Allyson Stanfield, artist-author-speaker, offers many great suggestions on her blog for those involved in art and craft work.  Many artists and artisans don’t immediately think like business people, so have to get into this mode.
One of Allyson’s latest suggestions is found in the blog post, Don’t Leave Your Art Work Without a Piece of Paper.  Make sure when you do leave art work for display or on consignment, that you have a written agreement, signed by both parties.  Allyson has a good list of suggestions.
Do you have any tips to add?

Question of the month: What has been your hardest decision?
What has been your toughest call? Are you pleased with how things have turned out? Did you second guess yourself for awhile after making the choice?

As it relates to my work in mixed media, I think the toughest thing for me to decide was not to make items for sale.  I have nothing against sales…I’m as mercenary as they come…but I just couldn’t figure out a way that selling mixed media art was ever going to work for me.
So when someone contacts me about a piece that they like, …read more

I don’t know how this one is going to play out, but it looks good in its beginning stages! See what you think at Folksy.

Mary Boyd has written an excellent article – I can’t recommend it highly enough – on how to price your work. She examines the obvious as well as the hidden costs, and talks a good deal about what you want out of your business. Read this if you are serious about your art business.
Mary makes beautiful leather goods that she sells on her website, Oh! Boyd.

What’s Up Wednesday
Or from any other images that you want to use! Animoto is an intriguing site: it creates a slideshow to the music of your choice, automatically. You have to register to use it, and I have no information to give you about copyright issues, so please read all the contracts if you decide to register and use it. Here’s a description from the site:

Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button.
Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No …read more

What’s Up Wednesday
A visual art marketing tool that takes blogging to the next level? That’s vlogging, according to Barney Davey, the art marketing guru. Read all about it at Barney’s blog, Art Print Issues.

Let’s admit it…we’re all curious about other artists’ opinions. Since we often work in sort of isolated conditions, it’s wonderful to have the world of the web available for social interaction and tip trading. Dan, at the Empty Easel has a whole category of polls.
Want to know how much time your fellow artists spend on their work? Curious about how much other people charge for their work? Where are the “best” places to sell? What do they think of Bob Ross? Visit and see

If you’re looking for competitions, art jobs & internships, scholarships, grants & fellowships, art festivals, and other calls for entries, you’ll want to subscribe to the Art Deadlines List blog! Read carefully: many of the opportunities have entry fees, and some are restricted to natives of a certain state or area. But this is a treasure-trove of regularly undated opportunities for those who are serious about advancing in an art career

BIG HONKING WATERMARKS

Charley Parker has a brilliant post on how you should design your website if you want to insure that you never sell any work. Written tongue firmly in cheek, Charley cuts to the heart of several of my personal pet-peeves. But then he turns around and mentions a few things that I have been guilty of doing…ouch! The post is a great learning experience.