As I was getting my art business off the ground, like many artists I did not know where to look when it came to building a website. I did however know three things:
- I wanted to be able to update the website at MY whim, not when my website designer could fit it into his schedule.
- I knew nothing about building a website.
- I was broke.
So I researched, and did what I thought was a smart thing at the time. I chose a website that hosted hundreds of artists. MosaicGlobe.com. It was easy to use, they issued me the subdomain name (I didn’t even know what that meant at the time) Jhenai.mosaicglobe.com….and for $14.99 a month I thought I had a good thing.
For the next six years I continued to grow my business. In trying to be a smart business person, I put my website on everything I created. Tiles, cards, coasters, mirrors, commission work. I gave business cards with my website on it out at every fair, gallery exhibition, and retail location that I showed at for over six years.
Then one day I got a phone call from a very good customer of mine who told me she could not get onto my website. When I checked it out I was routed to a letter informing me that the website company that had been hosting my website had gone bankrupt.
My website was gone. Just that fast. All the work, all of my product, every contact I had ever cultivated became obsolete in an instant.
I was furious. And panicky. And then I remembered something……I had friends….
So I called Joe. Joe is a fellow actor whom I had done many shows with, and a very dear friend. A very dear friend who just so happens to be an amazing computer guy. Joe got me back online with a new domain name and hosting in an hour. Gotta love good friends.
Graphic design had always been part of my artwork, but WordPress was a new skill that I learned in managing an art gallery in Lincoln Park. I was able to build my own website bigger, badder, and better.
The ‘website incident’ had me begin to talk to other artists and actors. I began to realize just how wide the gap between making art and business is for allot of folks. We are taught to how to make art, but never taught the business side of getting our artwork into the world.
So I sat Joe down and told him I had an idea. An idea to help put the control back into customers hands. If we do the hard work of setting things up, we could then teach folks how to easily manage their websites themselves.
This is how Renegade Websites was born.
-Jhenai