Available on Fine Art America
I’ve been offering my artwork as open editions on a number of online “print on demand” sites. These sites serve as storage for the artist’s high resolution files, to be printed as high quality Giclée or archival ink jet prints on paper, canvas, metal, acrylic and even on products such as greeting cards, pillows, phone cases and clocks.
Usually the arrange is a win win all around because it allows the artist to reach a larger audience for their work, showcase a deep catalog or portfolio (unlike at a show or gallery where one is limited by wall space). I currently have open edition offerings on Fine Art America, Society6, RedBubble and SaattchiArt. This are strictly unsigned, unnumbered open editions or reproductions suitable for decorating ones home. For collectors wanting limited editions I offer them here.
So I have found Fine Art America to be the most flexible in terms of ordering a large selection of mats and frames, as well as canvases, metal prints and more. Fine Art America was built as a front end to pictureframes.com which is the online store for Graphik Dimensions Ltd. ofHigh Point NC who have been framing artwork for artist for something like 65 years. They do an excellent job in fulfilling the orders from Fine Art America and while you don’t get 100% customization of your artwork, it get rather close. I’ve been inspired by a number of my customers as I get to see the final creation as orders come through Fine Art America. For example on farm landscape was ordered with a mossy green mat and a beautiful hardwood frame. Had I done it myself I probably stuck to the standard museum type of combination, white mat, simple black frame, but the customer’s order was an outstanding combination. I was happy to see it done up so nicely.
Now other sites typically have less framing options. For example Society6. Society6 is a very beautifully designed website. It really puts Fine Art America to shame with its design. The artwork looks outstanding and everything seems hip and modern. Society6 also stands out in terms of their product offerings. They have some really cool products like throw pillows, laptop skins, mugs and they handcraft the items to order as they come in – all in house. Their weakness comes in the framing department. Unlike Fine Art America who choose to offer a dizzying array of framing options, Society6 pairs their framing and matting down to some standard sizes. No doubt this keeps the inventory headache to a manageable level but unfortunately it leads to some weird matting of some sizes of prints. I just started paying attention to this recently and some of the ways their back end system tries to mat my work is just horrendous.
At this point I’m sworn to myself only to upload square formatted images to Society6 going forward. They seem to be able to handle squares both in the portfolio views (squares display the largest on the pages) and in the product offerings. Plus so many of my images look great on pillows and clocks which require a square file, so its easy to offer these along with my prints.
Edward M. Fielding Photography 