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  There is some truth to this quote by Jeff Hammerbacher:    “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” [1]   If there is indeed a correlation between silence and creativity, then beware of what we, the geeks, have created.  We've built Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and many other services that are designed to tap into the same part of your brain that addicts people to slot machines...all with the goal of getting you to click on our ads.  We want to bring you back, over and over and over again so that you'll click on the ads [...]

  "Sometimes it’s better to just be quiet, to not think of anything at all. Out of silence comes the greatest creativity." - James Altucher.   Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, when faced with a difficult issue, was renowned for taking long walks to think things through.     Artist, Kevin Macpherson doesn't allow people, or even a computer in his studio while he works, unless it's an emergency.   Rock star, John Mayer had to quit Twitter because, "it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song."   If quiet time and creativity truly are correlated (and I suspect they are), then I suggest [...]

  You have to set limits to protect your creative time.   A  few years ago, my wife and I vacationed in Taos and spent a couple of days out at Wanda and Kevin Macpherson's place.  The first morning, during breakfast, Kevin politely, but firmly told us that while he realized that we were on vacation....that he wasn't. He explained that he would be working in his studio until 5pm and asked us please, not to interrupt him unless it was an emergency.  His studio is a separate building within walking distance of the main house.Since I was in the gallery business, I completely understood [...]

  "Be so good they can't ignore you." - Steve Martin   While that may be a particularly hard nut to crack and it may take many thousands of hours of deliberate practice, if you can crack that nut with your art, everything else (marketing, selling, etc) becomes exponentially easier.   Sincerely,   Clint Watson FASO Founder, Software Craftsman, Art Fanatic [...]

      For those of you who joined my email newsletter, welcome!   I can't promise any regular schedule to this newsletter although my rough goal is a few times a week.....but sometimes, weeks may go by if my energies are drawn to other areas, or if I'm not inspired, or if I'm out of town, or if I'm tired, or if I'm invited to a great wine tasting....you get the idea.     In fact, I'm probably breaking every rule of email marketing here.  So be it.  I'm tired of trying to follow all the rules the "experts" lay out.  Half of them are just trying [...]

The important point from this article:   "How many eyeballs are passing by is a useless measure. All that matters is, "how many people want to hear from you tomorrow?" - Seth Godin   [...]

  Summary:  I'm starting a new blog and email newsletter on art, marketing and life.     Years ago, I started blogging just to find out "what blogging was all about."   That original blog eventually grew into the FineArtViews newsletter (which, amazingly, now has almost 21,000 artists subscribing!) and, indeed, for years the FineArtViews blog was hosted on my own personal domain.  In those early days, there was little difference between my own personal thoughts and the "official" articles on FineArtViews.   Eventually, FineArtViews grew up attracted better writers, moved to it's own professional domain, and now, everything is right with the world.....except one thing....I no longer have a place [...]

For many people, the “big three” have come to dominate their internet time:  the email inbox, Facebook, and Google.  This trend puts the squeeze on how much time and attention other websites can garner.  Like hawkers in an open air market, everyone is screaming at us, trying to get our attention.  And, as we become more and more overloaded, we’re learning to filter and prioritize.  Some websites we used to visit don’t always get as much attention as they used to.   What are the implications of these trends for your artist website?   When starting out, most artists think the first thing they need [...]