The Minnesota Board of Arts awarded me a Creative Support for Individuals grant this year to fully develop my artist website for online sales, accessibility and art education to further engage Minnesota individuals and communities. I have received a few grants since deciding to seriously pursue my art, but this grant was by far the largest one in both dollars and scope of work. My overall goal for the grant was to bring my work to a larger audience using my website, more specifically for the purposes of this grant: Minnesotans. But I also endeavored to fully establish a stable web presence that is not reliant on other websites' whims and algorithms and doesn’t eat up my meager finances while being accessible to everyone, particularly me.
To start, I needed to assess what I had, what I needed and research and talk to other website design folks to figure out where to begin. I have a background in website design. I can code better than I can use other’s UI (user interfaces) but I do not work in the field anymore and it changes quickly because, well, technology. So I spent some time talking to friends and other folks who were willing to provide some advice, guidance and general knowledge.
After my research, I concluded a few things. I needed to use a website builder that was accessible for users but also accessible for me as the builder. My biggest stipulation is I have to be able to build using my tablet because it is adapted for my physical needs. This is a big limitation for a lot of website builders. I could pay someone to do the work, which is honestly what I would have preferred to do, but I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to use a platform that I could update once they were done (most prefer Wordpress, some Wix, neither are usable for me). So, in the end, I did the work myself on the platform that worked best for my needs and integrated some add-ons where the website builder fell short.
I opted to use Format {https://www.torinastark.com/} (as opposed to something like Wordpress or Wix) because I like its UI and it works easily using my tablet.
Format does not have a good blog setup so I converted my blog into a blog newsletter on Substack {https://torinastark.substack.com} after trying several different platforms. Substack is easy to use, free and accessible. It also has the option of offering paid subscriptions as an income generator. I don’t know if I will use that feature, but it is nice to have it as an option. This is also a stable and reliable form of marketing.
For teaching, I set up a framework on Teachable after reviewing my various options. Teachable is also easy to use, free and accessible. It can be integrated seamlessly into my website (at this writing, I do not have it linked because my class is not live yet). I currently teach on Skillshare and their revenue model is abhorrent requiring teacher competition based on social media and algorithms and user membership. It also leaves a lot to be desired in terms of accessibility. I will be glad to close that out once my course is live on Teachable. I have not opened access to this to the public yet.
Once all of that was decided, I set to work on improving accessibility by updating all of the images on my website and blog to include detailed descriptions. Not only does this aid in accessibility, it also helps everyone know exactly what they are looking at since the majority of images are artwork. This process took an incredibly long time since I have hundreds of images on my website and blog and I provided extremely detailed descriptions, often in two formats (visual and coded) wherever I could. It was a great day when I finally completed that task.
I needed to figure out a method of offering my work for sale on my website. I did a bit of this research up front when I was studying different website builder platforms and fee models. Format has a user store that I could opt to open but when I tried it, it felt clunky and limiting.
I also don’t want to give the impression that I am some sort of art factory. Using any sort of selling platform like Etsy, Zazzle, or Red Bubble makes me literally sick to my stomach and fills me with anxiety because of all the fees and expectations of constant self promotion heavily pushing marketing on social media, which I will not do. I have very specific limitations on my brain, time and abilities with my disabilities so I cannot be spending all my time managing third party sale sites. In the end, I decided that if people want to purchase my artwork, they can contact me through my Contacts page. I created a nondynamic static page with links to places that sell my work and some of my artwork for sale and use Paypal for payment. Simple. Straightforward. No guesswork or fees. Check it out at: https://www.torinastark.com/purchase-work
To do all of the above, I needed better equipment, supplies and some software that the grant enabled me to purchase. This included:
Camera and tripod
Website and graphic design fees and software
Artwork printing and framing…After paying for my work to be printed and not being thrilled with the quality for the price, I purchased a nice printer with some supplies. The quality is absolutely phenomenal and I can print a large amount of work for a fraction of the cost.
An added bonus from these purchases that I didn’t anticipate, is I now have a complete and robust body of work that is ready for hanging in a gallery or a solo art show. I have been asked to do solo shows but there’s been so many factors in my way, this being one of them. I still would need a great amount of accommodation so it isn’t like the path is now clear, but there is one less obstacle in it.
I am very grateful to the state of Minnesota for making this grant possible for me. While it was a huge project for me to take on this year, I managed to complete it with very good results. I am glad I can close this out and move on to more creative projects that I can now showcase using this great framework that I established.
Torina Stark is a fiscal year 2022 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.