Branding

We conducted the second meeting of the artist's "salon" on Monday evening. I'll tell you, I can't shut off my mind a' whirling with nonstop ideas. So much possibility!

I read on the Art News Blog about an artist, Michel Leah Keck, who is another artist making a killing on e-Bay. Mastering e-Bay is one of my goals listed early last month and so far eludes me (i.e. makes me nuts). I'm not sure of the authenticity of these reports - how much is true and what's hype. I've been following the blog of Duane Keiser, one of the "Painting a Day" artists, however this one had the great fortune of being written up in USA Today. When I visit his link to his latest offering on e-Bay and view the bid history, it always looks like bidders are bidding against themselves (friends? family? very suspect). I just noticed that the bids no longer list the screen names but are now represented by bidder #1, bidder #2, and so on. If this is the real deal, how do we as artists create the buzz, the frenzy to drive bidders to our irresistible offerings? What the hell am I missing here?

Back to Michel Leah Keck. I just put her name in a search on e-Bay and came up empty. Oh well. I do commend her for a unique way of branding herself - The Raw Artist. She has trademarked this title and it's very hip, very edgy. Oh, did I mention she's also a wonderful abstract artist? Branding, marketing and sales are the important current conversations in our salon.