Social Networking and Marketing

Now that RISD is in full throttle, my studio schedule has been thrown off quite a bit and I haven’t been able to get into the studio much. I’m teaching two sections of RISD freshman drawing this semester, which is a more than I usually do at RISD. When I have periods like this where I’m not very productive in the studio, I turn to marketing and publicity, as those as tasks that I can do when I have an hour here or there.  As much as I wish it was all about making the work, marketing and getting your work out there is just as essential.

I’ve been on many social networking sites for a while, (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr,  Google+) but I’ve been experimenting this week with websites where you can post your portfolio. I have my portfolio on Saatchi online, RISD Portfolios, the Drawing Center Viewing Program, and the Irving Sandler Artists File. My latest experiment is having a portfolio on Deviant Art. I’m well aware that the majority of people on Deviant Art are not professional, but I was interested in the fact that it is a community of millions of people. I’ve been on Deviant Art for about a week now, and I’ve been impressed by the number of comments on my work, many of which have been quite thoughtful.

What do you think?  Are all of these social networking/online portfolios a waste of time, or is this indeed the future?   I’m curious to hear what you think.

New Facebook Page

I’ve created a new Facebook page, which I’ll use for exhibition announcements and other means of communication and dialogue.  Sign up on the page to receive announcements.  Hope to see you there!

Art New England Ad

The four of us in the upcoming exhibition “Where Are We?” at the Chazan Gallery elected to place an ad in the October/November issue of Art New England as well. Here is the ad below:

Website Update

After an event packed week, I took the day “off” to make some major updates to my website. I’ve been so focused on studio work over the past few months that I haven’t paid any attention to marketing and publicity tasks. I really do believe in separating marketing and studio practice; when I’ve tried to do them simultaneously the studio practice always suffers.

Before:

After:

Exhibitions: Publicity and Promotion

From here until both solo exhibitions open, it’s pure promotion and publicity for a short time. Although it is a lot of little tasks to take care of, I don’t mind doing it. The way I see it, by the time I get back to work on the actual artwork, I’ll be tired of going promotion and be itching to make the art again. So for now it’s press releases, photography, emails, lots of marketing items.