Artists, Writers Take To The Web
If you are an artist, can your paintings be seen in Tibet, or just at Ashawagh Hall? If you are a writer, can an agent in Hollywood read an excerpt of your latest novel at will, or are its pages curling in the slush pile at Simon and Schuster?
In an ideal world, artists would paint their paintings and authors would write their books and some cultural Tooth Fairy would make sure they always had enough money to continue doing so.
More likely, though, the grimy truth is that creative types must spend as much time hustling the product as producing it. And, as competition gets stiffer, new marketing stratagems must constantly be sought.
There is a new marketplace, but it can only be found if one has a computer and a modem. Like it or not, the future appears to be on the Internet.
See The Sites
Websites where those in the arts can post their work, and where prospective buyers can see it, are multiplying like Energizer Bunnies. Two of the newer ones are right here on the East End: HamptonClick and Now International.
If you're not already plugged in, the labyrinthine passageways of the Internet can be daunting - an endless maze of chaotic information. It's like a nightmarish set of Russian nesting dolls: Inside each doll, there is always a smaller one waiting.
But if you don't want to be left behind, clinging by your fingernails to the withering 20th century, maybe it's time to have a try.
ArtNet: The Biggie
The mother of all art-news web sites is ArtNet (http://www.artnet. com), which features 600,000 full-color images from galleries all over the world, including Marlborough, Knoedler, and Gagosian in New York, and Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. With a click of the mouse, browsers can specify artwork by artist, category, price, or style.
Amy Ernst, an artist who lives part of the year in Sag Harbor, has chosen to sign on with ArtNet, which provides information about art for sale at auctions and galleries in over 30 countries. Its magazine features breaking art news, reviews, E-mail discussions, interviews, and features.
Within six weeks of joining, Ms. Ernst was contacted by a small gallery in California and has now arranged to have a show there.
HamptonClick
The fledgling East End sites are not in the same league, of course, but may be a better choice for those who are just taking their first steps through cyberspace. And the same 40 million people worldwide can surf these sites as can tune into a bigger operation.
HamptonClick (http://www.hamptonclick.com) was just launched on March 20. Stacey Donovan, an Amagansett writer and the site's webmaster, founded it with Mary Croghan, president of East Hampton Business Service.
"These days it's crucial for people who make art or write to wear two hats: creator and business manager," she said. "There's just an enormous amount of energy and talent focused in the East End, but how many people beyond the Hamptons will have a chance to see the art?"
She noted that many more people have bought computers now that prices have come down, and said getting on the web was the next logical step - like getting an answering machine after you've bought a telephone.
Sample Pages
Among those whose work can already be seen on HamptonClick is Tom B. Stone, who writes horror books for kids and adults which have been translated into Chinese, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, and Czech. The opening pages of three of his novels can be called up and read.
Vincent Lardo, an Amagansett writer who has published two excerpts from his latest novel in The Star, has pages from a young adult novel, a gothic thriller, and a mystery available.
There are also selections of nonfiction by a children's book editor in Manhattan and an interview with Fiorella Terenzi, an experimental musician and the first astrophysicist to be represented by the William Morris Agency.
An established East Hampton artist, the sculptor and furniture artisan Hans Hokansen, has a number of his sculptures plus a biographical essay available to view - and they come over beautifully. Maggie Quinn has only just begun to paint, but her work is already out there for the world to see.
HamptonClick also has art reviews of a current show of Georges Braque in London and another of the work of Sophie Calle, a French multimedia artist, in Barcelona.
In addition to designing web sites for businesses and individuals, NOW International (http://www.NOWinter.com), based in Montauk and run by Sunshine Lemme, represents artists and craftspeople.
The work of four artists is already set up: Malcolm Fraser, the Montauk sculptor who won the "Lost At Sea" memorial competition, the late Frank Scott of Amagansett, Ryszard Krasowski, and Renata Hille, a German artist.
Both companies will help artists and writers create their web sites.
The Web represents the birth of a new phenomenon now taking its first stumbling steps. An earlier generation saw both the Wright brothers' flight and the first supersonic plane - who knows what we might live to see?