Chris Simonite's Cubo-Weirdism Blog! A Blog about Chris Simonite's Art by Chris Simonite. Who the Hell else?

Every week for almost three years, I have written a blog post. I started blogging because I had read that it was essential to any artists website. But then I read something a different. Basically that blogs are essential elements of an artists website about ten to fifteen years ago. But I kept doing it anyway. I guess it makes me feel like I'm doing something extra to market my art. So what do all the experts suggest as an alternative to a blog? Well, you probably guessed from the title of this post that it's newsletters. You're a clever one you are! Side-note, if you're reading this and you're not subscribed to the newsletter, why not take a few seconds to do just that? I'll explain the benefits of doing so before the end of this here blog post here. [...]

I used to love the Naked Gun movies. Leslie Neilson was a comic genius and in some ways I'd love to watch those movies again. But I won't. I can't watch Nordberg. I used to think Nordberg was hilarious. One of the funniest things in the movies. Side note–it's been a while since I saw the movies, so if they don't hold up, please don't judge me! Nordberg, if you don't know, was played by OJ Simpson. I just can't find him funny anymore. Or if I did laugh at him it would make me feel gross. So I won't watch those movies. The first thing I did before I started writing this here blog post here was to google the phrase "can you separate the art from the artist?". I did this because I've done a few portraits of artists with problematic backgrounds. For example I did a portrait of Picasso that I was pretty happy with. If you don't know, Picasso was a misogynist who treated his so-called muses horribly. So I've always asked myself if it's okay to continue to do my Picasso-influenced work. And maybe it's an excuse, but my answer is that I believe Picasso would have hated what I do. Especially the portrait I did of him! So continue I do… [...]

One the things I'm always wanting to learn is what people want to see coming out of my Cubo-Weirdist studio. On that note, I've made quite a few recent sales which have helped me to get an idea of what my audience wants. In this here blog post here, I'll share with you some of what I've learned. The bulk of my subject matter derives from pop culture. And in my experience the pop culture works are by far the most likely ones to sell. When I started painting characters from movies and TV shows I saw it as a subject that I did not see being broadly covered in the contemporary art world. And the bonus was, people bought them! [...]

Last week I discussed my social media strategy with regards to my painting of the Who and how I unveiled it over several posts. You may remember that I mentioned it didn't work. So this week I thought I'd mention another social media strategy I've been trying. This strategy has had mixed success, although lately it hasn't really been working at all. I'm talking about my "watch me play guitar in front of my paintings" reels. I started doing these a couple of years ago as IGTV videos. I liked the IGTV videos because I could play entire songs and I miss that. But lately I've just been playing the guitar solos to famous songs which is also fun. You work with what you have. When I started doing these I put my painting on my easel, put on a backing track and played along in front of it. Some of them did pretty well. Nowadays, I've become more savvy with the tools available in Instagram. I now play in front of a green screen of my painting. Some good examples would be the ones of all the Beatles songs I've done in the last year. [...]

Anyway, there is another factor here. And that is that my Instagram engagement has been particularly low for a couple of months now. And I had been, along with many other artists, complaining about low engagement for months. But at least for the first half of the year my follower count was still growing. But it has now completely stalled. Something has to be done! I only wish it could be a new social media platform. Maybe one that doesn't rely on algorithms as much. Something like Vero maybe or the new platform that Fine Art Studios Online (FASO), the company through which I have my website has started. It's called Musero, but I have to admit, I have my doubts it will take off. Glad they're trying though! Anyway, I guess I should post more on Musero and Vero, but it's hard to get motivated when you have this idea in the back of your mind that it likely won't work. Okay, I'll stop complaining and try. It's not like it takes all day to do a post. But I might need to do is to hire someone to help me grow my instagram and find more buyers. I'm sure there are experts that can help and I think it's time to spend some money to make some money. If you, dear reader(s) have any ideas that might help, please let me know! [...]