New website directory for Maui Artists links Art, Artists, Galleries and Maui in one site

August 29, 2012
maui news
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Artist Taryn Alessandro, Best of Maui Winner has a presence in the Maui Artist Directory

Lawrence Taylor launched a new artist web directory at MauiArtistDirectory.com, which features about 200 artists and 10 galleries on Maui. His goal is to join art seekers with some of the island’s best artists. Local galleries also have a presence on the site.

“MAD was born out a common need to promote a book [Moon over Maui] I will release next year about the Maui art industry and the need for artists to promote themselves,” says Taylor. “The focus has been on rallying independent artists and not galleries. Little effort has been spent on recruiting gallery support outside of the realm of the independent smaller galleries, though that will change with this launch of the directory.”

Taylor says the galleries’ initial concerns were that their artists might list themselves with MAD and circumvent sales through the gallery. But Taylor says the artists still want galleries to promote and sell their art so that they can focus on creating art. “We will not solicit any known gallery artist,” Taylor insists, and MADʼs policy only allows for an artist to be listed once on the site (gallery and artist cannot list the same artist at the same time).

The site hopes to gain a listing for every single artist and gallery on the island. Taylor estimates that there are about 4,000 artists and about 90 galleries on Maui. Maui Artist Directory has a new artist of the week that gets the headline position on its site.

Some artists and galleries pay to get listed as a “featured” location on the site as well, but the basic artist and gallery listings are free. To be a featured artist costs $75 per year and featured galleries run $195 a year.

The site also has a section on purchasing art, called the Buyer’s Corner, and it includes sections called “Acquiring Art 101″ and “What you should know about buying art” as well as a glossary of art terms. From the home page you can scroll around to look at artist profile pages that include samples of their art and bio info and links to their webpages. Visitors to the site can view art by artist, gallery or medium.

Tags: artists, galleries, Lawrence Taylor, Maui, MauiArtistDirectory.com, Taryn Allesandro