If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist will answer you:
I am here to live out loud.
Emile Zola
Most of my readers probably belong to a number of various art sites they use as a jumping off point for marketing their artwork through social media like Facebook or Google+. There are literally hundreds of such sites though we'd probably agree that only a relative few have the kind of following and membership that make them worth our investment of the time it takes to maintain a presence on any such site. Probably among the best known are Fine Art America, Red Bubble, Saatchi, Imagekind, Society 6, and Blue Canvas as well as multi-purpose sites like Zazzle and Etsy. In every venue, there are expectations of some form of reciprocity for comments or promotion of our work. Most sites have groups or communities to which you can belong but you are probably also expected to participate in group forums, promotions or discussions. In truth, it's easy to get so caught up and then overwhelmed by the rules and expectations that participation in the site becomes burdensome rather than joyful and at the same time, that need to stay caught up on return comments or promotions can rob a person of both the time and the inspiration to create new work with anything meaningful to say.
There's also the reality that if you seriously want to make your artwork a commercially successful venture - that isn't everyone's goal, I know - you have to blog regularly (about which I'm notoriously bad) and participate consistently in following other blogs and in developing a following on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest among other social media sites. The "workload" is staggering if you belong to several art sites and all the prominent social media sites. So it is with some hesitation that I'm going to mention one more site to add to the list of places to belong. But let me be totally above board here - I have only just joined myself and the reason I did so was because of this article in ArtProMotivate, a blog I follow that deals with many different topics of concern to today's artists. You'll find the original blog that caught my eye here:
Artpromotivate: ASC – A Singular Creation – Free Online Art Commun...: A Singular Creation (ASC) is a free online art community devoted to providing resources and promotion opportunities for all artists and photographers. (Read the rest of this interview with the founder of A Singular Creation).
But I don't think the interview alone would have gotten me to add one more site to my already long list of often neglected art sites. A look at the home page of this site, however, did convince me that here was something different. Even their terminology is different. The site's creator, Joe Barrouk, says this about his unique site - "A free membership gets them access to our contest and opportunities calendar, forums, ability to enter our monthly showdown competitions, a gallery with unlimited albums and unlimited images, a community profile page and blog. The profile page could act as a website of sorts. It has room for bio, website links, contact info, gallery images, etc. All of the artists forum posts, blog posts and gallery images can be shared on Face Book, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble Upon, and many other social networking avenues. My site is definitely evolving into a community of artists that share, learn, teach, promote, critique and discuss." More importantly the site offers monthly contests and showdowns that not only get your work out there but pay money. And there is a quarterly contest with $1000 grand prize. Take a look at the main page and see for yourself where the focus is - on giving the artist opportunities. You can read more about A Singular Creation here:
http://www.asingularcreation.com/
For those of us increasingly frustrated by the expectations of our home art sites/groups and ill at ease with self-promotion on social media sites, A Singular Creation offers not only opportunities for exposure but perhaps more importantly, a chance to grow as artists. The forums are not like those on many sites and there are no "groups" to which one must belong to get seen. But if you have courage, you can submit your work for critique and learn from others with more experience or mastery. Truth is...belonging to all the best art sites in the world means nothing if you allow your creativity to suffocate under the weight of expectations and do not give it room to breathe.
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