Hello Artists,
Welcome to the new & improved
Support Local Art.com online gallery service.
Click here for Testimonials about Support Local Art
Are you a Canadian artist interested in promoting yourself, having direct contact with your fans & buyers, setting your own prices, and selling your artwork 100% commission free?
If so, then Support Local Art is the right place for you!
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Support Local Art is FREE for quality artists - NO start-up fees and NO monthly fees for up to 10 pieces of your artwork.
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Why Support Local Art works:
The biggest difference between Support Local Art's gallery service and other online art websites is our TARGET MARKET. Take a another look at most art websites and you'll quickly discover that their aim is artists themselves. We focus on the general art buying public.
An example of this is the 'wall of comments' that other websites allow, you know the one - "Great job Sally. I love the colors". How often do you go into a regular art gallery where they have a huge sheet of paper underneath every painting where people can leave such pleasant comments for the artist to enjoy? The answer is, of course, never.
Support Local Art.com uses the promotional power of it's artists to bring potential buyers to the website. Most online art sites fail their artists by relying exclusively on the search engines, and links from other art sites. This passive approach, may work great for most things - it isn't very good for less-than-household-name artists. Often 'hits' are nothing more than other artists 'kicking tires' (after all who is better at knowing the 'right' search words to use than artist themselves?). Art links have the same problem. Lots of artist traffic but very little, if any, people truly interested in buying art.
Support Local Art's artists and website can be found via the search engines (google: ["commission free" art sales], or ["buy local artwork"] as examples). That's were most websites stop... that's only were we begin! Support Local Art is more than a art website, it's a system for artists to promote and sell their work... and it's a positive message that both artists and buyers can get behind!
Features designed for artist success:
- Peer juried to ensure quality
- Upload and maintain your own artwork & artist profile.
- Power of the global internet, but also local interest (this is a great instant connection with buyers)
- Custom printed business cards & promotional materials available, featuring YOUR artwork!
- No commission to pay when artwork sells
- Powerful yet easy to use search for buyers to find your art
- No 'pop-ups' or online ads to annoy and distract buyers from your artwork
- Set your own prices and display the work you want
- Advertise your unique talents for commission based work
- FREE for up to 10 images. Additional space available at low prices.
- Direct contact with your fans, buyers, and collectors
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Support Local Art is designed to work with artists... no matter how you currently promote and sell your work.
Do you already have a personal art website? That's great. We believe that artist personal sites are great for providing additional details about yourself and your art. But, as you have likely discovered, it can be very difficult to get quality traffic to your site. You can either rely on ineffective passive methods, hoping for lucky keyword hits, competing with (or paying for) pay-per-click, or spend all your time individually promoting in your area. Don't you wish that more artists were out promoting your website also? Now they can be. Potential buyers discover you on Support Local Art, and then continue their journey to your personal website. Your website can be linked from your Support Local Art artist bio page. This results of this approach are very different than simply adding your 'link' to pages full of other art links.
Are you already using a traditional gallery or retail location to display and sell your work? Support Local Art is a way for people to find out about your work and where they can get it. Your artwork descriptions and bio page can direct potential buyers to those locations. Check with your gallery representative, you may also be able to directly sell additional works (ie. not artwork that they are currently representing). This can often give artists some extra freedom to experiment and explore with certain pieces of their art.
Do you create custom artwork for people? Support Local Art allows you to display previous commission as 'commission samples'. This allows buyers to search their area, find your name, see samples of your art, and contact you directly. Exactly what the internet was made for!
Support Local Art brings together the power of many artists. The math is easy: a little promotion by each artist TIMES a large number of artists EQUALS a lot of potential buyers viewing YOUR work!
Important Information:
Support Local Art is FREE for artists to display up to 10 artwork images.
Additional pieces can be displayed at the following rates:
Up to 20 images - $10 per month, plus gst.
Up to 50 images - $20 per month, plus gst.Support Local Art is results driven. The system that we have setup is one that truly allows artists who want to succeed to do so. We believe that any artist, with a little determination, even starting with only 10 image online will see positive results and will want to upgrade in the future. This type of system keeps us constantly improving and committed to helping artists succeed.
There is no start-up cost, but Support Local Art is a peer juried website for quality control purposes. Current online artists vote on new artist acceptance based on the submission of FOUR (4) artwork images, and a written statement (details below). A formal artist CV can be submitted, but is not required. We believe that an artist's submission in this type of open and informal environment can reveal a great deal about an artist.
Details of optional "success items" (custom printed business cards, promotional stickers, Support Local Art T-shirts, etc) will be included with an artists official start-up information package, sent by e-mail after jury acceptance.
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Okay, Let's Get Started!
STEP 1: The Peer Jury.
Quality is important! Don't diminish the perceived quality of your art by displaying it online beside 'unprofessional' works.
One of the exciting parts about being online with Support Local Art is the ability to decide which other artists you are online with. This is also a great opportunity for SLA artists to provide comments and encouragement to potential new comers. The 'one artist, one vote' system, eliminates any individual artist biases (positive or negative) toward particular subject matter or style.
please read carefully
To be considered for acceptance, ARTISTS MUST SUBMIT:
A.) 4 pieces of artwork for jury voting. Details required are: title, medium, & size. A few words regarding each piece is optional, but recommended (re: inspiration,
location, technique, etc)
B.) 1 - 2 paragraphs about how & why you will succeed using Support Local Art. Be creative. Examples: How you plan to promote yourself. What you can do to attract buyers to your work online.
BOTH SUBMISSION PARTS (A & B) ARE REQUIRED.
There is no processing or administration fee for submitting artwork to the Support Local Art peer jury. Support Local Art selection is currently open to Canadian artists only. Submissions may be outright rejected (without jury voting), by Support Local Art for any reason. This may sound a bit harsh, but we simply don't want to waste our artists time jurying obviously non-professional or non-serious jury submissions (I'm sure you can imagine some of the stuff we get!).
Click here to get started