Yay!!!

I'm excited!  I wrote a "short story" (not so short - around 10,000 words) for the Western Ohio Writers' Association, where I'm a member.  Since I was trying to get it finished in time for the October meeting where members would be reading at Books & Co. in The Greene (in Beavercreek OH), I wrote a ghost story/horror/suspense kind of thing, not at all my usual genre (magical fantasy with a bit of romance involved).  I was very insecure about how it turned out.  Did I create enough suspense?  Did I withhold the clues long enough?  Did I give too much away?  Did the suspense build?  Did I manage to save the "surprise" until the end?

Well . . . I wasn't able to go to the October meeting, so I just kept working on the story because it intrigued me as a project.  Then I heard about an anthology project that sounded interesting.  I decided to polish that story and see if it would get in.  It was all I had since I normally write novels.  Imagine my surprise and pleasure to learn it was accepted to the anthology!  It will be published late this year.  I'll have ordering information both here and on my website when it's available!

The story is called "Lisa Goodman, Writer."  I've been given a detailed critique to help me rewrite it for publication.  And no, I can't tell you any more about it except it takes place in Dayton (which doesn't have a lot to do with the story - but that really is all I can tell you about it!  LOL).

So HUZZAH!!!!  My attempting a totally different genre wasn't a horrible failure (which I feared it might be!).  I'm a happy camper!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I haven't posted in a while!  Sorry about that.  I've been busy building websites for my daughter's farm (I'm her marketing director) and also for myself.  I'm REALLY happy with how the sites I've built so far have turned out.  Mine aren't published yet, but you can see hers at www.myDHF.com

I've spent YEARS working on my websites in raw html - and now there are free sites with drag 'n' drop software that's so sophisticated, it's amazing!  I'm using Weebly.com to build these sites and their software allows slide shows and a bunch of things I'm not familiar with.  It was a bit daunting to figure out how to use the software to do what I had in mind, but once I understood it, I was off and running - and I'm still running, redoing my big art site now (which will take a while!)  But the end result is modern, clean and elegant, so I'm very happy with it!

I've recently published a Harry Potter ficlet, something very fluffy and fun.  You can read it on www.siye.co.uk or www.fanfiction.net - just search for "Abraxan" to find my stories.  The new one is "Stumbling Out of the Floo" and has already been nominated for two awards on SIYE!

I've also been playing with water clay, something I haven't done in years.  I had some ideas for small wall hangings I thought would be nice in terra cotta, so that's what I'm doing.  I've done a lion relief bust so far and have a horse relief in process.  Here's the lion - the horse doesn't look like anything yet.

The lion is 7 1/4" wide by 8" tall by 2 1/4" thick  He's on a round board with a Formica top - probably a cutout from a sink or something.  I wrapped the edges in duct tape to keep the particle board edges from shedding in the clay (yes, that's duct tape - it looks like it has paint splashes on it.  Got it at Walmart - they have quite a variety of duct tape there.)

I plan to try to cast this lion so I'll have an edition to sell, but I honestly have no idea how much they'll cost.  I'm trying to keep the costs as low as possible.  When I have the price figured, I'll post it.  In the meantime, how do you like him?

I'm spending the winter re-organizing and re-doing and so on, so I will soon have new websites, new jewelry to sell, and I'll be making a new brochure soon too.  Busy busy busy!

Marketing Your Art/Creating a "Brand"

Most artists are unaware that it takes about 50% of your time to market your art properly.  No agent, no gallery is going to market your art with passion and knowledge like yours (remember, they aren't working only for you!), so do it yourself and put that money you'd give an agent into your own advertising! 


As an artist, your name is your "brand name" unless you prefer promoting your studio's name.  Either way, it's a "brand" and that's a good way to think of it as you promote it. 

Building a "brand name" is a multi-pronged task.  You need a business card with an image of your work preferably on both sides (with some clear space left to write notes on if you need to - and all your contact info on one side).  ALWAYS carry a good supply of your cards with you.  I recently gave cards to a couple of people I was introduced to in church, when my friend included "She's a sculptor" in his introduction and then asked me to show his friend some pictures of my work.  Carrying cards is the first, simplest and one of the most important steps in marketing.  And try to always have at least some pictures with you, even if they're on your cell phone, as mine are (gotta love smart phones!).

You need brochures or fliers with pictures of your work - color, if possible (if I can afford it, I'm doing color next year!).  Don't do cheap-looking brochures (those printed on regular computer paper, for instance) or people won't consider your art to be worth much.  Use heavyweight, glossy or matte paper, but GOOD paper to make the best and most memorable impression.

You need a Website - not just a Facebook page.  People looking for artists don't look on Facebook, they search the Web.  Google won't find your art on Facebook, just your posts, but it will find your Website if you build the meta tags right! 

All your promotional materials - cards, brochures, website, etc. - need to be similar in style.  Perhaps you'll use your business logo on everything, or a picture of the same piece on the cover of each thing, so every piece of advertising, each hand-out, tells people this is YOUR work, without them even having to read your name.  If your work is elegant and refined, your Website and other materials should be elegant and refined.  If your work is more eclectic or funky or whatever, then your website and everything else should have the same feel.  You want to create a "presence" that's recognizable. 

Think of Nike and their "swoosh" - all you have to see is that "swoosh" and you know it's a Nike product, which tells you something about its quality, style and price without you even looking for that information because you know the brand.  Find a way to make your work that recognizable.  I can recognize a Kimberly Kelly Santini painting the instant I see it - her style is that unique (to my eye, anyway).  Same with Elin Pendleton,  Debbie Flood , Shary Akers and many other artists.

Create a unified presence with a real similarity in style or palette among your works.  My bronzes are COLORFUL because I want them to look like real horses.  I rarely  use the French brown patina people think of as "bronze" color - it's good for outdoor art because it's durable, but there are many more interesting choices for indoor sculptures.  I have my bronzes finished with translucent patinas so the metal glitters through just as a real horse's clean summer coat glitters metallically in the sun.  I haven't seen anyone else use such patinas on horses the way I do, and that's fine with me!  The few paintings I've done are bold-colored and look more like stained glass than realistic horses, and I like them that way.  If I ever produce paintings I think are worth selling, they will be bold and probably a bit stylized since I can't draw as well as I'd like to.  But they will fit in my "colorful" style.  (That's my "Frolic" show above.)

Stand back and look at your work.  There is a uniformity or a thread of continuity to it somehow - that's your style.  Find ways to emphasize that in all your advertising and in your booth setup.  For instance, I don't use black drapes for my table covers.  Mine are a slate blue and my carpet is light beige - it's a light, bright, elegant but cheerful booth.  Early in my career, I followed someone else's advice on how to make my booth elegant and used to use black drapes, but all the Friesians I do faded into the black when it was behind them, and I found that much black to be kind of overwhelming, so I went for contrast with the art, and lighter, pretty colors to keep me happy.

There are tons of books out on marketing your art.  Go buy at least one of them - preferably two or three so you can compare methods between them - and then do what they say!!  Do your own research and figure out what will work for you.  Nobody but NOBODY can sell your art like you can!  Believe it!

Finished and Mounted Maquette!

He's done and he's GORGEOUS!!  "Nanning 374: Spirit of the Friesian" comes mounted on a walnut base with a built-in turntable so you can turn him to any angle you wish without having to lift him up.  He's 15 1/2" long x 13 1/2" high at the top of the neck x 3 1/2" wide, not counting the base.  (I have those measurements here somewhere, but I've already shipped the finished ones out, so I'll have to remeasure if I can't find my note!  Argh, I'm so blond sometimes!!  LOL)


ANYway . . . he sells for $2250, 5% of which is a donation to the Fenway Foundation for Friesian Horses.  I do take payments at no interest, and it takes about 4 months for each one to be cast, so you have at least that long to pay for it.  I've taken payments as long as 3 years for some pieces, so let me know what will work for you.


Here he is in all his glory!

Maquette in metal!

The maquette (small version) of the life-size is in metal now!  It will be patinaed (black, of course!) on Monday and I'll have the first two in my hands sometime next week!  I have all the bases and name plates - the bronzes just need to be mounted.

I'm really excited about how GORGEOUS they are!  Wow!  It's SOOoooo cool when a piece comes out looking even better than you'd hoped!

Here are some pics the foundry sent me to approve the metal work.  Please don't drool on your keyboards!  LOL

BTW, you can order one of these for yourself - $2250, and a donation will be made to the Fenway Farm Friesian Foundation from each sale.  I take payments at no interest.  Email me at Abraxan@yahoo.com if you're interested.

Can't wait to see them in person!!

Digitally Enlarging the Maquette to Life-Size

My life-size piece is being cast in bronze now.  I can't wait to see it!!

My husband and I went to Oregon for 9 days for me to work on the enlargement to make sure it was exactly the way I wanted it.  My 

customer came out in the middle of the week to see it and make sure it was how he wanted it too.  It passed both of our inspections by 

the end of the week!

The digital enlarging method ROCKS!  First, the piece is scanned by a computer, then it's cut out by a 12' long 7-axis robotic arm (like 

the kind used in the auto industry), then clay is applied and ART 

happens!  

The scanner doesn't get into tight spots, so there was a curve that 

attached the testicles to the gaskins, instead of the line of separation 

that should've been there, but it was EASY to carve out the 

Styrofoam and touch up the area with additional clay.  The horse's 

buttocks and tail created such a shadow, the scanner missed 

scanning the rectum completely, so I had to add that to the life-size, which again was no big deal.  

The enlarging place has a whole staff of people with degrees with 

sculpting working on the piece along with me, my husband and even my customer (who said I was like Tom Sawyer, getting everyone to work on it, LOL!)  

When you go from maquette to life-size, any tiny errors in the 

maquette will show up as large errors (the life-size in this case is 700 times bigger than the maquette).  Thankfully, no errors showed up 

once it was enlarged except for one ear not being set quite as 

straight as I wanted it to be (on the maquette, it looked fine, so it 

really was a small error).  With help from the crew (since I didn't 

know how to do it), I cut the Styrofoam ear off, put it at the angle I wanted, secured it with a pointed dowel rod, then squirted glue 

under the gap.  It's a foaming kind of glue from a caulking gun, so it expands and fills gaps.  It's also easy to carve or rasp off if it's in the way.  The dowel was hammered farther into the foam so it would be easy to pull out, then removed. Voila!  Perfect ears!!

The scanner made the edges of the ears and nostrils too thick 

because of its inability to "see" sharp edges like that.  No biggie.  I 

carved them off with a bread knife, then built up the clay to what I wanted.  

Once the piece was fully assembled and all the finishing work done, it was cut into pieces to be sent to the foundry for casting.  I worked from 8-5 for a week (and my shoulder didn't hurt much at all thanks to a cortisone shot the previous week!)  It was hard work but I learned SO much!!!!  And the piece is GORGEOUS!  (Not just my humble opinion, either!  LOL)  The 12' long 7-axis robotic arm that's shown in the pictures can do a two day job in two hours!  That's pretty darned amazing!

You might notice in the following pictures that the edges of the 

hooves weren't as "crisp" as the edges of real hooves are.  That 

was due to the way the machine cut them out. My customer fixed the hoof edges for me - I asked him to add that clay and he got it in really good shape himself before I came along and did the fine tuning. He sure enjoyed himself, and he'll be able to point to certain parts on the bronze and be able to tell his friends that he did that! I think that's great. :) This was a FABULOUS experience for me! I hope I get more 

life-size commissions so I can go through this process again!

Below you can see the robotic arm cutting out the head and neck - the horse's face is to the left and the back edge of his neck to the right. This is the same kind of Styrofoam used to insulate office buildings. It comes in 8" thick blocks.

The computer split the scan of the legs and tail in half lengthwise.  These parts are being cut out on this router table and will be glued together later.

Below is one of the master sculptors who works at the enlarging shop, working on the detailing of the mane. In the life-size, the details I put in the maquette's mane and tail weren't dynamic enough, so clay was added to make them a better size for the life-size. The sculptors there can do all the work for the original sculptor, either at their direction or without them even being there. Apparently I was unusual because I jumped right in and worked alongside them, which made sense to me - it's MY piece! My hands needed to be in every aspect of creating it!

 

Yeah, I'm happy with it! Awed by it, actually. It's amazing - and HUGE! Eight feet tall by 9 feet long without the cart it's mounted on at the moment.

I wish my parents were alive. It would be such a kick to be able to send this photo to them and say, "Look what I did!" :) I know they'd hang the picture on their fridge.

Taking Credit Cards

Changes to the rules of how credit card transactions are processed necessitated a change in the system I was using last fall.  The software I was using (PC Charge Pro from www.verifone.com) had been  made obsolete by the new compliance rules.  PC Charge Pro is a very good system (and what they're selling now is compliant with the new rules) and I liked it a lot, but before I spent the money on new software, I decided to see what was new in the market since I'd last looked. My husband suggested I look for merchant services apps for my smart phone (a Droid), which is what I went with.  First I'll tell you about a popular system we looked at and didn't choose, then I'll tell you about the one I signed up with (and am very happy with).

Of the merchant services that work with smart phones, Square (www.squareup.com) is one of the more popular ones.  Their fees are low and the card reader is cool, but there are problems with the way they do business that turned us off.  Any company that has no "real" office or phone number where you can talk to live people about problems is not a company I want to deal with, for one thing, and that's the case with Square.  Also, their reputation for customer service and complaint resolution is bad
(http://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credit-card-processors/square-review/). The Ripoff Report website has an interesting complaint
(http://www.ripoffreport.com/internet-fraud/square-up/square-up-squareup-sqaure-\up-346db.htm) against Square too - it's always good to check these things when you're researching something that involves your money.  (Notice in the Ripoff Report the problem with taking sales over $1000 - many of my sales are over $1000 since I sell bronze, so that was a real turn-off for me.) 

A better solution, IMO, is www.MerchantWarehouse.com. They have free apps for Iphones, Androids, Blackberry and I believe Window phones too, and their rates are guaranteed to be the lowest (they will work with you on what the best rate is for your business). You can get a Bluetooth swipe machine to go with your
phone for $129, IIRC, which works great. However, if you're in a place like Equine Affaire where one company has the WiFi contract for the premises, you may have problems. At Equine Affaire in Ohio this April when I tried to use my Droid to do charges (it works great at home!) I couldn't get online with the
phone because of the WiFi service for the fairgrounds blocking my signal. I finally had to pay for the internet access and use my computer to use the free Merchant Gateway on MerchantWarehouse.com. So a really good aspect of the Merchant Warehouse system is that you're not locked into just using your phone - you have another option. BTW, when you input the customer's email address, a very professional-looking receipt is emailed to them, which is a really nice feature.

Periodically, Merchant Warehouse will go over your account and make sure you're still getting the best available rate, which is the first time that's been offered to me in the 16+ years I've been taking credit cards.

Merchant Warehouse has an A+ reputation with the BBB (Better Business Bureau). Whatever system you go with, be sure to check them out with the BBB and possibly Dunn & Bradstreet as well to make sure you're going with a reputable company and equipment. It's also a good idea to do searches for complaints against whatever company you're interested in, and whatever terminal you're interested in as well. I once was leased a terminal that the company KNEW would be obsolete in a year when AT&T changed their system!!!! There was no way for me to know that when I got it (because when I signed with them, I wasn't given the name and
model number of the swipe machine I'd be getting, so I couldn't research it - and honestly, it never occurred to me that it could become obsolete like that), but in researching our complaint against them, we discovered AT&T let those companies know that certain terminals wouldn't work anymore BEFORE this company leased this machine to me. What a pain.


Another good thing is that Merchant Warehouse gives its customers who refer people to them $100 if that person signs up. So if you do check them out and decide to go with them, please give them my name! :D I've already gotten paid for referring others to them, and they pay very quickly! You can also get a standard swipe machine type of system or software for your PC (although with the Merchant Gateway, I don't know why you'd need the software) with Merchant Warehouse if you prefer to work that way rather than with a smart phone.

I've been with 4 or 5 different merchant services companies since I've been in business. This Merchant Warehouse system is easy to use, easy to explain to others who might be working in your booth, inexpensive, secure and the people there are nice to do business with. I'm very happy with them, which is a very pleasant change from some of the ones I've had before!