9.5.2008
Author Megan Webber

As an artist one of the greatest difficulties I’ve found is self-promotion. In many ways I think many artists don’t believe in the concept of mass marketing. They just don’t go hand to hand. This can also be on a personal philosophical position.

In the history of art the movement, which first seemed to bring in a concept of mass market was Pop Art. This movement however was questioning the move into modern society in which we live in now, in many cases without question.

"The term first appeared in Britain during the 1950s and referred to the interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer products. The 1950s were a period of optimism in Britain following the end of war-time rationing, and a consumer boom took place”.

1. From The Bulfinch Guide to Art History

As artists in most forms whether fine artist or commercial artist we generally try to maintain the quality of our pursuit. The difficult of this is that most of us find it difficult to make a living out of our artworks. I have often wished that as a visual artist I’d been more musical as music is more accessible by a wide range of audience.
With this in mind I have experimented with my particular choice of art direction. Attempting to see whether artworks can impact an audience with the intensity of music. This is my own personal direction and pursuit. I sometimes think that it also goes against some of the high arts philosophy. You can only be true to yourself and have passion which is your own, to create and develop something new.

So in speaking about all of this I have after stubborn resistance started to look at all the mass marketing on the Internet.  I had to laugh last night when after a week of signing up for a range of online marketing services I had all these windows open and all of a sudden had an influx of video selling all talking at the same time that I couldn’t close the windows in time. It was like OH GOD (sorry) NO! Crikey how do I turn them all off! Quick, oh oh, YOU CAN ALL STOP NOW (+ a little bigbrother to top it off). Phew! It was my own modern nightmare.

What a complete and utter new millennium experience that was?

Got to think to myself what am I doing?

On the other scheme of things I also know that some of this is worthwhile, but how do you wade through all these concepts to get the best quality. Well, just like many of us have done it is trial and error a lot of the time. If you a like me it’s a little bit of I hope that the next thing I download or open doesn’t have that mass Trojan horse thingy…
Oh and need a whole new email because I’ve just sent my old one into Spam heaven.

So this has gone a little bit further then the Campbell’s soups cans, thanks Andy. I am on the road to see how and artist can make the most of the Internet without having to feel like they’ve just sold out to the Old Masters.

Stay tuned for further updates. Listed below are some considerations marketing tools, listing tools and art sites, which I have tried so far and others I am linking to as a possible growth to my business. They have been fine so far and will keep interested persons informed. Please let me know of others. The links bellow are not all free, but can give you a great looking gallery for your web site or give you further exposure.Other links are for keeping up to date with available work, competitions and opportunities. I find them very worthwile.

Megan Webber
www.mayhemcentral.com.au