The Fine Art Department

White Barns, 2009, Oil on Cradled Panel, 6"x6"

In the spirit of the holiday shopping season (which I hate more and more the older I get and yes I totally get the irony of that; Doug and I both make things that we ultimately want people to buy, bleh!) I am going to post links this week to fellow artists, starting with a few of my projects. Much better than shopping at Walmart, dontchya think????

So last year around this same time, I got a few artist friends together, chose a few others from a surprisingly high number of submissions and put set up The Fine Art Department (you can read my long drawn out out story about how that came about here, hehe).

We got some good attention, a bit of press and pretty good traffic and sales all things considered (remember, stupid economy). Things quieted down after the holidays though and the site sat rather quietly throughout the year, getting only a few hits here and there.

This season everyone is still into the project however, and so we decided to update and make another push. Most of The Fine Art Department artists are on Facebook now and so we also have a FB page this year too. That in particular has been a lot fun; over 700 hundred fans have joined since we published the site on Thursday night! True teamwork, baby! We sent out invites to our own FB friends and I have to admit to being really excited about so much activity there. Um, and very obsessive, I probably refreshed our page 47,000 times this weekend, watching the numbers go up!.

Anyway, FB attention aside, and I know I am totally preaching to the choir here, but I greatly encourage you all to consider purchasing a piece of art as a gift for a friend, a family member or oneself (my favorite thing to do;)). Most artists struggle even when the economy is good. And of course the stupid economy still pretty much sucks so every little bit helps us to continue to make our art, buy supplies, support our families etc.

The Fine Art Department is also working along with The Small Art Showcase (a few of our artists overlap) and Whimsical Paintings, so go on and visit them as well. There is some wonderful art to see and to buy. Have fun!

PS. The Fine Art Department is not currently accepting submissions.