"Peter W.. Rowe," wrote:

And I sympathize as well. You're in a position faced by many artists with
integrity in their work, as well as the large number of other small
retailers faced with things like competition from Walmart or Costco,
including many jewelers who now find their livelihood threatened by mass
marketing of cheap imports, knockoff copies of good designs for less, and
a general perfusion of mediocrity into the marketplace that makes it more
difficult for people to sell quality work.
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Welcome to capitalism at it's worst. Art has become just another product in
the line, but with many infant-problems cause it's a relatively new product
on the market. That's the way I see it.
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So the question for many of us then becomes one of how to compete. It's no
longer, it seems, enough to just produce really good work and hope the world
finds it's way to your door. There's so much info out there flooding the
awareness of the public that a merely hopeful artists is going to get lost
in the clutter.
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How to compete? My thoughts are, first popularize modern art. It seems tome
that to the vast majority of people who buy jewellery these days (myself
included), concepts of modern art are totally undistinguishable. And to be
honest, I'll never pay top dollar for something I don't understand. To be
honest again, and without any wish on being rude, some pieces from Abrasha's
site would (based on the first glimps) lead me to install them in my car,
thinking those are some parts I lost along the way, rather than think
they're parts of a designer jewellery collection. It's just the same as with
a painting I once saw, made out of two lines and a dot. I was spinning my
head trying to see what was that the author was trying to express, but I
could have stand there for a century and not figure it out - cause I don't
understand modern art and no artist is willing to explain his work and his
inspirations. They forget we're not all former art school students. But that
doesen't mean that we have no interest in art what so ever.
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What we need is to consider how to compete, and how to better market
ourselves We need to increase the number of consumers who understand
the difference between really good work and kitschy or commonplace but
still attractive work, and are willing to pay for the difference. And these
people then need to be able to find us.

So then.

Here's the question for the group.

How can someone like Abrasha, or other fine artists who's integrity and
skills with their craft lead them to put quality first, and thus produce a really
high end product, but in perhaps more limited quantitites, suceed in today's
marketplace? It's not enough to just have a good web site, since as anyone
who's looked at Abrasha's can see, he's done that part already. So what
else?
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As you, Peter, said in one of your posts on this topic, beginners don't
explain their work and level of skill when they ask for opinions or advice
so they risk being ridiculed. Just the same, artists often don't seem to
think they need to explain their work to the public, from inspiration,
ideas, manufacturing processes, craftmanship skills necessary for the work,
materials involved etc., because it's art, and obviously think people need
to blindly buy art even if they don't have any understanding of it. I don't
accept that. Those artists, just the same, risk being missunderstood and
having problems selling their work. Take for instance a package of sugar or
salt (I'm sure you have it somewhere near) and look at a bunch of
information provided with it. See what I mean? And that's a basic product
which costs very little.

Another thing with modern art is simplicity. And I think that's one of the
more important issues. I personally am not a fan of simplistic design so
something needs to be interesting in other ways to attract me. For instance,
contain what I call "gems with a character" like amber, opal, emerald,
sunstone etc., that can make even the simplest piece look unique and awake
imagination of the viewer. And again, I'm sure pieces that look simple can
be quite complex to make, but how am I suppose to know if that's the case.
When people like me see a typical piece of modern jewellery, first thought
is (honestly again...) "what idiot would pay such a price tag for something
as simple as that?". That's because people are used to the fact that art is
something not anyone can do (and today's art visually suggests otherwise)
because of the complexity and necessary talent - take for instance
Rembrandt's "Night watch". You don't need a PhD to see that it took yearsof
work by a true artist to complete the piece. To sum up, that's what I think
today's artists should learn; to take art from simple, to simply amazing
(God I really need to go back to writing poetry).

Marijan