Stephanie Richey Art

Out of Obscurity

The internet is vast, so how do I get noticed when I’m such a small company?

A number of years ago I was struggling with selling my art or the lack of selling (well, I still do). But I was really pondering on why it was so hard to sell art online in particular. I usually do ok when I’m standing there at a booth selling my art, but I can’t be everywhere all the time. I was thinking and praying about this over the course of several weeks, maybe it was months.

Big fair with lots of booths and people in the aisles.

Then one night I had a dream where I was at a huge fair, huge! I knew I had a booth there, and I knew where it was, but I wasn’t close. As I walked through the aisles of booths, there were so many! I finally got to my booth, and it was situated behind a larger booth with a small obscure door.

I woke from my dream with the word obscurity on my mind and the thought that I needed to somehow bring my art out of obscurity. I also had the thought that the internet, while being a very useful tool, is a vast tool, with so many businesses competing for customers, kind of like the vastness of the fair in my dream.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information, but at least I now had an idea of what the problem was. How do I then get from the little hidden booth with a small little door to having an actual presence anywhere online? So I decided to start learning. I have been on a quest since that time to learn about marketing and advertising. Recently I have been taking a more in depth course on how Etsy works, how key words and SEO work on that platform, and how to research products. It’s been interesting information and it gets me excited about new ways to share my art.

Even after these several years of research, I haven’t sold much art online, but I do have more of a presence, with a much more varied audience, on some of my social media accounts. I have done some advertising that has brought more followers as well as subscribers to this website and my social media accounts. I am still learning quite a bit about Etsy, we’ll see how that affects sales there.

I have also been learning a lot about print-on-demand products and I have enjoyed creating some fun products that you can see on my Etsy shop here . Whether any of these products will take off or not, I don’t know. But I am learning a lot, and look forward to seeing what happens with new knowledge gained.

Advertising vs Spamming

The line between advertising and spamming might be thin, but I think it can be clearly defiined.

Door with an "open" sign hanging on the outside

Over the years I have done a little bit of advertising on Facebook for my art as well as my life coaching business. Overall there have been likes, follows on my page and some nice comments. But once in a while I get a message or a comment from someone to stop spamming their page. This has gotten me thinking, what is spamming?

As a small business owner with a desire to reach a broader audience, I advertise periodically. The purpose being to find people interested in what I have to offer and/or to sell my art. Advertising has been around since time began, but has evolved in the way we do it over the years. From hanging your shingle out on the walkway to newspaper ads, to television ads when that became possible, and now internet ads. Businesses have always had to find a way to let people know they are there, what they offer, and bring people into their stores so that they could make a sale and a living.

Although I find some advertisements annoying and sometimes offensive, I understand the premise behind it. With the current technologies and the way people advertise, if I don’t like a particular product or it’s not something I need, I just keep scrolling or skip it if that’s an option. If I feel like it’s absolutely inappropriate, I will report it if that’s an option.

But advertising isn’t spamming. At least not by my way of thinking, and I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. My definition of spamming would be when someone targets me specifically for a service, a product, or malicious intent. Spamming would be the businesses that email me directly with unsolicited “help” for my website, my Etsy shop, my YouTube channel. It would be the never ending messages on Facebook messenger that something on my page is against the rules or that some piece of information is copyrighted and I’ll be shut down if I don’t click on their link to get it fixed within 24 hours.

I don’t know anyone who likes to watch advertisements, except maybe during the Super Bowl. But I don’t know of any other way to help make people aware of products available. I’d love to hear your thoughts about how you define advertising verses spamming. I’d also love to hear other ways to get products and services out to people besides advertising.

Trying New Things

Sometimes doing something new is scary, but growth doesn’t happen when we don’t try. I am excited for my new, upcoming event!

Trying new things can be a bit scary, but growth doesn’t happen without trying new things. I decided about 4 months ago that I should try teaching watercolor. I have been asked for years if I give lessons and I just didn’t feel like I was good enough to do that. But I have learned from my life coaching, you only have to be a couple of steps ahead of the people you’re trying to help to be helpful.

I started out doing a bit of research. There have been other painting classes in my little community, so I asked around about how much other artists charged, how long the classes were, and how many people attended. All the other classes were acrylic classes, so the timeframe and materials are a little bit different, but the class sizes have been pretty consistent as far as those who actually came. I am excited to offer watercolor because no one else has done that here.

I have taught one other class that I got paid for, it was organized by a friend who was working with an arts council in a neighboring town. It was for middle school aged kids and it was about 6 hours and I had help! It was a really fun class, and started me thinking that maybe I’d like to try one on my own. This class is for adults only, but I might do one later for teens.

I’m glad I gave myself so much time to figure out what I wanted to do, make up a flyer, have time to advertise, and for the positive response of the local community. I am 3 people shy of the average number that attends, but have about 10 days before the class. I have purchased most of my materials and have rented the space.

This first class is going to cost more than any additional classes simply because of the cost of some of the reusable materials like palettes and brushes. But the other material costs like paper and replacement of paint as it runs out, will be about the same each class. I am almost done with my prep and I am getting so excited and nervous, all at the same time.

I still need to make a quick power point presentation just to keep me on track with my thoughts and the order in which I want to present. I also need to gather up all the supplies ahead of time because I always think of things after I’m all gathered up. If I do it head of time then I can just add stuff. If I do it the night before then I usually end up forgetting things.

I am excited to get this painting workshop going, to see how I like it, to see if I want to do another, to learn what I could do better, and to just get to know new people. I will post afterward the results of this workshop, so stay tuned!

28 Years

Marriage isn’t always easy, but mine has been getting better every year.

This Friday, April 12 was my husband and my wedding anniversary. Overall, it has been a wonderful 28 years. Obviously there have been ups and downs, but I think we have worked well together over the years, trying to head in the same direction. I thought I would share some pictures. I can’t believe how fast time has flown by. But in some ways it seems like we’ve know each other for eternity. … Maybe we have.

This was when we were engaged, I believe the day before we got married.

This picture was taken before we got married, but I believe it was just a day or two before. I cannot believe how young we both looked. I actually was pretty young, my husband is older than he appears to be.

This was at our reception. We had the opportunity to dance with parents and grandparents, but my favorite partner, still to this day is my husband. The reception was filled with wonderful people, great conversation, and great food. But the one thing we forgot to do was to cut our cake. We did cut it after the reception with just family to watch. But that meant my mom ended up with a huge wedding cake in her freezer for a very long time. I told them just to eat it as we didn’t want to transport any of it from Utah to Alaska. I don’t know if they ever finished it, or just eventually threw it away.

Old fashioned looking picture dressed in 1800's clothing

My husband isn’t really a picture kind of person, but one time at the Alaska State Fair he decided we should try one of these old fashioned pictures. It still sits in our living room for all to see. It’s one of my favorites. I think because it was such a spontaneous, out of the ordinary thing for him to do. Some day I think I’ll tell my grandkids that we lived way back in the old west and I have a picture to prove it! Just kidding. But it is one of my favorites, and my kids seem to like it as well.

My oldest daughter is a great photographer, and she loves making sure we have time to get picture when she’s here. This picture was taken about 3 or 4 years ago and is one of my favorites. We are no longer just kids anymore, but there is a lot of growing together than happened from the first picture to this one.

I had one more, the most recent, but it had an error uploading. I gave up. At any rate, I love this man, and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to spend eternity with him.

Application is Key

Research is great, but why is application of what we learn so hard?

Picture of a brain made up of hundreds of words. For example: Habit, feelings, belief, thought, story, experience, etc.

I love to learn. I discovered a new YouTube channel, well there’s a lot of them, and have been watching videos about print on demand products. It’s been pretty interesting all thing things you can get printed and products to be printed on.

I love looking for new products to put my art on. I also love researching ways in which to get my art onto products, whether it be something I can do at home or something I have to have printed elsewhere.

The research is fun. It’s the application of that research that I sometimes find difficult. There are a variety of reasons for this. Sometimes there is a huge upfront cost in purchasing the products that I create, not even knowing whether that product will sell or not. Sometimes it’s a matter of figuring out where to list it so that people can find it to buy. Both of these have been issues, and I feel like are issues for all small businesses.

But, I have been learning, and I have been taking more courage. Yesterday I setup an account with Printify. They do print on demand as well as drop shipping. They can be linked to my Etsy store, which is convenient, but they can also be listed many other places. I haven’t sold anything yet (because that was yesterday), but if what I am reading is correct, once I have the product created, they take care of everything else. Well, except if a customer has a problem with the item.

Owl with glasses on sitting on top of a stack of books. Lemonade sitting on a stack of books, as well as coffee.

I know this has been around for years. When I first started to think about selling my art I signed up for an account at Fine Art America. But at the time I didn’t really understand what all that entailed, and I wanted a more hands on approach to my products. I still want that for some things, but I am also learning that it is nice to have a little bit of help sometimes too.

If you’d like to check out what I’ve been working on, you can head over to my Etsy shop Stephanie Richey Art. There are always notecards on there, those I make myself. But I am going to try adding in a bit of other print on demand stuff as well. We’ll see how this works, wish me luck!