Circus skills

I'm doing a lot of pedaling at the moment, and have a lot of balls of different shapes sizes and colours in the air, so much so that I feel like a circus performer (and you can never find one of those when you want one! ha ha). 

I'm in the process of updating my website, and the pre-questions always seem to take longer than the actual doing of it. Where do you want the webhosting, what do you want to pay for it, how much space will it give you, what language do you want it in, do you want the blog to be part of it, do you want it all singing and dancing, and do you want it with lots of shiny bells on it so you make loads of money from it (YEP!).

And I've just updated my SAA page - as a Gold member I get lots of benefits of being with this art society and have always found them to be helpful and supportive to me. They've recently updated their website which has meant extra work for me to do to update my details.

As well as that I'm trying to learn how to sell things on eBay, which is an interesting learning curve, and eventually I want to sell more of my original art and prints that way. I had a look at the erotic art for sale on eBay over the weekend and thought a lot of it was dire. So, I hope to rectify that soon and get some of my art out there which will raise my profile as well.

I also put my hand (and head!) to teaching art over the weekend and had a willing pupil to practice on as a first time lesson. During the session I found out how much knowledge I have (lots!) and how much knowledge he had (none!) and realised how much information I had to impart to get a reasonable result for him. The painting isn't finished yet, and I hope we can persevere with it as that will show me that if I can teach him, then I can teach anyone. That wasn't supposed to sound patronising, as although he would like to paint, he has never done so, so we were really starting from the very basics. Normally people who want to paint have had some basic lessons or ability.

And as well as all of this, I have put some advertising notices around my village promoting my art in the hope that I will get some work from it, not helped by the fact that five days after I did it, one of my adverts had been covered up by someone elses advert looking for a domestic cleaner for their house. Cheeky sod, find your own place on the board that doesn't cover up someone elses advert!!!!

And as well as all of this, I have been looking at possible venues for me to find for exhibiting. the right sort of venues, for my art. And that might sound simple, but believe me, its not......

So, its been a busy last few days.

Now, where did I put that unicyle.....

Coming ready or not

Right then! What's happening this week.....? Oh yes, I remember! EROTICA!!!! :)

I haven't stopped since I decided five weeks ago that I was going to do it. I knew it would be a huge learning curve and it certainly as been!! There's been so much preparation to do - find and buy various items like a browser, all the hanging equipment, picture mounts, decide which images I'm going to sell as prints, write an explanation of the Queyntes, and what to do if you want your own painting commissioned. Design my flyers, design a banner, get all the information to the printer, print some of it myself to keep the costs down, and even so, the printers bill alone would feed an African village for a year. And then pick up all the stuff from the printer, and insert the prints in the mounts, bag them all up in protective sleeves, sort out what original artwork I'm going to sell, and bag and price that. My lunch over the weekend was all of two minutes, standing by the fridge eating leftovers from the day before, before returning to work again. Because I want it all to be right. I want to be the best I can be in the time I've had to prepare, to show the visitors what I have and what I am. I know I've got something in everyones price range, from small items to large, presuming they like the images, and some other different artwork images from the fannies. I don't know what the response is going to be to the Fantasy Fannies but so far its all been promising.

When I collected the flyers from the printer on Friday, I quickly ascertained he'd printed a quarter of the flyers I'd asked for. So it was a good job I hadn't left it all to the last minute! I waited an hour or so whilst he printed off the other three thousand. He's a nice lad, and we happily chatted whilst he fed the copier with reams of paper and guillotined them afterwards. He told me that other customers of his had been in this week and seen my brightly coloured flyers depicting Queynte 2 with my details printed over the top, and the words "Fantasy Fannies" being very prominent, and had noticed them with great interest. One couple had been in, and the guy had seen the flyers and started sniggering to himself. His wife couldn't see what was funny, as he sniggered and mumbled about "fantasy fannies". He pointed it out to her, and she caught on straight away what she was looking at and said "Oh, yes, I see!!!!" and her man looked non-plussed and said "What?". The printer tactfully pointed out that he was looking at what it said it was! And still, the guy didn't get it! His wife had done by then, and was laughing, but he'd totally missed it! And I think, that's part of the fun of these paintings - its the ones in the know, enjoying a joke against those who aren't!!!

In the pub on Friday night, I went to say hi to a friend of mine, he was chatting to a mate of his who I didn't know, and introduced us by saying "Jackie paints fannies!" which quite understandable was a good conversation starter!!!! I spent the next five minutes explaining how and why exactly I paint fannies - to the great interest of my new acquaintance. He asked if I did willies too - and I said I certainly would! He was certainly interested in the idea!!!

Another friend of mine in the pub, who is very interested in art in general and this latest project, asked why I did erotic art. I said it was the most difficult art I could think of, and that was part of the appeal. But I like people, and this is just part of what makes an adult, the erotic side to us.

Right, on with the last few things I need to do - and I'm looking forward to meeting the bloggers who are planning on coming to meet me - Wow, meeting them in real life!!! Very exciting :)

The pull of art is great, and its one of the things I love so much about it.........

Sliding Doors

Last night I was propositioned. Nothing unusual in that. It happens occasionally..... enough to make life interesting anyway. But this was different. Not a sexual proposition - but a business one........

A guy I met for the first time a couple of weeks ago and have not seen since, has offered to go into a business partnership with me. He's willing to invest a lot of money into building up my art business, promoting it and backing me as an artist. He knows, as well as I do, that I'm not going to sell my work in the area I live in, I need to go to London, Birmingham or Manchester - where the big money is, and the people who have the inclination to buy my sort of erotic art go. He's talking about a showroom, where people can visit and where I can exhibit my art properly. And his offer has come at exactly the right time - I've been looking for a good gallery for a while, one that is suitable to my needs, where they can promote my art and I can get a good price for my art, which I know is good, and has appeal to a wide audience. But if I go to a large gallery, they will ask a high percentage commission on my art - I'll be lucky to get 30% of the value they sell it at, my framing costs will also soar and I may get less money than if I sell my art privately. This has always been a problem for me - do I sell my art though a prestigious gallery and get less for it, but get fame and acclaim, or do I stay private and reach a smaller audience but keep a higher percentage of the proceeds? Plus there's my website to consider - technically I'm advertising to the world on it, and although my work resides in other European countries and the USA, I'm not known, as yet, as an international artist. I want to reach a wider audience. If I open my own showroom, I would be doing that and I would be taking the profits (or losses) and would be able to reach a richer audience perhaps, but would they be willing to spend the large amounts a venture like this would need to be profitable?

This businessman is willing to invest a lot of money in me, but he also wants a large slice out of it - he's in business after all, and that is to be expected. But do I go with him and invest a lot of money and maybe make a huge pile of money with his backing, or possibly even lose a lot through unforeseen bad decisions, or do I carry on as I am, slowly building up my business, pushing my work through the channels that are interested, and selling well enough to keep a steady income, but not necessarily a vast one. Or even keep on looking and maybe another offer better than this will appear around an unsuspected corner. Or is this as good as it gets? Should I snap his hand off and get him signed up before he changes his mind? I have to consider all angles, and run the two scenarios as parallel universes - as in the film Sliding Doors - one of these open doors leads to success and the other leads to ignominy - but which is which?