I have grown a lot throughout my artistic journey. I have always tried to create art that would "please people". Often, when I created art from my unique soul/personality, I found that style wasn't popular. I would then try to figure out "What would people want to buy?" and try to create it. Ultimately, what happened was I felt like I was not free to be ME.
Moving forward, I have decided to not place expectations on what others might think. My art is my joy, I do not wish to try to "mask" and be what I think other's would perceive as worthy to purchase. I am whimsical, joyful, colorful, quirky and fun. I want to release my art out into the universe with zero expectations. I want to be Free to be ME!
My artist name, Sommer Rayn is difficult to share with others. Why? I have an odd spelling. Sommer, which is not spelled like the season. Sommer actually comes from my grandmother's maiden name, it is very special to me. Rayn was created because I love rain and my dad's name had Ray in it. So this part of my name was a win win. When I started my website, I purchased Sommerrayn.com It was perfect and fit my goals of getting my name out there. What I didn't realize at the time, there is a very beautiful model that loves to wear skimpy swimwear named Sommer Ray. Every time I type my name on Amazon, Instagram and Google, it autocorrects to her name. Its very frustrating to me to share my artist name and have to explain how to spell it correctly and then hope that the search engines do not auto correct. Because even if you spell it correctly in the search bar, it shows you all of the very graphic content from her. I have had many people that were very shocked when they tried to look me up and discovered all of these very sexy photos and not whimsical art. I even started selling on Amazon, in hopes it would help with getting my name in the search engines spelled correctly at least on their website. Sadly, after a year of selling on Amazon, I still experience their search engine autocorrecting my name.
I decided to use the domain name "Free Spirit Art Studio". This way, if people want to remember my website or search for me later, it will be easy for them to remember. I won't have to explain how to spell it or worry about the search engines autocorrecting it. It's simple. Especially when out and about and people ask if I have a website, freespiritartstudio.com is very memorable and will provide individuals ease of access to my art and website. I envision my art room in my home as my free spirit art studio. The majority of my ideas and art is created there. This website is still about me, Sommer Rayn, but created with ease of access in mind.
I will be changing up a few things, but for now, in my heart I feel this is a wise decision moving forward. I will still always keep SommerRayn.com, but it will be used an introduction page, to explain who I am and where to purchase my art. This page will be my personal blog, my art and more. I'm so exited for this new beginning and I hope you are too!
Comments