Ignition | Art Business Experts Helping you Transform your Passion into a Thriving Business

In this challenging economy, being a successful artist not only consists of creating great art, but also about creating a strong business. In this presentation, Lori will discuss how artists can stay current, brand themselves, and take their art business to the next level. Learn the many free ways to easily promote your art business online, including simple tips on how to harness the power of social media and use it to your advantage.

• Learn the benefits of social media and how to stand-out in the crowd
• How to drive traffic to your art blog or website
• Advice for selling more art online and tips for keeping your galleries happy while doing it

Lori McNee is an internationally recognized professional artist who specializes in still life and landscape oil paintings. She is an exhibiting member of Oil Painters of America, and shows in multiple galleries across the United States.

Lori shares valuable fine art tips, art business advice, and social media know-how on her blog, FineArtTips.com and on the Artists Network blog, Art Business & Fine Art Tips with Lori McNee.

Lori is a published author who writes for Artist’s Magazine, the Huffington Post, North Light Books and Pearson Publishing, to name a few.

Currently, Lori ranks as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women on Twitter & was featured in The Huffington Post and named a TwitterPowerHouse.

You were placed on this earth to express your creativity in wild and imaginative ways, NOT to balance a checkbook. But you realize you need at least one foot in the business door, and you don't want it to get stuck. Luckily, Richard Streitfeld can take some of the stress out of the numbers game, allowing you to devote more time to your art.

During Ignition, Rich will share his networking expertise and experience in guerilla marketing. He will also cover some fundamental concepts to help you succeed in your creative venture – not quite without trying, but certainly without crying.

• What can artists deduct?
• Keeping records
  
• “Keeping the books”
  
• Quick overview of financial statements (painless, Rich promises)
  
• Sales tax blues
  
• Minimizing audit risk

Rich Streitfeld is a CPA with a passion for networking, activism and entrepreneurship. A partner with Aaronson Lavoie Streitfeld Diaz and Company ( “ALSD”) for over twelve years, his practice focuses on helping small businesses grow and thrive through tax planning, financial analysis, professional collaborations and common sense. He especially enjoys helping start-ups structure themselves correctly. ALSD, headquartered in Rhode Island, has long been a favorite of the region’s entrepreneurs, artists and other modestly successful eccentrics. Rich has also partnered with Larson Gunness, a local financial planner who created the series “Peace Love and Financial Planning - For Artists”.

Rich Streitfeld grew up in a progressive Jewish family (his sister is a founding member of an Israeli kibbutz) and later lived at the headquarters of and directed an international Zen Buddhist organization.  Having achieved bliss, he then turned to accounting. Jewish social values and an even temperament inform his demeanor; hence he has been nicknamed “Zen Mensch Accountant.”  Seven years ago, Rich co-founded a successful series of seminars on same sex financial and legal planning, the first of its kind in Rhode Island. Currently, he authors a lively and avant-garde blog, “Peace Love and Business Planning: Prosperity for the Rest of Us”.  Like Rich, it aims to be helpful, professional, entertaining, and more than a bit out of the box.

Dave Newman's first exposure to art came when he started a screen printing business with his wife Donna, and stumbled across Pop artists of the 60’s, namely Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Newman started reading art books, visiting galleries, and going to museum shows. He realized at the age of 32 that he wanted to become an artist. Twenty-three years later, after lots of sweat, tears, and paint mixed in, he's an extremely successful, full-time working artist.

Dave started selling his work by doing fine art shows all over the country, a strategy he and Donna pursued with great success for 7 years. In 2001, the Newmans opened their own gallery in Prescott, AZ, and began pursuing relationships with other galleries.

Dave and Donna have developed incredibly strong relationships with a wide range of collectors.

We will ask Dave and Donna:

• How did you build your career to the place it's at today?
• What mistakes did you make along the way?
• How do you divide your time between the creative and business components?
• How does your personal relationship benefit the business?
• How do you keep things organized?
• If you could share just one piece of advice with an artist who's just beginning to pursue his/her career, what would it be?
• And many more art-career related questions

During the interview, you'll have the opportunity to ask Dave and Donna your own questions concerning your art career.

With almost 20 years in the gallery business (10 years as owner of Xanadu Gallery), Jason Horejs has had the opportunity to work with and observe hundreds of artists. During his daily interactions in the art circuit, Horejs has found core traits that many artists share - characteristics that have helped them achieve success, often against great odds.

Horejs will share the ten most important traits of the successful artist, and how you can begin to incorporate these traits into to your art business.

Art flows through Xanadu Gallery owner J. Jason Horejs’ veins. Second generation in the art business (Horejs’ father is nationally recognized oil painter John Horejs), Horejs’ life has always been filled with art.

In 1991, at the age of 17, Horejs began working for Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, where he learned the gallery business from the ground up. Horejs handled logistics, shipping, and installation, eventually working into a sales position. Horejs worked in the gallery’s Scottsdale and Jackson Hole, WY, locations.

In 2001, Jason and his wife, Carrie, opened Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. In spite of opening on September 11th into a completely changed world, Horejs built the gallery into a successful venture, showing dozens of artists and selling to collectors from around the world, including major municipal and private collections.

In 2008, Horejs developed a series of art marketing workshops designed to help artists better understand the gallery business and better prepare themselves to approach galleries. This series of workshops has helped hundreds of artists learn how to show and sell their work through galleries.

In 2009, Horejs published his book, "Starving" to Successful, which would become a best-seller on Amazon.com.