I've got an idea...

As I struggle with establishing myself in the online marketplace (Etsy) I keep thinking that I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. I'm trying to keep this blog, although sometimes I struggle with what I'm supposed to write and to whom I'm writing (hi Sarah!). I'm trying to draw people to my shop by being active on Flickr, and lord knows my friends on Facebook are sick of hearing about my most recent addition. So the other day I started trying to think about the problem in a different way. What I want as a seller is the largest concentration of the buying public looking at my work as possible, what I'd really like is to have a day where all the people who are specifically looking for fine art to hang on their wall would have a central location where they could see just that. Etsy is wonderful but let's face it, it's next to impossible to weed through everything and really be able to find something you want, much less something that really speaks to you. Which brings me to the second part of the equation, the buyer. From a buying standpoint, especially a new buyer, Etsy is a maze of everything from worthless junk to really wonderful, useful, beautiful art. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of different opinions about what is art and I'm happy to let everyone have their own, but I think as Etsy grows larger there is a need to compartmentalize some things.


So I'll get to the point. I want to create a group, a team, on Etsy called the Professional Artists Consortium (PAC). The idea is simple. Basically it is a juried or by invitation only group consisting of high-caliber Etsy fine artists. Once the group has reached a certain number of members (say 200 to start) we would begin showing our work in an online art fair format in a central location at a specified time. In other words think about the look of itunes in the album cover view but instead of individual images you are scrolling through an artist's virtual booth. You can glance at it, move on to the next one, or if you find something of interest clicking on an image takes you to their Etsy page in a separate window. This "event" would be publicized by all the vendors and by PAC as a whole. That way the whole group benefits by each individual's efforts and each individual benefits by the group's efforts.
In the end the hope is that PAC becomes a badge of honor for artists and helps generate sales by combining the works of many fine artists in a format that is easily navigated by art buyers.