Laura Hanson Art 2.0

Around this time 4 years ago, my friend René suggested that I get a website for my art, that it would be a good way to market myself and my paintings, and that she would help launch it. There was a lot of uncertainty around the time we got together to work on it.

There was an active pandemic that was forcing us to shelter at home and the third places that seemed like good outlets for me to be around at the time were all closing. This included all of the bars, so I couldn't try to go out and get free drinks from guys anymore. The gym where I was training Brazilian jiu-jitsu at was closing for the time being as well, and even the art store was planning to shut down, I remember while everyone was stocking up on toilet paper and groceries, I spent $300 on oil paints, for something new to try (I don't even like oil painting). I had a plane ticket to see a guy at this time (that never happened, wonder if I still have my $50 credit)

Despite these things, I was just a naive little painter girl with a dream. My most well-put-together friend offered to do something nice for me, and I was stoked. I know it took about two or three full days of us sitting down to decide on what features would be best for me at the time, and René did quite a bit of work behind the scenes as well. After a few weeks, I had a website. And instead of having to go through a host like Etsy or whatever, I had full autonomy of the website, I could do whatever I wanted with it, and that was exciting.

The rest of 2020 was just as wild, I remember every moment of it, I imagine this will be how my parents remember the 90s or something. That year was incredibly fucked up, and maybe I'm a masochist, because I kind of liked it.

I was down bad from 2021-early 2024, to be honest. Post-covid world is a cruel place, and I was struggling to keep up. I'm not happy at work, I'm not happy with my friendships, I'm not happy with my love life, I'm sure as hell not happy with my art practice, and felt like I was not where I wanted to be. Don't get me wrong, I did produce some work during this time I am very proud of, but for the most part, it felt like I was either not producing the technical quality of work I wanted or the subjects were off, felt repetitive, or just not engaging enough. I did go back to school for a few semesters and maybe that funked with my vibe, but that was not the intention of enrolling in the program. I thought continuing education would be beneficial, and maybe it depends on the person and the program, but I was not the right candidate for the program I was in, I needed to be challenged more.

Things started to pick back up in 2023, but I was still missing the mark. I applied for a grant that I did not get but I got some pretty decent feedback and decided to use that to try to make my next attempt at the application better. I started to think about a rebrand and what's next for me as an artist around the beginning of this year. I felt like I just lost 4 years of my 20s to the pandemic and have nothing but grievances about it, and wanted to try to change that perspective around. How can I recapture that excitement of early 2020 without actually trying to relive it, going through the traumas I did, and how can I continue to be innovative and exciting, I don't want to end up one of those gimmick painters (no offense!)

My friend Joshua Preston (https://jppreston.com/) sat down with me and helped write the grant applications I applied for. He gathered my story and harmoniously weaved it together to appease the committees, and we won't know for quite a while if it does or not, but here's hoping. I'm a chatterbox when it comes to anything irrelevant, but it is hard for me to talk about myself in an intelligent manner that also somehow incorporates my artwork. Much like the help I had from my friend René, having someone strong in a different skill than I do is so beneficial and I do not take it for granted.

Because of the help from my friends, I now have the tools I need to better market myself and try to build a strong foundation as an artist off of that. I still am using the same website template that René programmed in 2020, but I just gave it a facelift, what do you think? It's still an active work in progress, but I'm really happy with the design theme so far. I was looking up quotes for rebranding firms and they're way out of my price budget, so I designed everything through Canva, Wix and ChatGPT lol.

Additional comments about the site:

-I would like to figure out how to more accurately measure shipping pricing for my paintings, so there will be a few hiccups on that side of things for a while. I've been spending countless weekends trying to get this exactly the way I want it to, I won't settle for less.

-I did not qualify for Affirm, Afterplay or Klarna because my website revenue is not high enough, but I did get approved for Paypal recurring payments as of today, so now you can finance a painting!

-I did add a brand new section for events, so you can RSVP and buy tickets to things through the site, I have a few events coming up and more to come.

-I am planning on releasing a Zine or some kind of self-published magazine, much like I did with "Inoculated City" in 2020, but I'm not sure if I'm going to do it at the end of this year or next year, pending grant statuses and other show proposals I'm submitting.

-I added a music player to the front page of my website because I'm nostalgic for 2006 MySpace. "No one's going to get that one and done, a habit's going to weigh a ton"

Anyway, there will be a lot more added to the site, I'm sure of it, I appreciate your time reading all of this and thank you for the continued support.

Laura