Tax Tips for Artists

Lake Weeds / 6x6 / Oil on Cradled Panel (sold)

I'm still processing everything I learned from the smARTist telesummit and trying to synthesize all that information into a more cohesive marketing plan. I will be sharing more of what I learned here on this blog, but since tax season is upon us I thought that you might be able to put this tidbit to immediate use.

Peter Riley is a CPA who specializes in working with artists. There's a wealth of applicable tax info on his website artstaxinfo.com. In fact, I picked up a couple of tax tips that will more than cover my cost of the telesummit. You can also check out the "special articles" on his main website. I found the one on home offices (studios) very helpful.

There are only 69 days left till April 15th...

A Busy Week!

Chinese Water Pot and Peonies / Oil on Linen Panel / 16x20

I've decided to work on two important art goals for this year.

The first is doing a better job of promoting my art work. In that vein, I've started this blog (which I have found to be way more fun than I ever thought,) and I signed up for the smARTist telesummit. The telesummit started last Thursday and goes through this Friday. I really cannot recommend this enough. One of today's speakers was Peter Riley (www.artstaxinfo.com) and I picked up some very valuable tax tips. Upcoming speakers are sharing ideas/techniques on using social media for marketing, writing marketing plans, creating a portfolio, etc. If you don't connect with this resource this year, it will come again in 2010, so bookmark the website for future use.

My other goal is building a new studio space. Construction is starting tomorrow, and I'm more excited than the Christmas Eve when you're five. I've spent lots of time this past week making final decisions on cabinets, lighting, work surfaces, etc., so consequently I haven't posted in a few days. (I've also spent time drooling over the Hughes easels website--I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's enough $$ at the end of construction for one of those...)

I'll keep you posted on the studio progress, and if anyone out there has suggestions for creating a great space I'd love to hear them!