Recently, an old friend emailed me and told me she wanted to rep my work, but wanted to be able to go to a site where she could ONLY see recent works.

She told me it was way too confusing to her clients to sit there and say, this is sold, this one is available.

That’s OK – if she’s going to take the time and make the effort to sell my work, I can accomodate her!

So I decided to create a new site with my latest 6 pieces on it. I figure I’ll add new ones until they start to sell, and then add the sold ones on my regular site http://Lyon-Art.com.

I get so many requests as to how I set up sites so fast that I thought I’d just jot it down for those of you who would like to know. You can use this method to create extensive sites, or little ones like I just created: LyonStoneSculpture.com

I got a new URL* with 1. my name and the words 2. stone and 3. sculpture all combined so if people want to google me they can find me easily – so here’s what I got: http:/LyonStoneSculpture.com. I wanted LyonSculpture.com, but someone has it already.

Create a Word Press Blog

Then I went into the back end of the website into the control panel and configured a wordpress blog. It’s easy, but if you aren’t familiar with how to do that, you just call up the hosting company (http://www.HostMonster.Com is accessible 24/7 by phone – I LOVE it!) and get them to show you how. They’ll walk you all the way through from logging in to setting your blog up.

Choose Your Theme

Once you have your wordpress blog set up, you can now log in to that and set up your theme.

Google this: free Word Press themes for artists, and you’ll find scads of them.

Go through them and see which ones appeal to you the mmost. Look for simple two-column ones – most of us don’t need 3 columns. I chose a theme called iblog (I think I had bought that previously – I have a whole stack of themes in zip files in a folder called blog-themes on my desktop all ready to use.)

Choose the theme you like from the site you’re visiting

Download it to your computer (It will be a zip file)

Add the theme to your blog

In your blog dashboard, go to Appearance > Add new themes
Now your page will read: Install themes
find the link for upload
browse your computer for the zip file
choose it
When it is on your blog, hit preview so you can see what it will be like without activating it yet
If you like it, hit activate

Now you can start adding stuff.

Under PAGES:
(pages are the pages that will have links at the top of your site along the nav bar)
create these pages:
ABOUT (that’s about you – your artist statement)
CV (Exhibitions, awards, residencies, etc.)
GALLERIES (where you show your work if you show in galleries – you can list collectors there, too)
STONE (about stone carving, or wood carving or whatever it is you do – just a general overview so people can feel connected)

Under POSTS:
(posts are the articles your write that go under categories – you can choose to have 5 to 15 on your home page show)
Now create posts, or entries, about your most recent pieces.
Start with the least recent and work up to the most recent.

Name the post the name of the sculpture.
Create a category: stone sculpture, etc.
Create tags: like, stone, sculpture, collectors, art, artist, etc. – whatever you think people will google to find sculpture or related stuff.

Images

Include a good image of the piece (72 dpi; at least 550 px wide. Be careful, because this may be too wide for your site post box. My sites vary between 600 and 500 px wide.)

When you upload an image, you’ll see that it is slammed right up against your text – not to worry – here’s what to do about that:
click on the image once it’s in your post
2 little symbols will appear over the left top of the image
click on the left one
You can add a title for the piece if you want

now choose 60, 70, 80, 90 or 100% for the size of the image
(I use 60%, and then make sure to have a note at the bottom of the post that says click on the image for full size)
then go to top of that box and choose ‘advanced settings’
choose border: 0 and horizontal 10
(this allows you white space around your image, and do decline their crummy borders)
hit OK

Now your image will have a title (or not) and will have nice white air around it in the post.

Image info

Make absolute sure that you include this at the bottom of your post:
Click on the image to enlarge
and
Image: Name of image; material, size © Your Name Year
Like this:
Image: Rhapsody, bronze, 9″ x 18″ x 8″ © Angela Treat Lyon 1992
I’ve visited countries where the people there swear up and down that you don’t need to add the © stuff, but from what we’ve been talking about lately on the stone forum about artists and photographers losing sales to people and the rip offs in China, we need to make sure we reserve all our rights.

Code

That’s about as basic as you can get. If you are skilled in css code, you can go in and tweak colors and backgrounds the way I do, but the less you futz with your code the better.

Hosting

* You can get a hosting account at Hostmonster.com for 83 bucks a year. That’s like 6.90 a month – very inexpensive. The best thing about them is that they let you have as many addons as you want for no extra money – I have over 50 sites for the one hosting fee.

The other good thing is that they are available 24/7, and speak very good english and are willing to walk you through learning to do stuff – they aren’t rude or impatient and expecting you to be a geek!

Here’s where you can sign up – I’m an affiliate because I love their service:
http://www.HostMonster.Com

I like them better than godaddy because I’ve seen godaddy throw people off, or close them down for no rational reason – who needs that?

I hope this helps you who want to create a site but have no coding or html skills – I created my new site last night in about 4 hours. You’ll get good at it adding stuff to it, too – it’s really not that big a learning curve.

aloha -
Angela

Image: Pomegranate; NZ Oamaru Limestone, 24″ x 14″ x 10″ © Angela Treat Lyon 2002