World Printmakers
Newsletter, No. 12 April, 2002

Starving Plumbers?
How often do we hear the term "starving plumber?" Or "starving lawyer" or "starving welder" for that matter? So why do we hear so much about "starving artists?" Is this a myth, or is there something about artists that just naturally condemns them to penury? Is art--real art, artists' art--somehow at odds with business? Is the artistic temperament, by its very nature, incompatible with the peddling and bean counting necessary to get on in the world of commerce? This month World Printmakers takes a look at some of these issues and proposes some fixes.

Sabra Field is a successful artist whatever yardstick one applies. She's made her living as a printmaker for many years, while collecting academic and outstanding-citizen honors along the way. Not only was she named a "Living Treasure" by the Shelburne Crafts School in Vermont in the year 2000, but last year she received the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum Medal for the Arts. How did she do it? Did she start out with a plan or did it just happen? Have a look at her interview on the World Printmakers homepage. We can all learn something from it.

The Business Side of Art: Can You Face It?
It's been a very business-oriented month for some reason. An emerging-artist friend of ours wrote and asked for some advice to help get his career in motion. So I sat down to draft a few suggestions for him. These "notes to Charlie" turned into a 3,000-word article, and on the off chance that it might be useful to some of the World Printmakers artists, we're publishing it on the site in two parts. It's called, "Aspiration: Working Artist." If you read the article, we'd appreciate some feedback on it. Did you find it relevant and useful? Is it the kind of thing you'd like to see more of? The reason I ask is that there is some rumbling around here about expanding our offerings to artists to include promotion services, and before we go off the deep end, I'd like to know if anybody is actually concerned about these matters!

It was another e-mail message which gave rise to the "What's the Difference?" story this month. I don't think we can over emphasize the importance of explaining to the public just what it is that makes true fine-art prints so special. You're all authorized to print up this article and post it on the bulletin board!

Remember Andy MacDougall? He's back with the spring thaw and more sticky-rich screen-print secrets. Have a look at his: The Lowdown on Light Sources.

World Printmakers as Role Model
Not only did we interview people this month, but we were interviewed ourselves. World Printmakers was selected by a new dot-com initiative called "Secrets of the Most Successful Sites" (http://www.secrets-of-the-most-successful-sites.com/) to form part of a group of model websites who are, presumably, doing things right. This "success-secrets-revealed" formula is very attractive proposition in itself, and I'd like to wish its founder, Alan MacLachlan, all the luck in the world with his project. Alan has been kind enough to bundle the World Printmakers interview (where all is revealed!) along with four others into a free e-book which you can download at: http://www.worldprintmakers.com/success_ebook.zip.

Websites to Cherish
May I share a couple of art-related-website finds with you? You'll love this one if you're looking for work: http://www.artjob.org. We've had an "art jobs" section on World Printmakers for some time, but these people do it so much better that we're just going to link to them! The Museum of Modern Art continues to do beautiful work on their website. Have a look at "Artists of Brücke," about the German Expressionist print movement of the 20's and 30's. It's accessible from their homepage at: http://www.moma.org.

I don't want to sign off without expressing an apology to Judy Malloy of the Artswire site, for not including them in our press review last month. They published a World Printmakers story at: http://www.artswire.org/current/2002/cur012002.html, for which we are eternally grateful! Oh, and I must also congratulate World Printmakers artist, Julio Mateo, for making the cover of Nectarzine.com this month.

Progress Reports
Our new association with Dick Blick Artist Materials is off to an excellent start. Our artists and art educators are buying their printmaking materials from Dick Blick through the links on our homepage and artists page, the operations are working smoothly and everybody is happy. Thanks for your ongoing support! Oh I almost forgot, the graph of visits to the World Printmakers site continues nicely upwards. Last month we registered another record, more than 45,000 page views. See you next month. ¡Viva el grabado!

Mike & Maureen Booth
Editors & Publishers
World Printmakers
The Worldwide Showcase for Contemporary
Fine-Art Printmakers
URL: http://www.worldprintmakers.com
Email: miguel@worldprintmakers.com

P.S. If you have gotten this far and found the content of this newsletter of interest mainly to printmakers, but you are not an artist and what you really want to do is browse and buy fine-art prints, please go to http://www.fine-art-print-sales.com, where we will be happy to attend you promptly and courteously.