Recently I started to tell you how I got started with Artisan Advantage. If you missed Part One, you can read it here.
Below is Part Two of the story.
The Artist
Although it was not his primary career, my father has been an artist since he was a kid. Self-taught except for an occasional workshop over the years, he primarily works in watercolors. My recollection of his painting as a child was that his work would ebb and flow, with him practicing it in varying levels of intensity over the years.
His work has always reflected the subject matter that he was interested in at the time. His friends like to joke that he is a “renaissance man”. This is because he has had many interests and hobbies over the years. His work has included subject matter from New England Coastline to fly fishing, Ireland, sailing, and, most recently, golf. If you want to know what my father is spending his time doing, take a look at what he is painting.
In the early 2000s, he started playing bluegrass music. When not jamming with friends or practicing one of his many instruments, he was painting scenes of bluegrass musicians jamming. Since he really had no place to show or sell his art at that time, the work was piling up. My mother asked me if there wasn’t anything I could do with them. Her timing was good because it was the same time that I was thinking about the possible websites that I could build or sell online.
I decided to build a website for his work. Taking an online course purchased through the Community College of Allegheny College, taught me the basics of building a website. Then I bought the now obsolete Frontpage Software and got to work building his site.
Appalachian Studio
In addition to bluegrass musicians, he also was still painting subject matter, including fly fishing, outdoor scenes, and images of places around Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County, Maryland. Taking all of these subjects into account, I decided to call the site Appalachian Studio.
I wish I had a screenshot for you of that original website because I have to say I think it was pretty darn good. But I don’t.
I built the site and broke the work into subject matter – music, mountains, rivers, outdoors. I listed each painting for sale with a description of the work and set up PayPal buttons to sell both original and prints. Below are some of the paintings that were for sale on Appalachian Studio.
How do I Get Visitors to This Site?
The only problem with a website is that simply building it doesn’t guarantee you will get visitors. So, I set about my next task of trying to figure out how to get people to the site.
