Tuesday 31 May 2016

Circles Of Your Mind Beats Speed Record!




Circles of Your Mind





By Ken Shaw 26.05.16
This lovely abstract painting in acrylics on 40mm stretched canvas has just been bought by a collector in San Francisco California.
It was collected from Tateh, in England by UPS at 17:44 on May 23rd. It was delivered in California at 11:38 on 25th May. According to Google, (and if my maths is right) that's 5357 miles in 42 Hrs. - approximately 127 MPH!!
So a big thank you to all the guys at UPS for their great service!

Check out my site here to see more of my art.




Monday 30 May 2016

Buying and Selling Art Online; a Win-Win Formula

Ken Shaw 

Statista, the statistics portal, http://www.statista.com estimates the value of the global online art market will reach a heady US$ 6.3bn in 2019.

This projection demonstrates an almost exponential increase when compared to Statista’s 2013 figure of US$ 1.57bn, climbing to US$ 2.64bn in 2014.

So what is it that’s fuelling this explosive growth?

In my opinion the main factors are:

  • Traditional bricks-and-mortar art galleries are realising that their future is online. 
  • Online galleries are enabling artists to advertise their work to a global audience. 
  • Art buyers no longer need to visit galleries; they can buy from their armchairs. 
  • Artists no longer need to give up 30 – 70% of sales in gallery commission fees. 

Of course growth of this speed comes with its own problems. For example, buyers who no longer need to fight their way through rain and cross-town traffic to see an artwork, now have to trust an online image. Will the on-screen texture and colours be as expected when the painting is delivered? 

For the artist there are pitfalls too. There is still a sizeable commission to pay to the online gallery in the event of a sale. The online gallery will also want to maintain a Chinese wall between buyer and artist to prevent direct sales. This means there is little chance of the buyer and artist developing a rapport. The cost for an artist of developing a website and dealing directly with buyers can be prohibitive.

Then there is the issue of time; how long will it take for a buyer in New York to receive the painting he has just bought from an artist in Paris? In the days of bricks-and-mortar galleries the buyer could simply pay and walk away with his new pride and joy.

At my own site, http://originalartworks.net I have been tackling these problems since British artist, Ivy Burley, decided the way forward was to put her art online. Dealing with the last point first, artists can employ UPS or similar large logistics companies to ship art globally. Typically, a painting can be delivered fully insured in California or New York, to take two of our recent examples, within fifty hours of collection from our studio in England.

The problems of getting a fledgling website away from a place where all an artist can hear is the sagebrush rolling by, to somewhere it gets noticed, are formidable. Google Adwords has a solution to that problem, but of course these costs can mount exponentially too.

But when everything is considered, there is no long-term substitute for an artist to buying and developing their own website. This will allow the artist to freely communicate with buyers and offer a prompt and caring after-sales service in the event of problems. And emailing high-resolution and in-context images can easily overcome any concerns a potential customer might have regarding colours and texture. Finish all this off with free shipping and a fourteen-day no-quibble guarantee, and artists and collectors can have what I consider a win-win formula.

To comment on this article (or to send me an article you would like published here) email me here.

Check out my site at:  http://originalartworks.net to see more of my art.


Sunday 29 May 2016

Buying Art? - Take a Tip From The Pros:


Welcome to our new blog. This is our first post, written by my husband, Ken. Don't forget to check out our website here. 

Whether you are thinking of buying art for the first time, or you are a seasoned collector, it pays to both understand your own motivations and tastes, and above all, learn from the pros. 

So says Alan Bamberger. Alan is an art consultant, advisor, author, and independent appraiser. He specializes in research, appraisal, and all business and market aspects of original works of art, artist manuscript materials, art-related documents, and art reference books. He published the following advice to art buyers on Art Business.com: 

[The following extract is from a substantially revised and updated version of a talk originally given to the Friends of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina:] 

Regardless of how much you know about what you collect already; always remember that the educational process is an ongoing one. Be an informed buyer. Learn from the pros. Take every opportunity to discuss the fine points of what you're looking at with as many different experts, curators, artists, collectors, gallery personnel and other informed art people as possible. 

Begin to get a feel for where your passions and interests lie; take the randomness out of your buying. Look at what you've got so far in your collection; reflect on what all those individual pieces you like so much have in common and proceed from there. Ask yourself questions like: 

Why do I like the kinds of art I'm buying? What about it satisfies me? Do I like it for the subject matters, what it represents, what it communicates, its originality, the techniques, the colors, the historical aspects, the regions where it's made, the lives of the artists? Does it make me think about things I've never thought about before? Does it make me feel a certain way or see things in a different way? Do I admire its technical qualities the most? Do I like it for the concepts, ideas, themes or philosophies it embodies, communicates or stands for? Does it alter or inform my perspective on some aspect of life? Does it portray or present things in ways they've never been presented before? Is it that it's old, new, local, foreign, big, small, round, square, whatever? 

Once you begin to identify the common threads, you can refine your buying to zero in on additional pieces that share those characteristics. It's almost like putting together a mission statement or clearly and specifically defining your goals - and a collector with a specific mission or goals is always more effective at acquiring art than one who rarely questions why they buy what they do.

By the way, says Alan, if the answers to your questions sound like these: "I buy what my friends buy; I buy for investment; I buy only the big names; I only buy bargains", consider returning to square one, determining what kinds of art you really really like, and then start all over again. 

I hope you find Alan’s advice helpful. As always, if you have any questions I can help you with please drop me a line through my “contact” page. 

Kind regards, 

Tateh

Check out my site to see more of my art.