Lots of Choices, All Unsatisfying

I recently had an artist gently ask, "are you, um, going to do something about that web site?" The Art of Possibility looks lost in the 1990s – by design.

The site serves three constituencies: the trade, our customers; the general populace that takes an interest in art and disability; and the artists who seek out information on ways to share their work. Each constituency comes to us with a different motivation and each has a different expectation. To have as accessible a site as absolutely possible, with scalable fonts, no confounding rollovers or Flash (the world's most inaccessible web tool ever), we've sacrificed pretty.

The design sings with ease of use, fast loading pages and information at your fingertips, but does it stun the visitor with its beauty? Sigh. That's what led that artist to ask about my plans for the site. Atop the design conundrum we have the looming Orphan Works bill which could cause all artists to frantically redesign their public presence in a flurry of artistic self-defense. (The Orphan Works legislation essentially privatizes copyright law, sort of like hiring Blackwater to be your country's military.)

So I am open to suggestions! How do I maintain super-high accessibility, meet the speed of commerce, and also introduce our work to a general audience?

Kissie, Kissie

Thanks, Patti, for including our "Love" bookmark in your Valentine's Gift Guide.

We appreciate the help sharing our message of love that fuels our work as artists and our lives as your friends, neighbors, and lovers.

Participating in a World of Good

We made the semifinals in Echoing Green's 2009 Fellowship application process!

We'll be evaluated with 299 other world-changing enterprises. Good luck to our fellow change agents. Together we can transform lives. We might as well. We don't have anything better to do right now.

A Noble Calling or Just Doing What's Necessary?

I launched this business to transform lives.

I'm not a noble person. I'm a problem-solver.

I solve a problem for the artists by creating a path designed for their optimum achievement. People with disabilities can have a positive impact on our world if the infrastructure that supports that success exists. Well, now it does.

I solve a problem for manufacturers. In a marketplace crammed with lovely goods it's tough to differentiate your lovely product line from the other lovely product line. Art of Possibility® adorned products provide that differentiation.

I solve a problem for retailers. After training a consumer populace to hold out for the lowest possible price we give them a reason to not shave every nanocent off that margin. Because our entire brand concept involves us earning a living, paying full price regains its dignity.

I solve a problem for consumers who desperately want their purchases to mean something. By knowing that their purchase directly benefits a physically disabled artist choosing Art of Possibility® products connects those consumers with an important social mission of inclusion and compassion.

Caring is cool.

Diversity is Leadership

If November 4 proved one thing to me, it's that Diversity is Leadership. Yes, there's a compliance component, but the truly forward thinkers choose outside their comfort zone, stay open in their definitions, and encourage all people to excel. I wish to strengthen gifts and mitigate gaps. I dream big, I hope eternal, I support tirelessly.

Not because I'm noble. Far from it. I'm just solving a problem.

Inventing the VPA

Just so you know, I have a limited bandwidth for visuals (reading, in particular) so I have assistance. Ably serving as my Virtual Presence Administrator (e.g., nudging me to blog) is fellow artist Nava, who helps me by managing the Art of Possibility social networking. Her competence and friendship are priceless, and she's able to log onto the various social networking sites and keep the profiles up to date.

A very public thank you, Nava, for your help. I love you.

The Ending Before the Beginning: Part II

Imagine my surprise when people actually liked my paintings! After a couple years of study I chose to go beyond the hobby level and "be an artist." Very quickly the simple logistics of getting here-to-there with canvases caught up with me. Because of the type of vision loss I have I'm extremely sensitive to light, "photophobia," they call it. Being at an outdoor tented festival all weekend makes me really, really crabby. It's just the brightness of it all. Sadly, no one buys art in the dark.

And if I had all these problems getting around, just think about artists with mobility problems! They must really have a tough time!

After a long-and-only-interesting-to-me bit of field research I founded Art of Possibility LLC, the only art brand exclusively representing physically disabled artists via license in a for-profit model.

I've been reticent about blogging because as a former writer I believe in paying for content; because I only get 24 hours a day instead of the 30 or so I could use; and because bridging the Art of Possibility from just me to a fully developed agency representing other artists means I have, as a business objective, a desire to make it less "the Ketra Show" and more about us, about an idea: inclusion. Compassion. Proof that caring is cool. Evidence that good deeds are good business.