How to promote your artwork online?

This title is misleading. It sounds like I’m about to impart some advice. But I’m afraid there’s no genius insight here. I’m asking the question. What’s the best way to promote Jon Anderson’s fimo animals online? This task of Jon’s polymer clay art promotion has been given to me, the wife, a former newspaper editor and art writer who knows as much about e-commerce as I do Nascar pit crews. I’m old school art press, and sometimes feel like Jon added a dinosaur to his menagerie of fimocreations.

Jon Stuart Anderson is polymer clay master, one of the most accomplished artists working in fimo today. His work sells itself. When people can actually see it. Though Jon cringes when I call him a master, I can sense his pride. He has devoted his life to being a fimo artist, and has to feel satisfaction that his fimo creations, fimo animals are collected all over the world. But as handmade objects, created using a milefiore technique to achieve improbable detail, can these tactile 3-dimensional art objects sell themselves in photos alone? It’s being able to hold them, to follow his hallucinatory design narratives that, usually, sell his work.

Often, I’m told, people purchase Jon Anderson fimocreations online because they’ve seen his work in person. Held it. But what of the work Jon hasn’t released anywhere but online, the one-of-a-kind art he only offers on his website? As an artist, Jon has no desire to rest on his laurels. He’s constantly innovating. So how does that new work find its way into patrons’ hands?

I created a facebook fan page, and with the help of a fresh web designer, Jon Stuart Anderson’s artist website. When Jon created shoes using a groundbreaking polymer clay image transfer technique he developed, I posted the shoes on both his facebook page and website. Someone shared this post, explaining, with authority, that the fimo design had been ‘photocopied’. Had she have been able to touch the shoes, she would have understood by the texture that the fimo had been transferred directly onto the canvas.

Last week I suddenly got several inquiries about Jon’s fimo design shoes. Was facebook outreach working? Not exactly. Cynthia Tinapple had written an article about Jon’s image transfer technique in her publication, Polymer Clay Daily.

Maybe I’m not such a dinosaur after all. We still need the press, though it has taken on other forms. Thank you Cynthia Tinapple, and all the other journalists writing about art and polymer clay who do a large part in keeping us informed and connected.

Life With an Artist

Riding a creative wave, Jon won't sleep for days. Sometimes weeks. Another new idea turns into an obsession. Jon Anderson, best known for his Fimocreations fimo animals, isn't just a polymer clay artist. He's a competitive man, an artist so driven by a need to be original, anything less than breaking new ground to perfection slays him, strips him of a reason for being. And, in some weird way, I envy his all-consuming passion, even though, more often than not, that leaves me the mistress to his first wife, fimo.

A new fimo animal, the right marriage of polymer clay and copper on an animal bowl idea. Yeah honey, he says, I'm coming to bed in a minute, as soon as I work out this fish sculpture, that can also hold water for flowers!

The trajectory of his creative sparks aren't easy to predict. Will he burn at a low intensity, only partially consumptive, with little danger to the environs, ie me? Or will it play out like a crown fire, with intense heat rising in a fever pitch, again dangerous, predominately, only to the host. Or will this new obsession du jour tun into something akin to a ground fire, an intense blaze with the potential to destroy all in its path. (Actual ground fires create their own winds and weather, increasing the flow of oxygen and "feeding" the fire.) You read that right. Jon's working on an impossibly intricate fimo chicken. Pack a bag!

When I'm lucky enough to merely observe, I wonder, is it ego? Is it fear? Fear of being technically surpassed? Fear of resting on his laurels?

In the (surprisingly vast) world of polymer clay, Jon Anderson is a fimo creations star. The "man". The man to beat. And in his 20 odd years among the few (certainly few men) at the top of the heap, Jon has gained a few imitators, or, to put it in art school terms, artistic appropriation. Perhaps it's the pain of that gain that keeps him up all night. But who could keep us with this insomniac workaholic?

Jon Anderson is a passionate artist. A perfectionist. And living with any artist can be a bitch. Of course it's possible that I de-constuct his rhythms so easily, because, as an artist myself, he is my mirror. And maybe you see yourself in it too.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Jon Anderson, you're such a masterful polymer clay artist. Let me help you with a press package, I said. Silence.

Working as an art writer and Arts Editor for 2 Montreal newspapers, I noticed something curious and consistent. Most of the artists who were on top of their PR, and therefore got the most press, were often stronger on savvy (or budget) than artwork. When I moved from newspapers to magazine work, I had more time to troll for great art. Nothing was quite as thrilling as the serendipity of finding an undiscovered talent.

When a writing assignment brought me to Bali, I met Jon Anderson. We talked about what I did, but he kept silent on the subject his own work.

Jon Anderson, polymer clay artist, maker of (now renowned) Fimocreations Fimo Animals, and other innovative fimo art, you must help me put together a press package for you! I said that on and off for about 10 years. Crickets. I finally stopped asking.

Jon Stuart Anderson I am entering you in the prestigious International Polymer Clay Association Awards this year.

Despite this notorious recluse's persistent protests, I entered him in the competition. And he won.

Jon Stuart Anderson won the 2014 IPCA Members' Favorite Award.

But here's the rub. After years of trying to convince Jon that time spent outside his studio (he's a workaholic) working on press events and publicity opportunities is time well spent, there's no record of his win, even on the IPCA site. Short of the email sent from the IPCA announcing his win, I can find no public record of it at all. So now I'm the wife who kicked the hornet's nest. For what? Crickets.

You can view the first-third place IPCA winners on judge and jury member Cynthia Tinapple's blog, Polymer Clay daily. First place went to a Staedtler company photographer, the makers of fimo. His reliquaries are no short of stunning. Every polymer clay artist and aspiring fimo art maker should have a look at the diversity of work that gets entered every year. Maybe you should enter your own work. Don't wait for someone like me to finally discover you. You never know what may come of winning an important competition.

I have been informed that Jon Anderson's trophy will be sent in the mail.