New Irish Art

tomnia

Just about to reach 11 years of operation and still providing a completely free service to over 330 professional, emerging and amateur artists online,

http://www.NewIrishArt.com

Showing more than 4,500 original artworks.

Well worth a visit and a cool place to start showing your work.

How can we make it better?

tanyabond

Looks very neat. I think it could be a good idea to provide the links to artists sites as well and maybe provide the prices of works so that it could induce some sales rather than just viewing... I know there is a form to contact the artist, but as a buyer I would want to know the price range before I would contact.
There is a website http://dailypainters.com/ were pictures are taken daily from artists blogs. It used to be free:) But you might get some nice ideas from it.

tomnia

Thanks Tanya,

Interesting site though very open and likely to have a really wide selection of work. We include the artist's own website address in the biog section (just under the gallery) and have avoided pricing for the sake of featuring the artwork. The thing about pricing is that it implies that the work is for sale, when an item is sold then it is difficult to show it. I know its odd but we wanted the artistic skill to be seen and not to disappear from the gallery when it was purchased.

Thanks again, really appreciate the feedback,

Tom

breadandjam

Good site. I've tried to use the online form to send a message about joining but I keep getting an error message even though I'm using the form correctly

tomnia

Thx, we have had to pin down our emailer due to the torrent of spam emails that regularly come in. Though we can see the number of attempts resulting in error messages, we are still getting a good number of new artists every week. At the moment, that's a trade-off in favour of simplicity for the site's operation. We filter out any links and have a blacklist for re-offending ip addresses (mostly from a particular geographic area well outside Ireland).

I guess its time to raise email control up the to-do list and include something like a captcha element that requires the entry of a coded message to send.

Thanks again for the note, it is most helpful indeed.

Tom

breadandjam

tomnia wrote: »

Thx, we have had to pin down our emailer due to the torrent of spam emails that regularly come in. Though we can see the number of attempts resulting in error messages, we are still getting a good number of new artists every week. At the moment, that's a trade-off in favour of simplicity for the site's operation. We filter out any links and have a blacklist for re-offending ip addresses (mostly from a particular geographic area well outside Ireland).

I guess its time to raise email control up the to-do list and include something like a captcha element that requires the entry of a coded message to send.

Thanks again for the note, it is most helpful indeed.

Tom

So is there an alternative way I can sign up as a member?

tomnia

NewIrishArt.com is operated as an open platform, membership is not required to either view or show artwork. Keeping 'members' details in an online database system leaves a security hole in the system, this is avoided with the open membership model.

Artists supply their contact details in a direct mail when approving the presentation of their works, the email is recorded offline and used to forward enquiries and artist bulletins. This is a pretty good model for personal data security too, if a bit time-consuming.

We argue strongly against the 'exclusive' bias of other organisations and prefer the website to remain as open as possible.

breadandjam

So how do I get to show my work if the contact form keeps rejecting my message?

tomnia

I think all the information you need is here...

http://www.newirishart.com/About/AboutHowToJoin.htm

looksee

Just had a look at your site, the art looks very interesting, but I found the right hand side buttons did not work. The only way to look at the art was to go back to the list and remember which was the next artist. I also got to the first wall but could not get to the next.

tomnia

Hi,

That is brilliant feedback, we hadn't been aware of that behaviour. I can only assume that the browser version used has not been fully tested by us. Will get onto placing an alternative forward button on the site right away and expect to have it sorted out in a couple of days.

Many thanks for this note, even though we get thousands of visits every month, it can be incredibly hard to get this kind of feedback.

Thank you very much,

Tom

tomnia

Hi looksee,

We've put an alternative navigation bar in at the foot of each gallery now that should be enabled on all browsers. We have also changed the navigation for the Wall section and are currently doing something similar for the Archives.

Hope this helps,

Tom