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Artist Samuel Durkin

Want more people to see your work?

Of course you do!

Well there are a number of things you can do, one of the best to get people viewing your artwork is to hit that little button at the top right of the page that says submit. or if you have it installed. use the Stumbleupon tool bar.

using the submit button sends your page to stumbleupon.

Stumbleupon.

its a alternate way to visit webpages. instead of typing in a search request, it takes you to pages that it thinks you will like. You hit the stumble button and Zap.... your on a new page. Like the page? give it a thumbs up and from then on you will be directed toward other pages that the other people who "liked" that page also like. Sort of how Amazon works out what book or music to recommend you. but for webpages. the more you use it the more it learns what you like. It's free and fun to use.

How can it help you?

Well, you can submit new pages to stumble, and instantly get a lot of visitors to take a look at your things. You will have to have put in looking around the net for things that interest you to get the relevant people to see your page, but every-time someone gives your page a thumbs up it brings more and more people in, and more people who look and see your art, the more thumbs up it gets and if your lucky you'll get seen by hundreds of visitors.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

Try it out.. its lots of fun. And give your work and the other artist here a thumbs up.

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Artist Samuel Durkin

We have a facebook group and a facebook fan page for our community site. Please join up for the group and become a fan too, please invite your friends.

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Artist Administrator

How can I improve my chance to been seen on the Net?

Titles:

The titles of your work, articles or artwork should be descriptive of what the piece is about. Use words that people are likely to search for. Calling a piece of art untitled #49 won't easily get found. Naming it blue textured abstract painting, works far better. Obviously not every piece of art can be titled like this. But it's often important to put a "name" of a piece along with a description of what it is.

Descriptions/body text:

The title is important, but so too are descriptions and the body text. Always keep in mind the kind of words or phrases someone may use when looking for your piece. Don't stuff your writing with too many of them, but remember if your work is for sale, say so. Describe what it is and remember that search engines are blind, they need words to "see" what you are describing.

Links.

Incoming and outgoing.

Google: Essentially Google works out how important a site or page is based on how many other pages link to it. Google invented a system called page rank, sites with lots of other sites linking to them are considered important, when important sites link to other sites the sites they link to are also considered important. Additionally, context is important, there's no point getting lots of links from sites that are irrelevant as what's on a page that links to a site effects what key words google assumes are important to the site linked to.

Other search engines: use other methods to work out how important a page is. most use systems similar to google, for instance Bing, works on outgoing links as well as incoming links, and the relevance of those links.

So in conclusion, good titles, good descriptions and good links all go towards getting your work seen.

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Artist Christopher Stone

I am about to relate a tale, a tale that revolves around the life of an artist, and a huge multinational transport giant.

In the first instance, the artist who resides in Spain arranged with his representing gallery in the USA to take part in an exhibition of his work, the date for the exhibition Vernissage was to be 28th May, 2010 running until August 15th.

The artist now had a plan, and a space in a gallery to show his new work, happily he left the US and returned to Europe, this was in November of  2009.
At his studio on Ibiza the artist set forth and over a period of 5 months produced 20 pieces of sculpture in a mix of medias, from this 20 he selected together with the gallerist 13 pieces which they agreed would be appropriate.

The pieces were wrapped and packed and sent with the huge multinational carrier, a company who the artist had worked with on several previous occasions.

Upon arrival in Connecticut the box was unpacked, to the dismay of the gallerist, 9 of the 13 were broken, and at least 3 were smashed to pieces, none were fit to exhibit, time was short, and the show was cancelled.

The total resale value of these goods was in the region of $7000, not a great deal for so much effort, but what we must not forget is the enormous potential this exhibition held for both the gallery and the artist, the gallery was bringing back a British artist for the second time, the artist was about to hold one of the most important show's of his career, his breakthrough into the American market.

The gallerist was of course very upset, and for many reasons, a lot of money had been spent by the gallery on promotion of the event, photo's, videos, catalogues, web, and real time art publications, plus all the invited guests who were travelling from across the corners of the US, and because of the obvious bad feelings developed and the otherwise excellent relationship between the two was destroyed.

The artist, both powerless and frustrated at being so far away, after 5 months of spending energy, the cost of the materials, the international transport, and the fact that all of his creations were reduced to rubble, was forced to lick his wounds, he thanked heaven that he had used a reputable company, a company with years of experience, and one that would be shocked, horrified, and angry to find that their staff treated their clients belongings in such a shoddy way, we are not talking about an accidental droppage, or an unfortunate bump, no! the extent, and the nature of the damage caused indicates very clearly that there was not an ounce of finesse, no care whatsoever, just a brutal disregard and bad workmanship, it would be almost impossible to cause this much destruction should you deliberately try.

The artist contacted the said carriers in early May 2010, and to bring an end to this sad tale, after nearly three months they came up with the miserable offer of 298 GBP, less than the cost of sending, less than the cost of the phone calls, less than the cost of one advertisement, and please dont forget, the artist must now retrieve all the work he has in this gallery, the quote for this alone is more than $1000.
A side note to the above , the artist suggested that if the carriers would at least agree to bring back the broken things free of charge, he would accept their offer, the answer was a flat NO!
No names are mentioned here, not from any kind of fear, but from the fact that the artist still has not received the 298GBPs.

Should you Google the said artist/exhibition/gallery you will get literally hundreds hits about the show, and an idea of how important it all was to be.
The last word from the carriers is that the artist should have insured the goods with them.
Can you believe it? You pay them what they ask to ship your goods, but if you prefer not to have them obliterated by morons, then you should pay extra, this is farcical,ludicrous,and ridiculous, let us pay a price, and they do their job, no more blackmail please.

All the best.
Chris.
Christopher Stone, Sculptor

Arts-fine-gallery editors Note:

Most international couriers make sending artwork via their service extremely difficult. Refusing to insure artwork valued over £250. This means when you are asked to send work overseas you are basically taking a gamble when using one of these couriers.