Iowa Art now on sale on-line

There’s now a way to find the works of your favorite Iowa artist. An Internet gallery, “Buy Iowa Art-dot-com,” had its debut Wednesday. Iowa Arts Council administrator Mary Sundet Jones says it’ll both show and sell the work. Jones says it’s a lot of work for an individual artist to set up a website, get the images up, take orders and figure out how to have people pay for them. She says the Council will help, so the artists can concentrate on doing their artwork. The website features everything from paintings and photographs to music and books. When the group gets a request, it’ll use some kind of monitoring process, she says, “Just so we know that we’re putting a consistent level of great work by great Iowa artists out there.” The Arts Council put up 25-thousand dollars to create the website, and will charge a service fee on each sale to make up the cost and maintain the site. Jones says there’ll be something for every kind of buyer, all kinds of art and craft products for prices from fifteen-dollars to 45-hundred, and “anything and everything in between.” Gordon Kellenburger with the Amana Arts Guild sees a big opportunity. He hopes to market the Amanas and their traditional craft products to a larger audience, saying if they see it on a site they may be more inclined to make a trip to the colonies. Kellenburger calls the site a simple and convenient way to put artwork up in public and make it marketable. He says artists can use the help with a field they don’t now much about, and says it’s good to have the expertise and help. Among items up on the site already, a sample of Latin music from Calle Sur featuring Waterloo musician Ed East. The site will begin featuring fifty Iowa artists, and selling their work. More artists will be added as their work is reviewed by the Iowa Arts Council.