One of my closest friends is another full-time professional artist who lives about 3 hours from me just outside of Toronto. Janice Mason-Steeves and I met about 6 years ago when we both attended an encaustic workshop in New York. By a strange coincidence, I had been stunned by the beauty of her work at a show in Toronto just the week before. Here we were, the only two Canadians in a small workshop of 10 people. It was like we’d known each other all our lives and we instantly bonded.

We work in totally different ways which gives us a fresh perspective toward each others’ work. She paints primarily in oil and I paint primarily in acrylic. Her subject is primarily flowers handled in a mostly subdued color range. My subject is abstract landscape with a process-driven focus on color. Here’s one of her newest paintings called “Ballade”.

Ballade by Janice Mason Steeves

Her paintings appear to require endless hours of painting, yet she paints quickly in burst of intense, focused energy. My paintings appear to be painted quickly, yet they have countless layers and sometimes take a month to finish. Here’s one of my recent paintings called “Green Horizon”.

Green Horizon by Shirley Williams

In spite of our work being so vastly different, Jan and I have much in common because we speak the same aesthetic language, have similar career challenges and suffer similar bouts of insecurity about our work. Over the years we’ve been there for each other to celebrate the victories and soothe the disappointments of each others’ careers. What a blessing it is to have her as a friend because as artists it sometimes feels like no one can really relate to the intricacies of what we do or why.

On Friday, Jan stayed overnight with me on her way to a workshop in Wisconsin. It was the first time she’d been to my studio in Windsor. Mostly I visit her on my trips to Toronto and we keep up with each other through looooog detailed emails and phone calls.

What a treat to see her and as always, we talked and talked and talked. Sharing such a close, trusting bond with another artist is truly a rare gift, one that I treasure daily.

Last week, an artist friend of mine told me a sad story.
This artist felt very fortunate to have a consistent group of collectors who always bought at her monthly Open Studios. To document her work she was in the habit of simply taking a quick snapshot with her phone. She couldn’t see the point of spending a lot of time taking quality photographs and creating digital images in various formats since she doesn’t submit to galleries or competitions. Snapshots were good enough for her needs.

Well two weeks ago this sad artist realized how wrong she had been.
Late in the afternoon on a Monday she got a call from an interior designer who had an unexpected, important meeting with the owner of a hotel the next morning. He wanted to look at photos of various artists’ work and make his choices before he headed out of town. The art budget was $20,000.

Unfortunately, this artist wasn’t ready. She couldn’t possibly meet the needs and deadline of the designer or the client. She lost out on what would most likely have been a huge sale. She’s been kicking herself ever since.

Artists ! Don’t let this happen to you.  Make sure you’re ready for any unexpected opportunity.

➢    For photographs and print media opportunities, have a color-corrected large digital image in TIFF format ready for every artwork you ever hope to sell.

➢    For email requests and submissions on disc, have each image ready as a small JPG image file.

➢    For online submissions and free promo sites, be sure to compress your images especially for the web, so no one can copy or steal them.

➢    Create a naming / folder / filing system on your computer so you can find any image quickly.

If you’re an artist and are confused about how to create these files, don’t worry, I was too. 7 years ago, I spent a year researching the easiest, least expensive methods of documenting artwork.

Check out my  e-Book for a step-by step guide Stand out in a Crowd with Dazzling Photos.

This past Thursday, Sept 4th, I was back in Toronto to attend the second reception for my Exhibition. That evening the Yorkville Art Walk began their gallery tour at Leonardo Gallery with a talk by “yours truly”.

What an interesting and exciting rush ! At around 6:30 pm the gallery’s stillness was suddenly altered as 60 - 80 people streamed into the gallery all at once. I was introduced, gave about a 7 minute talk, and then inundated with questions and compliments. Everyone milled about, looked at my paintings, quickly downed their glass of wine and inhaled appetizers. Within 20 minutes they were all gone and the gallery was quiet again. It all happened so fast, my head was spinning.

The whole experience would have been rather anti-climactic if some of my Toronto friends hadn’t come to see the show and linger for a visit. One of them was my good friend, artist Janice Mason-Steeves

She and I met in 2005 when we both took a week-long Encaustic Wax workshop in New York. We don’t see each other often, but have become very close email buddies. We were able to catch up over an early dinner before the reception and as usual couldn’t stop talking. How wonderful to see her !

Another artist friend who surprised me was Peter Hendrick .       Peter used to live in Windsor which is how I got to know him and we’ve always enjoyed great conversations together about art and life.

Thursday night happened to be the opening of the Toronto International Film Festival. After everyone left the gallery, he and I decided to go for a glass of wine and do a little “star-gazing”. Yorkville is the hub for everything glamorous in Toronto. The air was electric with paparazzi, red carpets, wall to wall limos, klieg lights and TV crews. This photo was taken in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel where we actually rubbed shoulders with actor, John Malkovitch. Earlier, I’m positive the actor Rob Lowe came into the gallery and looked at my work. Even though everyone else thought it was him too, this person was being very coy about his identity and wouldn’t admit it. So who knows ?

All in all, it was one of those days when it would be fun to go back and live it again in slow motion just to savor every delicious experience and conversation.