The first Q&A session of the Artists Mentor group opened with greetings, chat and laughter, then settled down to business with Sasun leading with the question, "What is the best way to upload my scans/digital photos into SL?", discussing the sizes, resolution and weighing the pros and cons of great images versus long load time. This transitioned into a discussion regarding resizing, whether art should be sold allowing modify rights so that it can be resized as needed by the purchaser. Many people worried about the quality of the art, such as the resolution, or seeing it resized in the wrong proportion. To some, the answer to this is a 'touch to resize' script.
The next question fielded to Cora was "what does overexposure mean?". There were some tongue-in-cheek replies regarding photography and sunlight. Seasoned SL Artists and Gallery Owners picked up the thread and mentioned "if you show the same or similar work in too many places, no one will come to see your new work", and in a correlation to the music industry "in art it would be too many exhibits too fast with the same or too similar work". There was some discussion about whether or not having your name out there a lot was overexposure, as opposed to the point where you just have too much of the same art. The catch in SL is that because you can copy your artwork, you can literally have the same work hanging in a dozen different galleries, unlike real life.
This led to a discussion about different markets and venues for art in SL, as well as visiting galleries, talking to the gallery owners, a suggestion was made that "new artists should be selective about the gallery - observe how they (and if they) publicize their shows, and look into their reputation". Suggestions arose for posting your art where its publically available to view, like Flickr, Koinup, Avatrait.
A question regarding building mentors led to some great suggestions for building help sites, classes and people to connect with. I will add all the great sites referenced to the blog for people to check out for themselves.
The inevitable question regarding whether or not someone could actually expect to support themselves selling art in SL, which led to assorted laughs and cheers, along with discussion about pricing and exposure. The wide response seemed to be that most were happy if their art sales covered the cost of their gallery spaces in SL. A few cited successful artists and discussion regarding pricing low vs high followed. There was general agreement throughout the room that if you are only in SL to make money selling art, you are going to be frustrated.
As the hour wound down the discussion went to one-of-a-kind and limited addition art and the pros and cons of selling it in SL. People began filtering out and the discussion carried on for another hour with the remaining audience and new people popping in and out. All in all the feedback about the meeting was fantastic and we are thrilled at how many people came forward with offers to help.
The entire transcript of the meeting is available at
http://groups.google.com/group/art-mentors/web/q-a-chat-log
