social media | Creative Potager

I made the cover! It isn’t the cover of the Rolling Stones but it is a glossy cover of a new regional magazine called ISLAND GALS reaching Vancouver Island and the smaller Gulf Islands. This includes British Columbia’s capital city of Victoria. Actually, my oil painting HENDERSON HILL made the cover and I made honourable mention in the top left hand corner. But it does make this artist’s heart beat like a ruffled grouse on a log to have her painting chosen as the magazine cover and to be featured under the title “create.”

Isn’t this exciting?

One of my goals for 2011 and 2012 is to expand my exposure beyond my immediate long-standing network. This is a necessary step for a successful art career. It is one of the reasons that artists have benefited from exposure through traditional galleries. But things are changing quickly between the buyer and artist relationship. Buyers seeking original art work have a keen desire to know and interact with the artist whose work they are collecting. They are and want to be part of the story about the work that is on their walls. It could be a place they visited. It could be one of the paintings they watched being developed. It could be that the painting reminds them of something that is significant in their experiences. Or it could be all of the above. The bottom line is collectors want direct contact with the artist. For artists this means moving beyond the traditional buyer to gallery to artist circuit.

I know I don’t need to convince you dear readers as you know this already. But from the business side of being an artist I must be clear with myself. I must purposefully take steps to ensure there is an expanding opportunity for my work to be seen and for buyers to connect directly with me. Creative Potager and other social networking platforms provide these opportunities on a global scale. However, being featured on the glossy cover of a magazine is just plain old-fashion, satisfying goodness.

NOTE: The 20 X 16 inch original oil painting of HENDERSON HILL is still available for $900.00 and can be purchased by contacting me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca and I have a copy of the magazine to go with it 🙂

Best of the weekend to you and watch out for monsters and low flying witches but be sure to get out and kick some leaves!