To Paint or not to paint~ that is one of my questions…

I used to get into manic moods and paint feverishly for months at a time, sometimes finishing a painting a day and making dozens of paintings on canvas, wood , rocks, glass or any object that would hold paint~ Then I would give them all away~!! At times I did participate in Art Shows and sold out faster than other artists and would go home early, disappointed that I hadn’t made enough paintings to be able to remain til the end as other artists did. Even in high school when I sold my art, others would get jealous as to how fast my work sold compared to theirs.

Eventually I stopped going to art sale shows as I felt alone at them, even though I always sold every piece, I didnt feel peace~ So I stopped painting and pursued another career and then another having had many successful and promising careers, never feeling satisfied. Once I was married and having children, I put my art on a backburner as something I would do again someday.

My children grew up and I did sign painting and murals for a decade or two then I did craft paintings and sold some but usually gave most away at Christmas to those who admired my work. When I got online and began to see other art works I decided maybe it was time to start my art again and hopefullyfind new avenues to sell on and I have found many but never enough to where I could develop a steady income from.

So again I backed off my art and tried some online businesses only to spend months following leads for that one elusive sale and overall realized I was wasting my time with MLMs like Prepaid Legal and a few other ventures I wasted a year or two at.I did learn some things about online sales through them however so it wasnt a total loss. I decided if I was to sell anything online it would be my own art. I wonder since I got online and trying to create and establish a business at my stage in life and with virtually no resources, I started small, selling in little shops like Etsy and auctions on Ebay and then started joining networks and meeting people from around the world.

I worked hard learning how to paint digitally, incorporating my actual paintings, that I made into digital art files from and then recreating new digital paintings from them. Then I began experimenting with printing and how to make better prints.

As I got better at it I researched various printers and found some good HP wide formats and better stocks and developed my products. I have worked sometimes 2-3 days without sleep and at least 20 hours a day, going all over the internet, finding places to sell my art and joining art sites.I sold many little paintings and prints on Ebay alone.

Still with all my customers 100% satisfied and developing a good seller reputation online, I began to seek to learn how to network, fumbling around many sites and learning more daily til I was asked to be an administrator of Art Auction Worldwide , where I then began to share what I knew about selling with other emerging artists and began building ning sites for others and incorporating outside sites into the ning sites for faster surfing. I built my own site that I added in most of my stores and auctions and then decided to use it as a hub for my online activities.

I learned to do a little basic html to create sub pages and categories, on my site including sitemaps and then helped others to do the same and began interlinking dozens of sites so that visitors to one could readily visit another and hoped that networking like this would create more traffic to my site and it has.

In 3 weeks my site had 3000 visitors and 100 members. It is growing everyday and as of 7/24 there were over 4850 visitors and more than 140 members!

It gets tiring but I am compelled to continue, although some have told me that I should charge a fee to build my type of sites for others since they contain site maps and deeper pages etc, but to date I still build them free, even though I spend endless hours working to help promote others and have not completed my own work for my benefit yet.

I feel sort of like a mother hen with all my artists friends from around the world as I continually remodel my site to be user friendly.
At times however, I am starting to feel like I am spinning my wheels as I advertise on twitter, facebook, oodle, local,squidoo, myspace and blog on dozens of other sites. It was all supposed to be to get better known and perhaps it is, as I can look my name up in search engines and see countless pages with my business name and activities broadcast on the net.

Still all in all, I have had very few sales and have been exhausting myself with ideas that make me wonder if it is all in vain or not. Although I worked on Wall St in NYC many years ago, I have been away from the business world for so long that I am not sure if I am just creating an invisible business or that it is just needing more time to develop, so I continue on but feel I am at a point that I need a fresh perspective from someone that has been in business and familiar with art sales, as perhaps my art isnt something that is salable on a larger level~

I have spent so much time online the last few years, trying to find ways to sell what I already have, that I haven’t painted anything new in many months.

I wish there was a way to have the internet part automated more or to have someone else doing the business part, that I would be free to paint and draw with the intention of creating what people would want.

Perhaps I am just exhausted now since I have been putting forth additional efforts since my former husband was murdered last January and I realized my children have no inheritance now nor my grandchildren and I see my family struggling and to me the only way I can make it right for them is to develop my business so I can provide some help for their future as well as my own as I am now getting older and cannot begin to fathom any career outside of my art, nor do I have the mental or emotional capacity to delve too deeply in all the nuances of developing this from a business venture viewpoint.

With my cat getting poisoned by the Sargents Flea Drops I put on her, the hospitalization and ensuing vet bill of $485 has depleted my savings and halted my summer activities as there have been no sales lately either, although I work so many hours day after day.

Up til this year, I painted for myself and my own pleasure, doing my art for gifts and also for charities and only occasionally for commissions to bring profit, not to do it as a business in a sense as I live on a disability pension and am comfortable enough if I never worked, my needs are met.

I want to rise above my disability and do something that would be meaningful to me and to others, especially other artists that I feel are struggling like me online in looking for a way to be known and appreciated and to become successful.

Seems some, if only a few artists, actually find their niche and fame that can rise above the poverty faced by the starving artists of this world, many who remain in obscurity yet whose talents leave those who know them breathless at times..

So few rise to the top and so much is lost along the way. So I wonder, should I stop putting forth so much effort and go back to living in retirement and taking it easy while remaining poor or puch forward and look for the avenue of my success – if there even is such a street~?..to paint or not to paint, that is the question…….. Advice is sought and welcomed. Also any artists and art lovers are welcome to come to my networkAve I hope to make like a MySpace for artists~!