This article is by Moshe Mikanovsky, Regular contributing writer for FineArtViews.  An emerging artist searching his way in the art world, he loves to share what he learns.  With over 20 years of technology experience, Moshe combines his technological background and his passion for the arts with the goal of "working his dream".  You should submit an article and share your views as a guest author by clicking here.

Following my last post on 10 ways to use your smartphone to help your art career and the additional comments many of you posted on other ways to use your phone (which I summarized in a follow-up post on my blog), I had several discussions with artists about their pains with technology and its usage to help them with their art career. This, coupled with Clint’s recent posts on Facebook and other social media, I was thinking that it might be the right time to open this to you, the artists community.

There are many companies out there who have been building technologies for us, thinking they know exactly what we need. Many of them are lead by artists, who probably got it right, but in many cases they got it right for their own needs, rather than for other artists out there. The same way we all have different styles, themes, mediums and attraction to certain art forms; also web designers, application programmers and marketers have different ways to create solutions that will work for everyone.

You may have noticed in my by-line, other than painting and writing about my experience while searching my way in the art world, I have an interest in technology and how to utilize it to our benefit, rather than make it control our life. So I was thinking, I should ask my friends in the FineArtViews community what their current biggest pain is when it comes to these two disciplines, making art and technology. And with the collective answers I will get, I will try my best to help my fellow artists.

So, I put together a quick survey. Its only 10 questions, so it should take only few minutes to answer it. Feel free to do so at any time, or skip it if you don’t feel like it. That’s OK too.

Take the survey now – Visual Artists and Technology Survey

And here is a quick tip about online surveys: You can open a free account at SurveyMonkey, and create new surveys easily and quickly. I could think of few things you could create a survey for:

• Ask your newsletter readership to review a few new paintings and ask their opinion. Since the survey is anonymous, you are apt to get a better and more honest response - this will help you realize which of your works is the strongest.
• Ask your website visitors to tell you how your site is doing – do they get what they are looking for?
• Check what type of art people are buying more – medium, theme, size, framing options, price range.
• Survey where you should try to sell your art next – galleries, art festivals, coffee shops, etc.
• If you are about to start teaching art, get some idea of what potential students are looking for that they don’t have yet in other places – location, price, methods, skills, personality.
• Have a question you can’t find an answer for anywhere? Put it in a survey format and send to all the members on your newsletter, social media or friends. You might be surprized with the results.
• Member of an artists group? Create a survey to make the group better. Suggestions for artistic opportunities, group projects, membership benefits and more.

Well, these are only few ideas of what surveys can be used for artists. I am sure there are many more, and I just touched the surface with this. If you have more ideas, or have created a survey in the past and want to share with us, post it at the comments here.

And, if you have few times to spare, please take my survey now – Visual Artists and Technology Survey

Cheers

Moshe