I owned an art gallery in Santa Fe a few years back. (way too much retail work!) One thing I noticed was that there was really no way any artist could use any leverage against a gallery that did not pay promptly for work that was sold. I always paid quickly and the comments back from the artists were very refreshing that we did what we agreed to as most artists experienced delays in payment as a norm from some galleries....thus...
How about a web business whereby the artist registers the ownership and details of artworks and offers a Certificate of Origin for the piece, like a letter of authenticity. It would be passed along to the buyer of the artwork, but with one major exception: if the gallery did not pay the artist, the serial number of the Certificate of Origin would reflect a SCAR (or a Simple Collection Action Request). Guess which pieces the galleries would pay off first at the end of the month?
The site keeps track of who owns a piece of art and for future needs, when the work is passed onto the next owners. Having the certificate of origin on the back would clearly give much more info than just some vague rememberance of where and who the artist was. It would also tell that the artist was paid for the work and that some nefarious gallery did not rip off the artist.
I have developed this site in conjunction with many other artists, gallery owners, art collectors, legal people and even a few sign makers. Been working on it for eight years, now and am finally launching it. Take a look at the beta version of this and see if it makes sense and if it is something artists would use. I would appreciate any comments or editing suggestions, before I load the 'buy now' connections and launch the business. Heck, be honest. If it looks too difficult or whatever, let me know. Here is your chance to really criticize my work!
ArtOwnership.com is the name of it and obviously the link to it.
Posted by Charles Borges de Oliveir (Member # 3770) on :
Good luck with your project Preston.
As for your website to be honest it was a little confusing.
Hope it does well for you Posted by Gary Boros (Member # 8487) on :
I would agree with Charles, I thought I understood your explanation in your thread but then I went to the website and I was lost. Without being specific, I think the site could use a little overall design improvment too before you go live with it.
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
Thanks for the input. I will edit the info more and try to male it easier to understand. I appreciate the scrutiny very much.
Posted by Mark Yearwood (Member # 2723) on :
Preston, there is one art registration service out there that I know of, but I'll have to try and find the site again. Maybe you could see how yours compares to what they are doing and improve on it.
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
Mark, I would love to know which one you are referring to. As a gallery owner, I had many artists complain how they had been stiffed over getting paid a few times and I thought if I could come up with a way to slightly nudge the galleries a bit, at least the artists with these Certificates of Origin might get paid first. The feedback I have received from mony other artists has been very positive about this. It does take some work to handle these, so I have to charge something for the service. Not looking to get rich, but more to provide a legitimate service. I might add a hard copy version that is Fedexed to the Artist, Collector or Gallery the next day for a premium. Maybe print it on some acid free paper?
Anyway, I love hearing feedback from all of you sign artists who really do know a bit more than the average artist about business. Give me your hard opinions. I want this to really be easy to use and work for what it is designed for. I appreciate all of your opinions very much!
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
I just added some of the buy now buttons from Pay Pal...Does anyone know if the redirects back to the original page are editable?
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
I answered my own question about the redirects, When in doubt just read the instructions! Any way... to make all the Pay Pal buttons, it took me 12 hours with all the right redirects and links. Thinking about making your own website with forms and pay pal buttons? I have spent hundreds of hours getting this one tweaked and it is now about as done as I am going to get it.
I did get all the data to move to my storage drives and not be online on a host somewhere. That does give me a degree of certainty that the data is very secure. I had to design a series of data basses that are all accessed in a particular sequence and at a specific rate of time, to make them impossible to hack into. The worst case scenario would be that someone could get past my security and only be able to access one field set of data. Gawd it was alot of work!
Am willing to share the details about doing something similar, so contact me for any tips....and if you know any one looking for a Certificate of Origin, please direct them to the site. http://www.artownership.com
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