Founding editor Nottingham-based Andy Pepper has unveiled www.WeLikeArtists.com to provide free specialist guides and intelligent savings for artists and independent creative professionals.
The site has 12 advisors from 11 cities around the world, and has been developed as a free resource for those who are embarking on a career in art, as well as those who already work in the creative field.
“Generally, artists are undervalued,” said Andy, who is a visiting lecturer in fine art at Nottingham Trent University and The University of Lincoln. “As a society we like them to fill our surroundings with great work but often leave them unsupported to ‘get on with it’. It is hard enough surviving in normal circumstances, let alone in an economic recession. The new website WeLikeArtists aims to give artists a break.”
The website is designed for emerging artists, established artists, and students, and includes advice on promoting work digitally and approaching a gallery for the first time, ways to save money on equipment and other essentials, and practical tips on running a business. It also features places to set up free online portfolios, free websites, free organisational tools and ways to get free business cards.
"As an independent artist you tend to discover shortcuts and savings to stretch the budget. That's normal. Much of the time survival is about flexibility and adaptation,” said Andy, who is an artist working with installations, holography and light. “I realised that some of the things I had unearthed, and ways I was working, might be useful to others in the same boat, so WeLikeArtists has become a central location to distribute some of that information."
Among the advisors to the site are Tracy Cordingley , a product designer and senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, Sarah McNicol, the Hive operations manager at Nottingham Trent University, Jonathan Ross, a holography collector and director of Gallery 286 in London, S Mark Gubb, an artist based in Cardiff, and Arthur Brown, who is a graphic designer and managing director of the Cooling Brown Partnership which has been responsible for some of the most successful illustrated reference books published in recent years, including Wallace & Gromit.
International advisors are based in Germany, Sweden, India, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Hong Kong.
Andy, who lives in West Bridgford, spent two years developing the site and within three hours of going live, www.WeLikeArtists.com received visitors from around the world.
“Everyone who has worked on the development of the site has done so for free,” said Andy. “They think artists should be supported and wanted this site to help in some, small, way.”
