an interesting blog that will keep followers coming back to your website.  Blogging gives you an opportunity to communicate your art and your views to the world.  The most important thing about blogging is to blog.  

Having a professional website that communicates who you are, shows your art beautifully and engages the viewer is crucial these days.  Not everyone is going to find you on FB, Instagram or other social media sites - it's important to cover all the bases and to utilize your blog and website to reach your goals.  It takes time, for sure, to maintain all the social media sites you might be connected to, but the benefit will out weigh the frustration. 

Here are just a few mosaic artists websites and blogs that I follow you'll note the variety of styles, all great and helpful.  
Kate Rattray  
Sandra Bryant 
Helen Mills 
Jacqueline Iskander 
Rachel Sager 
Gary Drostle
Julie Sperling
                 I'd love create a professional, exquisite website and blog for you.  Contact me:

The beginning of 2018 has been a busy time for my "little start up web building business".  My holiday special was very successful and upon returning from our Christmas trip I've been working on several websites for individual artists and a website for a mosaic association.  I'm really enjoying each project, meeting individual artists, amazed at the beauty and variety of the art I'm seeing and being challenged to create websites that artists are love.

This quote by Dr. Christopher Dayagdag - fits: "To become successful online, you only need to remember the following : Good Heart + Passion + Web Design + SEO + Digital Marketing + Dedication + Positiveness + Patience = Success” 

Since I've been working with artists, creating websites for them, I know how important all these aspects are in order to have success (however you defined that).  

I'd love to create a website for you.  Now's the time for you to have the website that your art deserves.  

by Kevin Chung 

You can be the most talented artist in the world but if you don’t have an audience, you can’t succeed. I’m not saying you have to make a lot of money to be a successful artist. Everyone’s definition of success is different. What I am saying is if you want to make a living off of your art, without having to scrounge around for money, you must connect with your audience. Here are seven reasons why connecting with your audience is vital to selling your art.

1. Your audience gets to know and like you

Building your audience is crucial to being a successful artist. As the saying goes, your best customers are your current customers. These are the people who have already fallen in love with your work. They are the ones singing your praises to anyone who will listen. They are the ones who are most likely to buy from you again. If you aren’t staying in touch with your audience, you are missing out on an enormous opportunity. Regularly communicating with your audience allows you to stay in contact with them and keep them up to date on your art and life. They will get to know and like you for who you are. Otherwise, you will fall off their radars. How many times have you forgotten the name of an artist you like? It happens to me all the time. Don’t let it happen to your audience.

2. People help those they like
When you build a connection with your audience, they will like you more. In fact, there’s something in psychology called the mere-exposure effect. This effect occurs when people develop a preference for something because they are familiar with it. This is why companies advertise. Just by placing their company and brand in front of you, you will have a bias towards them. Studies have shown that the more often you see someone, the more pleasing and likeable that person seems to be. I’m not saying you should blast your audience with advertisements of your work. That is not the point. You want your audience to know and like you. Talk about your life and experiences and how they relate to your work. Talk about how your audience can relate to your work. Become a helpful and important part of their lives. When you build a connection with your audience instead of blasting them with messages that scream “Look at me!” you are strengthening your bond and becoming more likable. People want to help those they like.

3. The principle of reciprocity

There’s another principle in psychology that explains why people want to help you when you provide them with value. It’s called reciprocity. Reciprocity says people will respond to a positive action with another positive reaction. In other words, people want to help those who help them. If you are constantly providing value to your audience, they will want to help you in return. The key here is to give them something of value. That doesn’t mean you need to give away your art for free or sell your art at a discount. This will only de-value your work. It means you need to find problems your audience is having and help them solve those problems. As an artist, you have the unique power to elicit emotions from your audience. When someone is down, you have the power to lift them up. When someone needs inspiration, you can provide that too. The point is, your art helps people feel something. If you can help your audience with your art and your words, they will be eternally grateful. Use your gifts to help people and they will want to help you too.

4. Build a passionate fan base

One of the great joys of creating art is being able to share it with other people. I know many artists want to create art for themselves or for the love of it, but art is something that should be shared. If you can create work that moves people, it is selfish to keep it to yourself. It is like withholding an amazing recipe or a life changing product. When your work resonates with another person, you are building a bond with them. You are showing them that there is someone out there who understands them. Then there are artists who do share their work, but they don’t engage with their audience. Art can be the beginning of a wonderful conversation. Why end the conversation when it is just getting started? As an artist, the greatest gift you can give is sharing your work with others AND starting a conversation with them. If you don’t, you are missing out on an opportunity to build relationships with like-minded people. There are no greater examples of this then Austin Kleon and Amanda Palmer. One is a blackout poet and the other is a musician, yet both have built passionate fan bases. Their fans support their projects and are eager to interact with them. Just check their Twitter streams to see what I am talking about. Connecting with your audience can lead to wonderful things. Don’t miss the chance to make those connections.

5. You can grow your network

You may not know it, but you have access to an enormous network of people. Even if you are only friends with a few people, you still have access to dozens of other people. As you get to know more people, your network grows exponentially. That’s because every person you know has connections to other people. If you add one person to your network, your network grows by the number of people that person knows. Someone who has become a master of building networks is Jayson Gaignard, the man behind Mastermind Talks. Jayson went from $250k in debt to becoming one of the biggest connectors in the business world. I highly recommend listening to his story on the Unmistakable Creative. He is an example of what Malcom Gladwell calls connectors. These people have the special gift of bringing people together. If you become a connector or find the connectors in your audience, you can make a tremendous impact on your business. Once you’ve created a strong network of influence, you can accomplish so much more in your business. Even if these people don’t buy your art themselves, they can point you to people who will. You never know which connections will lead to success, so treat each fan with kindness and respect.

6. Become a thought leader

When you are looking for advice, where do you turn? If I had to take a guess, I would say you look to the people you know and trust. You seek out guidance from those who have proven they can get you results. Sure you could try finding the answer on Google, but those results come from sources you may not know or trust. Are you willing to put your trust in an entirely new source of information? Trust should be earned not given. It is earned through the relationships we build. It is earned by repeatedly providing value. If you provide enough people with value, you will become a thought leader in your industry. Thought leaders are those who are recognized in their industry. They are sought after for their advice. They command the respect of their peers. The best way to become a thought leader is by connecting with your audience and providing them with value. It is not a quick or easy process, but if you are willing to put in the time, people will look to you for advice. When you are seen as a thought leader, new opportunities come your way. People respect your time and value your thoughts. If you want to grow your business and become a respected for your opinions, become a thought leader.

 
7. Let your fans inspire your work

As artists, we want to believe everyone should like our art. We slaved over it for so long. Why wouldn’t people like our work? I can guarantee you there are people who won’t like your work. And that’s okay. It’s not that your art is bad, or you did something wrong, it’s that everyone has different tastes. No matter how much you want everyone to love your art, it will never happen. Even the most revered works of art like the Mona Lisa aren’t universally loved. So your art won’t be either. Contrary to what you might believe, this is actually a good thing. It is much harder to create art for a general audience than for a specific one. In fact, world renowned architect Frank Gehry’s design for the Disney Hall was inspired by the constraints he had to work with. You might be wondering “How do I find constraints for my work?” That’s easy. Look to your fans. These people already love your work. Giving them a voice in the direction of your work will make them feel even more passionate about your art. If you want to build a more passionate community of supporters, give them a say in your art. Not only will it help strengthen your bond with them, it will also lead to new and differing ideas for your art.

Conclusion
​Connecting with your audience is one of the most important things you can do as an artist. Sure these points apply to business in general, but they are especially true of artists. What artists must realize is, if they want to succeed and make art for a living, they need to learn to become a business. This may have negative connotations but it doesn’t have to. Since the rise of the internet and social media, companies have undergone a massive shift in how they interact with their customers. Instead of just blasting people with coupons and deals to get them to buy, they have begun creating connections. You can only fight on price so long before a customer leaves you forever. That is why connecting with your customers has become so important. Your audience is looking for something that sets you apart from everyone else. You can do this by listening to your audience and providing them with massive value. Start conversations with them. Understand their hopes, dreams, and fears. Make yourself accessible and become an important part of their lives.

Kevin Chung is the creator of Marketing Your Art the Right Way, a site dedicated to teaching artists how to market their artwork and build relationships with their audience. 

Author:Allan Kunigis
The answer is yes. There aren’t many businesses that can survive without a Web presence, and there’s no reason not to have a website. Your company’s website can be a highly effective marketing tool and it can be very cost-efficient. There are quite a few benefits, and very little downside.

Ten Things Your Website Can Do (for Starters)

There are many things you can do with your website, here are 10 to begin with:

1. Create a presence. Who knows about your business? Where can prospects and clients go to learn more? Your website can help establish your business as a going concern, communicate your brand value proposition and it can convey professionalism. It also extends your reach to anyone in the world.
2. Help build trust. New clients and prospects might want to know about your business history and your expertise and specialization. This is a great vehicle for people to learn more and attain that comfort level they seek.
3. Get listed on search engines. Build your website incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) techniques so that you can easily be found by people searching for relevant key words. This can be an important gateway to expanding your business.
4. Point of contact. Your website provides customers an easy way to contact you and learn more about your products, services and business.
5. Leverage social networks. Implement a social media strategy to reach a larger audience and to create more buzz about your biz. Establish your presence on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. Facebook likes and shares can drive people to your website. Links to popular or topical items from or to your website will add to its relevance.
6. Sell products. If your business lends itself to online sales, create a virtual store as an alternative or complement to a storefront or office location.
7. Share the latest news. Whenever there are new developments regarding your business, update your website. Sites that have fresh, relevant and timely information draw users back more often.
8. Blog. Keep your website fresh and keep drawing people in with regular Blog posts. Show your expertise and share insights and provide practical tips on topics relevant to your business and of interest to your customers.
9. Learn about customers. Learn about their needs, preferences, and interests. Establish and nurture two-way communication with prospects and clients to forge a deeper bond and to serve them better.
10. Customer convenience. Providing customers with multiple ways to interact with your business is almost mandatory these days. Anything less could result in lost sales.

Common Concerns and Questions About Small Business Websites
It’s natural to have questions and concerns about setting up a website. Cost is a common one. Beyond an up-front fee to design the website, the ongoing costs can be minimal. And considering the long-term benefits a website will provide, the cost to design a good website should be well worth it.

Other concerns often relate to a business not being web-oriented or that it wouldn’t sell goods online. The answer to these and similar concerns is that a business website can provide so many more benefits. Establishing trust, strengthening your brand, forging better customer relations, informing a wider group of people about your business’s capabilities.
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Another common concern is that you don’t have much content to add for frequent updates or you don’t have time to blog. The short answer is that you don’t need to. Sure, more activity and frequently refreshed content can generate more interest, but any Web presence is probably better than none. Once you have a basic website, as your business and resources grow, you can always add to it.

We've had many discussion about pricing mosaic art on the ContemporaryMosaicArt-CMA website and yet for many it still remains a confusing question.  This article might help and there are a few articles and responses on the CMA site that might also help. "Quantifying Creativity How Any Artist Can Price Their Art for Sale" published by ArtBusiness.com

Here are some of the topics covered in this article:

• About Price Comparison Techniques
• Asking Prices vs Selling Prices
• Competitive Pricing
• Retail Prices vs Wholesale Prices
• Consistency in Art Pricing
• The Real World vs Friends & Family
• The Real World vs Charity Fundraisers
• Additional Price Pointers to Keep in Mind
• Asking Prices vs Selling Prices

Where do you send potential customers to see your art?  Is your art all in one place or do potential customers have to search the internet to see your art? 

Having an awesome website is the answer.  From your website customers can view your art without the disruption of comments or chat threads.  From your website they have the opportunity to understand and value your skills and techniques, to learn about you and your artistic journey and to view your work up close.  Making connections with customers through your website is personal, private and secure. 

Let's get you an awesome website. 
www.bestartistwebsites.com 

10 Crucial Reasons Why Every Artist Needs Their Own Hub Website by HELEN ALDOUS

Painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, crafters, photographers, designers, illustrators…the internet is a mass of opportunities for artists and creative folk to sell artwork and creativity online.
There are so many great sites where you can upload your art and sell it, either direct online or as part of a print-on-demand service, where a copy of your original artwork is printed as a high quality Giclée at the size and format requested by the purchaser.

Sites like Redbubble, Zazzle, Etsy, & iStock all allow you to spread the word about your work. Your creativity can be winging its way to a buyer on the other side of the world. Networking sites like Flickr, & Twitter & Facebook allow you to connect and build contacts, discussing, sharing and collaborating with like minded people everywhere.
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So why on earth would you bother setting up your own website when all these great free services are available?…
When I speak to artists setting up creative businesses on the web, I always recommend that you set up a central hub website which sits at the very centre of everything you do online and is linked to all the other free sites you use.
Your hub website is your portfolio and the central connecting point around which all your other free website presences rotate. It is the sun whilst your other free web presences are the planets in orbit around it. It is your home at the centre of your little online solar system and the focus of all your efforts. It pulls all the other elements of your online world together rather than letting them spin off into space.
There are lots of very good reasons for setting up your own hub artists website. Here are just 10 of them:

• ProfessionalismOwning your own hub website looks more professional. You can control every aspect of it and ensure that it looks exactly how you want it to look. You aren’t reliant on someone else’s template designs or constrained by their rules. Great when you are a control freak like me.
• Build your own brandYou can use the design of your site to build a personal brand around yourself and your work, which makes you more recognisable online and makes your work more likely to sell.
• Customise your domainYou can register and use your own domain name [i.e. www.yourname.com] and have a custom email address related to that too. No more hotmail addresses or hard to remember emails.
• Stand out in the crowdYour hub website only features a gallery of YOUR work so you won’t get lost amongst zillions of other artists, a big problem on large showcase or shop sites. Having your own site can help you stand out in the crowd.
• FocusHaving your own hub website gives you a FOCUS for all your marketing and search engine optimisation efforts. You can drive traffic to your own website more successfully than to a collection of satellite sites. This central site then links to all the other sites you use but you only have to focus your promotion efforts on your hub website. Your promotion efforts, focussed on this one site, will build up over time to great results.
• Build your list of people who love your workYou can build your own mailing list of people who are all interested in your work and ready to buy it when you release a new piece. This is a great way to steadily build interest in what you do. This list is yours to keep and build.
• FreedomIf you decide to stop selling or showing your work on a satellite website you can easily do so and you won’t lose your client list or the advantage of all the promotion you have done. It will all still point to your hub website. You are free to change shops or galleries as often as you like with no problems.
• Offline opportunitiesYou can concentrate on promoting the site offline. If you get promotional items printed up advertising your site and work, you need to make sure the web address you are printing is going to stay the same over time. With your own website and custom domain name you can keep on promoting your work in the real world, at exhibitions and art fairs. This way you can capture sales after the event has finished too.
• No commissionYou don’t pay commission. Anything you sell through your own site is commission free. [Although you will have to pay a small fee to the company who handles your payments i.e. Paypal].
• Endless possibilitiesYou can keep adding satellite websites to your little solar system and increasing the traffic to your hub website to increase your chance of sales. You aren’t tied to any one satellite site.

Setting up your own website may take a little more time and organisation but if you are serious about selling artwork online or setting up a creative business it is a crucial step that will pay dividends in the long run.

To get started on your own website: Visit Best Artist Websites and let's get you the Awesome site your art deserves.

Actress, prostitute and empress actress, prostitute and empress of Rome – Theodora's life is perfect for fictionss of Rome – Theodora's life is perfect for fiction.

Stella Duffy
In September 2006, in a near-empty church in Ravenna, in north-east Italy, I found myself in front of a vibrant, 1,500-year-old mosaic of a woman in purple. She had a halo, her own courtiers, and was taking up an enormous space beside a mosaic of Christ. I knew she had to matter. At the gift shop, I bought the booklet about her, which took five minutes to read. The woman was the empress Theodora and although I had never seen her before, she has come to dominate my working life.
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Theodora lived in an era of huge changes in the church, language and statehood. What had been Roman was about to become Byzantine, and the eastern regions around Syria, the Levant and Egypt were clamouring to use their own languages, hinting at self-determination. Just 20 years after Theodora's death the Prophet Muhammad would be born.

Despite the huge amount of history written about the period, Theodora was largely overlooked. In Procopius's Secret History, which current studies believe was written not long after her death in 548, she is a kind of Mrs Machiavelli. He calls her "Theodora-from-the-Brothel", lasciviously details her antics on stage – from allowing geese to peck grain from her lower torso, to dancing naked but for a ribbon – and has her saying she regrets God gave her only three orifices for pleasure. When he goes on to describe her husband, the emperor Justinian, as a headless demon, we can assume not everything he wrote was utter truth.
Procopius's view on Theodora, which was not published until the 17th century, certainly influenced later writers, yet she remains an enigma. What we do know about her seems fascinating, often highly modern, apparently feminist, and almost always controversial. The more I read, the more I realised she was an ideal candidate for fiction, and for the last three years I have been writing a novel about her. She was born to the bear-keeper of Constantinople's hippodrome in about AD500. Her father died when she was five and her mother married another animal-keeper. When he failed to land her dead husband's job, she rehearsed her three little girls in arm movements and the silent gestures of supplication that would have been recognised by theatre audiences of the time. Then, she dressed them up and took them to the hippodrome – a vast complex, housing a capacity crowd of 30,000 men – to formally request a job for their new stepfather. The wish was granted and Theodora went on to become an actress, dancer, mime artist, comedian.

By the age of 15, she was the star of the hippodrome, performing in shows which, if Procopius is to be believed, were not far from the extremes of modern burlesque. She was also, as most actresses then were, a child prostitute. (That the word actress can have a derogatory aspect – having once been a synonym for "courtesan" or "whore" – has been long recognised, which is why many women who work in the theatre prefer the term "actor".)

Theodora had a child at 14, and her older sister Comito, a famed singer, likely became mistress to several wealthy men; it's probable that both had several abortions. At 18, Theodora walked away from her astonishing career, to become mistress to Hecebolus, the governor of what is now known as Libya. When they broke up, not long afterwards, she joined an ascetic community in the desert near Alexandria, experiencing a religious conversion to a branch of early Christianity, Monophysitism, that was then under attack by the Roman state. The division between those who believed, with the state, that Christ was both fully human and fully divine in one, and those who, as Theodora did, believed His divinity was the prime force, raged on throughout Theodora's life. After her conversion, she travelled on to Antioch and is reputed to have worked with Macedonia, a woman a little older than her who was a dancer, but possibly also a spy. Antioch was the major city of Syria, one of the many provinces that were starting to question the supremacy of Constantinople – there would have been good work for spies on all sides.

At 21, Theodora returned to the capital and met Justinian. They were certainly not a likely couple. Justinian was a farmer's son from present-day Serbia who travelled to Constantinople at the age of 11 to work for his uncle Justin, and help in his rise to power and eventual elevation to the throne. Justinian had a strong legal mind (his codifying of Roman law remains a part of legal training today), and had one law changed to raise Theodora's status, and another created to allow her to marry, something that former actresses could not legally do at the time. They married against the wishes of Justinian's aunt, the empress Euphemia, herself an ex-slave and concubine, who saw her own origins echoed a little too obviously in Theodora's. When Justin died and Justinian became emperor in 527, "Theodora-from-the-Brothel" was empress of Rome.

The classic rags to riches story is made richer still by Theodora's achievements in power. As empress, she worked on the paper On Pimps, an attempt to stop pimps making their money from prostitutes. Well aware of the impossibility of marriage and a safe life for such women, she set up a house where they could live in peace. Theodora worked for women's marriage and dowry rights, anti-rape legislation, and was supportive of the many young girls who were sold into sexual slavery for the price of a pair of sandals. Her laws banished brothel-keepers from Constantinople and from all the major cities of the empire.

All of which makes Theodora sound like an early and ardent feminist, but her story is more complicated. There are hints that she was involved in poisoning, torture and forced marriage, and while she did a great deal to help women and girls in difficulty, she had rather less time for women of higher standing – attacking any who threatened her position, including the empress Euphemia.
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There are so many questions in Theodora's story. Was she a spy or a saint, a slut or a theatrical genius? What actually happened with the geese on stage at the hippodrome? Was Macedonia her friend or her lover? Theodora is the kind of hero you couldn't make up without being accused of overdoing it, and yet you can't tell her story without making a lot of it up. A perfect balance for fiction.
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