New Website, Updated Inventory, Puts End to “Sorry, That Piece is Sold” Emails…

It’s tough maintaining the currency of any website. But for artists, many of whom are too busy making art to worry about their websites, maintaining an accurate record of available vs sold work, or displaying work that is actually at this gallery or that, the predicament of an outdated site can be a serious matter.

I know. My site has been out of date for about 4 years. And I apologize for that about as often as I apologize to collectors and galleries who come across a piece, inquire about it, and receive from me an email, the content of which can be copied and pasted, that reads, in part: “Sorry, that piece is sold. My site is, I’m afraid, not up to date.”

What has, however, been pretty much up to date is the spreadsheet I maintain that tracks what work is where, and what work is sold and what is available.

If only I could connect my spreadsheet (and the images I posted on my website), to each other, and make them both the images and data that actually displayed on my website. No affordable tool out there actually did that, so (using my past web development experience and some talented developers) I built one.

The new peterbatchelder.com site now pulls images from GallerySprout, the artist inventory tool that makes it easy (and, I would argue, almost fun) to manage studio records (artwork images, dimensions, medium, gallery placement, sold vs available status, etc). Now, when a piece sells, I mark it as sold in my inventory account, and because that account is now connected to my website (via a custom WordPress plugin that pulls an artist’s or gallery’s artwork from their accounts, onto their custom WordPress sites), the status of that work is accurately shown on the site.

So far, this tool is working great, and has cut my time exponentially in adding new artwork, and maintaining the location and availability statuses of each painting.

So check out the new, updated site here: www.peterbatchelder.com

And here are a few artists/gallery friends also using GallerySprout (and it’s companion ArtSprout.com) sites to more easily manage artwork and their websites…at the same time.

Dragonfly Fine Arts Gallery, Oak Bluffs, MA: http://www.mvdragonfly.com
Stephanie Reiter Fine Art: http://www.stephaniereiter.com
Warren F. Green Fine Arts: http://warrenfgreenfinearts.com
Christie Scheele Fine Art (site built on testing site): http://christiescheele.artsprout.com/