What is it?

You’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression. This workshop will show you why it is vitally important to present yourself well online. A quick, clean, sharp and beautifully presented website will hold your audience’s attention and encourage them to look further, spending more time on your website. Part of the day will focus on writing about your work and for the visual arts.

Ideally you will have attended workshop one (social media and photographing your work) and will have strong images of your work already.

Who is it for?

This workshop is only for Dorset based artists. Ideally you will have attended workshop one (social media and photographing your work) and will have strong images of your work already.

What you will go away with

A clearer understanding of:

how to use social media as a tool in your business

how to best present your work and yourself online

how to write about your work and attract more audiences

You will also get the chance to work with other local artists and discuss ideas with working professionals.

About your tutors

Jane Showell:

Jane is head of the Culture+ team and is a digital marketing expert in website development, user experience and user interface designs.

Vivienne Light:

Vivienne was born in West Dorset and in the sixties studied music and art at Dartington College of Arts in Devon. In 1995 she received an Open University Masters Degree and in the same year became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

For the first twenty-five years of her career, Viv worked in music, art, education and research, both in schools and universities. She reviewed for academic journals, gave conference presentations and published papers on the subject of computer mediated learning and the use of video-conferencing for student collaboration.

In 1994 with other makers of handmade papers Vivienne helped to found Paperweight and later co-curated a paper exhibition for Mino City Paper Museum, Japan.

In the following years she became a member and then Chair of 2D3D South Contemporary Art, Hampshire; member of the Links Gallery Arts Committee University of Winchester; Committee member and Chair of Walford Mill Crafts Centre and member of Dorset County Museum Exhibition Committee. For these venues and around twenty other galleries and museums Vivienne curated major shows, gave talks, and wrote support material and texts for catalogues and press releases.

From c.1990 until c. 2010 Vivienne was a practicing artist, running workshops and exhibiting. Venues included: Southampton City Art Gallery; Natural History Museum Tring; Bristol Guild Gallery; Arts Sway Hampshire; Mall Galleries London; Maltby Gallery Winchester; Arts Loan Collection Bournemouth; Salisbury Museum; Russell Coates Gallery Bournemouth. For five successive years in the mid 2000s she also exhibited in the RWA annual exhibitions and for many years loaned large works to the national hospital organisation ‘Paintings in Hospitals’.

Gradually her interest shifted towards the written word. In 2001 she wrote ‘Reinventing the Landscape’ and established Canterton Books, a press specializing in books about contemporary painters, sculptors and potters of national standing but with an attachment to the South West. Canterton Books publications have been reviewed in Art Review, the Spectator, The Times, Ceramic Review, Ceramics Art and Perception (International), Time Out, Crafts and other arts magazines. Canterton Books is no longer active, but Vivienne continues to write for catalogues, gallery texts, arts publications, reviews, museum exhibitions, book introductions and essays. And she collect paintings, sculpture and ceramics that she patently has no room for!

What to bring

You may wish to bring a laptop or iPad if you wish to edit your website during this workshop

This workshop is free but spaces are limited. Lunch and tea/coffee is provided.

If you are based outside Dorset please call us before booking your place as only Dorset residents qualify for a place.

We will be providing lunch and refreshments, please be sure that you let us know your dietary requirements on the Eventbrite Event Registration.

How to book

• Spaces are limited, only one place available per business

• If you book and find that you are unable to attend, please cancel your ticket as soon as possible and at least 48 hours prior to the workshop. This allows us to release the booking to others that are on a waiting list

This Culture+ workshop is specifically for artists and creative practitioners based in Dorset. Culture+ is funded by Arts Council England and the European Regional Development Fund. It is providing support for the creative industry strand of the Dorset Growth Hub programme lead by WSX Enterprise.