Igniting Imagination | Nellie's Virtual Café

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This is the eighth in an ongoing series featuring worldwide creative-thinkers’ responses to questions about creativity posted previously on this site.

Violette Clark

Please welcome artist Violette Clark who years ago shared her personal story on my Creativity-Bites blog. Violette is a fabulous marketer of her products and services, and generously offers her tactics below. (Click on any image to enlarge)

What you do and what product(s) and/or service(s) you offer that developed as a result of your passion.

I am an artist and creative spirit. My passion is to inspire people to embrace who they are through the vehicle of their creativity. I have had a book published – Journal Bliss: Creative Prompts to Unleash Your Inner Eccentric (North Light Books). From there I created a couple of online classes on Visual Journaling. I’m in the process of creating self-esteem kits for teens. I also teach visual Journaling to teens and women. I have been teaching workshops – in different art forms for 30 years. Right now I’m focusing on teaching Visual Journaling/mixed media to teens and women.

Violettes Products and Services

How you came about to create it or them?

How did I come to create them?

Well the path to my book Journal Bliss was not an easy or quick one. First I had my art and projects published on online zines, and then on physical magazines. Then from there to paper arts magazines like Cloth Paper Scissors, Somerset, Altered Couture, Haute Handbags, etc. The book opened doors which led me to create online classes.

As for teaching workshops I have been doing this for 30 years in some shape or form artistically. Regarding my online classes I had to teach myself how to shoot video and how to work in Indesign (so I could create PDF files).

It’s been a big learning curve for me. I am fortunate to have a partner who is a techie so he can help me along the way.

Your target market

Violettes Studio

My target market is women between the ages of 40 and 65. However, I’ve had folks as young as teens interested in my work (as is evidence from the workshops I am teaching) and women into their 70’s.

How do you market?

have an e-zine
blog 5 days a week (and have done so for 5 years)
took out ads in a paper arts magazine
article market (e-zine articles)
do online interviews/podcasts
have had virtual book tours
create YouTube videos
have been on TV locally and internationally (HGTV Weird Homes and numerous Local TV shows)
do art demos in local craft and art stores/galleries
been in the newspapers promoting my book and classes
have a Ning site, Flickr site, Cafepress store
recently had a table at the B.C. Art Teachers Conference with my books and promoting classes
had my website on the back of my van (it’s now sitting idle in the driveway)
wear my art – literally – my soldered art prints, painted purses (which cause people to ask me about it and then I tell them what I do)
had projects in magazines with my contact info on the bottom of the article
create colourful bookmarks with my information on the back and give these out freely to folk
had contests on my blog and given away art and books
am on Facebook and Twitter and talk about art and blog posts on there
am a designer for The Art Glitter Institute, so create projects online for them at http://artglitterblog.blogspot.com/
call local women’s centers and also neighbourhood houses to see if they would like me to teach a class – and am teaching Visual journaling to teens as a result
recently called my therapist (from the past) and given her my self-esteem kit to see what she thought of it – she now might have me teach a class on self-esteem using art.
joined Toastmasters so that I can go out and do some public speaking on creativity which will enable me to sell my books and products after the talks.
created short YouTube videos to promote my book and 2 online classes (I also have a third class) I am sure I’m missing something.

Violettes Art

As you can see I try many different things to get the word out there. You can find some articles and projects here:

http://www.creativity-portal.com/howto/a/violette/index.html

Contact information/website.

You can contact me via my website http://www.violettesfolkart.com. Check out my YouTube videos at: http://www.youtube.com/user/creativeboho or e-mail: violetteclark@shaw.ca

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Your comments and feedback to this posting are more than welcome.

If you would like to send your own opinions, ideas and experiences, click here for the questions. When you’ve completed them, click here to send your responses and contact details.

You and your story may be mentioned in my book-in-progress about mining creativity, with acknowledgement and reference to you and your contact information.

Please forward the link to this site to anyone in your network who might be interested in reading them and/or participating.

All the best.

Creatively yours,

Nellie

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