Why Having A Standalone Website Isn't All it's Cracked Up To Be

NOTE: I received many comments on this blog article from fellow Etsians but unfortunately, the comments made were lost when I migrated from Wordpress to Blogspot. Sorry folks! Your thoughtful remarks were great food for thought.

I continually see sellers on the Etsy boards make a particular comment that I wanted to share some ideas on. Typically the comment runs something like this: “If I have to do all this promoting and other types of work for myself, I may as well have my own website where all the traffic I get will be mine alone.”

Each time I see this statement (or some variation of it) I feel like answering back….and telling my experience.

A few years back, after I had been blogging for a while, I started thinking that I should have a ecommerce site as well, for my perfumes. I bought my domain name and decided that I was going to put up my own site complete with shopping cart. I thought it would be a relatively straightforward process like my blog was. It seemed likely that in a weekend or two, and the help of a few web-design books, I’d be off and running. I had made some simple HTML based sites in the past. How hard could it be?

As it turned out, pretty damned hard. Blogs are different from websites---very different--and times had changed since I had made those simple web pages. HTML had given way to CSS and XML and all kinds of things I had no experience of. I soon realized that coding the thing myself was as simple and painless as doing my own wisdom tooth extraction, and that I really had only two options: cheap, easy template sites or slow, expensive custom design.

I started with template sites but quickly realized that most of the choices available on do-it-yourself sites are cheesier than a can of Velveeta and not really all that simple, either. The 793 hosting sites I looked at all seemed to have variations of the same ten ugly templates. I also discovered that template sites gave me little to no control over the overall design. Sure I could choose the pictures and colors, and place the toolbar where I wanted, but bottom line they they all screamed “Someone made me in a weekend!” I made and deleted about 20 sites, each blander than the last.

For a long time I wouldn't give up hope that somewhere out there, the perfect template was waiting for me. I would see other sellers raving about such-and-such host and how easy it was to put up a site and how good it looked, or bragging about their page Cousin Willie made, and then I would visit their sites and (bless their hearts) see pages that looked like carbon copies of everyone else’s OR even worse, a site made in Y2K style by a friend of the family (frames, trailing cursors, and all). Bottom line is that I learned that very few people make good sites from templates or through the good intentions of relatives. The sad truth is that most people think their site rocks because it’s there and functioning, but to be honest there are a lot of dreadful homemade (or friend-made) sites sitting there wasting bandwidth. The fact is that easy doesn’t always equal good in web design. A lot of people who are thrilled to have a site at all are kinda out of the loop when it comes to what good design is.

So I gave up, and paid for good design. I found an incredible designer, who designed a site that fit the image I had in my head. She was (and is) truly visionary and skilled at what she does. She created a site for me that looked great and worked well, with a shopping cart, etc. It had good SEO and tags and content, because she knew about such things. Finally I had done it–and I thought my worries were over. I couldn't afford to pay her for regular updates to the site, but I wasn't too worried. I reasoned that since I had the basic outline the way I wanted it, I wouldn't have to change it often.

However, I soon realized that I had overlooked a key point: updated content. My beautiful site was beautifully static. Customers came, and ooh and ahh’d, and yes, bought–which was great–-but they didn’t stick around long because there was nothing to do except look and buy. For repeat sales they were just as likely to email me or buy based on my newsletter reminders. It slowly dawned on me that the sites *I* go back to are the ones that are always changing, and that having an online business required more than just a great site and fabulous product: it meant keeping people’s interest and commitment to return by having content that was updated from week to week and day to day—and I don’t mean just adding new products.

This was a bottom line truth I hadn’t prepared for. I have a busy day job, and a life full of other things that take up my time, and adding new products each week was hard enough. Now I needed to create content, too? The stress of trying to keep the site updated became just one more of many tasks, and eventually, when I had to choose which parts of my business were most worth my limited time and energy, I gave up. I switched to a simple one-page site announcing my email and phone numbers, and left it at that.

I did business strictly through shows and word of mouth for a while, and then in 2007 I found Etsy (cue angels singing!) I realized that the hassles of keeping up a site would be largely eliminated by having a shop on Etsy. If I provided the PRODUCT (the easy part, for me!) then Etsy could handle the cart, the bells and whistles, the constantly updated content and all the other sticky stuff that keeps buyers coming back…..for a bargain price of .20 a listing and a minuscule percentage per sale. Whoo-hoo!

That's pretty much how it's worked out, and I'm pretty happy. Etsy is not perfect and has many irritating little quirks and non-working things that I would change if I could, but it enables me to have a relatively worry-free, elegantly minimalist platform to sell my goods on, while I spend more of my time creating. It’s a tradeoff….for me, a good one.

I have to ask those people who think it’s easier to strike out on their own—-do you have a) the skill and/or finances to have a well-designed site with good SEO and b) a plan and sufficient time to create regularly-updated content that will keep people coming back? Because without those two….you’re kinda toast.

P.S. For those that asked...my Etsy site is scentbythesea.etsy.com and it’s empty right now until I come back from vacation, but feel free to convo me if you see something in my sold items that you like. :)

It's a sad day in Dodgerville.

What can I say? Even with Manny’s magic, we just didn’t pull it off.

Damn.

Don't Do This, Part 58

Look, radio station producers and hosts…people read the internet for news now. This is 2.0, ya know? The old outlets are so far behind it’s pitiful. If you have a late-night talk show and you’re choosing your topics for the evening, use a little common sense and don’t pick the first topic from the CNN.com “Latest News” column. On CNN, what they throw up as the “latest news” at 6 pm is stuff we’ve all been discussing since morning coffee break.

George Noury, I’m talking to you. I tuned in to Coast2coast last night and what did I hear? You trying lure me into listening by telling me you had some “important new information” about pregnant women and coffee. Hello–it was “new” at 8 am.

The Artist Formerly Known as Jekyll and Hyde

Besides my passion for brush and ink, I have two primary painting interests, and they’re rather dissimilar, although you could say they have some points of intersection.

The first can be exemplified by this image–a landscape by William Wendt:



And the second could be summed up by this painting by Mark Rothko:



The first area of obsession is the landscape defined by color masses, primarily in a light key, and the second focuses on areas of pure color used to evoke a mood and perhaps suggest a theme or subject. And never the twain shall meet, really. The first is traditional (well, late 19th century to early 20th century traditional—the Wendt piece is really an evolution of the Impressionist tradition, which is where my interest in this genre starts from) and the second is firmly rooted in mid-century color field painting/abstraction.

One is big, the other is small. My abstracts are 24 x 36, or 30 x 40. I use gallery-wrapped canvas with extra-thick stretcher bars, and don’t use frames. You need a good sized wall to put them on, and they tend to be Type A personalities. My landscapes are small (16 x 20, 9 x12, or even 6 x 8 ) and usually painted on panel or canvas-wrapped panel. They look great in a gold plein air frame, and play well with other art that may be on the same wall.

One has a thick, painterly surface; the other has layers of thin glazes. I have to say that I love a textured surface, and I love painting alla prima for plein air and mostly alla prima at other times…but my abstracts are some of the smoothest works I’ve ever done (they still have some scumbled texture in the upper layers, though.)

One is instantly likable, the other isn’t. When I paint landscapes on my porch from plein air references, people passing by stop and comment regularly. They recognize the scene, feel some connection to it, and sometimes even ask if the painting’s for sale. When I paint my abstracts, passersby still look, but don’t seem to feel the same connection as they do to the landscapes. Sometimes they get a strange look on their face that says Hmmm, another artsy fartsy person painting big simple shapes that my five year old could do. But occasionally someone walking their dog walks by as I’m putting the fortieth layer on, or the seventeenth transparent glaze, and stops, mesmerized by the colors, and says Wow, that is BEAUTIFUL. The color is just stunning. I could look at it for hours and just get lost in it. And I feel like I won the lottery.

Two sides of the same painter, I guess.

I’ve quit fighting the disconnect and given myself permission to be a split personality.

Hoarding for the Artist

Apropos of nothing, can I just share how much I dislike napthol red? It’s OK in masstone, but the second you try to mix with it, everything turns to a disgusting pepto-bismol pink. You can’t kill that pink. It takes over everything, even duking it out with pthalo blue. I have a tube of Old Holland that I bought a few years ago when I was ignorant about pigment numbers, and although it’s called something like Scheveningen Red Medium, it turned out to be just regular ol’ napthol red. I feel like the rube in the Jack and the Beanstalk story.

Here’s what I mean about napthol’s barfalicious pink tint (photo at left taken from the Daniel Smith website, because that’s the first nap red I happened to find when I looked for an image in Google.)

Now on to what I really wanted to post about. It’s hard to get over the idea of a canvas being precious. I am guilty of over-thinking my art and when I go to put something down on canvas, I get bottled up, thinking that I’ll fail at what I want to do. I subconsciously try to combat this tendency by buying huge numbers of canvases, reasoning that if I have plenty on hand, I won’t feel hesitant to use them, but it’s only semi-successful. I still have to practice positive self-talk—such as “Go ahead, dorkasaurus, the canvas factories will make plenty more.” Those blank canvases have so much potential. Having to deal with the actual is much harder—but ultimately more rewarding.

I’m lately forcing myself out of my canvas hoarding by doing imprimaturas on every surface I buy, almost as soon as I buy it. When it’s got a layer of paint on it, suddenly that support seems less untouchable. It’s certainly unreturnable and helps me get into “might as well go ahead” mode. I also use this imprimatura coat to try out my gazillions of colors and remind myself why I bought them. Today I did imprimaturas on six or seven canvases, using various tubes I hadn’t played with in a while, and some new ones. A short list follows….

Gamblin Chromatic Black plus titanium/zinc white: Beautiful neutral (leaning to blue/cool) gray. I bought this after hearing Robert Gamblin talk about it during the Pasadena Art Methods and Materials show two years ago. Texture is long and smooth. It really is great; I’ll use it again for imprimatura and grays within pictures.

Blockx Ivory Black plus titanium/zinc white: Almost the same color as the Gamblin, strangely enough, but much shorter and thicker paint, I wouldn’t use it again for imprimatura, but would use it during painting, for daubs and short strokes.

M. Graham Cobalt Blue: I adore this color and I really like this brand’s long oily texture. Imprimatura over a previous imprimatura of ultramarine blue and flake white that came out too brushy and thick on a gessoed panel.

M. Graham Indian Yellow: I was amazed at the orangey fire of this yellow. I want to use it in an a split-complementary palette soon—it’s just so powerful, yet transparent. Paint was a bit thicker than M. Graham’s usual—perhaps the nature of this pigment. Not a great shade for imprimatura but clearly a keeper, for other jobs.

Williamsburg Nickel Yellow: This is the yellow I love—soft and subtle, but definitely there—and the consistency I love—long and oily. Still opaque, though, which is good. I think it’s too delicate for an imprimatura, but I can’t wait to use it in landscapes. Threw some Grumbacher Cad Yellow light against it for contrast and noticed how much *more* opaque Cad Yellow is. Yellow is tired of being second banana to red in the brightness arena. Yellow, your time has come.

The Art of Hiding

I haven’t posted any artworks since fall 2005. Not because I haven’t been making art, but because I’ve been in a woodshedding phase, as the old jazz masters used to say. Baseball and work rants are easier, less of an investment, to write about. I spend a lot of time in a cubicle (see above)....whatever I have left is precious.

What have I been up to? A great deal. I’ve continued with oils as a primary medium, but still work with pastels and sketches in pen and ink and conte crayon. I have dueling obsessions, sometimes focusing on color rather than form, sometimes going the other way. Just as small shiny objects attract birds and young children, form attracts me like a magnet. I'm usually on either the Color Theory board at WetCanvas, or the Drawing board, or the Abstract/Contemporary board, soaking up info from other similarly besotted painters. My poor significant other. He’s much too sensible for such talk, but kindly indulges me as I sing the praises of cuttlefish ink, recommend unbleached titanium as a neutralizer or debate cobalt vs. ultramarine.

I’ve sold some work lately, entirely by accident. That, in itself, is probably the most tremendous step forward. I had a vision of myself as a secret artist, and selling things sort of lets the cat out of the bag, doesn’t it? Yet I’m not painting in a vacuum. I’m out on my front porch every weekend, going away at the big easel, and on fine summer evenings as well. I suppose it comes down to the difference between being an amateur and becoming a professional. I’m comfortable as a talented amateur; the “professional” label is new yet, and fits me oddly. It will take some time before I get used to the idea.

Back from the dead.

Yep, it's me. I've been a bad, bad blogger. Life gets in the way sometimes, ya know? I'm going to try to do better, though.

Lately my life has been all about art, and my perfume business, and Etsy, and work.

So those might be the dominant topics for a while.

Meanwhile, here’s a totally gratuitous piece of canine sweetness to make your head explode.