New website and some thoughts on it

In case you haven’t seen it yet, I finally managed to build a brand new website. I built my first one about 4 years ago and kept it for two years. In 2010, I found a new website host with interesting templates and did another refresh. Because of all the behind-the-scenes in 2012, I knew it was time to tackle my website again for 2013. I had contacted some people I know who do websites and received quotes. However, since I had paid out of my pocket for the videos attached to my book’s QR codes, I didn’t feel like I could spend the money on it right now.

I had planned to get my new website up before my book came out early January, but with the CHA and Tucson shows, the time to do this kept getting shoved further and further down my to do list. My next self-imposed deadline was before my Breaking Out of the Mold DVD was released. I had no idea mine would come in February since there are six artists this year with DVDs from Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Yikes! I missed that deadline again.

http://www.jencushman.com

I was starting to feel some real pressure because I knew the Designer Showcase feature for Belle Armoire Jewelry was coming out for the March 2013 issue. Since I’ve built websites before, I know that starting from scratch with a good template takes me about 2-3 days to do from start to finish. The only way to get it done was to burn the midnight oil. I snuck into my studio 3 nights in a row after my family went to sleep and worked from about 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. creating it. I still had to get up by 6:30 and get the kids ready for school and drive them, so it really did mean giving up sleep to get it done. There are still some small design changes I want to do to it, but it’s 99% complete and I’m happy to have a brand new online facelift. It was very important to me this time around to include a Flash intro because a big part of any redesign is staying current.

The reason I’m writing such a long post on this topic and giving you the background is because I get questions about marketing when I’m out and about at the art retreats and shows. Often, people say they feel dejected because they don’t have the skills or money to get their businesses up and rolling they way they want to or feel they should. Making art is one thing. Everything else that goes into getting your art seen is another. I sincerely believe time and money are as much about an individual’s priorities as they are time and money. It’s not fun eating noodles and scraping together every penny to follow one’s dream, but realizing dreams takes focus. I was pretty darn tired after the third night of staying up late to get my website done, but I really felt like I had no other choice but to follow through. I didn’t want to pay for the quotes I was given — which were exactly in line with the skills and time it takes for anyone good to build a website — and I couldn’t keep letting it slip through the cracks and missing deadlines. My old website was musty and outdated. I couldn’t back off on my other work duties, so I just had to suck it up and get ‘er done.

If you are contemplating building your website, keep in mind a few guidelines that have helped me along the way:

Keep it simple. Tell people exactly what you want them to know. If you make art, say so and please don’t feel like you have to follow any highbrow kind of language if it’s not your thing. If you enjoy writing in flowery language or an esoteric style, then by all means have at it, particularly if your collectors respond in kind. I tend to keep things pretty straight forward, but I think that comes from my type of writing background.

Put pictures of your best work out there. Your website is an advertisement for you. There are approximately 7 billion people on the planet today and lots of them are creatives and creative people tend to think along the same lines. If you are worried about people copying your work because it’s on the internet, realize there are really only two options in today’s technologically-driven world: exposure or anonymity. Please do consider watermarking your images so people are aware that you are aware of U.S. copyright laws.

Present yourself as professionally as you can. If your collage niece or nephew offers to do your website for you because you’re feeling overwhelmed by it, ensure that he or she really has the design and writing skills it takes to put your best face forward. If not, hire someone to do it for you or barter if you can. It is a tax write off for your business. A good website should help bring people and opportunities to you, which should pay for itself in the long run.

Remember that it’s OK if you don’t have all the answers. Your first attempts at websites and blogs aren’t always graceful. They’re learning experiences about your business. Each time I’ve done a refresh I’ve honed my skills and learned something. I’m sure that will never change because life changes, technology changes, social media changes and so do we!  My website is still far from perfect, and that’s really OK with me. It’s the very best I can do at this time. I teach my children to always do their best, so that’s my motto.

I hope you find bits and pieces of this advice helpful. If you get a chance, please take a look at my new website.

Here’s wishing you a truly Artful day!

Blog musings part deux

First of all, let me shout a big thank you to everyone who read my last post and took the time to respond on my blogging conundrums . There were so many thoughtful comments of both information and support here and on my Facebook page. Everyone gave me lots of ideas to ruminate upon!

As I read the comments and thought about it over the weekend when I was camping with my family, I wrote a mental pro and con list regarding my blog. I don’t wish to bore you with all the details of the machinations of my brain, I do want to say that all this thinking did give me a “lightbulb” answer.

What hasn’t changed since 2005 is that I still love to write. Blogging gives me an outlet for my words. I’ve never been much of a daily kind of journal keeper  – written  or visual. Rather, I tend to write when the muse strikes and something inside wishes to escape. I also write for deadlines, but that’s a totally different kind of writing, much akin to my days as a working journalist. My columns fit into this category for me, not my blog.

I also have things I want to tell people, such as when and where my classes are and what events I’ll be at with ICE Resin and Susan Lenart Kazmer LLC (our company) or when my books/articles come out. I often have fun things to share, like art projects or blog hops. I enjoy being at a mixed-media or crafting event and have people come up to me to tell me they read my blog or saw a Facebook post that meant something to them. It makes me feel  good about the time I spend working on all of the behind-the-scenes things that I keep quite about until the time comes to shout them from the rooftops.

I truly love what I do. Words and art and business are my passions. I’m just as passionate for my family as well. Because the driving force for social media is my business, I tend not to share as much on this front because I find myself walking a fine line between sharing too much or too little.

When it comes to what I write about, I’m not so great at pretending. I’m real. What you read on my blog or Facebook/Twitter is the same person you’ll meet in real life. I believe in sharing information about the process of writing craft books or art columns, developing products, teaching or whatever the subject may be because I’ve met many people drawing the same path.

As someone who does marketing as part of my career, there are too many messages — both subtle and overt — that sell us stuff by making us feel “less than”.  One of the things I’ve learned in my fortish years, it that I am not “less than” anything. There are things I’m good at and things that I, frankly, suck at. It’s not a judgement call. It just is. Part of having my blog is sharing these thoughts with other people and learning from them because we’re more alike than we are different.

So…ta da! Bottom line. I’m still a blogger. My lightbulb moment though is that I will continue to read and listen to the pundits and experts on social media because it’s part of my job and because there’s a lot of good information. I will continue to share my stats and “platform” marketing strategy with the people whom I’m doing business with who care about such things. However, I am not going to blog just to blog. This may mean three times in one week or it may mean two weeks of  inactivity.

All of the social media research suggests that I’m going “weaken my blog position” should I follow my instincts; that you all will grow bored with me and unsubscribe. Or that other artists who faithfully maintain their social media will rise ahead. The experts may be right, or they may be wrong. I love a good challenge. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Course, you’ll know the answer because if my instincts are wrong and the experts are right, you won’t be here to read anyway. If that’s the case, please let me truly wish you an Artful life right now. In the end, that’s all I really want for all of us.

Thank you for being here and helping me to process. It’s been a great few days!

Blogging conundrums

I’ve been blogging on and off since 2005. When I first began blogging, there weren’t that many people really doing it outside geeks and tekkies and writers. Of course, writers. When you have this need inside of you to write, pretty much any medium that allows you to unfurl your words into the world is a good one. That’s why I began all those years ago. You would think that as long as I’ve been doing it I’ve figured it out. Ummm, nooooooooooooo.

When I first started a blog and excitedly sent the link to my friends, at least 75% of the email replies were “What’s a blog”? Can you imagine how you would look at a person nowadays if he asked such a stupid question?

I remember in those early the days my blog was an online diary because no one as really watching or listening. I was bummed at the time, but now I realize the freedom I had to learn about the medium in near silence. I kept that one for a while and then shut it down. I took a break and then started a new one with a different focus. After a while, I grew bored with that one and shut it down because I had changed and the focus I was so passionate about at the time became much less important.

When I made the decision to start showing my visual work as an artist/designer, I began a new blog for my business. My poor little blog suffered terribly because I was writing and maintaining another one with my current business partner and her former business partner. I poured my heart and soul into the company blog. The business changed, and I’ve since been maintaining this one.

Now I’m at that point again. The precipice of a cliff I’ve been at before and have always chosen to jump, ie. shut it down and take a breather. Why? Blogging is work. Yes, there are a lot of craft bloggers and others out there whom are making money from their blog and spend a lot of time maintaining it, but I’m not one of them.

I’m not sure if the general population actually gets how much time goes into great blogs…lots of time spent on things that happen long before they’re published all pretty and perfect. Time spent thinking up subject matter, time spent making the projects or art or vignettes or whatever, time spent photographing them with good lighting and great angles, time writing it and then time promoting it. Many of the best blogs these days are no different from magazines, and that’s what makes them successful. We love pretty pictures and free information. Who doesn’t? Sure the advertisements are annoying, but that’s how these hardworking folks get paid for all that time and creative energy. Advertisers who want our eyeballs.

Facebook changed blogging and so did Twitter, as they introduced the concept of microblogging to the world. Engage an audience in 140 characters or less, and that includes a shortened link to a pretty picture. Speaking of pretty pictures, let’s look at how Instagram and Pinterest are changing blogging yet again.

What I’m saying is that the cliff I find myself at is so familiar because with each new generation of social media, what I first began seven years ago is starting to feel very old school at this moment. The question I keep asking is this: If I’m this busy in my life right now raising a family and working, aren’t there millions of other people in the world feeling the same way? Aren’t they trying to juggle their social media along with their lives and feeling just a wee bit frustrated as I am?

Sometimes I envy my husband. He’s a brilliant computer geek with a great job where he does programming and puts out fires in the office. He’s never blogged. He doesn’t Facebook or Tweet. He is as tekkie as they come, and yet he doesn’t buy into the whole sharing your life with strangers movement. His work is so cutting edge that sometimes I think he drives a time machine to work, and yet his style is decidely old school. Man, I love him.

While I sound like a curmudgeon, please don’t mistake my musings. I don’t plan to shut down my blog. It’s never been one to get a ton of comments, but my stats show it’s not like the early days when I was the only person to read my blog (other than my mother, of course). I’m just re-evaluating my time and asking questions. I tend to process things out loud and then let it simmer.

What do you think? Do you blog? Do you enjoy it? Do you think you would lose business if you went to microblogging only? Be honest, do you really have the time to read other people’s blogs the way you used to? Inquiring minds want to know.

My Love Affair with Numbers

Here’s a not so secret fact; I love, love numbers. Like words, I sneak them into my art and use them as Talismans throughout my home decor and every day life. I’ve always loved numbers, but it was when I started making jewelry using the techniques I learned from Susan that I really started to understand the Talisman concept and how numbers can be archetypes and symbolism for our lives. I believe numbers that are important to us can also change with our circumstances. That we can grow into, and out of numbers, the same way our tastes changes and become more refined as we age.

For example, I used to always decorate in 3′s. Not only was it visually pleasing, but it represented my family. My husband, myself and our son. About a year before I became pregnant with our daughter, I started to see the number 4 everywhere. Intuitively, I began to incorporate it into almost every piece of art I made. Sometimes it would be a big and prominent 4, but most times it was just written in pencil and then covered up by the layers of medium and materials.

My favorite number for the past decade has been 13. I feel like it’s a lucky number and I like the thought of having a Lucky 13 in my life. The same time I began using 4 in my work, I also started taking a look at my love affair with the number 13. During my pregnancy, they were in just about everything I touched. So it wasn’t too astonishing that my miracle baby girl was born on Friday the 13th, completing my family of 4.

It’s always interesting to find other artists and creative folks who are drawn to numbers too. I almost always ask the question, “What’s your favorite number?” and then follow up their response with “Why?” The answers are just so interesting. I’d love to hear your response. Tell me, do you have a Talisman number?

I’m in the Brandywine Review

It’s always strange when someone asks to interview me. I’ve been writing for a long time, and I’m a little surprised when the tables are turned and I’m the interviewee. There’s a level of control when you’re the one with the column because you get to formulate the topic idea, ask the questions and control where the story is leading.

I consider it a huge compliment, as well as a learning experience. Seriously, everyone who writes or reports for a living should have to be in the “hot seat” at least once. My talk last week with Cindy, aka Caco Smith, a wonderful glass artist and creator of Caco’s Crafty Business column in the Brandywine Review was truly lovely. She is one smart cookie. Her questions were on target, and I definitely feel she is doing her level best to help her readers navigate the often-foreign world of marketing. I really enjoyed her first column for them.

So, without further ado, take a look at our conversation about marketing, publishing, mixed-media art and more.