Fine Art Discussions

Laurette Escobar

I got in touch with an art agent there and I'm looking him up, seeing if any one knows him and how he works etc....you know the usual thing we do to protect ourselves. So just wondering if you know this guy.....

Russ Cannizzaro CEO, Editor In Chief
The Artrepreneur L.L.C.
http://www.artist.cm/
Glendale AZ

Daniel Rauch

the fact that he's a CEO leads me to believe he has no moral compass ....

Laurette Escobar

HAHAHAHA.....that's good.

I answered an ad for a Houston Gallery. It turned out to be a way for them to get you to rent their gallery for a show.....$750 for a weekend show. If I wanted to pay to have my work shown, I'm sure I can hand over some loot to the Art Museum of S. Texas that is literally just 15 minutes away from me.

Daniel Rauch

yeah lol, wish i had some advise on this but all i really have to offer is a word of caution with whom ever you decide to do buisness with, check how long they have been in buisness for sure.

Laurette Escobar

yep, this is why i ask questions.

Dan Daugherty

Laurette... I've never heard of this...And I am always searching for venue' here locally. I'm only about 2 minutes from Glendale too.

Laurette Escobar

check him out dan....we have a phone appointment on monday

Ellen Lacey

Laurette, I did a quick Google search and it looks like they are at least registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission....not sure if that would make them legit...here's the link:

http://starpas.azcc.gov/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=wsbroker1/names-detail.p?name-id=L17540589&type=CORPORATION

Looking at the website it looks like one has to buy a 'artist plan' for a monthly fee....then you can get your own website and access to some tools and discounts.

Laurette Escobar

yeah i saw that but well look, here's the email he sent me:

Good Afternoon Laurette,

Thank you for your submission of your art. I really enjoyed the artistic
style you put into your work. Are you currently represented by any
galleries?

Regarding my background and experience, I am the CEO, and Editor In Chief
of The Artrepreneur (www.artist.cm) and we are both a Marketing Agency and
Resource Center for select artists. We do operate on a 10% commission
level for both selling our artists’ work, and negotiating consignments,
commissions, sales, and licensing contracts for our artists. We have also
created The Artrepreneur which is an online resource for artists that
provides important information, resources, and tools in the business of
being an artist.

Our marketing team consists of four outstanding marketing specialists who
collectively bring over 40 years of experience in art marketing.
I would be interested to discussing the opportunity to represent your
work. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Kindest Regards,
Russ Cannizzaro CEO, Editor In Chief
The Artrepreneur L.L.C.
www.artist.cm


No mention of fees or joinging their site so I guess I'll just have my phone meeting with him on Monday and see what happens!

Ellen Lacey

Good luck to you and let us know how it turns out 8-)

Dan Daugherty

There is a $2.95 fee for a subscriptionj to their On line Magazine, that has some good features....If it's legit... I'm going to check it out.

Dan Daugherty

ok...The $2.95 / Month, just jumped to $5.95 per month for the "Pro Plan" but you can't sell directly from "Your Personal Website" unless you have the Pro Business plan at $7.95 for more space and features.

So..... Unless the magazine subscription is a good thing...FAA is a better deal.

Even the Magazine is limited at the $2.95 rate. This one is not for me.

Laurette Escobar

like i said, i havent been told i have join anything. i honestly hope this is a straight agent deal.

David Adamson

What concerns me is the ".cm" extension which does not show up on godaddy and has been used as a scamming responder through Cameroon. The also don't seem to have a lot of subscribers and clicking on some of the artists listed I got an error page which leads me to suspect some have left.

I did get a response back from one of their reps ( joanneschaeffer@artist.cm 480-277-7742) after posting some of the concerns I had.

I will be interested to see what you folk find out if you visit them.
David

Michael Anderson

Artist.cm has contacted me as well. I'm curious to see how this pans out for you.

-Michael

Gabe Arroyo

Has anyone gone ahead and partnered up with The Artrepreneur? Is this a legit business?

Kim Jones

I have also been contacted by Artrepreneur. I can say I am familiar with the name of one of the people involved. He used to own an art gallery in Sedona, Az. I have concerns that when you enter a search for the artists listed on the site using the artist.cm websites, most do not come up under those websites, which also makes me wonder if a lot of them have left.

Laurette Escobar

I've been getting a lot of emails on this and so I think I'll put the answer here since this is where most of the emails said they looked for an answer.

So what happened is that I don't know how legitimate these people are. I think they are but the thing is I decided not to go with them simply because I didn't want to be shipping my work to AZ in hopes that it would get sold or into a gallery. So I decided to stay local. I'm working on getting my stuff up to Austin (hopefully this summer). So there's my answer.

Steven Love

I know that this is an older discussion, but I also received an email from one of their representatives. Since I live in Arizona I had an in person hour long discussion with the company CEO today and I sensed no deception from him.
He told me that has been a professional artist for 35 years, and he holds the Department Chair for the art department at Tempe High School in Arizona.
He also said that he has 12 years of art marketing experience which is why he and a few other people decided to start this company.

The $7.95 monthly fee is for hosting the artist's artwork on their site. He explained that once you sign up all you have to do is upload preview images of your work. They don't want large high resolution images. All they need is website grade display images to show potential clients.
If they make a sale for you they get 10% and you get the rest.

Some of you raised concerns about the dot CM for their website URL.
I asked him about that, since dot CM is a country code for Cameroon. He told me that they had no choice on the URL because all the dot COMs and dot NETs that had the word Artist or Art in the URL were already taken. And he is right about that because I did a domain search and all domains with the words "Art or Artist" have been taken by other businesses. I asked him why he did not simply use his company "Artrepreneur" as the domain and he said that it is a difficult name to spell and using the word "Artist" was simpler and easier for clients to remember.

So, in my opinion, any concerns about this being a scam are unfounded.

I plan to sign up myself as soon as I finish some art shows in Sedona.

Dan Daugherty

I have been keeping this on the back burner... Seems I need to take a deeper look.

It is Soooooo Hard to put trust in online deals...and hard to sell sculpture on line also...

Steven Love

You could try art shows Dan.
I do art shows in Sedona and I've seen some people sell sculptures there, but they were either made of metal or wood.

But as far as on-line sales, there is a risk in any venue you try.
I belong to 22 on-line stock photo and art print sites and only some of them make me any regular money.

I don't know if Artrepreneur handles sculpture, but it would not hurt to email them and ask.

Dan Daugherty

Steven... Artrepreneuar says that they handle sculpture, and it sounds like they do a lot more than just maintain a site so it may work well. After all it's in their best interest to promote and help sales.

I can do a few exhibitions, but Shows on a regular basis would have to be done from a trailer or something like that...I have trouble walking sometimes and can't lift much. Thunderbird Artists want you to have a White Pop up and don't give much consideration to the disabled. I would LOVE to do them though...

Either way I will find a way.. Thanks for the suggestion.

Steven Love

You're welcome Dan.

I know about some shows requiring those tents.
I try to pick only shows that don't have tight restrictions on displays since I too am by myself and prefer to keep the setup as simple as possible.
I stopped using those EZUp tents because the last one I had got bent up in high winds at a recent show despite being weighed down.
I just ordered a tube frame to support my panels so that I can use a 9 foot wide patio umbrella for shade.
If the winds pick up I can simply crank it down so that it does not get damaged like the tent did.

Good luck.

Susan Rovira

I recieved a message from Artrepreneur at my private email address. They said they saw my work on FAA. So my question is how did they get my email address? Is FAA giving out our email addresses to this company?

Scott Sawyer

I just got a ping from them Monday and I'm trying to figure out what they are about. If anyone has chosen to use them, I'm curious if it has been useful / valuable yet. If so, I'll give them a try, but if not then I'll wait for the next art agent to discover me and want to pimp out my stuff.

Dan Daugherty

I am very busy right now but tonight I will be back with more info... Stay tuned...lol

Steven Love

Susan,
If you look at your public FAA page you'll notice that there is a link in the upper right side of the page for emailing you directly.
That is probably how they found your email.
If I were you I would not disable that because that is how clients will reach you for sales requests that don't involve FAA.
I sold $250 to a client that contacted me using the email link from my FAA page.

Roy Erickson

Back when I was doing art shows - my tent was a Light Dome - very sturdy - easy enough to put up. EZ ups are way to flimsy in the wind. I built my own stands - which were heavier than the tent - using 1X1s and peg board. It might not would have stopped a bull elephant - but it was very sturdy and there was very little problem with people bumping into it. It was a hollow square with an open front, a panel that came a little more than half way across from the center of the left side and had a 2 1/2' opening in the back right. I could use the peg hooks and hang my paintings all the way around. Once up - it was almost immovable by the wind.

Steven Love

Hello Roy,
I just finished testing a 10 foot wide tube frame I bought from the Flourish Company.
I used anchor shackles and U-Bolts to mount my grid-panels to it and then I covered the grids with black Felt Polyester Cloth.
There were a total of a 12 grids, each 2 foot wide by 6 foot high. They're steel, so there is roughly 200 pounds on that tube frame, plus the tube frame is about 76 pounds by itself.
I tied my 9 foot Umbrella to the top tubes of the frame with bungee cords.
I left it to sit outside for the last 3 days in high winds as part of the test.
It withstood 40 MPH wind gusts and the occasional Dust Devil sweeping by, so I think it is safe to say it will withstand the typical weather of an art show.

Dan Daugherty

OK... I had quite the busy day, but I wanted to touch bases with the questions that had been asked this morning.

Now bear in mind that My work is Sculpture, so for me specifically, this is a good fit. Mostly because these folks have agents in different areas consulting with Art buyers and corperations and actively marketing the work of the artists on their site. You have to qualify though.

I have been working on my new website, It's not finished yet, but I have been able to add a video page. Something that Sculpture needs I think, and after working on video's all day I believe it shows off my work much better than before. I still think I could do with some better images, but I'm working on that also.

Sales...LOL...Not yet...My site has only been active for a day, but I will be watching and keeping my eyes open for how things go. So far after all the research I did and the consultation, My wife and I are pretty happy with the possibilities and I'll let you decide what you think about my Site... (not finished yet). steelstuff.artist.cm

Gregory Scott

The fact that he's a CEO makes me think it's a one man show. While that does not mean it's a rip-off, or even that it might not be a good marketing tool, I would be careful. This is exactly what I would expect, and exactly what might mean he can't help you much. If he's legitimately trying to break into the business it might be good, or it might be very very bad, even without elements of scams or other such concerns. Don't sign anything, don't send unwatermarked digital originals. Ask about his brick and mortar resources, staff and their expertise, and so on. Ask for references from actual artists. If you can't find them on the internet, and communicate directly with them via phone, my reaction would be that he's not for real.

Christine Till

I got their email today, and read one blog on Google that said this company's services are not worth the money, implying that the $7.95 a month is just the beginning.

Dan Daugherty

Christine...Do you have a link to the Blog?

Christine Till

It was on a Google blog, but I can't find it again at the moment. Will search again later.

But don't forget, that's just someone's opinion ... and opinion is like a butt. Everybody has one.

Steven Love

I've been using stock photo agencies and art print sites to sell my work since 2006. None of them are perfect.
Never judge a company on a few bad reviews. For every bad review there are probably 10 satisfied clients.
I usually give a company a year to produce sales for me. If they can't produce sales for me within that time period then I simply close the account.

For example; I belong to 14 stock photo agencies. Many photographers hate those sites because many of them sell the photos for as low as 20 cents.
Yet I have made several thousand dollars from those sites over the last few years, and that is from my less than perfect photos that I tend to send them.
If I had listened to those negative reviews I would not have made that money and probably would have ended up deleting those photos that were not good enough for the premium art sites.

My point is that it won't hurt to give them a try. From what I read in Artrepreneur's terms of service as long as you give them a 60 day notice you can always cancel the account if you're not happy with their service.

Dan Daugherty

Well, I'm in now and I spoke with Russ this afternoon. Since he lives in the area he will be able to view my work easily...A Big break for me because it's so hard for me to move my work. My work is all sculpture anyways, except for two paintings.

I Have to do something and I feel pretty good about this... My site is up, but still under construction. http://steelstuff.artist.cm/

Steven Love

I plan to sign up after I finish with an art show in Sedona this weekend.
If you make any sales with them let me know.

Dan Daugherty

I will Steve, I can't say I expect immediate sales, sculptures are difficult to sell, but you never know.

Dan Daugherty

Good luck at the Show Steve...Have a great time!!

Steven Love

I know what you mean Dan.
When I joined FAA I didn't get my first sale until 3 months later.
Hopefully you will do good, but don't be discouraged if it takes a few months.