Amber Waves by Steve Henderson

Describing art is as subjective as saying that an elephant is big.

You've got that right.

Especially in today's climate, in which actual paintings by elephants are hung side by side with those done by humans, and litterbox sculptures by cats are hawked as masterpieces of feline thought (felines . . . think?), it is difficult for the average person to know the difference between good art and bad.

And do not be misled -- just as there are good movies and bad movies, and well written books and poorly plotted ones -- there are standards by which one can call one painting excellent, and another one, not so excellent.

The problem is, the standards differ depending upon who is talking. The modern expressionist art movement dominated the conversation in the room for most of the 20th century, drowning out sensible questions like, "That is a large red square with a yellow line going through the middle and a blue dot on either side, and it looks like something my eight-year-old could draw. So why is that painting 'better' art than the ocean picture with waves that not only look like waves, but seem as if they are splashing in my face?"

Thanks to the re-emerging representational movement, people of the 21st century are feeling freer to express their opinions about a piece, and both clients and artists are wriggling out of the stranglehold of the upper crusty elite artistes who insist that the only good art is something that not only does not look remotely like anything, but also requires hundreds of multi-syllabic words to describe what it is supposed to be.

While modern, abstract art has its place, it is not the evolutionary pinnacle of humanistic thought, transcending the works of Rembrandt, Renoir, Chagall, Cassatt, or Da Vinci. Some of it is good, and some of it really is no more than the average 8-year-old could do. If you like it, and the price is right, then buy it. If you don't like it, then don't let anyone convince you that you should -- either like it, or buy it.

If your tastes lean toward representational work -- meaning that what is painted actually looks like something, then you as the viewer have the right to wonder why the artist painted something a certain way, and whether he made the head of a figure large and out of proportion because he wanted it that way, or because he couldn't do it any other way. Drawing is a skill, and not all artists have it.

Again, because art is subjective as well as being subject to the interpretation of the artist, there are no hard and fast, quick and easy rules for determining whether a piece is professionally or amateurly done (Naive Art comes to mind), just as there are no hard and fast rules to determining whether a person is a Christian or not ("Does he drink? Smoke? Swear? Watch R-rated movies? Dance, play cards, or wear lipstick? Not a Christian").

As in The Emperor's New Clothes, however, common sense does come into play.

While good representational art does not have to look just like a photograph (after all, if you want a picture of the ocean that looks like exactly like a photo of the ocean, then feel free to buy a photo of the ocean), it does need to stand up to a viewer's logical questions:

1) If people or animals are in the piece, and their body parts look out of proportion, why is this so? Is it because the artist wanted it that way, or because he couldn't do it any other way?

2) If the colors are garish and odd, do they work? Despite the oddness, does the painting still appeal?

3) The painting looks flat, the images without dimension. Again, is this because the artist wanted it that way, or because he couldn't do it any other way?

4) The paint is really, really thick -- all over the entire canvas. Would it have been better if the artist had confined the thickness to certain areas, and played with thinner paint in other areas?

5) Why did the artist choose this specfic subject matter?

The questions are limitless, and the answers enlighten.

Enjoying and collecting art is a pleasurable journey, one in which you learn more as you ask questions; visit artist studios, galleries, and museums; and read. If someone makes you feel stupid, then no matter how much they profess to know about art, they are not the professor for you.

Because the art you hang on your walls is for your pleasure, one of the primary considerations that comes to play is whether or not you like it -- has the artist used his skills with color, brushstrokes, perspective, lighting, shadow -- in effect, paint -- to engage you to the point that when you walk into the room, you walk toward the painting because its immediate visual impact is so arresting and strong?

Do you love this piece?

Then, regardless of whether it is abstract or representational, large or small, colorful or monochromatic, a portrait or a landscape, focusing on a penguin in pink tights or a girl walking down the beach, and, most importantly, whether or not Someone Else tells you that you should, or should not, like this piece, then this is the piece for you.

The Internet has opened all sorts of new markets. Books, clothes, music, home decor, all come our way at the clacking of a key -- why not original art as well?

As owners of the online gallery Steve Henderson Fine Art, we encourage cyber sales, and through the years, have found ourselves addressing the best way to make both client and artist happy with the experience.

For a brief overview of purchasing paintings online, Ehow addresses the basics in How to Buy Paintings Online, but after this  primer, you'll probably have a few questions. We'll start by one that we consider very important:   

Is it safe?

Purchasing art over the Internet is not like ordering a pack of socks. Because many individual artists sell their work online, you want to make sure that the person with whom you are dealing is a valid artist, running a reputable business, and willing to work with you throughout the process.

Many brick and mortar gallery or art museums that represent specific artists have an online presence in addition to a street address; there are also strictly online conglomerates that offer work by a multitude of artists. These should be relatively easy to research, as, in the case of the former, they generally leave a footprint in the form of newspaper articles, magazine reviews, and Chamber of Commerce statistics, and, in the latter, showcase a number of artworks by individual artists who can be tracked and identified. 

Individual artists are the most difficult to verify, but also the most rewarding, because you are able to communicate with the artist himself, something that is often off limits in a traditional gallery setting.

To research an individual artist, find his individual website. If you don't have the address, type in the artist's name and see what you come up with; you might add "artist" or "art" after the name to narrow the scope, especially if the name is not outrageously unusual.

While it is not a firm requirement, it is a good sign if the artist has a designated website, and not simply a space on a freebie site. An updated, well kept-up website indicates that the artist is serious about selling his work, and should have policies in place concerning client satisfaction, payment, and returns if necessary.

Once you're on the site, look around: Is the artist represented by any brick and mortar galleries or art establishments? Another good sign. Resumes and background can be made up, but whether or not an artist is actually represented by the establishments that he says he is -- this is something that can be confirmed by a phone call, or a visit to the representing gallery's site.

Has the artist participated in any shows? These, also, can be easily confirmed.

Is the artist a member of any societies or organizations? Has he studied or earned a degree in his field? More confirmation of validity. 

Does the artist have a business license? This is public record,  and, again, evidence that the artist is serious about selling his work. (Yup. We've got one.)

At any point in the researching process, feel free to contact the artist and ask questions, whether about the artist's background, a specific work, policies of purchase, or anything that you need to know to further your goal of owning one of the artist's paintings. Most websites have some manner of contact form, and working artists enjoy interacting with the people viewing their art.

Buying a painting is a process, and once you find an artist whose work you like and whose credentials are established to your satisfaction, you are ready to ask serious questions of the artist about the piece or pieces in which you are interested. After all, seeing a painting on computer screen is not the same as seeing it in person, so how do you ensure that what you see is what you get?

That's for the next article. To make sure that you don't miss it, please bookmark this site, and consider signing up for our monthly e-mail newsletter where we list a summary of articles published during the month.

This upbeat approach to paying the piper  does not extend so far that you give more than you have to, she quickly adds, and one of the most overlooked, yet easily recorded, tax deductions for the artist is that of your mileage.

I will never forget the time we packed 25 paintings (and they weren't miniatures) into our Honda Civic and drove six hours to deliver them to the Lawrence Gallery in Sheridan, OR. Unpacking the vehicle, we felt as if we were in one of those Marx Brother movies featuring multiple people continuously emerging from a little car. The gallery representative told us later that she enjoyed watching us as much as she did viewing Steve's work.

The point to this article  is not, however, that we need a larger vehicle, but that driving is a part of the artist's business day, and as part of that business day, the mileage you put on the car is eligible for an IRS mileage deduction, in 2011, of 51 cents per business mile driven, providing that you are not already claiming depreciation for the vehicle you are using.

Before I go further on this, let me insert the caveat that I am not an accountant and do not purport to be. The information in this article reflects what I have learned in the process of marketing Steve Henderson Fine Art. Ultimately, it is best for an artist in business for himself to consult with an accounting professional regarding his individual tax situation.

Back to this mileage thing: take note of the phrase, "per business mile driven."

Now according to CPA Man, our accountant who is also the tax assessor who plays the piano at the non-profit theater group (we really do live in a small, small town), when we drive our paintings to a gallery, as we did to the Lawrence; or when we deliver to or pick up from a show; or when we attend a reception; or when we pick up supplies for the office; or when we mail a business letter at the post office; or when we do anything connected with our business and drive our car to do it, we can deduct 50 cents per mile driven.

In order to do this, we need to keep a record of this mileage, and this is really a simple thing:

1) Buy an inexpensive monthly planner -- the kind with big boxes for the days of each month -- for each  car; we get ours at the Dollar Store.

2) When you head out for a business-related errand, record your starting mileage in the box of that day's date. Also record the purpose of the errand (mail letters; deposit checks at bank; attend show; meet with client; deliver painting; purchase supplies, etc.).

3) When you return from the errand, record your ending mileage below the starting mileage.

4) Write the total number of miles driven for that errand below the ending mileage. If you have piggybacked personal errands in with the business ones, deduct these and record only the miles driven for business purposes.

5) Keep this log throughout the year.

6) At the end of the year, transfer the mileage driven to an Excel Worksheet -- I record the date, number of miles, for what purpose, and in which car; I then total the miles for the month, and ultimately the year, presenting this spreadsheet to CPA Man as part of my tax receipts.

7) Keep the monthly planners, along with a copy of your spreadsheet, with your tax records.

You will be surprised at how the miles add up, and with them, the deduction. The amount of time you are spending in the car may also explain why you have been so frustrated lately, about not having enough time in the studio!

Gentle Readers: We invite you to join Steve's monthly e-mail newsletter for information on recent work, upcoming shows, classes, and events.



Ah, Facebook.

This is the social media that we all love to hate, complaining about how people are replacing face to face contact with the electronic buzz. I resisted for years but finally caved in, to the chorus of my youngest teenager crowing, "I'm the one who got you started on Facebook!"

Thanks, honey.

Unlike my daughter, however, I plunged into Facebook less for the experience of typing inane comments to my friends and family as I did for the opportunity to publicize Steve's original oil paintings to a broader audience, and I find that Facebook has its unique and valuable place in the overall marketing plan.

First of all, understand that there is your personal Facebook account (in which you have the option to type inane comments to your friends and family) and your business Facebook page (in which you decidedly do NOT post inane comments) -- the two are different, and should remain so. (By the way, in order to set up a Page for business, you do need a personal account already in place.)

I advise that you not use your personal account, or a variation thereof, as your business presence, but that you set up a specific Page for your art business. There are two primary reasons for this:

1) On your personal account, people can post all over your wall about anything; on your business Page, you alone post on your wall. Others are relegated to the Others section.

2) On your personal account, people send you Friend Requests which you either accept, reject, or ignore. On your business Page, people hit a one-stop Like button to join, and do not have to wait for you to notice them and respond to their requests (I had one business sit on my Friend Request for six months; guess how that made me feel?).

Okay. So you've set up your Page and sent out Friend Requests to everyone in your personal friend list. That gives you a base of fans. As your friends tell their friends, or as people discover you on your website, through exhibits and shows, via newspaper articles,  from your business card, from the Facebook icon link that you append to your website  --  there are myriad ways to get your name out there -- then some will join your page as fans. We have fans who check Steve's Facebook on a daily, semi-weekly, and weekly basis, and we always want to make sure that they have something to read.

Now what?

When I first set up the Steve Henderson Fine Art Facebook page, it was difficult to know what to post beyond floating a recent painting and saying something about it:

"Morningtide -- rich in detail and brushstrokes -- a piece of the Oregon Coast adds to a Tuesday." Then the image, the link.

This is good -- keeping your fan base up to date with your latest work.

But you can easily take this a step further, again, with the idea of providing more complete information as to what you are up to:

1) Have you been accepted into a show? Then post it on Facebook. As I prefer to limit my posts to once per day, so as to not inundate followers or overwhelm me, I will post an image of one of the paintings that will be in the show, with a link either back to the website or to the show itself, if a webpage has been set up for it. The next day, I'll post an image of another painting that will be in the show. And so on, until every painting to be in the show has been posted. This way, each work gets its day in the sun.

2) Have you been accepted into a gallery? Same thing, one at a time, with links back to the gallery. When Steve was first accepted into Rive Gauche Galleries in Scottsdale, AZ, I posted daily through his Norwegian Artist site the paintings that were to debut his gallery entrance and a brief story about each.

3) How about your latest blog? Post the link, along with an image of your work.

4) Do you teach or conduct workshops? Post it -- before the event, during, after, along with photos and that ubiquitous link.

5) Traveling for reference photos? Post some photos, and link back to your site. If you paint something from the references later, post an image of the painting along with the story.

6) Do you put out a newsletter? Let your Facebook fans know, along with a link back to your website E-mail Newsletter Sign-up Form.

Think of Facebook fans as the people that they are, and tell them what you're up to.

And while we're at it, a few things you might want to avoid posting:

1) Anything embarrassing or that makes you look foolish or unbusinesslike. This includes questionable photos from that studio party, which, incidentally, would be best not to post AT ALL, including on your personal site.

2) Whining. "How come more people don't sign up for my Facebook page?" "Sales are really down." "I'm discouraged and don't feel like painting today." These are all valid thoughts that you can share with your manager, therapist, or mother, but not your Facebook business fan base.

3) Verbal detritus. "Gonna paint!" "Gettin' ready to paint!" "Thinkin' about painting!" Well, duh. If you're an artist, you're probably going to paint. If you are going to take the time to write something, then take the time to write something: "Spent last week pumping out the basement after that freak flash flood that caused the leather sofa to split into two. This week it's time to paint!"

Facebook is a huge social media phenomenon, but it is not the alpha and omega of your marketing strategy. It's a part of the whole, kind of like somebody's eyebrow or ear lobe -- important, unique, distinctive, useful, and worth looking at.

If you’re married to an artist, there’s a high likelihood that you are not an artist yourself.

Now don’t get all feathery here, I’m not saying you’re not creative, and I’m not saying that two artists can’t live together (God knows how), I’m just dredging up the observation that frequently, when one half of the equation is an artist, the other half tends to be, well, how shall I phrase this?

More businesslike?

Now the artists will be poofing up their plumes.

But face it -- it is the rare artist who thinks about publicity, marketing, bookkeeping, and website maintenance as much as perspective, value, contrast, form, color, and point of view.

My own journey into managing the Norwegian Artist’s professional art career began with one of those casual statements you throw out without thinking of the eventual implications:

“If you want some help with filling out a show application form or something, I’d be glad to do it,” I mentioned over tea and toast one morning, feeling especially magnanimous. After all, I reasoned, what were we talking here – an hour, maybe two, every week? Small price to pay for spousal contentment.

One show turned into two, then three, then more as I researched the Internet for additional options in our area and beyond. And as you know (but I didn’t), it didn’t stop with the initial paperwork (a lot of that, incidentally) and sending of the check; acceptance brought a new set of responsibilities from shipping or delivering the artwork to setting up inventory forms, communicating with the people running the show, coordinating attendance at the reception, and attaching myself, trophy-wife like, to the artist’s arm.

And then, when the first work sold, I needed to figure out what to do with the money. Seriously.

Our debut year found me researching tax regulations, financial operations, spreadsheets, recordkeeping. Living in a small town where my accountant is also the county tax assessor as well as the piano player for the non-profit theater organization, I networked in the grocery store or, better yet, the library. Whenever I discovered someone who knew more about a topic than I did – and just about everybody knew more than I did about a lot of things that I needed to know – I backed this person into a corner and extracted information from them the way a vampire drinks blood.

And the Norwegian Artist , when he wasn’t working his day job. . .

painted and painted and painted and painted – providing me with more fodder for more shows and eventually galleries, private clients, and community events.

My one-hour a day commitment quickly grew to a second job, and I found myself phone chatting with an officer of the state revenue department who warmly and with gentle humor walked me through my first state business tax form; once we hung up, I drove to the library where Janice and Heather the Librarians gave me two-on-one instruction in how to set up an Excel spreadsheet, starting with a definition of what a spreadsheet is, anyway, and why I might meet one;  done there, I walked two blocks to the Historical Depot, where they were setting up an art show and wanted several of the Norwegian Artist’s latest pieces.

And I exhilarated in every bit of it.

The learning curve was steep, and in a short space of time I went from someone who couldn’t send an e-mail or understand why you have to hit the Start button to turn off the computer to a reasonably accomplished intermediate computer user who actually understands 10 percent of what my computer geek friends talk about over coffee. (Have you noticed that these types drink coffee, not tea? Is it something about being wired in every facet of their beings?)

I’ve set up customized inventory sheets, maintain a Master Record of Steve’s work, whipped out Artist Statements, Biographies, Resumes, and brochures (to the point that I now do them for others), and discovered the wild world of professional blogging.

What started out as a sideline painting endeavor for Steve, with the impossible dream that somehow he could quit his day job and make a living as a fulltime artist, is day by day turning into a tangible reality.

And all because I offered to fill out a show application.

I am not saying that you – spouse or significant other of the artist – have to be obsessively and energetically driven to the point that you make your mate’s art career an integral part of your life. I am saying that, if you are linked with an artist, you probably think a certain way, and possess a certain mindset and roster of skills, that uniquely qualify you to address the marketing half of the equation.

You may be able to keep this to a half-hour a day.

But I’m betting, once you get launched and see how electrifyingly exciting it all is, you won’t want to stop.

I know. I know. You would much rather be in the studio, painting.

However, selling the art that you create involves a requisite amount of office time, and one of the places where this precious time can be most wasted is at your e-mail inbox.

Let me start by saying that, in the same way that you open your mail --  ("Did the check arrive?") -- and answer your phone every day, so also should you designate a daily visit to your e-mail inbox.

Think about it: when you write a business inquiring about their product, don't you expect an answer, and a timely one at that? And if you don't get one at all, how does that make you feel about the business?

It's established then: regularly checking your e-mail is a must, and a good minimum is once a business day. In managing Steve Henderson Fine Art, I am at the computer five days out of seven; Steve checks on Saturday; and on Sunday we shut down, allowing ourselves one day free from responsibilities other than reading the  newspaper and taking a nap.

I always get a surge of pleasure seeing the  Inbox bolded and a healthy number to the side. However, this pleasure rapidly diminishes if the majority of those messages are cyber junque: business flyers and postings trying to sell me something, forwarded jokes from friends and acquaintances, and invitations to play Farmville on Facebook.

This electronic detritus clutters up the mind along with the machine, and the first step toward making your daily desk time more efficient is to permanently get rid of these distractions.

If you do not already have a designated e-mail address for your business, do so now, and reserve it for business use only.

I use my business e-mail to interact with clients, art galleries, workshop participants, students, art organizations, publishing organizations and such -- relying on my personal e-mail account to handle Facebook contacts, Stumblers, Twitterers, friends and family, and any businesses that have to do with that personal life (such as the friendly folks at Upton Tea who keep me happily supplied with my favorite beverage).

By doing so, I ensure that when I open up my business e-mail, I am not wasting work time with the latest book offering from Amazon, movie suggestions from Netflix, or fabric sale teasers from Joanne's.  "I'll just take a moment to follow this link" is the electronic equivalent of "I'll just pop into the espresso shop for a quick shot and a chat with whoever is there."

Now that you have a clean business account, work through your list with whatever system works for you -- chronologically, by date, most important first, easiest first -- whatever makes you purr. The important thing is to ensure that you address each and every message, because if it was important enough for someone to send it, then it is important enough for you to at least look at.

There is an old adage about paperwork that recommends touching each piece of paper just once --  either filing it, answering it, or throwing  it away.

Now I'll be the first to admit that paperwork is my bane, and that I handle many a piece more than once, especially as I transfer an unwieldy stack of tree product from one side of my desk to another, then to the top of the cabinet, then to some interior drawer (and not, unfortunately, the overstuffed filing cabinet).

But e-mail is more immediate than much that comes from the postman, and the best way to keep on top of it is to follow the advice for handling paperwork, with a few modifications:

1) Open up the file and read it. If it's junk, delete it. If you never want to receive junk like this again, mark it as junk so that it will get in the right box next time.

2) Answer it.

3) If you can't answer it now but will do so later, mark it as unread (so that it stays highlighted) or categorize it with a color (blue for gallery interactions, purple for show notifications, etc). I prefer to do both.

4) Once you have answered something, send the original e-mail to a designated file in your inbox: Show Applications, Queries, Comments, Associations, you get the idea. I confess that I do this 50 percent of the time, which means that my general Inbox is still pretty messy, but the Search index in my Microsoft Outlook account is a good one, opening up drawers and rifling through the files in all sorts of locations.

Of all of your daily office activity, keeping on top of your e-mail is at the top of the list, but if you get into the habit of spending a focused, designated time to answering that day's mail, you will be able to pick up the paintbrush and do what you really want to be doing, guilt-free.

At least, that is, concerning your e-mail.

I'll be honest with you. We don't know any multi-millionaires, unless, of course, they are cleverly disguising themselves as teachers, fire fighters, insurance agents, auto mechanics, or one of those people who has a mystery job that defies anyone figuring out what they actually do ("I'm a catalytic trades officer of global kinesthetic systems management").

If we were dependent upon rich people alone to buy art from Steve Henderson Fine Art, well, we wouldn't have much of a Sold section.

As it is, we enjoy an eclectic melange of clients from all walks of life and income bands, and one thing this diverse group shares in common is their delight in their individual collections of original art.

Yes, that's it -- ORIGINAL art.

Now, galleries being run the way they are, we generally don't get to meet the folks who purchase Steve's work via that route, but those clients who visit our studio directly or who contact us through the website   have educated us in the various ways that people of ordinary means can afford extraordinary, one of a kind art.

Generally, most of them set aside "fun-money" funds, and, rather than let it trickle out bit by bit into lattes and theater tickets and white-bagged lunches, they designate an amount each month and go shopping once they've put enough in the account. When they work with us, we work with them, either holding aside a work until they have reached their financial goal, or establishing a customized payment plan, or creating a smaller, more affordable work of similar (but not identical) nature to the larger one that they can't quite yet reach.

What we don't do is make prints of Steve's work, because his client base is adamant about owning original work, unlike anything that anyone else possesses.

And in that area, our non-millionaire clients are just as wealthy as the upper echelons, because the work that hangs on their walls is displayed on no other wall, anywhere -- not in Steve Martin's collection, or in the powder room of Bill Gate's mansion, or in the hallowed hallways of the White House.

"Well, but Steve isn't as famous as the artists whose work hang in those places." (I can hear the sniff.)

While some of our clients do purchase with an eye to investment, all of them choose one of Steve's paintings because it speaks to them somehow, and having it on their wall where they can see it every day brings pleasure into their lives.

In this way, everyday-people collectors have an advantage over the uber rich -- people of modest means buy an artwork not because it will triple in value over 10 years, or because it can be stored in a climate-controlled vault for future trade or sale, or because their art purchasing agent advises that this is someone to keep an eye on, but because they like it.

There are a number of emerging and mid-career artists out there producing work every bit as excellent -- sometimes more so -- than that produced by longtime big name top guns whose prints of their originals are priced at more than an ordinary person can afford (and don't be fooled -- a print is a print is a print, and the likelihood of it being a solid financial investment is about as secure as paying the kid's medical school expenses by selling off all of those "collector" plates advertised in the Sunday newspaper).

We all like to express our unique individuality -- through the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive -- how liberating to think that owning real, bonafide, beautiful, and unique art is within the reach of all of us.

"In marketing myself as an artist, do I really have to blog?"

No.

However, blogging is a tool -- and a valuable one -- in getting your name out there, beyond the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

For those who do not enjoy writing, blogging can be as simple as posting a photo of the latest work along with a brief description and a link back to the website. This is quick, painless, and minimal; however, since thousands of artists limit themselves to no more than this, it is also easy for one's blog to be lost in the shuffle. Unless you have avid followers who kick down the doors of the studio before you finish putting on the final brushstrokes, there is not enough information and there are not enough words in the blog to attract the attention of searching people and search engines.

I regularly post updates on Steve Henderson's work in one of our many WordPress blogs, The Norwegian Artist. Depending upon my mood, I will be whimsical (Is the Norwegian Artist Boldly Painting Star Trek Paintings? Will He Be Doing This for Five Years?) or serious (Dream Big), but my goal is to say something of enough interest that someone stops long enough to read it.

My ultimate goal is two-fold:

1) To acquire a regular reader through e-mail sign-up, bookmarking, RSS feed, or whatever options are available to let subscribers know that I've posted something new and

2) To direct people to Steve's fine art website, where I hope that they will stay awhile, browse, sign up for updates and e-mail newsletters, contact one of Steve's galleries for more information about his work, and contact us about purchasing a painting from the site.

To this end, I blog; I post updates on Facebook; I stumble around on StumbleUpon and I tweet on Twitter; I send press releases to our local and regional newspapers; I send Steve's information and bio to both online and paper magazines.

It is very much a learning process, and I have time to explore it because, quite frankly, I don't paint. Steve does.

It is possible, however, to fit blogging around the painting or sculpting schedule, and here are a few ideas:

1) If your website supports a blog, like Fine Art Studio Online, use it. At the very least, post an image of your work, give the blog a catchy title, and write a sentence or two on the piece.

2) Sign up at  WordPress.  Blogger, or any of the many free blog supporting sites out there (Google "Top Blog Sites" and wander through the list until you see something that you like) and send out a duplicate of what you've blogged on your website. Link back to your website.

3) Set up a Facebook page for your art business, and, every time you blog or post an image of your work, incorporate the link onto that day's post.

4) Let's go back to that "Catchy Title" part -- I am far more willing to read an article with a headline that grabs me by the hair and yanks me into my seat. Just make sure that whatever your title refers to actually has something to do with the story. People feel cheated when they feel misled, as anyone who has looked up a YouTube video entitled, "Funniest Cats Ever!" to find an article about somebody's product instead.

5) Whatever you write, use real words that sound like ones that real, living people -- and not characters from a Jane Austen novel -- would use. Consign "synergistic flow of organic ecstasy" to the nether regions, and just write as if you were speaking. (The only people who use the term "synergistic" in verbal speech are seminar charlatans.)

 

If you don’t know when to use him and me or he and I, don’t feel bad. This problem is so common that I literally wrote a book around it,Grammar Despair: Quick, simple solutions to problems like, “Do I say him and me or he and I?”

 

The answer is fairly straightforward, so let’s get started:

 

Let’s say you’re heading to the movies with Bob and you’re not sure how to phrase this: do you say, “Me and him went to the movies,” or “He and I went to the movies,” or “Him and I went to the movies,” or “He and me went to the movies”?

 

Start by temporarily dropping off the He or Him, and see what you have left.

 

Would you say, “I went to the movies,” or “Me went to the movies”?

 

 

You’re right: “I went to the movies.” Remember the “I.”

 

Now, leave the “I” for a minute and look at He/Him. Would you say,  “He went to the movies,” or “Him went to the movies”?

 

Yes: “He went to the movies.”

 

So, if both you and Bob go to the movies, you will say, “He and I went to the movies.”

 

(Yes, it is also correct to say, “I and he went to the movies,” but this sounds stilted and awkward. It is not wrong, however.)

 

Before we look at another sentence, this is a good time to mention that Steve's work is available as affordable prints, cards, phone cases, pillows, duvet covers, tote bags and more. Check out our Prints, Gifts, and Cards section. You can also shop directly from this site at the end of this article.

 

Okay, let’s look at another sentence:

 

Do you say, “This gift basket is for her and me,” or “This gift basket is for she and I,” or “This gift basket is for she and me,” or “This gift basket is for her and I”?

 

 

We’ll use the same technique of temporarily getting rid of one of the two people and focusing on the other. Let’s concentrate on I/me:

 

Do you say, “This gift basket is for I,” or “This gift basket is for me”?

 

Yes, it’s for me.

 

And do I share this basket with her or she? In other words, is it, “This gift basket is for her” or “This gift basket is for she”?

 

Yes, “This gift basket is for her.”

 

 

Putting it all together, you'll then say, “This gift basket is for me and her,” or “This gift basket is for her and me,” the latter which sounds a bit smoother to my ears.

 

That’s it. There aren't many magical formulas out there, but this one is as close as it gets. Whenever you’re faced with two or more people in the sentence and you don’t know whether to use he/she/they/we/I or him/her/them/us/me, figure out what sounds right, one person at a time, then put the whole thing together at the end.

 

 

Before you leave, please check out the art on the site, or look through the images below to purchase affordable wall art prints, home decor (pillows, duvet covers, shower curtains), note cards, personal products (phone covers, tote bags) and more through Steve's Fine Art America products. Purchasing is safe and secure through PayPal, and every item comes with a 30-day guarantee. Add color, fun, and art to your life!