Wind Dancer © Lucht Studios, LLC

When I have business cards printed, I always include an image of one of my sculptures on them.

People attending art fairs and group shows often pick up cards from numerous artists. If you just have a plain card, it is very easy for yours to get lost in the group. If this happens, even if someone is still interested in buying a piece from you, they may not be able to tell which card is yours.

Unfortunately, these days we all get inundated with large amounts of paper. If someone can’t remember why they picked up a particular business card, they are more likely to throw it away.

But, if you have an image of your artwork on the card, it will serve as a visual reminder of your work – so maybe the potential customer will be more likely to hold on to it. It’s worked for me – I’ve even had customers tell me that they had my card pinned to their fridge or squirreled away in their wallet for months or years before they bought a piece.

First off, always include a subject line in your emails. Many email programs will warn you if you try to send an email without a subject line and since I tend to write the body of my emails first and leave the subject for later, I can’t tell you how many times this has saved me.

Second and just as important, make your subject line is clear and to the point. Frequently we receive emails with vague or even suspicious looking subject lines. Do you know this can cause your email to end up in the recipient’s spam folder? And, even if the spam filter doesn’t catch them, we are often hesitant to open emails with suspicious subject lines.

Third, don’t use the subject field as the message itself -  this just makes your email unclear. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened an email that seemed to start mid-sentence and had to look at the subject in order to figure out what the heck the sender is talking about.

Think about the quality of your subject line when composing an email, after all its purpose is get your recipient to open the email and read what you have sent.

Ok, so I’m not a tax expert and I definitely suggest talking to your tax advisor before making decisions about your tax filings. But, when it comes to charitable donations of artwork, it seems many people get it wrong.

When I do shows, I get approached all the time for donations of my artwork. The silent auction coordinator or person in charge of the featured charity makes their way around to all the booths looking for artwork. Inevitably the following phrase is issued from their lips “And if you donate a piece of artwork, you can deduct the fair market value from your taxes as a business expense”.  WRONG – under current law an artist who donates their own artwork can only deduct the cost of their materials from their taxes – NOT the fair market value.

Remember the charity’s main goal is to get donations so they can turn around and get money for them. Telling artists that they can get a tax deduction is a nice incentive for people to donate and I’m sure the people making these statements believe what they are saying – but they usually aren’t tax experts either.

That doesn’t mean artists shouldn’t donate. Artists are among the most generous and least well paid individuals out there. We want to give but often the only thing we have to give is our artwork. We just need to be careful and give because we really are interested in supporting the particular charity and not be fooled into giving by some promise of financial reward or benefit.

Read more info about the tax repercussions for artists donating their artwork  by Janice Roberg of Roberg Tax Solutions, LLC.

And artist and blogger Helen Klebesadel has some ideas for charities looking for art donations that might go along way toward helping artists. It would be really nice if in the future charitable organizations would take the concerns of their artist donors into account and enact some of these policies.

Higher Way © Lynne McCarthy

Think about view angle when photographing your 3 dimensional work.

A square-on image taken from the front of a 3d piece is not always the most flattering or even the most interesting view. Changes in tone, mood, the play of light and shadow and many other factors can often be effected by a simple shift in viewpoint. One of the greatest things about 3 dimensional work is just that – it’s 3 dimensional – there are multiple views and angles to explore.

When I sculpt, I often place my work on my potter’s wheel (or a lazy susan) and  turn it slowly. That way I can get a sense of what the piece looks like from various viewpoints.

Try something similar when you are photographing your work. Take pictures from a number of different angles.  Turn your piece or walk around it and look for interesting lines and details.

Don’t forget to check higher and lower angles as well. It’s often amazing what a difference even a slight shift in perspective can make in the resulting photograph.

You’ll never know what you might come up with. And even if you don’t end up using all the photos for jury shots or advertising, you’ll have great documentation of the piece.

Avoid putting your just first name: “John” – John who? Do you know how many emails I get every day from John and Jane and Bob And Beth?

And please, don’t put something cutesy: “Da Champ”, “the Queen”, or worse (believe me we’ve seen some real winners). This might be ok for correspondence with your family and close friends but it doesn’t look professional. Unless it relates to your business name, don’t do it.

Use your whole name or your business name. You want to let professional contacts, potential clients, gallery representatives, etc know you are a serious professional. It also makes it easier for those you correspond with to recognize your emails when they come in and to find your name in their “To” list when they want to contact you.