Dear Sara,

Your colors. The texture. The magnificent little forms that explode off the paper. And did I mention the colors?

Yes, Sara, I love your work. I COVET your work. If I made work like yours… well, I’d be really talented. Yours is the kind of work I chase after every time I enter my studio, only to stare at my art the next day and see its failings and faults. I know I am not supposed to compare myself to anyone, but I can’t help it. Your work is just, well, awesome.

But you are elusive. I only see you on Serena & Lily’s Bazaar, yet I long to see your work in person. Where are you? Why no website in this day of all media social hour? 

Your adoring fan,

Julia Rymer Brucker

Sara Matson Westover, “Oakland Ave,” mixed media on paper, 9” x 14” via Serena & Lily Bazaar. 

How many people start blogs, and don’t maintain them? Or don’t consider the titles of the blog posts? Or write only about themselves or their latest product?

I admit that with a 16 month old, a part time job, and art to make, this has been my reality. To counteract this, I started training in inbound marketing from Inbound Marketing University. They offer free tutorials on using social media and marketing for your business in the form of videos, case studies and written materials. It has been rather fascinating so far, and I wanted to share with my fellow artist/entrepreneurs what I have learned so far.

Blogging has been one of the hardest things for me to maintain, although since getting a Tumblr (instead of Wordpress or Blogger) I have been more consistent because I can link to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. But consistency is key— the more you blog the higher in search rankings your blog gets.

You also want to create content that drives traffic to your blog. Instead of writing shameless self-promotion (which I am very guilty of!), write posts that attract people independent of what you sell. One of the most effective blogs that uses this technique is Mimi + Meg, which features posts about products the author loves. She relates them to contemporary art, fashion, and color trends. She also creates art and other products, but the content on her site is often not about her own work. Tutorials, commentary and current event reporting are also great blog posts for the artist.

Other ways to blog more effectively is to pay attention to the title posts and how they affect SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. This is the way the bots on Google and other search engines know how to drive traffic to your blog and rank the page. When someone types in “Creating Abstract Watercolor Paintings” in their search for example, my goal is to be one of the first links that pops up. If my website, Etsy shop or blog is not on the first page, in all likelihood the person searching won’t click through to additional pages and find my work.

What are your techniques for blogging and driving traffic to your art business? I would love to know!

Etsy has recently announced its Wedding Registry option, which I think is fantastic. It allows couples to create a registry from Etsy shops, allowing them to choose interesting, original, handmade and vintage items instead of the usual registry stuff like towels and fine china. This post features artwork (including mine) as an option for the registry. Empty walls are pretty boring, and what better way to fill them for the happy couple than with original art? 

Become a fan on Facebook and you are entered to win an iPhone case of an art print of my work (your choice) from my Society6 shop! Once I hit 500 fans, the winner will be announced. Go to my website or Facebook page to participate! 

I’ve been crawling the interwebs lately for information about running a creative business. Being an artist requires you to not just make the work, but to do all the marketing, pr, product development, research, contract negotiation, etc. This is one of many sites I have found for guidance on this very common situation. 

I have added a few of my recent works to both my Etsy shop and my Society6 shop. On the Society6 shop there are iPhone covers and more available. Original work available on Etsy as always. Visit if you get a chance.

I have been working a lot lately. Some of it is an extension of older work, expanding upon past series including my monoprints of epithelial cells. The rest is new. On Pinterest, I stumbled upon an image of a blood stem cell, otherwise known as a hematopoietic stem cell. I loved the way these cells look, with their asymmetrical shapes and rough exteriors. The name for the cell stuck with me as well, as it sounds like “hema-poetic”. I decided this new series of work would be named “Blood Poetics,” which also implies a sense of the mystery of stem cells, how they can create life in our body through their ability to transform into the cells needed by our bodies. Additionally, I am urging the work to be light, airy and simple. Loose, free, and colorful. Not overworked, heavy or closed up. Lots of white space.

(Sorry about the photo’s watermark— buying the rights to this photo costs $200! Whew!)

Here are some images of the work, which are all as yet untitled

And the newer mono prints, which are bold, graphic and colorful.

The roses from my garden are amazing right now. (Taken with instagram)

The short answer: Because I can no longer relate to or appreciate the art in its pages, and I get disgusted by its tone of arrogance and condescension towards those of us that just. don’t. get. it. 

Here’s the long answer:

Many years ago as an undergrad, I asked a question of the then-curator of Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum, Dianne Vanderlip, who was teaching a class on contemporary art since 1968.

It was a simple question: what happened to beauty in art? I had just spent months in France studying the masters, going to the Venice Biennale, and checking out contemporary art fairs in Paris (lucky me, I know), so I was a bit confused. The master painters we had studied at my snooty French art school in Aix-en-Provence were kind of obsessed with beauty. Rembrandt, the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists, Velazquez… these guys were all about the beautiful image. Colorful, elegant, luscious- no matter the style, there was an underlying current of beauty in the work. Even awkward pieces by Van Gogh or Cezanne were infused with bright colors, delicate line-work, and classic poses and compositions.

I saw none of this is contemporary art. It was hard, political, gothic, grotesque. Every once in awhile I had seen glimpses of beauty, but they were encased in the post-modern aesthetic. Ann Hamilton’s piece for the American Pavilion that year was bight pink sand falling from the walls above with a voiceover whispering the Gettysburg Address. (Ethereal and captivating, buthuh?) Pippolotti Rist’s videos were gorgeously shot, but involved subject matter of destruction and obsession. I just wanted to know: where had beauty gone? Did it no longer matter?

I never got an answer from her. She seemed pretty miffed I had even asked.

But I still am asking that question. Every month, for years, I have subscribed to Art in America. During a recent move, I found all of the issues I had saved, in the hopes that I would read them and glean from their pages the profound truth of art in America, of what it is about and why its aesthetic is what it is… and flipping through the pages, I found almost nothing I wanted to look at, much less delve into the theory behind. In the end, I threw out almost all of them except the issues featuring Roxy Paine and Agnes Martin. 

Perhaps I am out of touch with contemporary art (really? Provisional Painting?) Truthfully, I left the ivory tower of academia years ago to pursue art at a vocation, rather than a hobby I did on the side while teaching. I was, and am, more interested in the making of art than the theory behind it. I would have made a terrible art historian. 

So I am not renewing my subscription. I’m a hold-out for beauty. How boring and traditional of me- an analogue painter in a digital world. Fortunately, there is now an entire movement afoot for beauty again, and I see it not in the pages of academic magazines, but in the cyber-world of Pinterest, Etsy and more. Lovely, lovely, lovely. 

Epithelial I, mixed media on paper, 10” x 10”, ©2010 Julia Rymer Brucker