Art Studios Online - Blog

An artist website should include the following:

1.  Your name and contact information
2.  Well composed, well lit photographs of representative samples of your work with descriptions, dimensions, and prices
3.  Some sort of statement about your work
4.  An up to date list of your events
5.  Your current gallery affiliations

It just that simple. Of course you can make it more complicated. The point is you don’t have to.

At Art Studios Online websites for artists, we make it easy to get your website online quickly using one of our professional artist portfolio templates. Our easy online system is written in plain english, to take the stress out of setting up and editing your website. 

Want something fancier? We can do that too. Add your logo, or a custom homepage. Or, work with one of our designers for a fully custom design.

Please please please, if you list your email address on your website, you must check your email frequently. This means AT LEAST several times a week. (I feel like I check mine several hundred times a day.) And please get back to people in a timely manner.

Additionally, if you have a spam filter on your email, you should check the contents of your junk mail folder before “purging” it. You can’t imagine the amount of legitimate email that gets trapped by these filters.

We are strong advocates for using email addresses on websites as opposed to those contact forms you often see.

Proponents of contact forms claim that they cut down on the amount of spam you’ll get.  This may be true in some cases, but don’t you worry, determined spammers will get their junk through to you anyway. We would argue that these forms may in fact cut down on the number of legitimate contacts you get through your site.

We feel this way because contact forms can be unreliable. If the sender accidently mistypes their email address you may be left with no way to get back to them. In addition, most of the times these forms don’t give the sender any feedback that the message was actually sent, so they are left wondering if they’ll ever get a reply.

We also feel that these forms sort of imply a lack of trust on the part of the website owner that “I’m so worried about getting spam mail that I won’t let you know what my email address is”.

We feel that it just makes good business sense to give potential customers an easy way to contact you which includes listing your email address on your website.

We all learned to write them in art school- the Artist Statement. Talk about your influences, your subjects, your themes, etc, etc. This is all well and good and it’s very important for an artist to have a well written artist statement. But, equally, maybe even more important, on your website is to include what we at Art Studios Online refer as a Statement of Technique. Remember, the internet has opened up a whole new world of art buyers- people who may not know what egg tempera, batik, anagama firing, or fused glass are. It is incumbent on us as artists to educate the general buying public as to why handmade items and original artwork are so special. We need to give them a reason to turn away from massed produced home decor items sold at big discount stores and get them excited about buying  from real artists.

I usually do several art fairs a year and I find that my sales are always better if I engage the people who come into my booth and explain to them that “all of my pieces are sculpted by hand out of a stoneware clay which is very similar to the dishes they use on their table. I don’t use any molds and the process for each piece is a multi stage one. I start with a moist clay…” I could go on but you get the idea.

Your website is an oppurtunity to do just this, engage visitors to your site by including information about your process. Talk about your work in plain english and define any technical terms you use. Some people like to give the history of their process, others like to explain how they’ve adapted it to their own needs, others simply want to show the care and effort that goes into each piece created. The idea is to share a piece of your life as an artist with the buying public. It really helps to get people excited about what you do and makes them want to buy into your life as an artist. Everyone likes to have a story to go along with a purchase.

Several members of the Art Studios Online community have done this and I think it really adds a great deal of substance to their websites.

ShimmeringGems.com where Terri Helmer explains the history of dichroic glass

BowledExpressions.com where John Showalter discusses spalting, cavitation and other factors in the wood he uses to turn bowls, vases, etc

PatMalcolm.com where Pat discusses Egg Tempera and why it appeals to her

This is a matter of personal choice.  I, personally, like the idea of an artist having their portrait on their website. I feel like art is such a personal commodity (after all aren’t our buyers purchasing a bit of us when they buy a piece?) that a little insight into the artist’s life is warranted. It’s like a personal introduction to the artist and it makes the whole transaction seem less anonymous.

How (or if) you choose  to show yourself is entirely up to you. I  currently have a picture of myself at an art show where I walked in and was surprised to see that I had won one of the major awards. I love this picture because I was completely surprised to be recognized for my work.

Some artists choose to show themselves at work throwing pots, turning wood, pulling prints, painting en plein air, etc- all highly effective images that help bring visitors into your studio.

Others, choose to include images of activities from their life outside the art field, yachting, horseback riding, hiking, etc- which is great, too, because every part of our lives inform and influence our art.

Still others choose to have a more formal portrait. A professional studio-type shot always looks great.

It all depends on your personality and what you feel comfortable with.

Personally, I love the  dramatic  and artistic action shots, like the fabulous photo shown here of metal artist O. K. Harris taken by Karen Kuehn.

Some other great shots I’ve seen:

A potter friend of mine had a picture taken of her that showed her removing glowing hot raku pots from the kiln at night. She used it in her booth display at art fairs. It was a stunning shot that stopped people in their tracks.

Years ago, when I worked at a fine craft gallery, one of the jewelers we represented used a black & white shot of herself, dressed in an evening gown, her hands in long lace gloves holding a blowtorch – it was awesome, one of the best artist shots I’ve ever seen.

So, think about including an artist portrait on your website. Decide what type of image fits your personality and go for it. Let the world see who you are.

I am of the opinion that artists should include prices on their websites. The internet has opened the market for art up to a much broader audience. This includes people who may not ever go into an art gallery. They may not know what to expect to pay for a piece of art and may just assume that anything that is not marked with a price is simply out of reach. I know I often feel that if I have to ask, I probably can’t afford it. Most of these people would probably be pleasantly suprised to learn that they can indeed afford to purchase a piece of art.